Excel Spreadsheet Automation on PingOne Data with the QUERY Formula

The CData Excel Add-In for PingOne provides formulas that can query PingOne data. The following three steps show how you can automate the following task: Search PingOne data for a user-specified value and then organize the results into an Excel spreadsheet.

The syntax of the CDATAQUERY formula is the following: =CDATAQUERY(Query, [Connection], [Parameters], [ResultLocation]);

This formula requires three inputs:

• Query: The declaration of the PingOne data records you want to retrieve, written in standard SQL.

• Connection: Either the connection name, such as PingOneConnection1, or a connection string. The connection string consists of the required properties for connecting to PingOne data, separated by semicolons.

  To connect to PingOne, configure these properties:

  • Region: The region where the data for your PingOne organization is being hosted.
  • AuthScheme: The type of authentication to use when connecting to PingOne.
  • Either WorkerAppEnvironmentId (required when using the default PingOne domain) or AuthorizationServerURL, configured as described below.

  Configuring WorkerAppEnvironmentId

  WorkerAppEnvironmentId is the ID of the PingOne environment in which your Worker application resides. This parameter is used only when the environment is using the default PingOne domain (auth.pingone). It is configured after you have created the custom OAuth application you will use to authenticate to PingOne, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application in the Help documentation.

  First, find the value for this property:

  1. From the home page of your PingOne organization, move to the navigation sidebar and click Environments.
  2. Find the environment in which you have created your custom OAuth/Worker application (usually Administrators), and click Manage Environment. The environment's home page displays.
  3. In the environment's home page navigation sidebar, click Applications.
  4. Find your OAuth or Worker application details in the list.
  5. Copy the value in the Environment ID field. It should look similar to:
     WorkerAppEnvironmentId='11e96fc7-aa4d-4a60-8196-9acf91424eca'

  Now set WorkerAppEnvironmentId to the value of the Environment ID field.

  Configuring AuthorizationServerURL

  AuthorizationServerURL is the base URL of the PingOne authorization server for the environment where your application is located. This property is only used when you have set up a custom domain for the environment, as described in the PingOne platform API documentation. See Custom Domains.

  Authenticating to PingOne with OAuth

  PingOne supports both OAuth and OAuthClient authentication. In addition to performing the configuration steps described above, there are two more steps to complete to support OAuth or OAuthCliet authentication:

  • Create and configure a custom OAuth application, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application in the Help documentation.
  • To ensure that the driver can access the entities in Data Model, confirm that you have configured the correct roles for the admin user/worker application you will be using, as described in Administrator Roles in the Help documentation.
  • Set the appropriate properties for the authscheme and authflow of your choice, as described in the following subsections.

  OAuth (Authorization Code grant)

  Set AuthScheme to OAuth.

  Desktop Applications

  Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

  After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

  • InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. To avoid the need to repeat the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken each time you connect, use InitiateOAuth.
  • OAuthClientId: The Client ID you obtained when you created your custom OAuth application.
  • OAuthClientSecret: The Client Secret you obtained when you created your custom OAuth application.
  • CallbackURL: The redirect URI you defined when you registered your custom OAuth application. For example: https://localhost:3333

  When you connect, the driver opens PingOne's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The driver then completes the OAuth process:

  1. The driver obtains an access token from PingOne and uses it to request data.
  2. The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation, to be persisted across connections.

  The driver refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

  For other OAuth methods, including Web Applications, Headless Machines, or Client Credentials Grant, refer to the Help documentation.

• ResultLocation: The cell that the output of results should start from.

Pass Spreadsheet Cells as Inputs to the Query

The procedure below results in a spreadsheet that organizes all the formula inputs in the first column.

1. Define cells for the formula inputs. In addition to the connection inputs, add another input to define a criterion for a filter to be used to search PingOne data, such as EmployeeType.
2. In another cell, write the formula, referencing the cell values from the user input cells defined above. Single quotes are used to enclose values such as addresses that may contain spaces.
=CDATAQUERY("SELECT * FROM [CData].[Administrators].Users WHERE EmployeeType = '"&B6&"'","AuthScheme="&B1&";WorkerAppEnvironmentId="&B2&";Region="&B3&";OAuthClientId="&B4&";OAuthClientSecret="&B5&";Provider=PingOne",B7)
3. Change the filter to change the data.