Salesforce Connector Considerations

Salesforce data is comprised of Objects, which can be thought of as falling into three general groups: records, document folders, and social chatter. The Salesforce connector is able to crawl all of these Salesforce Objects but there are key differences among them, which you should consider before crawling your Salesforce data.

The primary difference among the Salesforce Objects is how the Salesforce connector handles security for them. The Salesforce connector provides security on all searchable Salesforce Objects and supports a user security model on the Salesforce Objects that comprise most of the Salesforce CRM data types, generally referred to as Salesforce records. However, Salesforce document folders and social chatter Objects use a different security model. In cases where the full security model is not supported, those Objects will only be viewable to the owners of those Objects. This ensures the highest level of security on those Objects.

Tip: By default, the Salesforce connector will crawl all searchable Objects. However, before crawling your Salesforce data, you may want to identify the Object types in your Salesforce repository and consider restricting the Salesforce connector to crawl only the Objects that are of most value to your users, while leaving certain Objects out. This will help conserve your Salesforce API calls (procedures on how to configure the Salesforce connector to limit the crawl to certain Objects are provided later in this documentation).

The next sections provide more detail about the key differences among these Salesforce Object types and how the Salesforce connector is designed to work with each of them. Because your Salesforce API usage may impact your ability to crawl and deliver data to your users, a section on how the Salesforce API can impact your ability to crawl your data is also provided.