How to connect PolyBase to BambooHR

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData API Driver for ODBC, you get access to your BambooHR data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live BambooHR data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above, and only for Standard SQL Server.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live BambooHR data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to BambooHR, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to BambooHR and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. And with PolyBase, you can also join SQL Server data with BambooHR data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to BambooHR

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 create an external data source in SQL Server using PolyBase, configure a System DSN (CData BambooHR Sys is created automatically).

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the BambooHR Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\bamboohr.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for BambooHR (see below).

BambooHR API Profile Settings

In order to authenticate to BambooHR, you'll need to provide your API Key. To generate an API key, log in and click your name in the upper right-hand corner of any page to get to the user context menu. If you have sufficient permissions, there will be an "API Keys" option in that menu to go to the page, where you can create a new API Key. Additionally, you will need to set the Domain, found in the domain name of your BambooHR account. For example if your BambooHR account is acmeinc.bamboohr.com, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'. Set both the API Key and Domain in the ProfileSettings property to connect.

Click "Test Connection" to ensure that the DSN is connected to BambooHR properly. Navigate to the Tables tab to review the table definitions for BambooHR.

Create an External Data Source for BambooHR Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a master encryption key and a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Master Encryption Key

Execute the following SQL command to create a new master key, 'ENCRYPTION,' to encrypt the credentials for the external data source.

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'password';

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to BambooHR data.

NOTE: Since BambooHR does not require a User or Password to authenticate, you may use whatever values you wish for IDENTITY and SECRET.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL api_creds
WITH IDENTITY = 'username', SECRET = 'password';

Create an External Data Source for BambooHR

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for BambooHR with PolyBase:

• Set the LOCATION parameter , using the DSN and credentials configured earlier.

For BambooHR, set SERVERNAME to the URL or address for your server (e.g. 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' for local servers; the remote URL for remote servers). Leave PORT empty. PUSHDOWN is set to ON by default, meaning the ODBC Driver can leverage server-side processing for complex queries.

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE cdata_api_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData BambooHR Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = api_creds
);

Create External Tables for BambooHR

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to BambooHR data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData API Driver for ODBC. You can refer to the Tables tab of the DSN Configuration Wizard to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

The statement to create an external table based on a BambooHR Employees would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Employees(
  Id [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  DisplayName [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Employees',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_api_source
);

Having created external tables for BambooHR in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. Thanks to built-in query processing in the CData ODBC Driver, you know that as much query processing as possible is being pushed to BambooHR, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for BambooHR and start working with live BambooHR data alongside your SQL Server data today.