Integration

(Redirected from Web Services API)

The Force.com Web Services API provides access to your Force.com data and logic. You can call the Web Services API from a wide variety of client-side languages. All of the functionality built into the Force.com on-demand platform is automatically part of any application that uses the Web Services API. Data validation, workflow, Apex triggers and the Force.com security scheme are just a few of the features that help you to integrate your external application with the Force.com platform.

What's Here

API Integration AJAX Adobe ColdFusion
Adobe Flex Google Java Mac OS X Cocoa
.Net and Visual Basic Perl PHP Python
Ruby on Rails Amazon Facebook S-controls  


API

Official Documentation

Force.com Web Services API Developer's Guide
Version 18.0 for Spring '10: HTML | PDF | ZIP | What's New | Samples | Earlier Versions
(Audience: Developers) Reference for the SOAP-based Force.com API.

Force.com Web Services API Cheat Sheet PDF
(Audience: Developers) Print it out and hang it on your wall for a handy quick reference.

Force.com Bulk API Developer's Guide
Version 18.0 for Spring '10: HTML | PDF | Earlier Versions
(Audience: Developers) Reference for the REST-based Bulk API, a way of rapidly loading large quantities of records into Salesforce.com.

Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL)
HTML | BNF
(Audience: Advanced Administrators and Developers) Reference and samples for writing SOQL queries.

Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL)
HTML
(Audience: Advanced Administrators and Developers) Reference and samples for writing SOSL queries.

Force.com Metadata API Developer's Guide
Version 18.0 for Spring '10: HTML | PDF | Earlier Versions
(Audience: Developers) Reference for the Metadata API, a way of retrieving and deploying setup information in your organization.

AJAX Toolkit Developer's Guide
Version 18.0 for Spring '10: HTML | PDF | ZIP | Earlier Versions
(Audience: Developers) Reference and samples for the AJAX Toolkit, an easy way of using the Force.com API in Javascript.

Force.com Office Toolkit Developer's Guide
Version 4.0: HTML | PDF | MSI Install
(Audience: Developers) Reference and samples for the Office Toolkit, an easy way of using the Force.com API from within Microsoft Office.

Articles and Presentations

Web Services API Cheat Sheet: A concise reference guide to the Web Services API.

Using the Force.com API: A very detailed series of articles from the O'Reilly Network. Author Tony Stubblebine uses Perl to construct a mashup between Salesforce.com and MovableType blogs, then packages the whole thing up.
Part I: An Introduction to Salesforce.com's AppExchange
Part II: Using the Force.com API
Part III: Packaging for Salesforce.com's AppExchange

Force.com SOA Deep Dive: Presentation from Dreamforce '07.

The Power of Force.com SOA: Demonstration of using Force.com SOA to integrate external data sources in your Force.com applications.

Introduction to the Force.com API: Presentation from Dreamforce 2005.

Apex Day: Creating Next Generation Mash-ups: Image:Key_icon.gif Creating mashups with Yahoo Maps and the Web Services API.

Simple Yahoo Maps Mashup: Code for Yahoo Maps mashup example.

Force.com Mashups++: The Latest Platform Features for the Best Composite Apps: Image:Key_icon.gif Building mashups in four ways with the Web Services API.

Performance

API Performance Tips: Summary of issues that you should consider to maximize the performance of your API requests and interactions.

Performance, Optimization, and Tuning for the API: Presentation on achieving optimal performance from the API.

Compression with Axis 1.3: Using Apache Axis 1.3 compression with the Web Services API.

Single Sign-On and Security

Single Sign-On Implementation Guide
(Audience: Administrators and Professional Developers) Information on configuring Salesforce apps to work with single sign-on solutions.

Security Implementation Guide
(Audience: Administrators and Professional Developers) A comprehensive overview of Force.com platform security features, including Apex and Visualforce coding for avoiding cross-site scripting and SOQL injection attacks.

How to Implement Single Sign-On with Force.com
Single Sign-On is a process that allows network users to access all authorized network resources without having to separately log in to each resource.

Single Sign-On for Force.com Clients
Implementing single sign-on for Force.com applications.

Single Sign-On and the Force.com API
Overview of how to use authentication and existing salesforce.com user name/passwords in other applications.

SAML and Delegated Authentication
Coverage of the difference between SAML and the delegated authentication scheme used by the API for LDAP and Active Directory integration

Weak SSL Deprecation
Notice describing the impending change to SSL support and known causes.

Technical topics

Email To Case: Using the Web Services API to pull information from emails and adding it to cases.

Note about Office Toolkit: Notice regarding support for Force.com Office Toolkit.

