New Connectivity to Salesforce Data Cloud through CData Solutions

CData has released new CData Drivers and Connectors for Salesforce Data Cloud. These connectors allow you to seamlessly integrate data from Salesforce Data Cloud with external business intelligence (BI), artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics platforms and applications. In this article, we will explain what this suite of connectivity solutions means for Salesforce Data Cloud users.

What is Salesforce Data Cloud?

Salesforce Data Cloud is a platform provided by Salesforce that allows you to integrate and analyze data not only from within the Salesforce platform, but also from external software as a service (SaaS) and databases. Customer data platform (CDP) is often thought of as being primarily for marketing, but Salesforce Data Cloud can ingest other customer relationship management platforms (CRMs), marketing automation, customer support data, and many others. This is the data platform that supports "customer 360" vision.

By using integrated data in Salesforce Data Cloud in analytics tools and AI applications, you can gain deeper insights into your customers and your marketing efforts.

CData Drivers and Connectors for Salesforce Data Cloud

Salesforce Data Cloud has an available application programming interface (API) that can be used to provide access to data from data tools and applications. However, there are always technical hurdles to connect via APIs. That is why CData is offering a series of drivers and connectors for Salesforce Data Cloud that seamlessly connect Salesforce Data Cloud to business intelligence tools such as Power BI and Qlik.

Connectivity options and available tools

CData's connectivity solutions are built to provide the easiest connectivity with virtually every data tool, platform or application available.

• JDBC driver supports connecting from tools like DBeaver, MicroStrategy, Dataiku, Sisense, Yellowfin, etc.
• ODBC driver supports connecting from Qlik, Alteryx, MS Access, SAP BusinessObjects, SAS, A5 SQL, SQL Server Linked Servers, etc.
• ADO.NET data provider supports connecting from SQL Server Analysis Services and custom .NET Applications
• Natively supported Excel add-in, Tableau connector, and Power BI connector
• Scripting through Python connectors and PowerShell cmdlets
• Coming soon: CData Sync to replicate Salesforce Data Cloud data to any data warehouse or database, and CData Connect Cloud for live cloud-to-cloud connectivity from data tools and applications

Key features

• Live access to Salesforce Data Cloud
• Powerful SQL-92 querying
• Built-in authentication through OAuth, OAuth Password Grant, Client Grant, proof of keycode exchange (PKCE), JSON Web Tokens, and more
• Compatibility with over 200 BI, analytics, reporting, AI, and data integration tools

Data model

The following data from Salesforce Data Cloud is available in the drivers and connectors:

• CalculatedInsights: The calculated insights define and calculate multidimensional metrics on your entire digital state in Data Cloud.
• DataGraphs: A data graph combines and transforms normalized table data from data model objects into new, materialized views of your data.
• DataLakeObjects: Data lake objects are containers for the data brought into Data Cloud.
• DataModelObjects: Data model objects are a harmonized grouping of data created from data streams, insights, and other sources.

Example: Access live Salesforce Data Cloud data in Power BI

As an example, we will show you how to use the CData Connector for Power BI to get Salesforce Data Cloud data directly from Power BI without coding. You can access Salesforce Data Cloud from Power BI Desktop in 3 basic steps (for a detailed tutorial, check out our knowledge base article):

1. Install the CData Power BI Connector

Install the CData Power BI Connector for Salesforce Data Cloud on the machine running Power BI Desktop.

2. Connect to Salesforce Data Cloud

Access Salesforce Data Cloud on the DSN setting screen of the installed Power BI Connector. Built-in OAuth is supported, so if you set the authentication scheme to "OAuth" and click "Test Connection," a browser opens for you to authenticate with Salesforce Data Cloud and allow the Power BI Connector to access Salesforce Data Cloud.

3. Visualize Salesforce Data Cloud in Power BI

Open Power BI. Find the "CData Salesforce Data Cloud (Custom)" connector, enter your Data Source Name, select DirectQuery, and select the data to visualize.

By using the CData Drivers, you can easily access Salesforce Data Cloud data from your BI tools without any coding.

Simplified Salesforce Data Cloud connectivity with CData

Check out our other integration guides to see how easy it is to use CData's connectivity solutions to work with Salesforce Data Cloud exactly where you want.