Create Reports from SAP SuccessFactors Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to SAP SuccessFactors data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for SAP SuccessFactors and generating reports from SAP SuccessFactors data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for SAP SuccessFactors, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live SAP SuccessFactors data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to SAP SuccessFactors. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested SAP SuccessFactors data.

Configure SAP SuccessFactors Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to SAP SuccessFactors from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SAP SuccessFactors data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a SAP SuccessFactors connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "SAP SuccessFactors" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP SuccessFactors.

   You can authenticate to SAP Success Factors using Basic authentication or OAuth with SAML assertion.

   Basic Authentication

   You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to SAP Success Factors. Note that the provider will reuse the session opened by SAP Success Factors using cookies. Which means that your credentials will be used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from SAP Success Factors will be used for authentication.

   • Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
   • User: set this to the username of your account.
   • Password: set this to the password of your account.
   • CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.

   OAuth Authentication

   You must provide values for the following properties, which will be used to get the access token.

   • Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
   • User: set this to the username of your account.
   • CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
   • OAuthClientId: set this to the API Key that was generated in API Center.
   • OAuthClientSecret: the X.509 private key used to sign SAML assertion. The private key can be found in the certificate you downloaded in Registering your OAuth Client Application.
   • InitiateOAuth: set this to GETANDREFRESH.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAP SuccessFactors Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to SAP SuccessFactors data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live SAP SuccessFactors Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new SAP SuccessFactors data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.
👁 Create a new connection in Looker Studio

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account. 👁 Granting permissions to the Connector
   
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authenticating with CData Connect AI
   
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next
👁 Importing from Connections

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. SAPSuccessFactors1) and click Next 👁 Selecting a Connection
   
6. Select a Table (e.g. ExtAddressInfo) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue 👁 Selecting a Table
   
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
👁 Configuring column definitions

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.
👁 Visualizing SAP SuccessFactors data in Looker Studio

Live Access to SAP SuccessFactors Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live SAP SuccessFactors data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating SAP SuccessFactors data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.