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Salesforce Lightning Connect

Version 22.0.8486

Salesforce Lightning Connect

This page outlines the steps to connect Salesforce Lightning Connect to your CData Connect OData Endpoint.

Prerequisites

Before you connect, you must first do the following:

  • Connect a data source to your CData Connect account. See Data Model for more information.

  • Configure your OData tables and columns from your data sources.

  • Generate an Authtoken on the Users page. Copy this down, as it acts as your password during authentication.

Note: To connect Salesforce Lightning Connect to CData Connect, your CData Connect instance must be hosted in an internet-facing server that is accessible to other entities through a stable URL (for example, myConnectInstance.cdata.com). If your instance of CData Connect is hosted locally and only accessible from a localhost address (for example, localhost:8080) or local network IP address (for example, 192.168.1.x), it will not be able to communicate with Salesforce Lightning Connect.

Connecting to CData Connect

To establish a connection from Salesforce Lightning Connect to your CData Connect OData API, follow these steps.

  1. Open Salesforce Setup (lightning experience).

  2. Navigate to Integrations > External Data Sources or type external data sources into the search bar.

  3. Click New External Data Source at the top of the table.

  4. Configure the data source fields:

    • Enter labels for the External Data Source and Name fields.

    • Type—select Salesforce Connect: OData 4.0

    • URL—enter the OData URL from the Salesforce Lightning Connect connection modal in CData Connect

    • Under Authentication, for Identity Type, select Named Principal.

    • Authentication Protocol—select Password Authentication.

    • Username—enter your CData Connect username as defined on the Users page.

    • Password—enter the Authtoken for the user.

  5. Click Save to save your external data source.

Create External Objects from Data

After you create your external data source, you must create external objects out of the data that you want to access in Salesforce Lightning Connect. Open your newly-created external data source and follow these steps:

  1. In the top button bar, click Validate and Sync.

  2. Check the Select box next to each table that you want to sync to Salesforce. If desired, also check the Sync in background box.

  3. Click Sync to synchronize the tables.

Your CData Connect external objects can be accessed and used like standard Salesforce objects. Salesforce has documentation about external objects and their uses.

Access External Objects

To manage your external objects, you can use one of the following methods:

  • Open your CData Connect connection in the Integrations > External Data Sources menu.

    • Your synchronized tables appear under the External Objects field.

    • Each table has buttons for Edit, Erase, and Validate.

    • Click the name of a table to open it in Object Manager.

  • Alternatively, navigate to Integrations > External Objects or type external objects into the search bar.

    • Your synchronized tables appear in the External Objects list with Edit and Erase options.

    • You can click the label of an object to open its details, or you can click the name of the External Data Source to open your connection information.