Connect to SAP SuccessFactors Data and Transfer Data in Talend

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for SAP SuccessFactors into your workflow in Talend. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for SAP SuccessFactors to transfer SAP SuccessFactors data in a job flow in Talend.

Connect to SAP SuccessFactors in Talend as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to SAP SuccessFactors:

1. Add a new database connection to SAP SuccessFactors data: To add a new connection, expand the Metadata node, right-click the Db Connections node, and then click Create Connection.
2. In the resulting wizard, enter a name for the connection.

3. On the next page, select Generic JDBC from the DB Type menu and enter the JDBC URL.

   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.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SAP SuccessFactors JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.sapsuccessfactors.jar

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

   jdbc:sapsuccessfactors:User=username;Password=password;CompanyId=CompanyId;Url=https://api4.successfactors.com;
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.sapsuccessfactors.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Right-click the connection and then click Retrieve Schema.
6. Click Next with the default options to select the tables you want to import.
7. Finish the wizard with the default options.

Output the ExtAddressInfo Table to a Flat File

You can follow the procedure below to transfer the ExtAddressInfo table to a flat file output component:

1. In the Table Schemas node, drag the tables to the workspace.
2. In the dialog that is displayed, select the tJDBCInput component.
3. Next, drag a tFileOutputDelimited component from the Business Intelligence tab of the Palette into the workspace.
4. Right-click the ExtAddressInfo tJDBCInput component and drag a vector to the output file.

Run the project to transfer the data.