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Salesforce Integration – External Data Sources

OPTANIUM

Connecting external System by Clicks

Description:

Salesforce offers a variety of mechanisms inbuilt for connecting external systems in real time. SOAP, REST and a variety of integration adapters are available out of the box to push/pull data to/from external systems. Salesforce introduces External Data Sources which enables systems to integrate.

Salesforce provides a variety of adapters to connect with external systems. The available adapters are

  1. Salesforce Connect: OData 2.0

  2. Salesforce Connect: OData 4.0

  3. Federated Search: OpenSearch

  4. Outgoing Email

  5. Recommendation

  6. Salesforce Connect: Cross-Org

  7. Simple URL

For current demo, Integration will be performed to connect between salesforce Orgs using Salesforce Connect: Cross-Org option.

Prerequisites:

  1. Salesforce sandboxes

Integration Overview:

In current example, Integration will be performed by connecting Salesforce sandbox orgs to push/pull a custom object records. Custom object data will be pulled from Source system. Once integrated, data can be updated any of the system and changes will be reflected in other system. (???????)

Steps:

  1. Login to Salesforce target system by navigating to test.salesforce.com and enter Username and Password
  2. Click Setup and navigate to Develop -> External Data Sources and click on the New External Data Source button
  3. Enter the details as mentioned in the screenshot and click on the Save button

Note:

Salesforce also uses the adapters below to connect and integrate tables (?????????) from SAP NetWeaver Gateway, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and many other data sources in real time

  • OData 2.0 adapter or OData 4.0 adapter: connects to data exposed by any OData 2.0 or 4.0 producer on the Internet. OData (Open Data Protocol) is a modern, REST-based protocol for integrating data. Vendors such as SAP and Microsoft have already implemented OData support, so products such as NetWeaver and SharePoint are directly accessible. Integration products from Salesforce partners extend the reach of Salesforce Connect to a much wider range of back-office systems.
  • Cross-org adapter: Connects to data that’s stored in another Salesforce org. The Cross-org adapter uses the standard Force.com REST API. It directly connects to the other org without the need of an intermediary web service, as is the case with OData.
  • Custom adapter created via Apex: if the OData and cross-org adapters aren’t suitable for your needs, develop your own adapter with the Apex Connector Framework.
  1. Once the external data source information is saved, click on Validate and Synch button to retrieve the desired custom object records to be fetched
  2. Select the object needed to be synched and click on Synch button as mentioned below in screenshot.

  1.  Once synched, the selected object will be retrieved from Source system and created as an external object in Target system. Please refer the screenshot below

  1. Navigate to My Connected Data -> Authentication settings for External Systems in setup and enter the details as shown below. Note: The credentials of the source system user need to be entered. Salesforce also supports OAuth 2.0 authentication mechanism

    Click on Save button to finalize the authorization mechanism

Connectivity settings are completed and Settings related to accessibility and visibility will be followed

  1. Navigate to Administration Setup -> Manage Users -> Profiles and select the profiles for which the external object records to give necessary permission
  2. Select the Custom Object -> click Edit button and provide necessary Tab Settings , Object Permissions and Field Permissions
  3. Navigate to Develop -> External Objects and select the custom object. Select the Page layout responsible for the record detail view and arrange with available or needed fields and hit the Save button
  4. Navigate to Create -> Tab and click on the New Button under Custom object tabs to create a separate tab for the custom object
  5. Select the Custom Object from drop down, select tab style, select visibility setting for all profiles, and select the apps where this new tab needs to be included