Introduction

SuccessFactors, an SAP company, is the leader in cloud-based Human Capital Management, software for talent management, core HR, and other HR solution with more than 4,000 customers in the world. This forum post explains how to connect Sisense with SAP SuccessFactors using the ODBC from CData to do analysis directly from the data in SuccessFactors with the benefits of the Elasticube technology to mash up data from various sources, process hundreds of millions of records, enrich the data and enable to business users. 

Download and Configure the ODBC Driver

Please download the OData ODBC driver from the vendor CData here. Follow the steps to register and make sure to choose the 64 bit version when the software options pop up.

Once the installation is complete, open the ODBC Data Sources for Windows (make sure to choose the 64 bit version,) go to the System  DSN tab, click on "Add", and last on CData ODBC Driver for OData 2015.

In the Connection window, make sure to fill in the fields below:

Data Source Name: you can write here a name that will help you identify the connection. We used in our case "successfactors"

Url: the format of the url is very important. See this example: https://freetrial.successfactors.odata/v2/

You will have to change the "freetrial" subdomain to the domain that your account is based on. You can check the subdomain at the url that you usually use for web access.

User: The user is based on the username and company ID separated by a "@" character. For example: johnjones@companyx

Password: This is straightforward

Auth Scheme: This field should be set to BASIC.

Connect from Sisense

In Sisense, go to Add Data > Generic ODBC Driver

Choose the DSN from the list that you created previously, click on "Test Connection", and last on "OK"

In the list of tables from SuccessFactors, choose the table that you need and click on "Add".

If you are working with the trial version of the ODBC driver, you are limited to 10 records only. To avoid any issues, before you click on "Add", click on the button "Edit" to edit the query, and add a limitation to bring only 10 records from the table. For example, to bring the first 10 records from the User table, type the following query:

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM OData.User

Once you added the table, click on "Build" to bring the data from SuccessFactors to Sisense.

Additional Resources

By default, SuccessFactors is enabled to OData connections. If the default setting was changed, see this page for reference. Look for the title "Granting Permissions for Integration Tools".

The ODatata ODBC driver from CData here.

Programmers guide for the OData API from SuccessFactors here.