Loading SalesForce data into GoodData

About this example

The SFDC example shows how to create a GoodData project that models basic SFDC objects and populates the project directly from your SFDC account.

Windows:

c:> bin\gdi.bat -u <username> -p <password> examples\sfdc\sfdc.txt
Project id = 'wuw52aoc8z6rjvd1ufem23zxhdeuukm3' created.
Data successfully loaded.
Data successfully loaded.

Unix like OS (Linux, Mac OS X and others):

$ ./bin/gdi.sh -u <username> -p <password> examples/sfdc/sfdc.txt
Project id = 'wuw52aoc8z6rjvd1ufem23zxhdeuukm3' created.
Data successfully loaded.
Data successfully loaded.

Note: this example fetches sample data from GoodData’s demo account at SalesForce.

What’s Inside?

The sfdc.txt script brings the following entities into the project:

• date dimension associated with the opportunity creation using the UseDateDimension(name="Created");
• date dimension associated with closing an opportunity using the UseDateDimension(name="Closed");
• SFDC Account object; only the Id and Name fields are loaded as specified by the query parameter of the first UseSfdc command
• SFDC Opportunity object with Id, AccountId, IsWon, IsClosed, CloseDate, StageName, CreatedDate, ExpectedRevenue and Amount fields as specified by the query parameter of the second UseSfdc command

The Account and Opportunity data sets loaded by the UseSfdc commands are described by the account.xml and opportunity.xml configuration files. The configuration files describe the fields of the data sets in the order of fields occurence within the data sets.

For example, the opportunity.xml file describes the first field of the Opportunity data set as a CONNECTION_POINT, second as a REFERENCE to the Account data set, fourth and sixth as date fields belonging to closed and created date dimension and seventh and eighth as FACTs, i.e. a numeric value to be aggregated in GoodData.

The structure of the logical data model built on the top of these three data sets is as follows:

See the Quotes example for explanation what these boxes and ovals stand for.

For a more detailed description of joining multiple data sets refer to the HR example.

What next?

In order to customize this example to import your own SalesForce data into GoodData, you will need to change the SFDC username, password and security token parameters that are passed to UseSfdc and optionally GenerateSfdcConfig commands in the sfdc.txt script file.

Note: you need the Enterprise Editition of Salesforce to be able to access your Salesforce data using the API. Alternatively, the Professional Edition users may enable API access as an extra option.

Reset your SFDC security token

If you don’t know your SFDC security token, you can either ask your SFDC administrator for help or generate a new one using the following procedure:

1. Click the Setup link in SFDC menu:

1. Click the Reset security token:

1. Click the Reset security token button in the following confirmation screen:

An e-mail with the SFDC security token will arrive into your mailbox soon; please check your spam folder if it seems to take too long.

Add more objects and fields

In order to add more objects and/or fields you’ll need to pay attention to the UseSfdc and GenerateSfdcConfig commands in the sfdc.txt script. Note the GenerateSfdcConfig command is commented out in the sfdc.txt script, don’t forget to uncomment it first.

The query attribute of the UseSfdc command specifies a query writen in the Salesforce.com Object Query language also known as SOQL.

The most simple data set takes the form of SELECT <field1>, <field2>, ... FROM <object> such as the SELECT Id, Name FROM Account query used to defined the Accounts data set in this example. The API names of standard objects and their fields are listed in the Salesforce API documentation.

When adding a data set featuring custom fields or even custom object you need to know the API names of the custom fields. These API names can be found under the Setup menu of your Salesforce. For example, in order to get the API name of the Contract Value field of GoodData’s SalesForce we need to:

1. Click Setup in the main menu and expand App Setup / Customize / Opportunities / Fields items in the left menu bar:
2. Scroll down to the Opportunity Custom Fields & Relationships and click the Contract Value link
3. Check the API Name field in the following screen:

So the last thing I need to add the Contract_Value__c field API name to the query parameter of the opportunity related occurences of the UseSfdc and GenerateSfdcConfig commands in the sfdc.txt script.