Access Live SAP SuccessFactors Data in Excel (Desktop)

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with Connect Spreadsheets by CData, you gain immediate access to SAP SuccessFactors data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more. This article shows how to connect to SAP SuccessFactors in Connect Spreadsheets and access and update live SAP SuccessFactors data in Excel spreadsheets.

Connect Spreadsheets is the easiest way to get all your live data into Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets - no more downloading, wrangling, and uploading files again. Just connect to your data, select the dataset you'd like to see, and import it into your spreadsheet.

Configure SAP SuccessFactors Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to SAP SuccessFactors from Excel is made possible through Connect Spreadsheets. To work with SAP SuccessFactors data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a SAP SuccessFactors connection.

1. Log into Connect Spreadsheets, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "SAP SuccessFactors" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP SuccessFactors.

   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.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAP SuccessFactors Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to SAP SuccessFactors data from Excel.

Access Live SAP SuccessFactors Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to Connect Spreadsheets from Excel to access live SAP SuccessFactors data.

1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for Connect Spreadsheets and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect Spreadsheets Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click "Log in" to authenticate with your Connect Spreadsheets account
6. In the Connect Spreadsheets panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. SAPSuccessFactors1), Table (e.g. ExtAddressInfo), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data and opt to overwrite the existing sheet or create a new one.

Update SAP SuccessFactors Data from Excel

In addition to viewing SAP SuccessFactors data in Excel, Connect Spreadsheets also lets you update and delete SAP SuccessFactors data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to SAP SuccessFactors (your changes will be in red)
2. In the Connect Spreadsheets Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected")
4. Click Execute to push the updates to SAP SuccessFactors

A notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to SAP SuccessFactors Data from Spreadsheet Apps

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live SAP SuccessFactors data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try Connect Spreadsheets and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Microsoft Excel.