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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/sapsuccessfactors-cloud-redash.rst

⇱ Query, Visualize, and Share live SAP SuccessFactors Data in Redash

Query, Visualize, and Share live SAP SuccessFactors Data in Redash

👁 Mohsin Turki
Mohsin Turki
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live SAP SuccessFactors data in Redash for querying, visualizing, and sharing.

Redash is a collaboration tool that lets you query, visualize, and share your data. When paired with CData Connect AI, Redash gets access to live SAP SuccessFactors data. This article demonstrates how to connect to SAP SuccessFactors using Connect AI and work with live SAP SuccessFactors data in Redash.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for SAP SuccessFactors, allowing you to query data from SAP SuccessFactors without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to SAP SuccessFactors, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested SAP SuccessFactors data quickly.

Configure SAP SuccessFactors Connectivity for Redash

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "SAP SuccessFactors" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 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

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to SAP SuccessFactors data from Redash.

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors from Redash using Connect AI

To establish a connection from Redash to CData Connect AI using the Virtual SQL Server, follow these steps:

  1. Log into Redash.
  2. Click the settings widget on the top right.
  3. Click New Data Source.
  4. Select Microsoft SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
  5. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
    • Database Name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, Salesforce1).
    • Server: enter the virtual SQL Server host name (tds.cdata.com)
    • User: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected].
    • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
    • Port: enter 14333
    👁 Configuring the connection to Connect AI from Redash.
  6. Click Create.
  7. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.

You can now work with live SAP SuccessFactors data in Redash.

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