Connect to Workday Data from PowerBuilder via ADO.NET

This article demonstrates using the CData ADO.NET Provider for Workday in PowerBuilder, showcasing the ease of use and compatibility of these standards-based controls across various platforms and development technologies that support Microsoft .NET, including Appeon PowerBuilder.

This article shows how to create a basic PowerBuilder application that uses the CData ADO.NET Provider for Workday to perform reads and writes.

Getting Started

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1. In a new WPF Window Application solution, add all the Visual Controls needed for the connection properties. Below is a typical connection string:

   User=myuser;Password=mypassword;Tenant=mycompany_gm1;BaseURL=https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com;ConnectionType=WQL;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

   To connect to Workday, users need to find the Tenant and BaseURL and then select their API type.

   Obtaining the BaseURL and Tenant

   To obtain the BaseURL and Tenant properties, log into Workday and search for "View API Clients." On this screen, you'll find the Workday REST API Endpoint, a URL that includes both the BaseURL and Tenant.

   The format of the REST API Endpoint is: https://domain.com/subdirectories/mycompany, where:

   • https://domain.com/subdirectories/ is the BaseURL.
   • mycompany (the portion of the url after the very last slash) is the Tenant.
   For example, in the REST API endpoint https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com/ccx/api/v1/mycompany, the BaseURL is https://wd3-impl-services1.workday.com and the Tenant is mycompany.

   Using ConnectionType to Select the API

   The value you use for the ConnectionType property determines which Workday API you use. See our Community Article for more information on Workday connectivity options and best practices.

   API	ConnectionType Value
   WQL	WQL
   Reports as a Service	Reports
   REST	REST
   SOAP	SOAP

   
   

   Authentication

   Your method of authentication depends on which API you are using.

   • WQL, Reports as a Service, REST: Use OAuth authentication.
   • SOAP: Use Basic or OAuth authentication.

   See the Help documentation for more information on configuring OAuth with Workday.

2. Add the DataGrid control from the .NET controls.
3. Configure the columns of the DataGrid control. Below are several columns from the Account table:

   <DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Margin="13,249,12,14" Name="datagrid1" TabIndex="70" ItemsSource="{Binding}">
   <DataGrid.Columns>
    <DataGridTextColumn x:Name="idColumn" Binding="{Binding Path=Id}" Header="Id" Width="SizeToHeader" />
    <DataGridTextColumn x:Name="nameColumn" Binding="{Binding Path=Worker_Reference_WID}" Header="Worker_Reference_WID" Width="SizeToHeader" />
   		...
   	</DataGrid.Columns>
   </DataGrid>
   

4. Add a reference to the CData ADO.NET Provider for Workday assembly.

Connect the DataGrid

Once the visual elements have been configured, you can use standard ADO.NET objects like Connection, Command, and DataAdapter to populate a DataTable with the results of an SQL query:

System.Data.CData.Workday.WorkdayConnection conn 
conn = create System.Data.CData.Workday.WorkdayConnection(connectionString)

System.Data.CData.Workday.WorkdayCommand comm 
comm = create System.Data.CData.Workday.WorkdayCommand(command, conn)

System.Data.DataTable table
table = create System.Data.DataTable

System.Data.CData.Workday.WorkdayDataAdapter dataAdapter
dataAdapter = create System.Data.CData.Workday.WorkdayDataAdapter(comm)
dataAdapter.Fill(table)	
datagrid1.ItemsSource=table.DefaultView

The code above can be used to bind data from the specified query to the DataGrid.