Use ChatGPT to Talk to Your Workday Data via CData Connect AI

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

Leverage the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable ChatGPT to securely answer questions and take actions on your Workday data for you.

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, launched in November 2022. Based on large language models (LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer conversations through natural language processing. ChatGPT's developer mode, available to Plus and Pro subscribers, provides full Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for connecting to external data sources and tools.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to Workday data. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between ChatGPT and Workday. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Workday data using ChatGPT, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. 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

Step 1: Configure Workday Connectivity for ChatGPT

Connectivity to Workday from ChatGPT is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with Workday data from ChatGPT, we start by creating and configuring a Workday connection in CData Connect AI.

Log into your Connect AI account, click Sources, and then click Add Connection.

👁 Adding a Connection

Select "Workday" from the Add Connection panel.

👁 Selecting a data source

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.

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.
👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
Click Save & Test

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

With the connection configured, we are ready to connect to Workday data from ChatGPT.

Step 2: Connect ChatGPT to CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect AI connection in ChatGPT:

Sign in to ChatGPT with a Plus or Pro subscription.
Navigate to Apps from the left panel.
Select the CData Connect AI app from the list.

👁 Search for CData Connect AI

Click Connect to authenticate to your Connect AI account.

👁 Click Connect to authenticate

Click Sign in with CData Connect AI to add Connect AI to your ChatGPT account.

👁 Sign in with CData Connect AI

After successful authorization, you will be redirected back to ChatGPT.
Click Start Chat to start a new conversation in ChatGPT with Connect AI connected at the background.

👁 Start Chat

Step 3: Explore Live Workday Data with ChatGPT

Start a new conversation in ChatGPT.
Connect AI should ideally be automatically enabled in the chat. If not, navigate to -> More -> CData Connect AI, under the chatbox, to enable the connector from the dropdown

👁 Enable CData Connect AI in the chat

You can now start exploring your data with natural language prompts. ChatGPT will use the Connect AI MCP server to query your live Workday data. Example prompts:
- "Show me all customers from the last 30 days"
- "What are my top performing products?"
- "Analyze sales trends for this quarter"
- "List all active projects and their current status"
Refer to CData prompt library for more prompt ideas.