Using the Salesforce CSS in Your Apps: Instructions for using the Salesforce CSS to mimic our presentation.


Integration

Image:Icon video sm.gif Enterprise Integration Series: The Enterprise Integration series is designed to help you understand the integration capabilities built in the Force.com platform. This series consists of the following presentations -

Image:Icon video sm.gif Overview of Salesforce.com Enterprise Integration: This presentation introduces you to the various methods you can use to integrate the Force.com platform with your existing systems.
Image:Icon video sm.gif Web Services and Force.com SOA: This presentation covers how to expose your Apex Code to the outside world as a Web service, and how to access Web services from the Force.com environment.
Image:Icon video sm.gif Data Loader: This presentation covers the use of the Data Loader tool to move data in and out of the Force.com environment..

Designing Salesforce Integrations with Force.com: Overview of integration strategies for the Force.com platform.

Enterprise Integration: Combining the Force.com Platform with Your Architecture: Presentation from Dreamforce '07.

Oracle and MySQL examples: Article on creating matching database tables for Salesforce.com objects in Oracle and MySQL.

AJAX Toolkit

The AJAX Toolkit is a JavaScript wrapper around the Web Services API.

Official Documentation

AJAX Toolkit Developer's Guide
Version 18.0 for Spring '10: HTML | PDF | ZIP | Earlier Versions
Version 17.0 for Winter '10: HTML | PDF | ZIP | Earlier Versions
(Audience: Developers) Reference and samples for the AJAX Toolkit, an easy way of using the Force.com API in Javascript.

Articles

Ajax Proxy: Using Force.com SOA to access domains other than salesforce.com.

Code samples

Simple AJAX Query- Show me the code! Drop this Sample AJAX into an SControl HTML body, save it and run it from a custom link.

AJAX Toolkit + S-control Hello World Example: Basic example of using AJAX in an s-control.

Ajax Tools: This Force.com app provides forty six AJAX Toolkit 8.0 samples and DOJO/UI samples. Install the app into your Developer Edition account to view and run samples.

Yahoo Maps Mashup From Apex Day- Mashup using AJAX and the Web Services API to provide the ability to find contacts in the same City by clicking the Find Nearby link at the bottom of the opportunity list.

Send Emails Through S-Controls: This code example allows you to send emails through the new Email API. You can CC and BCC email addresses, include your email signature, send text or HTML email.

Create a many to many relationship with a multi-select picklist: This code example is an scontrol that uses the AJAX toolkit to insert rows into a joiner table. It does date formatting and accepts user input.

Get Template Folder Names: Instructions for how to decode personal and public folder names, when selecting templates from folders.

Migrating S-Controls to API and AJAX: Moving from s-controls prior to Winter '07 to AJAX code and the Web Services API.

Nitobi: Dave and Andre build an awesome contact manager using AJAX and Adobe AIR, see their article here. There is some very interesting work here with off line features in mind, check it out.

Displaying multiple records with an s-control

Using special characters

Adobe ColdFusion

SalesForceCFC
Basic Web2Lead Implementation

Adobe Flex

Flex Toolkit: Everything you need to use Flex with the Web Services API.

Building Rich Internet Apps for Businesses: Image:Key_icon.gif: Watch a screencast of the June 27, 2007 live webinar.

Make Your App *Bling* - Build Amazing Force.com Applications Using Adobe Technologies: Presentation from Dreamforce '07

Using the Flex Toolkit to Develop Rich UIs for Force.com Apps: Dreamforce '07 presentation on using Flex for rich client interfaces to the Force.com platform.

Build On-Demand Apps with Adobe Flex: Image:Key_icon.gif: Information and download link for Force.com Toolkit for Eclipse, which allows you to use Eclipse to develop Force.com applications, including those with Adobe Flex.

Getting Started with Flex Toolkit for Force.com: Quick start that shows you what you can accomplish for using Flex with the API.

Turbo-charging AppExchange with Rich Apps: Creating a rich user interface for your Force.com applications with Flex.

Tutorial: Creating Flex Force.com Mashups: Overview of using the Flex Toolkit to create Force.com applications.

Tutorial: Creating Flex charts without much programming.: Add Flash charts to Force.com with little effort.

Code samples

Flex Hello World: Simple example using Flex and the Web Services API.

Building a FLEX S-Control Mash-Up: Bringing a rich Flex interface to a Force.com application.

Apollo Sample: Sample using Apollo, now known as Adobe Integrated Runtime.

Flex AJAX Bridge Source: Acts as a bridge between the AJAX and Flex environments.

