SAP SuccessFactors
The SAP SuccessFactors connector lets you perform insert, delete, update, and read operations on SAP SuccessFactors data.
Before you begin
Before using the SAP SuccessFactors connector, do the following tasks:
- In your Google Cloud project:
- Ensure that network connectivity is set up. For information about network patterns, see Network connectivity.
- Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
- Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
roles/secretmanager.viewer
roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor
A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.
- Enable the following services:
secretmanager.googleapis.com
(Secret Manager API)connectors.googleapis.com
(Connectors API)
To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.
If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.
- To create a paid SuccessFactors account using SAP ID, see Quickstart with SAP SuccessFactors.
Configure the connector
Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:
- In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.
- Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
- In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
- Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.
- Click Next.
- Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
- In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
- Connector: Select SAP SuccessFactors from the drop down list of available Connectors.
- Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
- In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.
Connection names must meet the following criteria:
- Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
- Letters must be lower-case.
- Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
- Connection names cannot exceed 49 characters.
- Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
- Optionally, enable Cloud logging,
and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to
Error
. - Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
- Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
- Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
- Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.
A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.
- Company Id: Unique identifier of your company. This is required to authenticate.
- Data Format: The data format to retrieve data in. Select either ATOM or JSON.
- Include Navigation Properties: A boolean indicating if navigation properties should be included in the column listing.
- Purge Type: PurgeType is an optional parameter that determines whether an incremental or full update will be performed on an entity.
- Use Client Side Paging: Whether or not the CData ADO.NET Provider for SAP SuccessFactors should use client side paging.
- Use Display Names: Boolean determining whether or not to use SAP labels.
- Use proxy: This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
- Proxy Auth Scheme: The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
- Proxy User: A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
- Proxy Password: A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
- Proxy SSL Type: The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy.
- Use proxy: Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection and configure the following values:
-
Proxy Auth Scheme: Select the authentication type to authenticate with the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
- Basic: Basic HTTP authentication.
- Digest: Digest HTTP authentication.
- Proxy User: A user name to be used to authenticate with the proxy server.
- Proxy Password: The Secret manager secret of the user's password.
-
Proxy SSL Type: The SSL type to use when connecting to the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
- Auto: Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, then the Tunnel option is used. If the URL is an HTTP URL, then the NEVER option is used.
- Always: The connection is always SSL enabled.
- Never: The connection is not SSL enabled.
- Tunnel: The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy.
- In the Proxy Server section, enter details of the proxy server.
- Click + Add destination.
- Select a Destination Type.
- Host address: Specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
If you want to establish a private connection to your backend system, do the following:
- Create a PSC service attachment.
- Create an endpoint attachment and then enter the details of the endpoint attachment in the Host address field.
- Host address: Specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
- Optionally, click + ADD LABEL to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
- Click Next.
- In the Destinations section, enter details of the remote host (backend system) you want to connect to.
- Destination Type: Select a Destination Type.
- Select Host address from the list to specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
- If you want to establish a private connection to your backend systems, select Endpoint attachment from the list, and then select the required endpoint attachment from the Endpoint Attachment list.
If you want to establish a public connection to your backend systems with additional security, you can consider configuring static outbound IP addresses for your connections, and then configure your firewall rules to allowlist only the specific static IP addresses.
To enter additional destinations, click +Add destination.
- Click Next.
- Destination Type: Select a Destination Type.
-
In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
- Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.
The following authentication types are supported by the SAP SuccessFactors connection:
- Username and password
- Click Next.
To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.
- Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.
- Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
- Click Create.
Configure authentication
Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.
-
Username and password
- Username: Username for connector
- Password: Secret Manager Secret containing the password associated with the connector.
- Auth Scheme: The scheme used for authentication
Basic authentication connection type sample
The following table lists the sample configuration values for the basic authentication connection type. Refer to the connection creation interface in the console to know the mandatory and optional fields.
Field name | Sample value |
---|---|
Region | us-central1 |
Connector | SAP SuccessFactors |
Connector version | 1 |
Connection Name | sapsf-basicauth-conn |
Description | SuccessFactors connection |
Service Account | SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME@developer.gserviceaccount.com |
Company Id | SFPART068178 |
Host Address | https://HOST_NAME.successfactors.eu/ |
Username | sfadmin |
Password | PASSWORD |
Auth Scheme | Basic |
Entities, operations, and actions
All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.
- Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the
connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a
connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a
file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector,
queues are the entities.
However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the
Entities
list will be empty. - Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform
any of the following operations on an entity:
Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the
Operations
list. - Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration
through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and
vary from connector to connector. Normally, an action will have some input parameters, and an output
parameter. However, it is possible
that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the
Actions
list will be empty.
System limitations
The SAP SuccessFactors connector can process 10 transaction per second, per node, and throttles any transactions beyond this limit. By default, Integration Connectors allocates 2 nodes (for better availability) for a connection.
For information on the limits applicable to Integration Connectors, see Limits.
Actions
This section lists all the actions supported by the SuccessFactors connection.
UpsertEntity action
This action lets you upsert a record for an entity.
Input parameters of the UpsertEntity action
Parameter Name | Data Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
entityType | string | True | Entity type to be upserted. |
payload | object | True | Upsert payload in the json format. |
Output parameters of the UpsertEntity action
This action returns the status 200 (OK) with a response body indicating all Upsert results.
For example on how to configure the UpsertEntity
action,
see Examples.
Action examples
This section describes how to perform some of the actions in this connector.
