Integrate Workday Data into Power Automate Desktop using CData Connect

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

CData Connect for Workday Data enables you to integrate Workday data into workflows built using Microsoft Power Automate Desktop.

CData Connect enables you to access live Workday data in workflow automation tools like Power Automate. This article shows how to integrate Workday data into a simple workflow, saving Workday data into a CSV file.

CData Connect provides a live interface for Workday, allowing you to integrate with live Workday data in Power Automate — without replicating the data. Connect uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Workday, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return 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 Power Automate

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

Log into Connect AI, 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
Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Workday Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

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

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.

Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
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, you are ready to connect to Workday data from Power Automate Desktop.

Integrate Workday Data into Power Automate Workflows

After configuring CData Connect with Workday, you are ready to integrate Workday 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 options to connect to Workday, query Workday using SQL, and write the query results to a CSV document.

Add an Open SQL Connection Action

Add an "Open SQL connection" action (Action -> Database) and click the option to build the Connection string. In the Data Link Properties wizard:

On the Provider tab: select Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server
On the Connection tab:
1. Select or enter a server name: set to tds.cdata.com,14333
2. Enter information to lag onto the server: select "Use a specific username and password"
  - Set User name to your CData Connect AI user name (e.g. [email protected])
  - Set Password to your PAT
  - Select the database: use the database configured above (e.g. Workday1)
Click "Test Connection" to ensure the connection is configured properly
Click "OK" 👁 A configured connection to CData Connect

After building the connection string in the Data Link Properties wizard, save the action.

👁 A configured 'Open SQL connection' action

Add an Execute SQL Statement Action

Add an "Execute SQL statement" action (Action -> 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 Workers

After configuring the properties, save the action.

👁 A configured 'Execute SQL statement' action

Add a Write to CSV File Action

Add a "Write to CSV file" action (Action -> 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 properties, save the action.

👁 A configured 'Write to CSV file' action

Add a Close SQL Connection Action

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

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

After configuring the properties, save the action.

👁 A configured 'Close SQL connection' action

Save & Run the Flow

Once you have configured all the options 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 save Workday data into a CSV file.

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

With CData Connect AI, you get live connectivity to Workday data within your Microsoft Power Automate workflows.

SQL Access to Workday Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Workday data from Power Automate tasks. You can create more connections and workflows to drive business — all without replicating Workday data.

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/workday-cloud-power-automate-desktop.rst