Get Started with Workday Live Data Query

Workday Live Data Query (LDQ) enables real-time SQL access from external systems to Workday's core business objects without using ETL or data replication. External clients query data within Workday on demand through a JDBC or Python driver.

Follow these steps to get started with LDQ:

Configurate Authentication in Workday
Connect from External Client
Review the Data Cloud Catalog
Query Workday Data

Familiarize yourself with LDQ authentication below and configure the authentication method that suits your needs.

You can set up your LDQ connection with either of these authentication methods:

	Integration System User (ISU)	User As Self (UAS)
Description	Allows the external system to authenticate as a dedicated, non-person system account. Access to data is limited to the tables and columns authorized for the ISU through domain permissions.	User logs in through a browser session to authenticate the connection. Data access is determined by user’s permissions according to Workday's full security model.
Security Scope	Tables, Columns	Tables, Columns, Rows, Cells, Contextual Security
Security Controls	Unconstrained security groups > Domain permissions	Full Workday security model enforced externally. Functional area scope configured on API client.
OAuth Mechanism	Public/private key pair.	Client ID, client secret, and browser-based login.
Suggested Usage	Data platforms (Example: Snowflake)	Analytics tools (Example: Tableau) AI/LLMs/Agents (Example: Gemini)
Setup Instructions	Set Up Live Data Query ISU Authentication in Workday	Set Up Live Data Query User-as-Self Authentication in Workday

After you set up LDQ authentication, you can connect to LDQ from your external system. As a starting point, we recommend attempting a connection from DBeaver first.

Live Data Query offers these combinations of external clients and drivers:

Assess what objects are available to query and the security domains that govern access to them. See Data Cloud Catalog for information how to read the catalog.

After you’ve established a data connection from the external client with the driver, you can run SQL statements to query Workday data. See Query Workday Data Using Live Data Query.