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

⇱ Visualize Live Workday Data in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

Visualize Live Workday Data in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use the CData Power BI Connector and CData Connect AI to integrate live Workday data into custom reports in Power BI.

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get access to Workday data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a live connection to Workday, connect to Workday data from Power BI and then create reports on Workday data in Power BI.

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 BI

Connectivity to Workday from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Workday data from Power BI, 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

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Workday data from Power BI.

Query Workday Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull Workday data into the report:

  1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect AI and click "Connect"
  2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect AI account 👁 Authenticating with Connect AI
  3. After signing in, click "Connect" 👁 Connecting to Connect AI
  4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog 👁 The available tables. (Salesforce tables are shown)
  5. Click Load to establish the connection to your Workday data from Power BI

Create Workday Data Visualizations

After connecting to the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize along with the chart type.

👁 Visualizing data in Power BI (Salesforce data is shown)

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

Live Access to Workday Data from Data Applications

With CData Connect AI you have a direct connection to Workday data from Power BI. You can import more data, create new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Workday data.

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Workday) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect AI page and start a free trial.