Two-Way Integration with Writable External Objects

 Alexey Syomichev  Architect  asyomichev@salesforce.com  @syomichev  

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Safe Harbor

 Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) approach to data integration does not always work:

§  Has to be driven by an ETL system;

§  Synchronized dataset goes stale immediately;

  External Objects allow data integration without physically moving the data:

§  Back-office data is always up to date;

§  Now includes write access!

External Objects  Data Federation on Salesforce Platform

1.  Example of integration architecture

2.  External Data Source configuration

3.  Editing external objects

4.  Writing to external objects via API

5.  Writing to external object in Apex

6.  Questions

Session outline

Use case Example architecture

 Throughout this session we will be exploring an example integration consisting of:

§  Account data maintained in Salesforce;

§  Order data maintained in back-office system;

§  Relationship is by a business key

Data Integration Example

Setup Data Source configuration parameters

 Enable external writes using a new checkbox in data source parameters.

 To be configured as writable, an OData service must support additional HTTP verbs:

§  POST

§  PUT

§  MERGE/PATCH

§  DELETE

Configuration

Create, Edit, Delete Making changes in external data via UI

§  Standard UI for Edit, Create, Delete

§  Remote save is requested immediately

§  Any remote failure manifests as a user-visible error

Editing external objects

§  Create, Edit and Delete also supported in mobile UI

Mobile editing

API Saving or deleting external data via sObject API

§  Workbench

§  SOAP API

§  REST API

Multi-object save has to be homogeneous:

§  Transaction boundaries

§  “AllOrNothing” semantics

External writes with API

Apex Building complex data modification scenarios

 Apex allows to build logic that involves multiple related data modifications.

§  Local changes are added to the transaction and are committed together at the end of Apex context.

§  Remote changes are not tied to the transaction, and cannot be requested immediately while there is a local transaction open.

 Account acct = new Account(name = “SAP”);  insert acct;

 Opportunity oppt = new Opportunity(account = acct);  insert oppt;

 SalesOrder__x order = new SalesOrder__x();  order.account = acct;  insert order;

Complex scenarios

No distributed transactions or two-phase commit:

§  Salesforce core database has ACID properties: §  Atomic §  Consistent §  Isolated §  Durable

§  External writes follow BASE semantics: §  Basically available §  Soft state §  Eventually consistent

Transactional Semantics

In class System.Database there are new operations exclusively for external objects:

-  For insert, update and delete;

-  Of “immediate” and “async” behavior;

-  Async operations come with or without callback option

External CRUD operations

 Database.insertImmediate(obj);    Database.insertAsync(obj);    Database.insertAsync(obj,  cb);  

 Database.updateImmediate(obj);    Database.updateAsync(obj);    Database.updateAsync(obj,  cb);  

 Database.deleteImmediate(obj);    Database.deleteAsync(obj);    Database.deleteAsync(obj,  cb);  

Database.insertAsync()

 public void createOrder() {   SalesOrder__x order = new SalesOrder__x();   Database.SaveResult sr = Database.insertAsync(order);   if (!sr.isSuccess()) {   String locator = Database.getAsyncLocator(sr);   completeOrderCreation(locator);   }  }

 @future  public void completeOrderCreation(String locator) {   SaveResult sr = Database.getAsyncResult(locator);   if (sr.isSuccess()) {   System.debug(“sales order has been created”);   }  }

Asynchronous callback

 global class SaveCallback extends DataSource.AsyncSaveCallback {   override global void processSave(Database.SaveResult sr) {   if (sr.isSuccess()) {   System.debug("Save complete: Id = " + st.getId());   }   }  }

public void createOrder() {

  SalesOrder__x order = new SalesOrder__x();   SaveCallback callback = new SaveCallback();   Database.updateAsync(order, callback);  }

 Asynchronous external writes follow the eventual consistency model with BASE semantics, as opposed to ACID semantics of Salesforce core DB:

§  Reads performed shortly after writes may not reflect the changes

§  Writes will eventually reach the remote system

§  Even when Salesforce is the only writing system, remote data may change over time without current input: as queued up changes flow out, repeated reads may return different results

§  There is no ordering guarantees between writes issued from unrelated contexts

§  Conflict resolution strategy is up to the remote system, but in most naive configuration the latest change to be applied wins

§  Coordinated changes can be orchestrated with compensating transactions

Consistency Model – Design Considerations

 Asynchronous writes can be tracked by org admin in the BackgroundOperation sObject:

Monitoring

SELECT Id, Status, CreatedDate, StartedAt, FinishedAt, RetryCount, Error FROM BackgroundOperation WHERE Name = 'SalesOrder__x upsert' ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC

§  External writes are synchronous when performed via API or UI

§  API save cannot mix external and regular objects

§  Apex code can perform external writes only via Database.insertAsync() et al.

§  Database.insertAsync() is separate to avoid confusion with transactional insert()

§  Asynchronous writes offer eventual consistency model

§  Apex code cannot use insert()/update()/create() on external objects

§  Apex code can supply callbacks for compensating actions

§  Admin can monitor background write via API/SOQL

§  Available in Winter’16

Summary

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