Salesforce
Look up accounts and contacts, and raise Cases, in Salesforce.
Relevant to schools whose community or enrolment records live in Salesforce, and to school groups where a central team runs Salesforce as the system of record for relationships.
| Category | CRM |
| Authentication | OAuth client credentials |
| Reaches | https://yourorg.my.salesforce.com |
| Needs an agent | No |
| Demo mode | Yes |
Capabilities
Section titled “Capabilities”crm.account.lookup, crm.contact.lookup, crm.case.create, crm.case.get
Creating the connected app
Section titled “Creating the connected app”- In Salesforce Setup, go to App Manager, New Connected App.
- Name it
Plugboard, and give a contact email. - Enable OAuth Settings.
- Callback URL: any valid URL. The client credentials flow does not use it, but the form requires one.
- Selected OAuth scopes: Manage user data via APIs (
api).
- Under Flow Enablement, enable Client Credentials Flow.
- Save, and wait. Salesforce takes up to ten minutes to make a new connected app usable, and the failure in the meantime looks like wrong credentials.
- Open the app, then Manage Consumer Details to reveal the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret.
- Back in Manage, set the Run As user for the client credentials flow. This is which user the integration acts as, so it determines what it can see.
Step 7 matters. Use a dedicated integration user with a profile scoped to what the connector needs, rather than a system administrator.
Configuring it in Plugboard
Section titled “Configuring it in Plugboard”Admin, Connectors, Salesforce, Configure.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”| Field | Default | Value |
|---|---|---|
baseUrl |
empty | Your instance URL, for example https://yourorg.my.salesforce.com |
demoMode |
false |
Return fixture data |
Use your My Domain instance URL, not login.salesforce.com.
Credentials
Section titled “Credentials”| Field | Value |
|---|---|
clientId |
The Consumer Key |
clientSecret |
The Consumer Secret |
Save and test.
What it does
Section titled “What it does”| Operation | Use |
|---|---|
| Account lookup | Find an organisation record |
| Contact lookup | Find a person |
| Case create | Raise a Case from work done in Plugboard |
| Case get | Read a Case back |
Sandbox first
Section titled “Sandbox first”Salesforce orgs are usually customised heavily, and a connector that creates Cases in a customised org will meet required fields and validation rules that nobody remembered.
Point this at a sandbox first. The instance URL for a sandbox is different, so switching to production later is a configuration change here and nothing else.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
invalid_client immediately after creating the app |
Salesforce has not finished propagating it. Wait ten minutes |
invalid_grant |
The client credentials flow is not enabled, or no Run As user is set |
| Authenticates, cannot see records | The Run As user’s profile or sharing rules exclude them |
| Case creation fails on a required field | An org customisation. Check the Case page layout and validation rules |
404 on the instance |
The base URL is the login URL rather than the My Domain instance URL |
| Fixture data appears | demoMode is still on |