What are External Objects in Salesforce?

Introduction

External Objects in Salesforce are the objects which are not inside Salesforce but we can access them from Salesforce and if needed we can also modify the records.

Let’s understand this with an example, in your project (order management) you are managing the customers inside salesforce but the orders are being fulfilled from another external system.

Now, your Support team that is working from Salesforce needs access to orders related to customers. Currently, the customers are login into external systems and finding the detail which is taking too much time.

The Support people are wondering if they can access all the details from within Salesforce.

External Objects are the solution to this problem which will let you access the records from external system without storing inside Salesforce.

Note: – External Objects are never stored inside Salesforce.

Create External Objects

To create the external objects in Salesforce, first, we need to create an External Data Source.

An External Data Source is the connection between Salesforce and External systems.

To Create the External Data Source

1. Login to Salesforce
2. From Setup Search for External Data Sources
3. Click “New External Data Sources”
4. Provide the Necessary details and save

In this blog post, we will use an unauthenticated Heroku URL and the URL is http://orderdb.herokuapp.com/orders.svc/

Usually, In real-time, there would be a proper authentication so that there is no data breach or data loss.

For external objects, these are types that are supported inside Salesforce.

• Files Connect: Google Drive
• Files Connect: SharePoint 2010 or 2013
• Files Connect: SharePoint Online or OneDrive for Business
• Files Connect: Box
• Simple URL: Data from Another Web Domain
• Salesforce Connect: OData 2.0
• Salesforce Connect: OData 4.0
• Salesforce Connect: Cross-Org
• Salesforce Connect: Custom
• Federated Search
• Xero
• Simple Url

Validate & Sync

Once you have created the external data source, the time is to validate if the connection is valid or not.

From the detail page of the external data source click on “Validate and Sync“.

If your connection is valid, then you will see the list of all the objects/tables that are exposed from external systems.

Check the below screenshots for reference

Create New Custom Object

There are use cases when you have created the external data source, validated, and synced the objects.

After that you need to create additional objects, then you can follow the below steps to create external objects.

1. From Setup, enter External Objects in the Quick Find box, then select External Objects.
2. Click New External Object, or click Edit to modify an existing external object.

Provides the necessary details

Add a Custom Tab

To access the external records in salesforce you have multiple options but the simpler option is to create the Custom Tab.

To create a custom follow the below step

1. Login to Salesforce
2. From the Setup Home, Search for Tabs & Select Tabs.
3. Click “New” under Custom Object Tabs
4. Select the Object from the dropdown, select the icon style and save

Check External Records

Open the custom tab that you have created. Select the listview to see the records.

Resources

https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.external_data_sources.htm&type=5