HR data to BI
Workday to Power BI integration: global HR data in Power BI, with retroactive changes handled correctly
With an integration between Workday and Power BI, workers, employments, organisations and cost centres from Workday sit in a fixed Power BI model, with history per effective date. Retroactive changes in Workday flow into the figures of the right month, so country and group reports in Power BI match what HR sees in Workday.
What the integration does
Anyone who manages workers in Workday and wants headcount and turnover per site or country in Power BI often works from a monthly export from Workday. Such a report is no longer right as soon as HR enters a job change with retroactive effect.
- Workday administration creates an integration user with read access to the required data only.
- Every day KoppelHet fetches what has been entered in Workday since the previous run, including changes with an effective date in the past.
- The history per worker is updated, and the monthly positions that change because of a retroactive change are recalculated.
- KoppelHet then refreshes the Power BI model.
- Country HR sees only its own countries and organisations in Power BI; the group sees everything.
What to watch for with Workday and Power BI
- Workday has two dates per item, the effective date and the moment of entry. A job change entered today with effect from last month changes last month's position. KoppelHet therefore fetches by moment of entry and recalculates the months affected by the change.
- Workday returns workers in pages, and according to its own documentation the entry moment must be fixed when paging to get consistent results. KoppelHet fixes that moment at the start of the run, so a change during fetching does not put a worker into Power BI twice or not at all.
- Workday can exclude terminated workers and ended contingent workers. Turnover figures need exactly those. KoppelHet includes them with their termination reason, so Power BI can show voluntary and involuntary turnover per country.
- In Workday supervisory organisations, cost centres and companies exist side by side as separate structures. In Power BI they become three separate dimensions, so finance can report on cost centre and HR on organisation with the same employees.
- The security group decides what the integration user may see in Workday. A field the group has no access to is left out, without an error. KoppelHet checks on every run whether all expected columns are filled, so an empty column in Power BI does not go unnoticed.
- A Workday report can also be requested directly from Power BI as a web service, but then the report runs again in Workday on every refresh and there is no history. KoppelHet fetches the data once a day and keeps the position per month, so Power BI can refresh on that as often as needed.
How we build and run it
- The integration runs on the KoppelHet platform, hosted in a data centre in the EU.
- Every sync and every error is visible in the functional log; on an error your administrator is notified.
- A change that cannot go through is not half-applied but queued for another attempt.
- KoppelHet is ISO 27001 certified. Data travels encrypted and stays on the platform no longer than needed.
- After go-live we manage the integration and adjust it when your process changes.
- The integration fits next to your existing integration layer. Only the fields in the design are transferred; the platform keeps no register of its own.
Implementation and price
This is not an app you switch on. We build the integration for your organisation on our platform, with building blocks we reuse on every project. So it is custom work that does not start from scratch.
A consultant prepares the intake and analyses both systems. We then record the mapping and exceptions field by field, test in the test or acceptance environment and go live at a moment you choose. Costs are a one-off amount for the setup and a monthly amount for platform, monitoring and support.
Frequently asked questions
Why not load Workday reports directly into Power BI?
That works for a simple overview. Then the report runs in Workday on every refresh and you only see the position at that moment. Headcount and turnover over months need their own history.
Does compensation data from Workday go to Power BI?
Only if the report needs it and the security group releases it. A pay grade or salary band instead of the amount is often enough.
What about the GDPR?
You are the controller and KoppelHet is the processor, under a data processing agreement. Only data the reporting needs leaves Workday.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- Workday is read with Get_Workers from the Human_Resources web service (WWS), with Transaction_Log_Criteria (Updated_From and Updated_Through) for changes since the previous run and a fixed As_Of_Entry_DateTime when paging (Count up to 999 per page). Exclude_Inactive_Workers is off. Organisations and cost centres through a RaaS report in JSON, with prompts as query parameters.
- Authentication with an Integration System User (ISU) in its own security group with read-only access to the required domains.
- Power BI semantic model in import mode, refreshed through the Power BI REST API. Row-level security on country and supervisory organisation.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in Workday | Field in Power BI | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Employee_ID | Workersleutel | |
Hire_Date, Termination_Date en Primary_Termination_Reason | Tabel dienstverbanden en verloop | |
Supervisory_Organization | Dimensie organisatie | With the parent organisation |
Cost_Center en Company | Dimensie kostenplaats en bedrijf | |
Location en country | Dimensie vestiging en land | |
Worker_Type en Time_Type | Dimensie soort dienstverband |
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