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Graeme WetenhallGraeme Wetenhall 

Can i use Salesforce as a database behind my website?

Hello, 

I have a project coming up and I am interested in finding out if salesforce can be used to tackle it. 

Basically we are building a website that enables users to join, choose between one of two types of accounts and then search our database of users for other users. 

We would use Salesforce as the backend database that saves all our user informtion once they sign up via the website. They would need to have access to their profile to update it and make amends etc. 

Also we would need to create a search page that basically quieries the salesforce database and pulls back information such as users and some of their saved information. The search would need to have a filter option to enable people searching the database to change the requirements of the search and get specific results... Ie location, skills etc. 

Is this all possible via sales force and if so is there any documentation on how to do it?

Also what languages would I need to use to achieve this? Im thinking php? 
Thanks

sharathchandra thukkanisharathchandra thukkani
Yes you can use salesforce i can think of force.com sites to implement this.

below are the refrence links:

https://developer.salesforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Force.com_Sites (https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Sites)

https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Sites
Graeme WetenhallGraeme Wetenhall

Force.com does not really seem to be what im looking for. We would want to develop our website inhouse and host it our self. We just want to access a salesforce instance to send and and retrieve data and display it on our website. 

Is this possible outside of force.com sites?

For example can I have a sign up form on our website that creates a new contact and assigns it properties and fills in the name, last name and other custom fields? 

Also we would then need a search quiery that searches our contacts in the salesforce database and lists contacts depending on the queiry set. 

Thanks

Chris  ByromChris Byrom
You could theoretically do all of this with the SOAP and/or REST APIs. If you are trying to make user records using contacts or something else, that will violate SF's Terms of Use for sure. You aren't allowed to create your own "user" records without paying for licensing for portal/community users.
sharathchandra thukkanisharathchandra thukkani
Hello Graeme, You can achieve it please go through the below URL for reference.

https://developer.salesforce.com/page/PHP_Toolkit
Rakesh51Rakesh51
Chris is right; you can use the SOAP and REST APIs to retrieve the data from Salesforce Database and perform an action as you want.