New Workday Connector Now Available in Open Connectors

In this blog, I’m announcing the release of the new Workday Connector in SAP’s Open Connectors and I’ll provide a quick overview of its features.

I’m excited to announce that phase 1 of the Workday Connector is now available in the SAP Open Connectors Catalog, part of the ERP hub!

“Is Workday really that difficult to integrate to?”

The answer is yes, but like with every API, “difficult” is relative.

Let me explain.

First, if you have ever had to integrate using the SOAP protocol, then you already know that it can be cumbersome to use when compared to using lighter frameworks like REST. Workday’s API is SOAP. Thus, as is the case will all of the connectors in the Open Connectors ecosystem, the Workday Connector converts and normalizes Workday’s native SOAP API to the Open Connectors uniform REST standards.

When using the Workday Connector, you won’t need to learn all the intricacies of Workday’s SOAP API, as it is 100% REST via the Connector:

Second, Workday’s native SOAP API specification does not support bulk data. The new Workday Connector supplements for Workday’s missing bulk API support by providing built-in, ready to use bulk resources.

Third, the Workday API specification is massive, with over 2000+ resources.

For this first release of the Workday Connector, the most requested procure-to-pay workflow was selected and resources were added to support that. The needed resources for Order-to-cash and hire-to-retire will coming soon in a later release.

However, if you don’t care to wait for additional resources to be added, every Connector in the Open Connectors ecosystem is editable and extendable.

If you are familiar with Workday’s SOAP API, you can use Connector Builder to add in what you need. For example, you can easily modify the GET /supplier-classifications resource using Open Connectors built in tooling to modify existing or add new resources:

You can also solve this (which frankly I think is MUCH easier) by using the Workday Connector’s discovery resources:

FYI: All Connectors in the catalog are all standardized to a common set of features, including the ability to programmatically (or manually via UI) query the endpoint and determine what objects and associated object metadata are supported by the endpoint’s API.

Discovery resources are found via clicking on “API Docs” for the Workday Connector in the main Connectors catalog:

By having built-in discovery API resources built-in to the Connector, you now have access to every one of Workday’s 2000+ native resources. You can use the discovery API resources to determine what is available, and then build your own on the fly using the Connector’s “create your own” resources capability.

Just use the GET /objects resource, grab the object that you need, and substitute for objectName in the following:

This is no small feat, given that Workday does not provide out of the box functionality via their SOAP API to query for this information. The Workday Connector actually automatically scrapes Workday’s API documentation website to dynamically support the Connector’s discovery resources!

To summarize, the Workday connector is now available in Open Connectors. Having access to all of Workday’s APIs provides flexibility and quicker time to value for your customers. Also, given that the Workday Connector is REST, it is much easier and consistent to use versus writing directly to Workday’s SOAP API.

I hope you are as excited about the Workday Connector as I am!

A note regarding getting access to Workday’s service. They do not currently offer a sandbox that you can use to test as they tightly control who has access. Thus, if you use the Workday Connector, you will need to contact Workday or work with your Workday customer for integration options.