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Ollie B Importing data from a flat file
I want to quickly get an idea of how easy it is to import data from a flat file like a csv into SalesForce. It is likely that my company will simply be providing the flat file, which will be FTPed out of the back of a website we're developing for a client who used SalesForce. I am told it is straightforward to set up an import routine. Is this true? Are there limitations to the format of a flat file being imported into the SalesForce system?
Hi Ollie,
The best place for this information is from your developer edition account. Login to Developer Edition at https://www.sforce.com/us/login.jsp?loc=de using your sforce user name and password and then goto https://na1.salesforce.com/setup/tools_setup.jsp. This page has all the information you need to learn about importing to salesforce.com.
From what I was told by SFDC sales and Prof sevices, and if I understood correctly, not everything can be imported in using the wizards. e.g. for contacts, the activity history cannot be imported.
For cases, there are no wizards and the only way to import is either to engage SFDC Professional services or to write a client yourself or use Data Junction.
If I were to write this myself, and not use Data Junction, it will be nice if there is a way for the SOAP client to read in a csv file and send data in batch form on to SFDC.
Is this possible. Or am I way off?
Thanks, sandip
Hi sandip,
<If I were to write this myself, and not use Data Junction, it will be nice if there is a way for the SOAP client to read in a csv file and send data in batch form on to SFDC.>
This you can do. In addition to using the batch call from the api, your soap client will need to be able to read and understand the contents of the flat file. There is no api function that takes a csv and creates records based on the csv, too many variable involved with the structure of the csv. So the way to go about this is to read the csv line by line. You will need to be able to know which column in the csv corresponds to which field of the entity you creating and the order that the csv file columns are in. You can then create an array of records to use with the batch call.