ODBC and/or WebService Connection to SalesForce, what are the challenges?

[rdougherty]

Hello,

I've been told by my IT dept that this is not possible, but I am skeptical. I have found that there are 3rd party drivers that claim to help. Are they really needed?

Won't the ODBC Driver for windows already provide this capability? If not, what is missing/wrong?

As another route, what about Web Services? What type of authentication details are needed, because using just my username and password for the instance of Salesforce fails.


Essentially, I am hoping to find some details my IT dept has not found, and show them what is possible.

Am I correct, in assuming that one should not need to simply run a report within Salesforce, export it, and then import it into Access? Our reports already time out and fail to pull large numbers of records. HOpefully, this would alleviate that.

Thanks,

Also - if you are interested, here is a post I made for similar issues with SharePoint:


https://www.accessforums.net/showthread.php?t=72957

[ranman256]

If you cannot find an ODBC that works,
You could export to excel, and access can use excel as the table.

[rdougherty]

Thanks, but that is precisely what I am trying to avoid

Our reports already time out and fail to pull large numbers of records. HOpefully, this would alleviate that

Additinoally, there is limited functionality within the Salesforce reporting interface, including not being able to freely create your own queries and needing to accept template reports rather than having full customization.

[ssanfu]

Won't the ODBC Driver for windows already provide this capability? If not, what is missing/wrong?

There is not one ODBC driver that will fit everything. Plus you would need permissions to be able to get into their network.
What database is SalesForce using? Oracle? DB2? MySQL? MS SQL Server?

Additinoally, there is limited functionality within the Salesforce reporting interface, including not being able to freely create your own queries and needing to accept template reports rather than having full customization.

So if you owned a big business, you would allow any Tom, Dick or Larry to start creating queries and reports willy-nilly in your database?

You appear to be able to log into their portal and run reports. You would need to get with SalesForce and try to get them to create reports that you want to see or have an export function to send data you want to your dB. But you won't be able to log in and grab data without SalesForce allowing you to do so.


Good luck with your project.

[rdougherty]

Sorry, resurrecting this because I have the same outstanding need, which I am having trouble finding solutions to. Within MS Access, it lists "Salesforce" as an "Online Service" you can connect to. Does anyone here have experience connecting to any Salesforce.com sites? I am not seeking connection credentials, as implied by the response above. I am searching for someone who has experience connecting to something they already have access to, to see what challenges there were to getting the connection to work properly.

Do we have anyone on this site who knows?