Read the blog
 

DataBind Charts to Salesforce Data

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial:

Download Now

Learn more:

Salesforce ADO.NET Provider

Rapidly create and deploy powerful .NET applications that integrate with Salesforce account data including Leads, Contacts, Opportunities, Accounts, and more!

In this article

Related articles


Use the standard ADO.NET procedures for databinding to provide bidirectional access to Salesforce data from controls in the Visual Studio toolbox. This article demonstrates a graphical approach using wizards in Visual Studio, as well as how to databind with only a few lines of code.

DataBinding enables bidirectional access to data from UI controls. You can use the CData ADO.NET Provider for Salesforce to easily databind Salesforce data to Windows Forms and Web controls in Visual Studio. This article shows how to use wizards to databind Salesforce data to a chart that reflects any changes. The code walk-through section shows how to create a chart in 10 lines of code.

DataBind to a Chart

DataBinding consists of three steps: Instantiate the control, configure the data source, and databind.

Configure the Connection and Select Database Objects

Follow the procedure below to use the Data Source Configuration Wizard to create a chart control and the connection to Salesforce. In the wizard, you can select the Salesforce entities you want to databind.

  1. In a Windows Forms project, drag and drop a Chart control from the toolbox to the form. In the Data section of the Chart properties, select DataSource and then select Add Project Data Source from the menu.
  2. In the Data Source Configuration Wizard that appears, select Database -> Dataset.
  3. In the Choose Your Data Connection step, click New Connection.

  4. In the Add Connection dialog, click Change to select the CData Salesforce Data Source.

    Below is a typical connection string:

    User=username;Password=password;SecurityToken=Your_Security_Token;

    There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: Login, OAuth, and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.

    If you do not have access to the username and password or do not wish to require them, you can use OAuth authentication.

    SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and TokenUrl connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for more information.

    When you configure the connection, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

  5. Choose the database objects you want to work with. This example uses the Account table.

DataBind

After adding the data source and selecting database objects, you can bind the objects to the chart. This example assigns the x-axis to Industry and the y-axis to AnnualRevenue.

  1. In the Chart properties, click the button in the Series property to open the Series Collection Editor.
  2. In the Series properties, select the columns you want for the x- and y-axes: Select columns from the menu in the XValueMember and YValueMember properties.

The chart is now databound to the Salesforce data. Run the chart to display the current data.

Code Walk-through

DataBinding to Salesforce data requires only a few lines of code and can be completed in three easy steps.

  1. Connect to Salesforce.
  2. Create the SalesforceDataAdapter to execute the query and create a DataSet to be filled with its results.
  3. DataBind the result set to the chart.

Below is the complete code:

SalesforceConnection conn = new SalesforceConnection("User=username;Password=password;SecurityToken=Your_Security_Token;"); SalesforceCommand comm = new SalesforceCommand("SELECT Contact.Name, SUM(Account.AnnualRevenue) FROM Contact, Account GROUP BY Contact.Name", conn); SalesforceDataAdapter da = new SalesforceDataAdapter(comm); DataSet dataset = new DataSet(); da.Fill(dataset); chart1.DataSource = dataset; chart1.Series[0].XValueMember = "Industry"; chart1.Series[0].YValueMembers = "AnnualRevenue"; // Insert code for additional chart formatting here. chart1.DataBind();