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Salesforce Connections

Note

This feature may not be available in all product editions. For more information on available features, see Compare Editions.

You can create connections to your Salesforce instance from the Alteryx Analytics Cloud. This connector is designed as a wrapper around the Salesforce REST API.

Limitations

Note

During normal selection or import of an entire table, you may encounter an error indicating a problem with a specific column. Since some tables require filtering based on a particular column, data from them can only be ingested using custom SQL statements. In this case, the problematic column can be used as a filter in the WHERE clause of a custom SQL statement to ingest the table.

  • For more information, please consult the CData driver documentation for the specific table.

  • For more information on using custom SQL, see Create Dataset with SQL.

Note

For filtering date columns, this connection type supports a set of literal functions on dates. You can use these to reduce the volume of data extracted from the database using a custom SQL query. For more information, see the pg_dateliteralfunctions.htm page in the driver documentation for this connection type.

  • This is a read-only connection.

  • Single Sign-On (SSO) is not supported.

  • Custom domains are not supported.

  • You cannot ingest Salesforce tables that require mandatory filters.

Prerequisites

  • The account used to login from the Alteryx Analytics Cloud must access Salesforce through a security token.

    Note

    Please contact your Salesforce administrator for the Server Name and the Security Token values.

  • The logged-in user must have required access to the tables and schema.

Configure

To create this connection, in theConnections page, select the Applications tab. Click the Salesforce card. See Connections Page.

Modify the following properties as needed:

Property

Description

Server Name

Enter the host name of your Salesforce implementation. Example value:

exampleserver.salesforce.com

Connect String Options

Apply any connection string options that are part of your authentication to Salesforce. For more information, see below.

Credential Type

Select the type of credentials to provide with the connection:

  • SecurityToken - apply the security token that has been generated within the account to authenticate to Salesforce.

  • OAuth 2.0 - use OAuth 2.0 client connect to Salesforce. An OAuth 2.0 client may already be defined for you. For more information, see OAuth 2.0 for Salesforce.

    Note

    After you have specified the connection to use OAuth 2.0, click Authenticate to validate the connection with the target datastore. If you have modified the connection, click Re-authenticate to validate the new connection definition. You must re-authenticate if you receive an expired tokens message.

OAuth 2.0 Client

(OAuth 2.0 credential type) Select the OAuth 2.0 client to use.

User Name

(SecurityToken credential type) Username to use to connect to the database.

Password

(SecurityToken credential type) Password associated with the above username.

Security Token generated in account

(SecurityToken credential type) Paste the security token associated with the account to use for this connection.

Test Connection

(SecurityToken credential type) After you have defined the connection credentials type, credentials, and connection string, you can validate those credentials.

Default Column Data Type Inference

Set todisabledto prevent the platform from applying its own type inference to each column on import. The default value isenabled.

Connection Name

Display name of the connection

Connection Description

Description of the connection, which appears in the application.

Connect to Sandbox account

If you are connecting to a Salesforce sandbox account, the following property values must be modified:

Property

Sandbox Value

Server Name

test.salesforce.com

Connect String Options

Please append the following to your connect string options:

UseSandbox=true;

For more information, see below.

OAuth 2.0 client

Select Salesforce Sandbox.

User Name

(Security token credential type) Append the name of the sandbox environment to the end of the username. In the following, the sandbox environment is demo:

exampleUser@example.com.demo

Connect string options

Connection timeout

By default, the supported driver applies a connection timeout to Salesforce of 60 seconds. As needed, you can modify the connection timeout through connect string options:

timeout=<value_in_seconds>

where:

<value_in_seconds> corresponds to the number of seconds for the time.

Note

Although it is not recommended, you can set this value to 0 to disable timeouts.

Schema caching

By default, the connection driver uses schema caching to speed up ingestion. To surface changes to Salesforce tables/schema immediately, you can use the following options to disable schema caching by the connection:

Other='cachemetadatatable=false;cachemetadatatablecolumns=false;'

For more information, see https://cdn.cdata.com/help/RFH/jdbc/.

Create via API

This connection can also be created using the API.

Note

If you are using OAuth 2.0 authentication for this type, you cannot create connections via API.

  • Type: jdbc

  • Vendor: salesforce

For more information, see Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta: API Reference docs

Use

You can import datasets from Salesforce. See Database Browser.

Using Salesforce Connections

Uses of Salesforce

The Alteryx Analytics Cloud can use Salesforce for the following tasks:

  • Create datasets by reading from Salesforce tables.

Before you begin using Salesforce

Read Access:

  • Your Salesforce administrator must configure read permissions.

  • You must acquire a Salesforce security token for use with the Salesforce connection.

Secure access

SSL is the default connection method.

Storing data in Salesforce

Your Salesforce administrator should provide database access for storing datasets. Users should know where shared data is located and where personal data can be saved without interfering with or confusing other users.

Note

The Alteryx Analytics Cloud does not modify source data in Salesforce. Datasets sourced from Salesforce are read without modification from their source locations.

Reading from Salesforce

When the Alteryx Analytics Cloud connects to your Salesforce instance, the application can read from all Salesforce objects that are accessible through the Salesforce account in use, including:

  • Salesforce objects and fields are mapped to tables and columns

  • Standard and custom objects

    Note

    The names of custom objects are appended with the value _c.

  • Audit columns

  • System fields

Note

Unquoted identifiers are converted to uppercase during import.

You can create a Alteryx dataset from a table stored in Salesforce.

Writing to Salesforce

Not supported.

Reference

Supported Versions: n/a

Supported Environments:

  • Read: Supported

  • Write: Not supported

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