1. Home
2. Connect External Systems to Confluent Cloud

Salesforce PushTopic Source Connector for Confluent Cloud

Note

If you are installing the connector locally for Confluent Platform, see Salesforce PushTopic Source Connector for Confluent Platform.

The Salesforce PushTopic Source connector for Confluent Cloud provides the ability to subscribe to create, update, delete, and undelete events that occur with Salesforce Objects (SObjects). You can use the connector to capture these PushTopic events and write the events to an Apache Kafka® topic in order.

Features

The Salesforce PushTopic Source connector provides the following features:

• Uses the Salesforce streaming API: This connector uses the Salesforce Streaming API for PushTopics.

• Creates PushTopic: The Salesforce PushTopic name (salesforce.push.topic.name) configuration property provides the name of the PushTopic. If the PushTopic does not exist, a PushTopic with this name is created when the connector launches, if salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true.

• 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. The following note lists related limitations.

  Note

  • When the connector operates, it periodically records the replay ID of the last record written to Kafka. When the connector is stopped and then restarted within 24 hours, the connector continues consuming the PushTopic where it stopped, with no missed events. However, if the connector stops for more than 24 hours, some events are discarded in Salesforce before the connector can read them.
  • If the connector stops unexpectedly due to a failure, it may not record the replay ID of the last record successfully written to Kafka. When the connector restarts, it resumes from the last recorded replay ID. This means that some events may be duplicated in Kafka.

• Supported output data formats: The connector supports Avro, JSON Schema, Protobuf, or JSON (schemaless) output data. Schema Registry must be enabled to use a Schema Registry-based format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf). See Environment Limitations for additional information.

• Tasks: The connector supports running only one task.

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

Limitations

Be sure to review the following information.

• For connector limitations, see Salesforce PushTopic Source Connector limitations.
• If you plan to use one or more Single Message Transforms (SMTs), see SMT Limitations.
• If you plan to use Confluent Cloud Schema Registry, see Environment Limitations.

Quick Start

Use this quick start to get up and running with the Salesforce PushTopic Source connector. The quick start provides the basics of selecting the connector and configuring it to subscribe to a Salesforce PushTopic.

Prerequisites

• Authorized access to a Confluent Cloud cluster on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Azure), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• The Confluent CLI installed and configured for the cluster. See Install the Confluent CLI.
• Schema Registry must be enabled to use a Schema Registry-based format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf). See Environment Limitations for additional information.
• At least one topic must exist in your Confluent Cloud cluster before creating the connector.
• You must know the Salesforce account security token, key, and secret when setting up the connector.
• For networking considerations, see Networking and DNS Considerations. To use static egress IPs, see Static Egress IP Addresses.

• 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 Apache Kafka using Confluent Cloud for installation instructions.

Step 2: Add a connector.

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

Step 3: Select your connector.

Click the Salesforce PushTopic Source connector icon.

Important

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

Step 4: Set up the connection.

Complete the following steps and click Continue.

Note

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

1. Enter a connector name.
2. Select the way you want to provide Kafka Cluster credentials. You can either select a service account resource ID or you can enter an API key and secret (or generate these in the Cloud Console).
3. Add your Salesforce connection details. Salesforce instance is not required. If not entered, this property defaults to https://login.salesforce.com. The connector uses the endpoint specified in the authentication response from Salesforce.
4. Add the Salesforce Object to create a topic for.
5. Add the Salesforce PushTopic name. This is the name of the PushTopic to subscribe to. A PushTopic is created using this name, if no PushTopic exists with the name entered and Salesforce PushTopic create is set to true (the default).
6. Set one or more of the Salesforce PushTopic responds to… properties. When a Salesforce PushTopic is created using the connector, the PushTopic responds to all create, update, delete, and undelete events by default. You can set any of these events to false if you don’t want to capture the event type.
7. Specify the initial starting point for the connector to use when replaying events. Use all to replay all events from the last 24 hours. Use latest to replay only the events that arrive after the connector starts. This property defaults to latest.
8. Add a Connection timeout in milliseconds. This is the amount of time to wait to connect to the Salesforce endpoint. The value defaults to 30000 (30 seconds).
9. Select the Output Kafka record value format (data coming from the connector): AVRO, JSON (schemaless), 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 Environment Limitations for additional information.
10. 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").
11. Transforms and Predicates: See the Single Message Transforms (SMT) documentation for details.

See Configuration Properties for all property values and descriptions.

Step 5: Launch the connector.

Verify the connection details and click Launch.

Step 6: Check the connector status.

The status for the connector should go from Provisioning to Running. It may take a few minutes.

Step 7: Check the Kafka topic.

After the connector is running, verify that messages are populating your Kafka topic.

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

See also

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.

Using the Confluent CLI

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

Note

• Make sure you have all your prerequisites completed.
• The example commands use Confluent CLI version 2. For more information see, Confluent CLI v2.

Step 1: List the available connectors.

