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Activity › Forums › Salesforce® Discussions › What is a externalid in salesforce?

  • Saurabh

    Member
    April 11, 2017 at 2:33 PM

    Hi Manpreet

    Suppose we have account table in Salesforce and account table outside of the Salesforce (ex: .csv file, sql database). In Salesforce all the records can be identified with record id and outside of the Salesforce we can't recognize records with Salesforce id that is the reason to compare outside table and salesforce table in Salesforce for one of the field we have to enable external ID (we can enable external id for text, number, auto number and email). If we enable external id we can compare that particular column with the column which is available in external table. While comparing if the both column values are same then it will update otherwise it will insert.

    Hope it helps you:

     

  • shariq

    Member
    September 13, 2018 at 8:26 AM

    Hi,

    An external ID is a custom field that has the “External ID” attribute, meaning that it contains unique record identifiers from a system outside of Salesforce. When you select this option, the import wizard will detect existing records in Salesforce that have the same external ID.

    The External ID field allows you to store unique record IDs from an external system, typically for integration purposes.

    Salesforce allows you mark up to 3 fields as External IDs and these fields must be text, number or email field types. Values in these External ID field must also be unique and you can also determine whether or not value are case sensitive

    Hope this helps!

  • Parul

    Member
    September 13, 2018 at 11:38 AM

    Hi,

    This is a field that usually references an ID from another (external) system. For instance, if the customer has an Oracle Financials system that they will be linking with Salesforce, it may be easier for them to be able to refer to the Oracle ID of account records from within Salesforce. So they would create an external ID in Salesforce and they would load the Oracle ID into that field for each account. They can then refer to that ID field, rather than the Salesforce id.

    Additionally, if you have an external ID field, the field becomes searchable in the sidebar search. You also can use the upsert API call with the external ID to refer to records.

    You can have multiple records with the same external ID (though it is not recommended, as it will defeat the purpose of the external id)

     

    Thanks.

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