---
category: [Administration & Integrations, Platform and Product Extensions, Platform and Product Extensions/Integration, Administration & Integrations/Custom Integrations & Apps]
keyword: [Extend, Workday Query Language, WQL]
nav: wcp_docs
parent_url: /wcp_docs/
title: >- 
  Reference: WQL and RaaS Comparisons
layout: subsection
---

<a id="d506e314"></a>
Use the tables to compare how Workday Query Language (WQL) and Reports as a Service (RaaS) support the various ways you can extract data from Workday.

## <a id="d506e320"></a>Feature Support Summary

<table><thead><tr><th>Feature</th><th>Supported by WQL</th><th>Supported by RaaS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Access fields from a Global business object.</td><td>No</td><td>Yes</td></tr><tr><td>Use the percentile function as an aggregation operator in SELECT clauses.</td><td>No</td><td>Yes</td></tr><tr><td>Use the GROUP BY clause to aggregate results.</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Paginate results.</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr></tbody></table><br/>

## <a id="d506e392"></a>Use Cases

<table><thead><tr><th>Use Case</th><th>WQL Support</th><th>RaaS Support</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Group your extract by 1 or more dimensions.</td><td>Supported. <p>You can use the GROUP BY clause to aggregate results by various dimensions.</p></td><td>Not Supported.</td></tr><tr><td>Download the results in partitions instead of 1 large response.</td><td>Supported. <p>You can paginate results 10,000 rows at a time using the LIMIT and OFFSET parameters.</p></td><td>Not Supported.</td></tr><tr><td>Extract data using web services.</td><td>Supported with RESTful web services.</td><td>Supported with RESTful and SOAP web services.</td></tr><tr><td>Dynamically change the query extract without signing in to Workday.</td><td>Supported. <p>Because WQL requests are string values, you can change the request outside of Workday.</p></td><td>Supported. <p>You can dynamically update parameters in the URL.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Persist the definition of an extract to enable collaboration.</td><td>You can save a WQL query outside of Workday.</td><td>Supported. <p>RaaS is a Report as a Service and, as such, can persist report definitions in Workday.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Audit the extraction to identify changes and revert them as necessary.</td><td>Not Supported.</td><td>Supported. <p>Because RaaS persists report definitions, you can track changes through the Workday audit framework.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Extract data from multiple environments without having to create or migrate reports across tenants.</td><td>Supported. <p>You can change the request URL for WQL as needed to point to any tenant.</p></td><td>Not Supported. <p>To extract a report from another tenant, you must migrate the report to that tenant.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Extract small to moderately sized result sets.</td><td>Supported. <p>Up to 1 million rows.</p></td><td>Supported. <p>Up to 1 million rows.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Extract data within time limits.</td><td><ul><li>30-minute timeout for WQL requests from a Workday tenanted host.
</li><li>5-minute timeout for WQL API calls from the Workday Cloud Platform (WCP) Gateway (api.workday.com).
</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>6-hour timeout for RaaS SOAP and REST requests from a tenanted host. 
</li><li>5-minute timeout for RaaS API calls from the Workday Cloud Platform (WCP) Gateway (api.workday.com).
</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td>Extract results in multiple formats.</td><td><p>You can extract results in JSON.</p></td><td>Supported. You can extract results in these formats: <ul><li>CSV.
</li><li>GData.
</li><li>JSON.
</li><li>RSS.
</li><li>Simple XML.
</li><li>Workday XML.
</li></ul></td></tr><tr><td><p>Extract only the appropriate data for the issuing user.</p></td><td>Supported. <p>WQL honors object and data-level security based on the issuing user.</p></td><td>Supported. <p>RaaS honors object and data-level security based on the issuing user.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Create outbound integrations with only limited knowledge of Workday custom reports.</td><td>Supported. <p>You don't have to understand the Workday Report Writer to use WQL. WQL is similar to standard database languages.</p></td><td>You must have some knowledge of Workday reporting.</td></tr><tr><td>Start an integration from a Workday standard report.</td><td>Supported. <p>You can use the <b>Convert Report to WQL</b> report to convert Workday advanced and matrix reports to WQL.</p></td><td>Supported. <p>You can copy and customize standard and advanced reports for outbound integrations.</p></td></tr><tr><td>Programmatically explore any of these items: <ul><li>Data sources.
</li><li>Fields of data sources.
</li><li>Data source filters.
</li></ul></td><td>Supported. <p>WQL provides APIs for data sources, data source filters, and fields.</p> <p>To query any data sources, filters, and fields in WQL, you must have access to them in Workday.</p></td><td>Not Supported. <p>Create a report definition in Workday and complete the prompts for data sources, filters, and fields.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><br/>