Enter the following command to list available connectors:

confluent connect plugin list

Step 2: Show the required connector configuration properties.

Enter the following command to show the required connector properties:

confluent connect plugin describe <connector-catalog-name>

For example:

confluent connect plugin describe SalesforcePushTopicSource

Example output:

Following are the required configs:
connector.class: SalesforcePushTopicSource
name
kafka.auth.mode
kafka.api.key
kafka.api.secret
kafka.topic
salesforce.username
salesforce.password
salesforce.password.token
salesforce.consumer.key
salesforce.consumer.secret
salesforce.object
salesforce.push.topic.name
output.data.format
tasks.max

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": "SalesforcePushTopicSource",
  "name": "SalesforcePushTopicSource_0",
  "kafka.api.key": "****************",
  "kafka.auth.mode": "KAFKA_API_KEY",
  "kafka.api.key": "<my-kafka-api-key>",
  "kafka.api.secret": "<my-kafka-api-secret>",
  "salesforce.username": "<my-username>",
  "salesforce.password": "**************",
  "salesforce.password.token": "************************",
  "salesforce.consumer.key": "******************************************",
  "salesforce.consumer.secret": "***************************************",
  "salesforce.object": "<Sobject_name>",
  "salesforce.push.topic.name: "<PushTopic_name>",
  "output.data.format": "JSON",
  "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
  

• ""kafka.topic": Enter a Kafka topic name. A topic must exist before launching the connector.

• "salesforce.<...>": Enter the Salesforce account authentication and authorization details.

• "salesforce.object": Enter the SObject name to create a topic for.

• "salesforce.push.topic.name: Enter the name of the PushTopic to subscribe to. If no PushTopic exists with the name entered, a PushTopic is created if the property salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true (the default).

• "output.data.format": Sets the output Kafka record value format (data coming from the connector). Valid entries are AVRO, JSON_SR, PROTOBUF, or JSON. You must have Confluent Cloud Schema Registry configured if using a schema-based message format (for example, Avro, JSON_SR (JSON Schema), or Protobuf).

• "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.

See Configuration Properties for all property values and descriptions.

Step 4: Load the properties file and create the connector.

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

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

For example:

confluent connect create --config salesforce-pushtopic-source.json

Example output:

Created connector SalesforcePushTopicSource_0 lcc-aj3qr

Step 5: Check the connector status.

Enter the following command to check the connector status:

confluent connect list

Example output:

ID          |            Name                  | Status  |  Type
+-----------+----------------------------------+---------+-------+
lcc-aj3qr   | SalesforcePushTopicSource_0      | RUNNING | source

Step 6: Check the Kafka topic.

After the connector is running, verify that messages are populating your Kafka topic.

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

Configuration Properties

Use the following configuration properties with this connector.

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

• 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

• Type: password
• Importance: high

Which topic do you want to send data to?

kafka.topic

Identifies the topic name to write the data to.

• Type: string
• Importance: high

How should we connect to Salesforce?

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.

• Type: string
• Default: https://login.salesforce.com
• Importance: high

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: high

salesforce.object

The Salesforce object to create topic for

• Type: string
• Importance: high

salesforce.push.topic.name

The Salesforce PushTopic to subscribe to. If salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true, a PushTopic with this name will be created.

• Type: string
• Importance: high

salesforce.push.topic.create

Flag to determine if the PushTopic should be created if it does not exist.

• Type: boolean
• Default: true
• Importance: low

salesforce.push.topic.notify.create

Flag to determine if the Salesforce PushTopic should respond to creates. This config is used when salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true.

• Type: boolean
• Default: true
• Importance: low

salesforce.push.topic.notify.delete

Flag to determine if the Salesforce PushTopic should respond to deletes. This config is used when salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true.

• Type: boolean
• Default: true
• Importance: low

salesforce.push.topic.notify.undelete

Flag to determine if the Salesforce PushTopic should respond to undeletes. This config is used when salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true.

• Type: boolean
• Default: true
• Importance: low

salesforce.push.topic.notify.update

Flag to determine if the Salesforce PushTopic should respond to updates. This config is used when salesforce.push.topic.create is set to true.

• Type: boolean
• Default: true
• Importance: low

Connection details

salesforce.initial.start

Specify the initial starting point for the connector. Allowed values are

latest: only read events that arrive after the connector has started.

all: read all events starting from last 24 hours.

The default value is latest.

• Type: string
• Default: latest
• Importance: medium

connection.timeout

The amount of time to wait in milliseconds while connecting to the Salesforce streaming endpoint.

• Type: long
• Default: 30000
• 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

Output messages

output.data.format

Sets the output Kafka record value format. Valid entries are AVRO, JSON_SR, PROTOBUF, or JSON. Note that you need to have Confluent Cloud Schema Registry configured if using a schema-based message format like AVRO, JSON_SR, and PROTOBUF

• Type: string
• Importance: high

Number of tasks for this connector

tasks.max

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

Next Steps

See also

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.