Integrations in Salesforce | All You Need to Know

So, let’s study integration in Salesforce!

Why do we need Integration?

So, we need integration when we want to connect two or more systems together. For example, let’s talk about Google and Salesforce, so if we want to show google drive files on our Salesforce page so both of them do not own the other’s server so here we need integration.

Integration

Integration is a mechanism where two or more systems can talk or send the data to each other via the www or open internet and in this way, they can act like one system because the user will be interacting with one system but he’s getting data from multiple systems.

Integration Fundamentals

Callout or Request: When system A wants to get some data from system B then system A needs to make a Request or Callout to system B now this process is called making a callout or making a request to system B from system A.
API Endpoint: The address where the callout request is targeted is called an endpoint. For example, A wants to get the account details from B, and the accounts data is stored in [ dummysystem.com/accounts ] this address. So, this address is called the Endpoint or API or API endpoint. The callout will be executed over the web or over HTTP protocol.
Authorization: Once system B receives request then it checks whether the system A is authorised or not to get the data through callout. If the user is authorised then it will make a call to the webservice (which can query the account records and then return the data). For example, getAccounts is the webservice in this case. So, then system B will query all these records and then it will return this response back to system A and this is how both of these systems can work together and we can show the data from system B inside the system A itself and the user will never know that the data is coming from the same server or the third-party server.

Don't forget to check out: Basic Understanding on Salesforce Integration | The Ultimate Guide

Web Services

REST: It is mostly used on web applications and it is faster and supports all types of devices, it works with JSON, XML, and other formats. (95% of the time we will use Rest Web Services)
SOAP: It is used in enterprise-level applications where we need more security and it only works with XML and is known to be more secure than REST.

Rest Web Services Methods

Get( Retrieves the data): In this method, we can query the existing records from our own database and return it back to the caller. Here we cannot do any DML operations like insert, update, etc.
Post(Insert new data): In this method, we can insert the new data and this new data will be coming from the caller or the third-party system that’s making a callout to your system. We get the record details in the API callout itself and then we can insert this data based on the success or failure we can return back the response to the API caller.
Put(Insert new data): This method acts like an upsert statement where if the data doesn’t exist then it will insert this data and if it exists then it will update the data.
Patch(Update the existing data): This method is used to update the existing data.
Delete(Delete the existing data): This method is used to delete the existing data.