Excel Add-In for Workday

Build 25.0.9434

Establishing a Connection

Configure a Connection Profile

From the CData ribbon, click Get Data and select From Workday connection/s to launch the CData Query window. To setup a new connection, you will have to click the New Workday Connection button. Here you can set the connection settings, test the connection, and save the connection profile.

Connecting to Workday

This section describes how to set the connection parameters for the four Workday APIs, and how to obtain the Tenant and BaseURL. Each service (WQL, Reports, REST, and SOAP) has its own ConnectionType, and only one connection type can be used per connection.

After you set the parameters for the desired API and have created a custom OAuth and/or Azure AD API client, you are ready to connect.

Connection Prerequisites

API Prerequisites Connection Parameters
WQL Enable WQL service
(See below) 		ConnectionType: WQL
Reports as a Service Set up catalog report
(see Fine-Tuning Data Access) 		ConnectionType: Reports
REST Automatically enabled ConnectionType: REST
SOAP Automatically enabled See Workday SOAP API, below

Obtaining the BaseURL and Tenant

To obtain the BaseURL and Tenant properties, log into Workday and search for View API Clients. On this screen, Workday displays 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 (the portion of the URL before subdirectories and company name) 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.

Enabling WQL Service

To connect through the Workday WQL API, you must first enable the WQL Service:

  1. Open Workday.
  2. In the search bar, search for View Domain.
  3. At the prompt, enter Workday Query Language.
  4. Check the Allowed Security Group Types to see if one of them includes the user you are connecting with.

Authenticating to Workday

Most Workday connections require the creation of an OAuth-based custom API Client application to authenticate. This includes enterprise installations where users connect via their Azure AD credentials. If you want to connect via SOAP, you can use Basic authentication, which doesn't require a custom OAuth application.

This section describes both methods of authentication.

OAuth

This section describes how to authenticate in an environment without SSO, using the OAuth standard. Before you can authenticate in this environment, you must first create a custom OAuth application, as described in Creating a Custom API Client Application.

Note: Because they facilitate authentication to Workday APIs, this document frequently refers to custom OAuth applications as custom API Clients.

Desktop Applications

To authenticate with the credentials for a custom OAuth application, you must get and refresh the OAuth access token. After you do that, you are ready to connect.

Get and refresh the OAuth access token:

When you connect, the add-in opens Workday's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application.

When the access token expires, the add-in refreshes it automatically.

Authenticating as a Normal User

To authenticate as a normal user in Workday, you must first create an API Client, as described in Creating a Custom API Client Application.

After you have an API client configured, set the following properties to connect using Workday credentials:

Standard OAuth User

  • ConnectionType and related properties.
  • AuthScheme: OAuth.
  • OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained from the View API Client page.
  • OAuthClientSecret: The Client Secret obtained from the View API Client page. If you are using a public client, leave this blank.
  • Tenant: The tenant for the account.
  • BaseURL: The base URL for the REST API Endpoint in the View API Clients page.
  • OAuthAuthorizationURL: Optional but recommended. The Authorization URL in the View API Clients page.

AzureAD User

  • ConnectionType and related properties.
  • AuthScheme: AzureAD.
  • OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained from the View API Client page.
  • Tenant: The tenant for the account.
  • BaseURL: The base URL for the REST API Endpoint in the View API Clients page.
  • SSOProperties: The Azure-specific properties used for SSO, including the AzureTenant, AzureClientId, AzureClientSecret and Resource.

Authenticating as an ISU

To authenticate as an ISU, you must first create either an API Client or an API Client for Integrations, as described in Creating a Custom API Client Application. You can create either of these clients using the JWT bearer grant type.

After you set the appropriate properties, you are ready to connect.

API Client for Integrations

API Client (JWT)

Reports and SOAP API

Connections using the Reports API and the SOAP API support all the same authentication schemes that the WQL and REST do. They also support Basic authentication, which does not require configuring a custom API client.

To use Basic authentication, set these connection parameters:

Other authentication methods are configured the same way as for the WQL and reporting services.

Connection Properties

The Connection properties describe the various options that can be used to establish a connection.

Managing Connections

After successfully authenticating to Workday you will be able to customize the data you are importing. To learn more about this, see Managing Connections.

See Also

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Build 25.0.9434