Feed Workday Data into FineReport

The CData JDBC Driver for Workday fully implements the JDBC standard and can provide Workday data connectivity to a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and custom applications. In this article, we explain how to set Workday data as JDBC data source in FineReport and view Workday data as a table in the Report Designer.

Getting Started

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Set Up a JDBC Data Source of Workday Data

Follow the instruction below to set Workday data as a FineReport database connection.

1. Copy the cdata.jdbc.workday.jar file from the lib folder in the CData JDBC Driver for Workday installation directory to the lib folder of the FineReport installation directory. You will need to copy the cdata.jdbc.workday.lic file as well.
2. From the Server tab, select Define Data Connection, click to add a new connection, and click JDBC.
👁 FineReport Server Tab (Salesforce is shown.)

Next we will set up the data connection definition in the window.

1. Database: Others
2. JDBC Driver: cdata.jdbc.workday.WorkdayDriver
3. URL: A standard JDBC connection string using semicolon-separated connection properties.

   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.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Workday JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.workday.jar
   

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

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

👁 FineReport data connection definition window (Salesforce is shown.)

4. Click Connection pool attributes and set Test before getting connections to No.
👁 FineReport connection pool (Salesforce is shown.)

Click Test connection to ensure you have configured the connection properly. With the connection to Workday set up, you can use it as FineReport data source.

Select Workday Data in the Report Designer.

1. Click to add a new template data set and select DB query to open the database query window.
👁 Adding a new DB query.

2. Choose the JDBC connection that you created from the dropdown list.
3. The Workday entities will appear as tables on the left pane.
4. Write a SELECT statement for the Workday data tables and columns that you want to load.
👁 FineReport database query (Salesforce is shown.)

5. Click preview and data is shown as table.
👁 FineReport database query preview (Salesforce is shown.)

With these simple steps, Workday can be used as a JDBC data source in FineReport.