How to extract SuccessFactors data to Microsoft Excel

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In this article, our HR Technology director, Tom Rottiers, explains how to extract data from SuccessFactors into Microsoft Excel (and Google Sheets) using the ODATA API.

SuccessFactors has different API’s to perform basic CRUDQ operations:

• SFAPI
• ODATA API

Depending on the module that needs to be accessed, either SFAPI of ODATA is the preferred option.

The last releases, and especially in the Employee Central module, the ODATA support has become more important and is the go-forward solution of SAP.

What is interesting is that originally the ODATA protocol was initiated by Microsoft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Data_Protocol) and therefore very well supported by Microsoft products, like Excel for example.

Extraction of data from SuccessFactors directly in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets is done easily.

Extraction into Microsoft Excel:

Since Excel natively supports ODATA, it is just a matter of a few clicks to extract the data from SuccessFactors, no programming or scripting required.

In the following movie you can find a quick tutorial on how to do it.

Extraction into Google Sheets:

We also did an experiment to call the ODATA API from Google spreadsheets.

The test that we did was inspired by a post on Youtube by DJ Adams (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9FGqJFZbzQ)

With a little scripting in Google Sheets, we also managed to call the ODATA API and extract data. There is no demonstration video of this manipulation, please don't hesitate to contact us for more info.

These examples show how easy it is to access data stored in SuccessFactors using the ODATA API and using it for subsequent reporting or testing.

If you would like to learn more, feel free to contact us for a demo!