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Access SAP SuccessFactors Data as OData Feeds in Tableau
Use the Tableau Desktop business intelligence tool to connect to SAP SuccessFactors data using the API Server.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for SAP SuccessFactors (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), provides SAP SuccessFactors data as OData Web services. This article will explain how to use the API Server to provide the underlying connectivity to SAP SuccessFactors data in Tableau's business intelligence tool.
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure SAP SuccessFactors OData services:
Deploy
The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.
The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.
Connect to SAP SuccessFactors
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for SAP SuccessFactors, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to SAP SuccessFactors by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
You can authenticate to SAP Success Factors using Basic authentication or OAuth with SAML assertion.
Basic Authentication
You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to SAP Success Factors. Note that the provider will reuse the session opened by SAP Success Factors using cookies. Which means that your credentials will be used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from SAP Success Factors will be used for authentication.
- Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
- User: set this to the username of your account.
- Password: set this to the password of your account.
- CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
OAuth Authentication
You must provide values for the following properties, which will be used to get the access token.
- Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
- User: set this to the username of your account.
- CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
- OAuthClientId: set this to the API Key that was generated in API Center.
- OAuthClientSecret: the X.509 private key used to sign SAML assertion. The private key can be found in the certificate you downloaded in Registering your OAuth Client Application.
- InitiateOAuth: set this to GETANDREFRESH.
When you configure the connection, 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.
You can then choose the SAP SuccessFactors entities you want to allow the API Server to access by clicking Settings -> Resources.
Additionally, click Settings -> Server and set the Default Format to XML (Atom) for compatibility with Tableau.
Authorize API Server Users
After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; by default only connections to the local machine are allowed. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.
Create Real-Time SAP SuccessFactors Data Visualizations
Follow the steps below to create data visualizations based on the remote SAP SuccessFactors data:
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In Tableau, select 'Connect to data'. In the 'On a server' section, click OData.
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In the resulting wizard, enter the URL of the OData endpoint for the API Server. Append the name of the table you want to access to the OData entry URL. For example:
https://your-server/api.rsc/ExtAddressInfo -
Select the
'Use a Username and Password' option and enter the username and password of a user who has access to the API Server.
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Tableau uses the table metadata exposed by the API Server to detect dimension and measure columns.
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To view the SAP SuccessFactors data, right-click under the table name in the Data section of the dashboard and select the View Data option. The SAP SuccessFactors data will appear in Tableau.
