Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink Connector for Confluent Cloud

The fully-managed Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink connector for Confluent Cloud integrates Salesforce.com with Apache Kafka®. The connector performs insert, update, and delete operations on Salesforce SObjects using records available in Kafka topics and writes them to Salesforce. This connector uses Salesforce Bulk API 2.0.

Features

The Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink connector provides the following features:

  • API 2.0: Supports Salesforce Bulk API 2.0.
  • At least once delivery: The connector guarantees that records are delivered at least once to the Kafka topic. If the connector restarts, there could be duplicate records in the Kafka topic.
  • Supported data formats: The connector supports Avro, JSON Schema (JSON_SR), and Protobuf output data. Schema Registry must be enabled to use a Schema Registry-based format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR, or Protobuf). See Schema Registry Enabled Environments for additional information.
  • Supports multiple tasks: The connector supports running one or more tasks. More tasks may improve performance (that is, consumer lag is reduced with multiple tasks running).

For more information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for Connect, see the Confluent Cloud API for Managed and Custom Connectors section.

Limitations

Be sure to review the following information.

Quick Start

Use this quick start to get up and running with the Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink connector. The quick start provides the basics of selecting the connector and configuring it to capture records and record changes from Kafka topics.

Prerequisites
  • Kafka cluster credentials. The following lists the different ways you can provide credentials.
    • Enter an existing service account resource ID.
    • Create a Confluent Cloud service account for the connector. Make sure to review the ACL entries required in the service account documentation. Some connectors have specific ACL requirements.
    • Create a Confluent Cloud API key and secret. To create a key and secret, you can use confluent api-key create or you can autogenerate the API key and secret directly in the Cloud Console when setting up the connector.

Using the Confluent Cloud Console

Step 1: Launch your Confluent Cloud cluster

See the Quick Start for Confluent Cloud for installation instructions.

Step 2: Add a connector

In the left navigation menu, click Connectors. If you already have connectors in your cluster, click + Add connector.

Step 3: Select your connector

Click the Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink connector card.

Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink Connector Card

Important

At least one topic must exist in your Confluent Cloud cluster before creating the connector.

Step 4: Enter the connector details

Note

  • Make sure you have all your prerequisites completed.
  • An asterisk ( * ) designates a required entry.

At the Add Salesforce Bulk API 2.0 Sink Connector screen, complete the following:

Select the topic you want to send data to from the Topics list. To create a new topic, click +Add new topic.

Step 5: Check for records

Verify that records are being produced at the endpoint. For additional information, see Considerations.

For more information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for Connect, see the Confluent Cloud API for Managed and Custom Connectors section.

Using the Confluent CLI

Complete the following steps to set up and run the connector using the Confluent CLI.

Important

Make sure you have all your prerequisites completed.

Step 1: List the available connectors

Enter the following command to list available connectors:

confluent connect plugin list

Step 2: List the connector configuration properties

Enter the following command to show the connector configuration properties:

confluent connect plugin describe <connector-plugin-name>

The command output shows the required and optional configuration properties.

Step 3: Create the connector configuration file

Create a JSON file that contains the connector configuration properties. The following example shows the required connector properties.

{
  "connector.class": "SalesforceBulkApiV2Sink,
  "name": "SalesforceBulkApiV2Sink_0",
  "kafka.auth.mode": "KAFKA_API_KEY",
  "kafka.api.key": "<my-kafka-api-key>",
  "kafka.api.secret": "<my-kafka-api-secret>",
  "topics": "TestBulkAPI",
  "input.data.format": "AVRO",
  "salesforce.grant.type": "PASSWORD",
  "salesforce.username": "<my-username>",
  "salesforce.password": "**************",
  "salesforce.password.token": "************************",
  "salesforce.consumer.key": "**************",
  "salesforce.consumer.secret": "************************",
  "salesforce.object": "<SObject-name>","
  "tasks.max": "1"
}

Note the following property definitions:

  • "connector.class": Identifies the connector plugin name.
  • "name": Sets a name for your new connector.

