Here at M&S we are working on a ground-breaking new project containing multiple data sources being brought into one Salesforce org and displayed using Visualforce with Bootstrap CSS. A crucial and challenging area of our client request involved not replicating data from external enterprise systems by storing it in a Salesforce Object (neither Standard nor Custom). This led us to the use of Salesforce External Objects.

External objects are similar to custom objects, except that they map to data that’s stored outside your Salesforce organization. Each external object relies on an external data source definition to connect with the external system’s data. Each external object definition maps to a data table on the external system. Each of the external object’s fields maps to a table column on the external system. External objects enable your users and the Force.com platform to search and interact with the external data – Salesforce Help Knowledgebase

We called the exposed external data source using an Odata connector, used a Salesforce Controller Class to manipulate the data, and then display the data with Visualforce utilizing the most current Bootstrap CSS techniques.

Now our client has a beautifully laid out user interface (UI) containing all the necessary data/information to give users the best experience possible without introducing data integrity concerns by keeping information in sources of record.

If you’re interested in learning more about how M&S can help you with your Salesforce, and Salesforce Integration needs, drop us a line at in**@ma*************.com.