Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps businesses manage their sales, marketing, service, and other customer-related activities. This document describes how to connect IBM watsonx Orchestrate to Salesforce and use its skills on Orchestrate.

Before you begin

  • If you don't have a Salesforce account, you can create a Developer account to try Salesforce for free. If you want to create a free Salesforce account to test with Orchestrate, make sure that you create a Developer account rather than a Trial account. If you connect to Orchestrate with a Trial account, the Salesforce skills do not work.

  • Your edition of Salesforce needs to be enabled for API access ("API enabled"). If you're using a free trial of Salesforce, it is not API enabled; sign up to the Developer edition instead.

    By default, API access is only allowed on Standard, Developer, Unlimited, and Performance editions. The professional edition does not come with free API access, and you might need to pay to enable the API access or upgrade to a higher edition.

    Ask your Salesforce administrator if your edition of Salesforce is API enabled, and if necessary request API enablement or upgrade to a higher edition that has API access.

Connecting to Salesforce

Note: The Salesforce app requires you to allow pop-up windows and redirects in your browser for validation. If you have trouble to connect to the Salesforce, check the address bar to see whether you must turn off popup and redirect blocking.

An app can be connected either through the skill catalog or through the Orchestrate chat. Use the method that suits you to connect to an app.

Connect to the app through the skill catalog when you add that skill to your skill set:

  1. On the Orchestrate chat page, click Add skills from the catalog.
  2. Search and click the app tile.
  3. Click Connect app.
  4. Configure the connection. For more information, see Configuring the connection.
  5. Click Connect app.

Otherwise, connect to that app through the Orchestrate chat when you use the skill:

  1. Open the Orchestrate chat.
  2. On the chat, start the skill.
  3. Click Connect app.
  4. Configure the connection. For more information, see Configuring the connection.
  5. Click Connect app.

Configuring the connection on Orchestrate SaaS


To connect Orchestrate to a standard Salesforce production environment:

  1. Click Connect app.

  2. Optional: In the Custom URL field, enter the custom URL to connect to a specific production, sandbox, or your company's personalized login page.

  3. Click Connect app. Orchestrate offers your Salesforce account as the default choice to connect to.

  4. Specify the Username and Password.

    Username: The email address used to log in to Salesforce. Password: The password for the specified email address.

  5. Click Log In > Allow to enable Orchestrate to access your Salesforce account.

Configuring the connection on Orchestrate in IBM Cloud Pak for Data


To connect Orchestrate to a standard Salesforce production environment:

  1. Click Connect app.
  2. In the Custom URL field, enter the custom URL to connect to a specific production, sandbox, or your company's personalized login page.
  3. In the Client ID field, enter the consumer key that is generated when you create a connected app for Orchestrate in Salesforce.
  4. In the Client secret field, enter the consumer secret that is generated when you create a connected app for Orchestrate in Salesforce.
  5. In the Access token field, enter the consumer key that is generated when you create a connected app for Orchestrate in Salesforce.
  6. In the Refresh token field, enter the refresh token generated from the application client ID and client secret.
Note: The icon A green check icon appears to show that the app is connected. indicates that the connection was successfully established.

Using a custom URL (optional)

Use the custom URL field to connect to a specific production, sandbox, or your company's personalized login page. The type of environment or subdomain you can connect to depend on your Salesforce edition. For example, sandboxes are available in some editions like Professional, Standard, Performance, and Unlimited, but aren’t available in the Developer Edition. See the following instructions for more information:

  • If you're connecting to a specific production instance, enter the login URL in the Custom URL field in the following format (without the https:// prefix):

    • <instance>.salesforce.com where <instance> represents the name of the production instance that you're connecting to; for example, na19, eu11, or ap1 for the North America, EMEA, or Asia Pacific regions.

  • If you're connecting to a standard sandbox that's being used for development or testing, enter the login URL in the Custom URL field by using either of these values (without the https:// prefix):

    • test.salesforce.com (the generic, non-instance-specific URL)
    • <instance>.salesforce.com where <instance> represents the name of the sandbox instance that you're connecting to; for example, cs19.

  • If you're connecting to your company's personalized login page (with a configured subdomain) in a production environment, specify the URL in the Custom URL field by using the following format (without the https:// prefix):

  • subdomain.my.salesforce.com where subdomain represents the name of a subdomain that is defined within your Salesforce org to replace the instance name; for example, myCompanyName.

Tip: If you're using the Developer Edition, the custom URL must be the hostname that you use to log in to your developer instance. Sometimes, for example, it ends with -dev-ed.my.salesforce.com rather than the typical .my.salesforce.com.
  • If you're connecting to your company's personalized login page (with a configured subdomain) in a sandbox environment, specify the URL in the Custom URL field by using the following format (without the https:// prefix): subdomain--sandboxname.instance.my.salesforce.com
    where:
    • subdomain represents the name of a subdomain that is defined within your Salesforce org to replace the instance name,
    • sandboxname is your assigned sandbox name, and instance is the name of the sandbox instance; for example, myCompanyName--mySandboxName.csN (where N is a number).

Technical parameters

The following table contains the technical parameters that are required by some skills of this app, along with instructions on how to get these parameters.

Parameters Details
accountName The ID that identifies your account, which is your email address.
Case ID To get the Case ID, use the Retrieve case team members skill.
Member ID To get the Member ID, use the Retrieve case team members skill.
Team Role ID To get the Team Role ID, use the Retrieve case team members skill.

What to do next

After you connect to the app, you can use the app’s skills. For more information see, Using skills. To know what skill you can use, see the skills and skill flow column of List of prebuilt apps, skills and skill flows.

Info: Find information on known issues here.

Parent topic:

→ Prebuilt apps