  • "kafka.auth.mode": Identifies the connector authentication mode you want to use. There are two options: SERVICE_ACCOUNT or KAFKA_API_KEY (the default). To use an API key and secret, specify the configuration properties kafka.api.key and kafka.api.secret, as shown in the example configuration (above). To use a service account, specify the Resource ID in the property kafka.service.account.id=<service-account-resource-ID>. To list the available service account resource IDs, use the following command:

    confluent iam service-account list

    For example:

    confluent iam service-account list

   Id     | Resource ID |       Name        |    Description
+---------+-------------+-------------------+-------------------
   123456 | sa-l1r23m   | sa-1              | Service account 1
   789101 | sa-l4d56p   | sa-2              | Service account 2

  • ""topics": Enter a Kafka topic name or a comma-separated list of topics. A topic must exist before launching the connector.

  • "input.data.format": Sets the input data format (data coming from the Kafka topic): AVRO, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or PROTOBUF. A valid schema must be available in Schema Registry to use a schema-based message format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf). See Schema Registry Enabled Environments for additional information.

  • "salesforce.grant.type": Sets the authentication grant type to PASSWORD (username+password) or JWT_BEARER (Salesforce JSON Web Token (JWT)). Defaults to PASSWORD.

    Note

    The following properties are used based on the salesforce.grant.type you choose.

    • JWT_BEARER: Requires username, consumer key, JWT keystore file, and JWT keystore password.
    • PASSWORD: Requires username, password, password token, consumer key, and consumer secret.

  • "salesforce.username": The Salesforce username for the connector to use.

  • "salesforce.password": The Salesforce username password.

  • "salesforce.password.token": The Salesforce security token associated with the username.

  • "salesforce.consumer.key": The consumer key for the OAuth application.

  • "salesforce.consumer.secret": The consumer secret for the OAuth application.

  • "salesforce.jwt.keystore.file": Salesforce JWT keystore file. The JWT keystore file is a binary file and you supply the contents of the file in the property encoded in Base64. To use the salesforce.jwt.keystore.file property, encode the keystore contents in Base64, take the encoded string, add the data:text/plain:base64 prefix, and then use the entire string as the property entry. For example:

    "salesforce.jwt.keystore.file" : "data:text/plain;base64,/u3+7QAAAAIAAAACAAAAGY2xpZ...==",
"salesforce.jwt.keystore.password" : "<password>",

  • "salesforce.jwt.keystore.password": Enter the password used to access the JWT keystore file.

  • ""salesforce.object"": The SObject that the connector polls for new and changed records.

  • "tasks.max": Enter the number of tasks in use by the connector. Organizations can run multiple connectors with a limit of one task per connector (that is, "tasks.max": "1").

Single Message Transforms: See the Single Message Transforms (SMT) documentation for details about adding SMTs using the CLI.

For all property values and description, see Configuration Properties. For additional information, see Considerations.

Step 4: Load the properties file and create the connector

Enter the following command to load the configuration and start the connector:

confluent connect cluster create --config-file <file-name>.json

For example:

confluent connect cluster create --config-file salesforce-bulk-api-v2-sink.json

Example output:

Created connector SalesforceBulkApiV2Sink_0 lcc-aj3qr

Step 5: Check the connector status

Enter the following command to check the connector status:

confluent connect cluster list

Example output:

ID          |            Name              | Status  |  Type
+-----------+------------------------------+---------+-------+
lcc-aj3qr   | SalesforceBulkApiV2Sink_0    | RUNNING | sink

Step 6: Check Check for records.

Verify that records are being produced at the endpoint. For additional information, see Considerations.

For more information and examples to use with the Confluent Cloud API for Connect, see the Confluent Cloud API for Managed and Custom Connectors section.

Configuration Properties

Use the following configuration properties with the fully-managed connector. For self-managed connector property definitions and other details, see the connector docs in Self-managed connectors for Confluent Platform.

