How to Access Live SAP SuccessFactors Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

The CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors enables you to integrate SAP SuccessFactors data into workflows built using Microsoft Power Automate Desktop.

The CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors enables you to access live SAP SuccessFactors data in workflow automation tools like Power Automate. This article shows how to integrate SAP SuccessFactors data into a simple workflow, moving SAP SuccessFactors data into a CSV file.

Through optimized data processing, CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live SAP SuccessFactors data in Microsoft Power Automate. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power Automate to SAP SuccessFactors, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to SAP SuccessFactors and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (e.g. SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing workflows.

Integrate SAP SuccessFactors Data into Power Automate Workflows

After configuring the DSN for SAP SuccessFactors, you are ready to integrate SAP SuccessFactors data into your Power Automate workflows. Open Microsoft Power Automate, add a new flow, and name the flow.

👁 A new flow in Power Automate

In the flow editor, you can add the actions to connect to SAP SuccessFactors, query SAP SuccessFactors using SQL, and write the query results to a CSV document.

Add an Open SQL Connection Action

Add an "Open SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

Connection string: DSN=CData SAP SuccessFactors Source

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Open SQL connection' action

Add an Execute SQL Statement Action

Add an "Execute SQL statement" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

Get connection by: SQL connection variable
SQL connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)
SQL statement: SELECT * FROM ExtAddressInfo

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Execute SQL statement' action

Add a Write to CSV File Action

Add a "Write to CSV file" action (Actions -> File) and configure the properties.

Variable to write to: %QueryResult% (the variable from the "Execute SQL statement" action above)
File path: set to a file on disk
Configure Advanced settings as needed.

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Write to CSV file' action

Add a Close SQL Connection Action

Add a "Close SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

SQL Connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Close SQL connection' action

Save & Run the Flow

Once you have configured all the actions for the flow, click the disk icon to save the flow. Click the play icon to run the flow.

👁 A fully configured workflow

Now you have a workflow to move SAP SuccessFactors data into a CSV file.

👁 Application data in a CSV file (Salesforce is shown)

With the CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors, you get live connectivity to SAP SuccessFactors data within your Microsoft Power Automate workflows.

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/sapsuccessfactors-odbc-power-automate.rst