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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/workday-cloud-appsmith.rst

⇱ Create Workday-Connected Applications in Appsmith

Create Workday-Connected Applications in Appsmith

👁 Cameron Leblanc
Cameron Leblanc
Senior Technology Evangelist
Connect to Workday Data via CData Connect AI in Appsmith and create custom business applications with real-time access to Workday data.

Appsmith is an open-source internal tool builder that allows teams to quickly and easily build a UI to help improve their business operations. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to Workday data for business applications. This article outlines the process of connecting to Workday using Connect AI and creating a basic application from Workday data within Appsmith.

CData Connect AI offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Workday, enabling the creation of business applications directly from live Workday data within Appsmith, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build applications, Appsmith generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Workday. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Workday data.

About Workday Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Workday. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Access the tables and datasets you create in Prism Analytics Data Catalog, working with the native Workday data hub without compromising the fidelity of your Workday system.
  • Access Workday Reports-as-a-Service to surface data from departmental datasets not available from Prism and datasets larger than Prism allows.
  • Access base data objects with WQL, REST, or SOAP, getting more granular, detailed access but with the potential need for Workday admins or IT to help craft queries.

Users frequently integrate Workday with analytics tools such as Tableau, Power BI, and Excel, and leverage our tools to replicate Workday data to databases or data warehouses. Access is secured at the user level, based on the authenticated user's identity and role.

For more information on configuring Workday to work with CData, refer to our Knowledge Base articles: Comprehensive Workday Connectivity through Workday WQL and Reports-as-a-Service & Workday + CData: Connection & Integration Best Practices.


Getting Started


Configure Workday Connectivity for Appsmith

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Workday" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Workday.

    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.

    APIConnectionType Value
    WQLWQL
    Reports as a ServiceReports
    RESTREST
    SOAPSOAP

    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.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Workday 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, we are ready to connect to Workday data from Appsmith.

Create an Appsmith Application from live Workday Data

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

Connect to Workday in Appsmith

  1. Log in to your Appsmith instance and create a new application.
  2. In the new application, open the Data page and select Bring your data. 👁 Open the Data page
  3. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source. 👁 Select Microsoft SQL Server datasource
  4. Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
  5. Click Test configuration to confirm a successful connection, then click Save to save the datasource.

Create a new query

With a connection configured to a datasource, we can add a SQL query to actually retrieve data from the data source.

  1. On the screen with the new data source, click New Query. 👁 Create a New Query
  2. This opens the Query Editor to enter a SQL query to select data. To assist with specifying a SQL query, use the Explorer of CData Connect AI to preview the SQL queries and the data you want to retrieve. 👁 Preview queries in the Explorer
  3. After creating the SQL query, return to the Query Editor in Appsmith and enter the SQL query, then click Run. 👁 Run the SQL query
  4. Once the query successfully runs, all that remains is to set up the Page to display the data retrieved.

Display Workday data

  1. Open the UI tab and click New UI element. 👁 New UI element
  2. Choose a new UI element to grab, then drag and place the element on the page. 👁 New UI element
  3. Click Connect data on the new UI element, then select the query previously created. 👁 Connect to data
  4. With the data connected, it is then displayed in the UI element. 👁 UI element connected

Deploy the application

With the Workday data connected to the UI elements in the application, we can deploy the Application. To do this, click Deploy in the top-right corner of Appsmith, then the application is opened in a separate window displaying the Workday data.

👁 Application deployed

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