Flex Pie Chart MXML Source: Code used to create a Flex pie chart.

Nitobi: Dave and Andre build an awesome contact manager using AJAX and Adobe AIR, see their article here. There is some very interesting work here with off line features in mind, check it out.

Displaying multiple records with an s-control

Displaying a Flex application in your Force.com application

Google

Force.com Google Data API Toolkit: This toolkit makes it easy to develop Force.com applications that make the most of the capabilities of Google Data APIs, including read and write access to data and content in Google Apps.

Force.com for Google App Engine: This Python or Java library lets you access the Force.com Web services API from within Google App Engine applications. The library is open source, and we've got an installation and user guide to help you start coding.

Webinar: Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs: An archived webinar showing how to get started with the toolkit.

Tech Talk: Force.com for Google App Engine for Java: Learn how to connect the Force.com and Google App Engine clouds.

Building the Ultimate Google & Salesforce Mashup: Presentation from Dreamforce '07.

Google Gears Demo Screencast: Demonstration of using Google Gears with the Force.com platform.

Building Offline Force.com Applications with Google Gears and Google Web Toolkit: A complete description of how to create offline applications with Google Gears.

Building a Google Calendar Mash-up with Force.com SOA Login to Google Data API using the sample code in this article, includes an AppExchange package. Demonstrates the Force.com SOA JavaScript Proxy feature to call out to Google's data APIs.

Business Mashups: Best of the Web APIs: Using APIs from Yahoo and Google in your Force.com applications.

Google Maps + Google Search + API: Code for s-control using two Google APIs.

Google Resource Center: Home page for further documentation resources for using Google APIs with the Force.com platform.

Java

Screencast:Authenticating against the Force.com Web Services API using Java and Apache Axis

Creating an Outbound Messaging Notification Service with Eclipse 3.2: Describes all the steps to create a Force.com outbound messaging service with Apache and Eclipse.

Migrating from Axis 1.1 to Axis 1.2: Potential 'gotchas' for this migration.

Compression with Axis 1.3: Using Apache Axis 1.3 compression with the Web Services API.


Code Samples

Java Quick Start: Executable JAR and source containing core API samples for required external libraries, including Apache Axis 1.4

JAX-WS Quick Start: Executable JAR and source containing core API samples for JAX-WS 2.1

Enterprise WSDL Samples 9.0: Sample code that demonstrates accessing all methods of the API using the Enterprise (strongly typed) WSDL and Java

Java Partner WSDL Samples 10.0

Partner WSDL Samples 9.0: Sample code to that demonstrates accessing all methods of the API using the Partner (weakly typed) WSDL and Java

JSP Samples 9.0: This sample demonstrates two methods of using the API from an externally available web server. The sample requires that you have Jakarta Tomcat 5.5 and Apache Axis 1.4 installed in your environment.

Send_Emails_Via_Eclipse Send Email Example 9.0: This example demonstrates two ways of sending emails using the API: Single Emails and Mass Emails. The sample requires that you have Jakarta Tomcat 5.5.20 and Apache Axis 1.4 installed in your environment.

Batching record writes for Java

Using Query More with Java

Logging in with Java

Checking for active session with Java

Two Relationship Queries with Java

Wrapper class for common API functions in Java

Creating a Job record with Enterprise WSDL and Java

Java code

Mac OS X Cocoa

Cocoa for Force.com API: Simon Fell's tookit provides access to the Force.com API from Objective C / Xcode, allowing you to build native Mac OS X apps that talk to your Force.com apps.

.Net and Visual Basic

Official Documentation

Force.com Office Toolkit Developer's Guide
Version 4.0: HTML | PDF | MSI Install
(Audience: Developers) Reference and samples for the Office Toolkit, an easy way of using the Force.com API from within Microsoft Office.

Other Resources

DateTime in .NET 2.0: Hotfix for parsing issue.

More Tips and Tricks: Learn from the pros, favorite tips and tricks from the blogs.

Force.com for ASP.NET Developers: This article provides a dive deep into using the Force.com Platform Web Services to access your Salesforce.com data from within a Visualforce page or from within a Microsoft ASP.NET Web form.

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif Toolkits

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif Salesforce Dotnet API - This toolkit makes it easy to perform API method calls from within .NET and ASP.NET. Requires .NET 2.0+.

Code Samples

Quick Start: Sample code and pre-compiled console application and source containing core API samples.

C# .NET Samples: Sample code and pre-compiled console application that demonstrates accessing all methods of the API using Microsoft CSharp. This package contains both Enterprise (strongly typed) and Partner (weakly typed) API samples.