Which topics do you want to get data from?

topics

Identifies the topic name or a comma-separated list of topic names.

  • Type: list
  • Importance: high

Schema Config

schema.context.name

Add a schema context name. A schema context represents an independent scope in Schema Registry. It is a separate sub-schema tied to topics in different Kafka clusters that share the same Schema Registry instance. If not used, the connector uses the default schema configured for Schema Registry in your Confluent Cloud environment.

  • Type: string
  • Default: default
  • Importance: medium

Input messages

input.data.format

Sets the input Kafka record value format. Valid entries are AVRO, JSON_SR and PROTOBUF. Note that you need to have Confluent Cloud Schema Registry configured

  • Type: string
  • Importance: high

How should we connect to your data?

name

Sets a name for your connector.

  • Type: string
  • Valid Values: A string at most 64 characters long
  • Importance: high

Kafka Cluster credentials

kafka.auth.mode

Kafka Authentication mode. It can be one of KAFKA_API_KEY or SERVICE_ACCOUNT. It defaults to KAFKA_API_KEY mode.

  • Type: string
  • Default: KAFKA_API_KEY
  • Valid Values: KAFKA_API_KEY, SERVICE_ACCOUNT
  • Importance: high
kafka.api.key

Kafka API Key. Required when kafka.auth.mode==KAFKA_API_KEY.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: high
kafka.service.account.id

The Service Account that will be used to generate the API keys to communicate with Kafka Cluster.

  • Type: string
  • Importance: high
kafka.api.secret

Secret associated with Kafka API key. Required when kafka.auth.mode==KAFKA_API_KEY.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: high

How should we connect to Salesforce?

salesforce.grant.type

Salesforce grant type. Valid options are ‘PASSWORD’ and ‘JWT_BEARER’.

  • Type: string
  • Default: PASSWORD
  • Importance: high
salesforce.instance

The URL of the Salesforce endpoint to use. The default is https://login.salesforce.com. This directs the connector to use the endpoint specified in the authentication response.

salesforce.username

The Salesforce username the connector should use.

  • Type: string
  • Importance: high
salesforce.password

The Salesforce password the connector should use.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: high
salesforce.password.token

The Salesforce security token associated with the username.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: high
salesforce.consumer.key

The consumer key for the OAuth application.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: high
salesforce.consumer.secret

The consumer secret for the OAuth application.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.jwt.keystore.file

Salesforce JWT keystore file which contains the private key.

  • Type: password
  • Default: [hidden]
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.jwt.keystore.password

Password used to access JWT keystore file.

  • Type: password
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.object

The Salesforce SObject to write to.

  • Type: string
  • Importance: high
salesforce.use.custom.id.field

Flag to indicate whether to use the SALESFORCE_CUSTOM_ID_FIELD_NAME_CONF for insert/upsert sink connector operations

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.custom.id.field.name

Name of a custom external id field in SObject to structure Rest Api calls for insert, upsert operations. When SALESFORCE_USE_CUSTOM_ID_FIELD_CONF=true

  • Type: string
  • Default: “”
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.ignore.fields

Comma separate list of fields from the source Kafka record to ignore when pushing a record into Salesforce.

  • Type: string
  • Default: “”
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.ignore.reference.fields

Flag to prevent reference type fields from being updated or inserted in Salesforce SObjects.

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false
  • Importance: medium
override.event.type

A flag to indicate that the Kafka SObject source record EventType(create, update, delete) is overriden to use the operation specified in the salesforce.sink.object.operation configuration setting

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.sink.object.operation

The Salesforce sink operation to perform on the SObject. This feature works if override.event.type is true.

  • Type: string
  • Default: insert
  • Importance: medium
salesforce.version

The version of Salesforce API to use.

  • Type: string
  • Default: latest
  • Importance: low

Connection details

behavior.on.api.errors

Error handling behavior config for any API errors.

