Salesforce Ninja: An Elite Blog about Salesforce.com

Salesforce External Objects is a new tool that has caught my attention in recent times. Those who spend their day listening to words like REST, SOAP, Integration etc. the following information for you. Salesforce External Objects is nothing but the out-of-box implementation of ODATA architecture. ODATA is a open-source data transfer standard backed up by the Empire Microsoft (they are good guys now). Instead of an architecture of sending messages back and forth using HTTP like REST, ODATA focuses on the content of the message over HTTP. ODATA can also be compared with ATOMPUB format (RSS feed format). However ODATA is useful in sending tabular or data over HTTP, that example can also be sorted, searched, filtered and other URI conventions. In this second post on Lighting series I am going to delve deep into how Lighting Connect lets you access external data right into Salesforce. If you were living under the rock or in some place with no internet connect, here is the summary...

The world runs of Data. Having correct data can determine if your business succeeds or fails. Since the emergence of Cloud Computing, Data escaped its normal prison of sitting on servers and became relevant. But the most important aspect about cloud was data was not interchangeable. I.e., It escaped the prison but was trapped in a zoo. In a large organisation if there was a need for using more than one system to manage data, it became a development nightmare. Not to mention maintaining multiple connections and data consistency between two systems, middle-wares (if any) and still keeping it under the governor limits. Salesforce Lighting connect lets you overcome this limitation by using the (soon to be) global standard OData protocol. With external objects you can connect to an external data source like SAP or any other database that uses OData protocol or a simple URL. What this means is you can have orders in SAP and customer Data in Salesforce. Both will be connected togethe...