Visual Basic .NET Samples: Sample code and pre-compiled console application that demonstrates accessing all methods of the API using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET. This package contains both Enterprise (strongly typed) and Partner (weakly typed) API samples.

ASP Samples: This sample demonstrates two methods of using the Force.com API from an externally available web server. The sample requires Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0.

Creating an Outbound Messaging Notification Service with C# and .Net Framework 2.0: Learn how to create and test your Outbound Messaging Notification Service on the .NET Framework 2.0.

SOAP Compression: Learn how to achieve performance gains and bandwidth savings by simple modifications to your client code.

Batching record writes for .Net

Using Query More with .Net

Logging in with .Net

Checking for active session with .Net

Wrapper class for common API functions in .Net

Creating a Job record with Enterprise WSDL and .Net

Creating a Job record with Partner WSDL and .Net

CSharp code

VB code

Perl

Perl Toolkit: Toolkit for accessing the Force.com Web Services API from Perl.

Perl SPAN DBD Salesforce Module: Toolkit for accessing the Force.com Web Services API from Perl.

Using the Force.com API: Very detailed series of articles from the O'Reilly Network. Author Tony Stubblebine uses Perl to construct a mashup between Salesforce.com and MovableType blogs, then packages the whole thing up.
Part I: An Introduction to Salesforce.com's AppExchange
Part II: Using the Force.com API
Part III: Packaging for Salesforce.com's AppExchange

PHP

Developing on Force.com Using PHP: Overview and example of using the Force.com API from within PHP (Dreamforce 07)

PHP and Rails with AppExchange: Overview and example of using the Force.com API from within PHP and Ruby on Rails (Dreamforce 06)

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif Toolkits

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif PHP Toolkit - This toolkit makes it easy to perform API method calls from within PHP. Requires PHP 5.2+.

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif Self-Service Portal Toolkit for PHP 5: This toolkit makes it easy to embed the salesforce.com Self-Service Portal within an existing PHP web application.

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif PHP Bulk API Client: PHP Client for interacting with the Force.com Bulk API. Includes sample code and instructions.

Code Samples

Creating Email Reports in PHP: Learn how to use PHP to query the API, format the results, and send the output to an email address.

Simple PHP Authentication Service

Saleforce PHP Upsert Tutorial #1: This tutorial will focus on using Oracle as the local database and pushing data to Salesforce.com using the upsert command, which combines insert and update functionality.

Saleforce PHP Tutorial #2: Working with large data sets

Simple Web2Lead Implementation

Self Service User Validation Example: How to validate self-service user login information using a modified login call.

Python

Beatbox: A Python adapter that provides access to Salesforce.com data and metadata via the Force.com API. The code is provided under the GPL open source license.

Suds: Suds is a lightweight SOAP python client for consuming Web Services. Unlike Beatbox, it consumes wsdls, so can provide new functionality as it is released by Salesforce.

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif Toolkits

Image:Icon toolkit sm.gif Python Toolkit - Built on top of Suds, the Toolkit handles the SOAP implementation details, allowing developers to focus on the Salesforce API. Requires Suds 0.3.6+.

Ruby on Rails

PHP with Rails with AppExchange: Presentation from Dreamforce '06 on using PHP and Ruby on Rails.

ActiveSalesforce: A Ruby on Rails framework connection adapter that provides direct access to Salesforce.com data and metadata via the Force.com API and the ActiveRecord model layer. The code is provided as an unsupported open source project via RubyForge.

Salesforce Scraper Using Ruby on Rails: On the subWindow Blog, Erik Peterson builds a mashup between Salesforce and a Postgres database.

Amazon

Force.com for Amazon Web Services: This toolkit exposes the Amazon Web Services Simple Storage System (S3) services natively in the Force.com environment. Apex code wraps the S3 API and access methods, making them directly available to your own application code.

Facebook

Force.com for Facebook: Force.com for Facebook gives you direct access to the Facebook APIs from within Apex Code, letting you create new social graph applications and user experiences that connect directly to the Force.com platform.

S-controls

Demystifying S-Controls and AJAX: Learn what S-controls are and how to build them using AJAX.

Code Samples

Basic s-control: Standard 'Hello World' s-control.

S-control title snippet: S-control that calls another s-control snippet.

S-control snippet: Snippet called by above example.

Using SOSL in an s-control

Implementing Salesforce.com look and feel in an s-control

Sending data to a mobile phone from an s-control

Accessing a Web service from an s-control

The Web service called by the previous example.

S-Controls and AJAX: Showing a pull-down list of related contacts