  • Type: string
  • Default: ignore
  • Importance: low
request.max.retries.time.ms

In case of error when making a request to Salesforce, the connector will retry until this time (in ms) elapses. The default value is 30000 (30 seconds). Minimum value is 1 sec

  • Type: long
  • Default: 30000 (30 seconds)
  • Valid Values: [1000,…,250000]
  • Importance: low
max.timeout.ms

The maximum timeout in milliseconds that the connector will continue waiting for the completion of all batch operations.

  • Type: long
  • Default: 200000 (200 seconds)
  • Importance: low

Consumer configuration

max.poll.interval.ms

The maximum delay between subsequent consume requests to Kafka. This configuration property may be used to improve the performance of the connector, if the connector cannot send records to the sink system. Defaults to 300000 milliseconds (5 minutes).

  • Type: long
  • Default: 300000 (5 minutes)
  • Valid Values: [60000,…,1800000]
  • Importance: low
max.poll.records

The maximum number of records to consume from Kafka in a single request. This configuration property may be used to improve the performance of the connector, if the connector cannot send records to the sink system. Defaults to 500 records.

  • Type: long
  • Default: 500
  • Valid Values: [1,…,500]
  • Importance: low

Number of tasks for this connector

tasks.max

Maximum number of tasks for the connector.

  • Type: int
  • Valid Values: [1,…]
  • Importance: high

Considerations

Note the following when using this connector.

Unexpected errors

When the connector is performing operations on Salesforce SObjects, unexpected errors can occur that will be reported. The following lists several reasons why errors may occur:

  • Attempting to insert a duplicate record. Rules for determining duplicates are configurable in Salesforce.
  • Attempting to delete, update, or upsert a record that does not exist because the Id field does not match.
  • Attempting an operation on a field where the Id field value matches a previously deleted Id field value.

ID field semantics

When the Salesforce Bulk API Sink connector consumes records on Kafka topics which originated from the Salesforce PushTopic Source connector, an Id field is included that is a sibling of the other fields in the body of the SObject. Note that the Id is only valid within the Salesforce organization from which the record was streamed. For upsert, delete, and update operations, attempting to rely on this Id field causes failures when used on different Salesforce organizations. Inserts always ignore the Id field because Id fields are internally fully-managed in Salesforce. Upsert operations must be used with the external ID configuration properties salesforce.use.custom.id.field=true and salesforce.custom.id.field.name=<externalIdField>.

Caution

For update and delete operations across Salesforce organizations, an external ID must be configured in Salesforce. Also, a custom ID must always be marked as an external ID across both organizations.

Input topic record format

The input topic record format is expected to be the same as the record format written to output topics by the Salesforce PushTopic Source connector. The Kafka key value is not required.

Read-Only fields

Salesforce SObject fields may not be writable by insert, update, or upsert operation because the fields are set with creatable=false or updatable=false attributes within Salesforce. If a write is attempted to a field with these attributes set, the sink connector excludes the field in the operation rather than fail the entire operation. This behavior is not configurable.

Event Type

The Salesforce Bulk API sink connector Kafka record format contains an _EventType field. This field describes the type of PushTopic event that generated the record, if the record was created by the Salesforce PushTopic Source connector. Types are created, updated, and deleted. When processing records, the sink connector (by default) maps the _EventType to either an insert, update, or delete operation on the configured SObject. This behavior can be overridden using the override.event.type=true and salesforce.sink.object.operation=<sink operation> fields. Overriding the event type ignores the _EventType field in the record and obeys the salesforce.sink.object.operation for every record.

API Limits

  • The Salesforce Bulk API sink connector is limited by number of batches to execute, records per batch, and length of the batch. For detailed limitations, see Bulk API Limits.
  • The Salesforce Bulk API supports upsert operations only when used with the external ID configuration properties salesforce.use.custom.id.field=true and salesforce.custom.id.field.name=<externalIdField>.

Next Steps

For an example that shows fully-managed Confluent Cloud connectors in action with Confluent Cloud ksqlDB, see the Cloud ETL Demo. This example also shows how to use Confluent CLI to manage your resources in Confluent Cloud.

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