Replicate Workday Data from PowerShell



The CData ODBC Driver for Workday enables out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft's built-in support for ODBC. The ODBC driver instantly integrates connectivity to the real Workday data with PowerShell.

You can use the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC built into PowerShell to quickly automate integration tasks like replicating Workday data to other databases. This article shows how to replicate Workday data to SQL Server in 5 lines of code.

You can also write PowerShell code to execute create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. See the examples below.

Getting Started

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Create an ODBC Data Source for Workday

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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.

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.

Connect to Workday

The code below shows how to use the DSN to initialize the connection to Workday data in PowerShell:

$conn = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection
$conn.ConnectionString = "DSN=CData Workday Source x64"

Back Up Workday Data to SQL Server

After you enable caching, you can use the code below to replicate data to SQL Server.

Set the following connection properties to configure the caching database:

• CacheProvider: The name of the ADO.NET provider. This can be found in the Machine.config for your version of .NET. For example, to configure SQL Server, enter System.Data.SqlClient.

• CacheConnection: The connection string of properties required to connect to the database. Below is an example for SQL Server:

  Server=localhost;Database=RSB;User Id=sqltest;Password=sqltest;

The SQL query in the example can be used to refresh the entire cached table, including its schema. Any already existing cache is deleted.

$conn.Open()
# Create and execute the SQL Query
$SQL = "CACHE DROP EXISTING SELECT * FROM " + $Workers
$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($sql,$conn)
$count = $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
$conn.Close()

The driver gives you complete control over the caching functionality. See the help documentation for more caching commands and usage examples. See the help documentation for steps to replicate to other databases.

Other Operations

To retrieve Workday data in PowerShell, call the Fill method of the OdbcDataAdapter method. To execute data manipulation commands, initialize the OdbcCommand object and then call ExecuteNonQuery. Below are some more examples CRUD commands to Workday through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve Workday Data

$sql="SELECT Worker_Reference_WID, Legal_Name_Last_Name from Workers"
 
$da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn)
$dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable
$da.Fill($dt) 
 
$dt.Rows | foreach {
 $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{
 Write-Host $1[$_]
 }
}

Update Workday Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("UPDATE Workers SET Legal_Name_Last_Name='Morgan' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn)
$cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH")
$cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Insert Workday Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("INSERT INTO Workers SET Legal_Name_Last_Name='Morgan' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn)
$cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH")
$cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Delete Workday Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("DELETE FROM Workers WHERE Id = @myid", $conn)
$cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH")
$cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()