Example - Update a record in the PerPersonal entity
The following example updates a record in the PerPersonal
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
UpsertEntity
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "entityType": "PerPersonal", "payload": { "personIdExternal": "109031", "startDate": "1800-01-01 00:00:00.0", "firstName": "John", "lastName": "Job", "nationality": "IND" } }
If the action is successful, the
connector task's connectorOutputPayload
field will have a value similar
to the following:
[{ "personIdExternal": "109031", "startDate": "1989-12-31 23:00:00.0" }]
Example - Update a record in the PaymentInformationDetailV3 entity
The following example updates a record in the PaymentInformationDetailV3
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
UpsertEntity
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "entityType": "PaymentInformationDetailV3", "payload": { "PaymentInformationV3_effectiveStartDate": "2015-01-21 00:00:00.0", "PaymentInformationV3_worker": "82096", "externalCode": 563.0, "currency": "EUR" } }
If the action is successful,
the connector task's connectorOutputPayload
field will have a
value similar to the following:
[{ "externalCode": 563.0, "PaymentInformationV3_effectiveStartDate": "2015-01-20 23:00:00.0", "PaymentInformationV3_worker": "82096" }]
Example - Create a record in an entity
The following example creates a record in the TodoEntryV2
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickActions
. - Select the
UpsertEntity
action, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "entityType": "TodoEntryV2", "payload": { "todoEntryName": "Finish Your Tasks", "status": 1.0, "categoryId": "41", "LinkeduserNav": { "__metadata": { "uri": "https://apisalesdemo2.successfactors.eu/odata/v2/User('613577712')", "type": "SFOData.User" } } } }
If the action execution is successful, the connector task's connectorOutputPayload
field
will have a value similar to the following:
[{ "todoEntryId": 221443.0 }]
Entity examples
Example - List records of an entity
This example lists the records of the FOCompany
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
FOCompany
from theEntity
list. - Select the
LIST
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, you can set the
filterClause as per your requirement.
For example, setting the filter clause to
externalCode='5100' and startDate='1900-01-01 00:00:00'
, lists only those records whose externalCode is 5100 and startDate is 1900-01-01 00:00:00.
Example - Get a record from an entity
This example fetches a record from the User
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
User
from theEntity
list. - Select the
GET
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click EntityId and
then enter
103032
in the Default Value field.Here,
103032
is the primary key of theUsers
entity.
Example - Delete a record from an entity
This example deletes a record from the FOCompany
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
FOCompany
from theEntity
list. - Select the
DELETE
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click entityId and
then enter
113132
in the Default Value field.Alternately, if the entity has composite primary Keys instead of specifying the entityId, you can set the filterClause. For example,
externalCode='5100' and startDate='1900-01-01 00:00:00'
.
Example - Create a record in an entity
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
FOCompany
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Create
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "externalCode": "1000", "startDate": "1900-01-01 00:00:00.0", "standardHours": 40.0, "status": "I", "currency": "EUR", "country": "DEU" }
If the integration is successful, the connector task's
connectorOutputPayload
field will have a value similar to the following:{ "externalCode": "1000", "startDate": "1900-01-01 00:00:00.0" }
Example - Create a record in the TimeZone entity
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
TimeZone
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Create
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "effectiveStartDate": "2023-08-16 00:00:00.0", "externalCode": "10013", "effectiveStatus": "A", "utcDstOffset": "UTC+01:00", "utcOffset": "+0100" }
If the integration is successful, the connector task's
connectorOutputPayload
field will have a value similar to the following:{ "effectiveStartDate": "2023-08-16 00:00:00.0", "externalCode": "10013" }
Example - Update a record in an entity
This example updates a record in the FOCompany
entity.
- In the
Configure connector task
dialog, clickEntities
. - Select
FOCompany
from theEntity
list. - Select the
Update
operation, and then click Done. - In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click
connectorInputPayload
and then enter a value similar to the following in theDefault Value
field:{ "description": "BestRun India" }
- In the Task Input section of the Connectors task, click entityId and
then enter
103032
in the Default Value field.Alternately, if the entity has composite primary Keys instead of specifying the entityId, you can set the filterClause. For example,
externalCode='5100' and startDate='1900-01-01 00:00:00'
.
If the integration is successful, the connector task's connectorOutputPayload
field will have a value similar
to the following:
{ "externalCode": "5100", "startDate": "1900-01-01 00:00:00.0" }
Use terraform to create connections
You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.
To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.
When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:
Parameter name | Data type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
company_id | STRING | True | Unique identifier of your company. This is required to authenticate. |
purge_type | STRING | False | PurgeType is an optional parameter that determines whether an incremental or full update will be performed on an entity. |
use_client_side_paging | BOOLEAN | False | Whether or not the CData ADO.NET Provider for SAP SuccessFactors should use client side paging. |
use_display_names | BOOLEAN | False | Boolean determining whether or not to use SAP labels. |
verbosity | STRING | False | Verbosity level for connection, varies from 1-5. Higher verbosity level will log all the communication details (request,response & ssl certificates). |
proxy_enabled | BOOLEAN | False | Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection. |
proxy_auth_scheme | ENUM | False | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: BASIC, DIGEST, NONE |
proxy_user | STRING | False | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
proxy_password | SECRET | False | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
proxy_ssltype | ENUM | False | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, TUNNEL |
Use the SAP SuccessFactors connection in an integration
After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.
- To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
- To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.
Get help from the Google Cloud community
You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.What's next
- Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
- Understand how to monitor connector usage.
- Understand how to view connector logs.