Salesforce Connector

Salesforce is a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. The Salesforce Connector’s purpose is to unlock the data within this repository for use in SmartIQ. This connector focusses on treating Salesforce as a core system of record allowing processes to read and write information.

Here's a guide on how to install the Salesforce Extension to get started. This article will also provide a walkthrough on how to upgrade from your current Salesforce Connector to the compatible Salesforce Extension.

If you want to learn more about Salesforce, please visit:

salesforce.com

Salesforce.com: The Customer Success Platform To Grow Your Business

What's New

• Leveraging Action Inputs Key/Value type

The new Salesforce Action Input let you define Salesforce properties using the Action Input UI, which helps reducing syntax errors often seen in the previous version of the Salesforce Extension.

• Data Source Selectable Schema Fields

The new Data Source Selectable Schema Fields feature lets you choose a subset of the entire list of schema fields to use. The Salesforce data source extension can then be optimized to just select these fields instead of returning everything

• Data Source Schema Cache Expiration

To improve performance, the previous version of the Salesforce Data Source caches the results of the schema query for 60 seconds so that if other data source use the same Salesforce object we don't need to call the database for this information. The expiration time for this data source schema cache is now exposed under Salesforce Connector Setting to let you define Data source's schema cache duration in seconds.

Extension Components

Action

• Create Salesforce Object.
• Create Salesforce Document.
• Update Salesforce Object.

Data Source

• Picklist.
• All Picklists for an Object.
• Salesforce Object.

Features

• Query Salesforce Objects.
• Retrieve Salesforce Object Picklists.
• Create new Objects in Salesforce.
• Update existing Objects in Salesforce.
• Store documents in Salesforce.

Creating a Salesforce Sandbox

1. Create a new account here
2. You'll receive a confirmation email, click "Verify Account".
3. Change Password.

At this point, you have successfully created a Sandbox that you can use to develop and test your SmartIQ projects.

Where do I find my User Token?

You are given a security token the first time you log into Salesforce. If you cannot locate the token you can reset it by:

1. Logging into Salesforce as the relevant user
2. Click on your username in the top right corner
3. Choose Settings from the menu
4. Click My Personal Information
5. Click Reset our security token and follow the steps provided.

How to Generate a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret

The Salesforce Connector needs to access Salesforce data remotely. To grant access to this data Salesforce requires a “Connected App” be configured for remote access.

1. Logging into Salesforce as the relevant user.
2. Click on Setup in the top right corner.
3. Using left menu, click on App Manager under Apps section.
4. Click on New Connected App.
5. Enter the required basic information (Connected App Name, API Name and Contact Email).
6. Select Enable OAuth Settings.
7. Enter a Callback URL. Depending on which OAuth flow you use, this is typically the URL that a user’s browser is redirected to after successful authentication. Most of the time this is "https://login.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/token".
8. Add all supported OAuth scopes (Full access (full) is recommended) OAuth scopes to Selected OAuth Scopes.
9. Click Save.

Once you click save, the page will refresh with a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret. Take note of both as you'll need them for the connector settings.

For more information please click here

Configuring the connector settings

The Salesforce Connector exposes a number of connector settings which provide system-wide values to control behaviour or context.

1. In a web browser, navigate to the SmartIQ Manage application and log in.
2. Navigate to Settings in the Administration menu group, and then click the Connector Settings button at the top of the page.
3. Using the Connector drop-down list, select the ‘Salesforce Connector’ option.
4. Review and update the settings as required. The settings are described in the table below.
5. Click the Save button at the top of the page.

• These Connector Settings, apart from "Schema Cache Expiration", only apply to the Actions, they do not apply to the configuration of a Datasource.
• All of the settings are required to be filled for the Connector to operate.*

🚧

Note

To reduce the chance of unexpected downtime, it’s advisable that the Salesforce username being used in the Connector Settings be set to Never Expire.

Create Salesforce Object Action

Responsible for creating a new Objects in Salesforce, features include:

• Creating a new Standard or Custom Salesforce Object
• Field and picklist population including custom fields
• Upsert support based on a Salesforce defined external key
• Repeating Section Support

Using the Action in Design

Start a new or open an existing SmartIQ Project that requires the Create Salesforce Object functionality. It is best to get the form flow and business logic finished first so it is easily identifiable fields and logic need to be applied to the Action.
Once you’ve added the Create Salesforce Object Action to your project, either on the Finish page or on a workflow transition, use the following table to configure any action attributes that you require.

📘

Mandatory Fields

Mandatory action attributes are donated with a *. Use the table below to apply any action attributes that are appropriate.

The Action produces a single output which is the “ObjectId” which on success is populated with the unique identifier of the new or updated object in Salesforce.

Create Salesforce Document Action

Responsible for storage of documents from the SmartIQ generation into Salesforce. All documents passed to this action will be stored with their generated filenames against the defined object based on the attributes configured; features include:

• Storage of generated documents in Salesforce as ContentDocument Objects with their associated ContentVersion Object
• Population of ContentDocument fields
• Ability to set Sharing and Visibility attributes
• Automatically relating the documents to an Object
• Repeating Section Support

Using the Action in Design

Start a new or open an existing SmartIQ Project that requires the Create Salesforce Document functionality. It is best to get the form flow and business logic finished first so it is easily identifiable fields and logic need to be applied to the Action.
Once you’ve added the Create Salesforce Document Action to your project, either on the Finish page or on a workflow transition, use the following table to configure any action attributes that you require.

📘

Mandatory Fields

Mandatory action attributes are donated with a *. Use the table below to apply any action attributes that are appropriate.

Update Salesforce Object Action

Responsible for modifying an existing Object in Salesforce; features include:

• Set and Update fields including custom fields on the Object
• Repeating Section Support

Using the Action in Design

Start a new or open an existing SmartIQ Project that requires the Update Salesforce Object functionality. It is best to get the form flow and business logic finished first so it is easily identifiable fields and logic need to be applied to the Action.
Once you’ve added the Update Salesforce Object Action to your project, either on the Finish page or on a workflow transition, use the following table to configure any action attributes that you require.

📘

Mandatory Fields

Mandatory action attributes are donated with a *. Use the table below to apply any action attributes that are appropriate.

The Action produces a single output which is the “ObjectId” which on success is populated with the unique identifier of the updated object in Salesforce.

Salesforce Datasource

Responsible for querying information from a Salesforce instance; features include:

• Searching on standard and custom fields using Salesforce native query
• Ability to restrict which fields are queried and returned
• Retrieve picklist and dependent picklists for an Object
• Retrieve all picklists for a given object in a single call to enable reusability in the form

Configuring the Data Source

After installation, the Datasource type “Salesforce” will be available in Manage. Create a new Datasource of type “Salesforce" to reveal the configuration options.
The connection string is structured as a key=value pair separated by a semi-colon.
The possible keys are:

url=https://test.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/token;consumerkey=keyHere;consumersecret=codeHere;token=tokenHere

The Credentials area of the Connector settings is used to specify the username and password instead of using the name/value pair within the Connection String.

Click "Test Connection" button, a "Connection successful" message should

📘

Note

Refer to How to Generate a Consumer Key and Consumer Secret within this article if you’re unsure of the consumer key or consumer secret. Refer to Where do I find my User Token? for help finding and resetting the token value.

Adding Data Objects

The Datasource Provider employs Object Types to split the different functions available. Here are the Object Types included:

🚧

Important

Salesforce enforces a limit on the query length which SmartIQ can generate. This can mean that for Object Types with many field names the generated query may become too long, be truncated and return no data. This will typically occur with Account, Lead and Opportunity but could apply to any other Object type or Custom Object type.