Lightning Connect

General Info:

• Lightning connect give you capability to connect Salesforce with external sources / database / legacy System (SAP, Oracle etc.) with point and clicks.
• Access the external source data at real time without actually saving the external data in Salesforce.
• OData API service allows Lightning Connect to access data within third-party enterprise endpoints and applications, like SAP via OData, in real time and display the data virtually via the new External Objects.

Cost:

• Free in Developer Environment.
• Salesforce1 Lightning Connect is priced per data source and monthly subscription pricing starts at $4,000 per month.

Implementation Steps:

Connect via OData v2.0

  In below example, we used Odata v2 service.

Step #1      Click on:  Setup → Develop → External Data Source

Step # 2     Click on → New External Data Source Button

Step # 3     Specify the external source access URL and type of Connectivity.

Server URL: http://services.odata.org/V2/Northwind/Northwind.svc/

NOTE: Server URL will be your external System URL.

Step # 4    Click on: Validate and Sync button

If successfully synced, it will return all tables of the external Data base.

Here it returns following tables - 

Select the tables that want to sync with Salesforce. These tables will work as external Object for Salesforce.

Step # 5    After selected tables, click on Sync button.

After click on Sync button, Employees Table will be available as External object.

Step # 6     Access External Object:

Setup → Develop → External Objects → “Employees”

We can use this external object as like Salesforce objects. Create the fields / tabs / layouts and set the access permissions.

These objects have some limitations, please review the below link for consideration of External objects –

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=platform_connect_considerations.htm&language=en_US

Considerations -

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=platform_connect_considerations.htm&language=en_US

Snapshots -

 

External Object Tab & Real time data.

Lookup with External object

Detail Page, access all values of External database table