All You Need to Know About Salesforce Integrations

Integration

In Salesforce, integration refers to the process of connecting and combining different systems or applications to enable the exchange of data and functionality. It allows Salesforce to seamlessly communicate with other external systems, such as databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, marketing automation platforms, customer support systems, and more.

Fundamentals of Integration

The integration process starts with a callout in Salesforce, which involves initiating an HTTP request to an external system. A callout is typically used to retrieve data, perform actions, or invoke services in the external system. It requires specifying the endpoint URL, method (such as GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE), headers, and optional payload. Salesforce sends the request, and the external system processes it, returning a response.

Callout or request: In Salesforce, a callout refers to making a request from Salesforce to an external system or service. It involves sending an HTTP request to the target system's API endpoint to retrieve data, perform an action, or initiate a process. Callouts allow Salesforce to communicate with external systems and exchange information.
Endpoint URL: In simple words, an endpoint URL is like a web address that identifies a specific location or resource in an external system. It is the destination where you send your requests to access or interact with that system.
HTTP Methods: HTTP methods are like actions you can take when interacting with a web server.
Response: A response is the result returned by the external system to Salesforce after processing a request. It includes information such as the status of the request (success or failure), data retrieved, or additional details provided by the external system.

Don't forget to check out: Power Play: Mastering Salesforce Integration Patterns And Practices

Web Services

SOAP-based Web Services: SOAP is a protocol that defines a set of rules for structuring messages and exchanging XML-based data over HTTP, SMTP, or other protocols. SOAP web services use the XML format for data representation and rely on WSDL (Web Services Description Language) to describe the available operations, data types, and message formats. SOAP-based web services provide a rich set of standards for security, reliability, and transaction support.
RESTful Web Services: REST is an architectural style that uses HTTP protocols, such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, to interact with resources. RESTful web services follow a set of principles, including statelessness, uniform resource identification, and a client-server model. They typically use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for data exchange, and the endpoints are identified by URLs. RESTful web services are lightweight, scalable, and well-suited for building APIs that can be consumed by various clients, including web browsers, mobile applications, and other systems.

These are some mostly used HTTP methods:

GET: The GET method is used to retrieve data from a specified resource. It retrieves the representation of the resource identified by the provided URL. GET requests should be safe and not have any side effects on the server.
POST: The POST method is used to submit data to be processed by the identified resource. It typically results in the creation of a new resource or the execution of a specific action.
PUT: The PUT method is used to update or replace an existing resource with the provided representation. It replaces the entire resource at the given URL with the new representation provided in the request
PATCH: The PATCH method is used to partially update an existing resource. It provides a way to modify specific fields or properties of a resource without requiring the client to send the entire representation of the resource.
DELETE: The DELETE method is used to delete already existing resources.