Integrate Workday with External Services using SnapLogic

SnapLogic is an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that allows users to create data integration flows with no code. When paired with the CData JDBC Drivers, users get access to live data from more than 250+ SaaS, Big Data and NoSQL sources, including Workday, in their SnapLogic workflows.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Workday data. When platforms issue complex SQL queries to Workday, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Workday and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations). Its built-in dynamic metadata querying lets you work with Workday data using native data types.

Getting Started

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Connect to Workday in SnapLogic

To connect to Workday data in SnapLogic, download and install the CData Workday JDBC Driver. Follow the installation dialog. When the installation is complete, the JAR file can be found in the installation directory (C:/Program Files/CData/CData JDBC Driver for Workday/lib by default).

Upload the Workday JDBC Driver

After installation, upload the JDBC JAR file to a location in SnapLogic (for example, projects/Jerod Johnson) from the Manager tab.

👁 Uploaded JDBC Driver (Salesforce & QuickBooks Online are shown)

Configure the Connection

Once the JDBC Driver is uploaded, we can create the connection to Workday.

1. Navigate to the Designer tab
2. Expand "JDBC" from Snaps and drag a "Generic JDBC - Select" snap onto the designer 👁 Adding a Generic JDBC snap onto the designer
   
3. Click Add Account (or select an existing one) and click "Continue"
4. In the next form, configure the JDBC connection properties:
   • Under JDBC JARs, add the JAR file we previously uploaded
   • Set JDBC Driver Class to cdata.jdbc.workday.WorkdayDriver

   • Set JDBC URL to a JDBC connection string for the Workday JDBC Driver, for example:

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

     NOTE: RTK is a trial or full key. Contact our Support team for more information. 👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
     

     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.

     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.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     
5. After entering the connection properties, click "Validate" and "Apply"

Read Workday Data

In the form that opens after validating and applying the connection, configure your query.

• Set Schema name to "Workday"
• Set Table name to a table for Workday using the schema name, for example: "Workday"."Workers" (use the drop-down to see the full list of available tables)
• Add Output fields for each item you wish to work with from the table

👁 Configuring a Select snap (Salesforce is shown)

Save the Generic JDBC - Select snap.

With connection and query configured, click the end of the snap to preview the data (highlighted below).

👁 Click the end of the snap to preview the data.

Once you confirm the results are what you expect, you can add additional snaps to funnel your Workday data to another endpoint.

👁 Previewing data (Salesforce is shown).

Piping Workday Data to External Services

For this article, we will load data in a Google Spreadsheet. You can use any of the supported snaps, or even use a Generic JDBC snap with another CData JDBC Driver, to move data into an external service.

1. Start by dropping a "Worksheet Writer" snap onto the end of the "Generic JDBC - Select" snap.
2. Add an account to connect to Google Sheets 👁 Connecting to Google
   
3. Configure the Worksheet Writer snap to write your Workday data to a Google Spreadsheet 👁 Writing to a Google Spreadsheet
   

You can now execute the fully configured pipeline to extract data from Workday and push it into a Google Spreadsheet.

👁 Data written to Google Spreadsheets (Salesforce is shown)

Piping External Data to Workday

As mentioned above, you can also use the JDBC Driver for Workday in SnapLogic to write data to Workday. Start by adding a Generic JDBC - Insert or Generic JDBC - Update snap to the dashboard.

1. Select the existing "Account" (connection) or create a new one
2. Configure the query:
   • Set Schema name to "Workday"
   • Set Table name to a table for Workday using the schema name, for example: "Workday"."Workers" (use the drop-down to see the full list of available tables)
   👁 Configuring a INSERT snap (Salesforce is shown)
   
3. Save the Generic JDBC - Insert/Update snap

At this point, you have configured a snap to write data to Workday, inserting new records or updating existing ones.

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for Workday you can create a pipeline in SnapLogic for integrating Workday data with external services. For more information about connecting to Workday, check at our CData JDBC Driver for Workday page. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Workday and get started today.