How to update Paylocity from Excel

The CData Excel Add-In for Paylocity enables you to edit and save Paylocity data directly from Excel. This article explains how to transfer data from Excel to Paylocity. This technique is useful if you want to work on Paylocity data in Excel and update changes, or if you have a whole spreadsheet you want to import into Paylocity. In this example, you will use the Employee table; however, the same process will work for any table that can be retrieved by the CData Excel Add-In.

Establish a Connection

If you have not already done so, create a new Paylocity connection by clicking From Paylocity on the ribbon.

Set the following to establish a connection to Paylocity:

• RSAPublicKey: Set this to the RSA Key associated with your Paylocity, if the RSA Encryption is enabled in the Paylocity account.

  This property is required for executing Insert and Update statements, and it is not required if the feature is disabled.

• UseSandbox: Set to true if you are using sandbox account.
• CustomFieldsCategory: Set this to the Customfields category. This is required when IncludeCustomFields is set to true. The default value for this property is PayrollAndHR.
• Key: The AES symmetric key(base 64 encoded) encrypted with the Paylocity Public Key. It is the key used to encrypt the content.

  Paylocity will decrypt the AES key using RSA decryption.
  It is an optional property if the IV value not provided, The driver will generate a key internally.

• IV: The AES IV (base 64 encoded) used when encrypting the content. It is an optional property if the Key value not provided, The driver will generate an IV internally.

Connect Using OAuth Authentication

You must use OAuth to authenticate with Paylocity. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Paylocity using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the Help documentation.

The Pay Entry API

The Pay Entry API is completely separate from the rest of the Paylocity API. It uses a separate Client ID and Secret, and must be explicitly requested from Paylocity for access to be granted for an account. The Pay Entry API allows you to automatically submit payroll information for individual employees, and little else. Due to the extremely limited nature of what is offered by the Pay Entry API, we have elected not to give it a separate schema, but it may be enabled via the UsePayEntryAPI connection property.

Please be aware that when setting UsePayEntryAPI to true, you may only use the CreatePayEntryImportBatch & MergePayEntryImportBatchgtable stored procedures, the InputTimeEntry table, and the OAuth stored procedures. Attempts to use other features of the product will result in an error. You must also store your OAuthAccessToken separately, which often means setting a different OAuthSettingsLocation when using this connection property.

Retrieve Data from Paylocity

To insert data into Paylocity, you will first need to retrieve data from the Paylocity table you want to add to. This links the Excel spreadsheet to the Paylocity table selected: After you retrieve data, any changes you make to the data are highlighted in red.

1. Click the From Paylocity button on the CData ribbon. The Data Selection wizard is displayed.
2. In the Table or View menu, select the Employee table.
3. In the Maximum Rows menu, select the number of rows you want to retrieve. If you want to insert rows, you need to retrieve only one row. The Query box will then display the SQL query that corresponds to your request.
4. In the Sheet Name box, enter the name for the sheet that will be populated. By default the add-in will create a new sheet with the name of the table.

Insert Rows to Paylocity

After retrieving data, you can add data from an existing spreadsheet in Excel.

1. In a cell after the last row, enter a formula referencing the corresponding cell from the other spreadsheet; for example, =MyEmployeeSheetInExcel!A1.
2. After using a formula to reference the cells you want to add to Paylocity, select the cells that you are inserting data into and drag the formula down as far as needed. The referenced values you want to add will be displayed on the Employee sheet.
3. Highlight the rows you want to insert and click the Update Rows button.

As each row is inserted, the Id value will appear in the Id column and the row's text will change to black, indicating that the record has been inserted.