Using the CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

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.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData SAPSuccessFactors Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors
Description = My Description
User = username
Password = password
CompanyId = CompanyId
Url = https://api4.successfactors.com

Execute SQL to SAP SuccessFactors

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for SAPSuccessFactors};User = username;Password = password;CompanyId = CompanyId;Url = https://api4.successfactors.com;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT address1, zipCode FROM ExtAddressInfo WHERE city = 'Springfield'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.address1, row.zipCode)

After connecting to SAP SuccessFactors in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to SAP SuccessFactors data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].