Accessing data from Salesforce

If you have Salesforce account, you can access and analyze data from Salesforce in Spotfire.

Prerequisites

You must have access to a Salesforce account.

Procedure

  1. On the authoring bar, click Files and data .
  2. In the Files and data flyout, click Connect to and select Salesforce.
  3. Click New connection.
    • You might have access to shared connections to Salesforce in the library, which you can open to access a prepared selection of data from the external data source. Shared connections are listed under In library. If you access data from a shared connection, you just log in and click OK.
  4. In the Load data from Salesforce dialog, choose your preferred way to log in:
    Option Description
    Log in with Salesforce

    This is typically the most convenient way to log in.

    Click to launch the Salesforce login procedure in a separate web browser window. Follow the instructions for logging in, and then return to Spotfire.

    Username and password (security token)

    If you want to log in directly in Spotfire, click to expand and display input fields for entering your username, password, and security token.

    Enter your credentials and click Log in.

    Note: If you have a Salesforce sandbox that you want to connect to, select the Sandbox check box.
  5. In the Reports and Tables lists, click to select which views to load.
    Selected views are added to the middle of the dialog. Each selected view will be loaded into Spotfire as a new data table.
  6. Click on a view in the middle of the dialog to see details for that specific view.
    Note: When you click on a view in the middle of the dialog, you will see all the columns that are included in that view. You can then choose which ones to include when the data is loaded. By default, all columns in a view are included.
  7. Click OK when you have added the views of interest, and selected which columns to include in each view.
    The selected data is added to the summary view in the flyout.
  8. In the flyout, you can change the name of the new data table. Click OK when you are satisfied.

Result

The selected data from Salesforce is loaded into Spotfire. You can configure your analysis so that the data is saved within the analysis instead of being reloaded each time the analysis is opened. See Storing data within the analysis to learn more about this.

Prerequisites for using the 'Log in with Salesforce' authentication in your Spotfire web client

Using Log in with Salesforce is the most convenient way to connect to Salesforce in Spotfire, and it also enables you to use federated authentication with your own custom domain. If you want to use the Salesforce login procedure in your Spotfire web client, your Spotfire administrator must have made certain configurations:

The Load data from Salesforce dialog

In this example, seven views have been selected from the Reports and Tables lists. Three of them are reports and four of them are tables. The middle part of the dialog shows the added views in a list. The view named 'Order' has been selected in the middle part of the dialog, and to the right, all the columns included in the 'Order' view are shown. Exclude columns that you do not want to load by clearing their corresponding check boxes. To rename columns, click on the pencil icon.

Tip: You can go back and edit the settings in this dialog from the Data canvas. See Editing a data connection for more information.
Limitations when loading Salesforce data in Spotfire web clients
If the Salesforce instance you want to load data from contains very large amounts of data, keep the following limitations in mind when you create or edit a Salesforce connection in a Spotfire web client:
  • If the Salesforce instance contains more than 1000 reports and tables, the search function in the Load data from Salesforce dialog is disabled.
  • You might encounter issues when you select and add new data from Salesforce if the total number of columns in all selected reports or tables exceeds 2000. You can, however, create an analysis with such a connection in a Spotfire installed client and open it in the web client.