In the company’s daily running, the top management is forced to spend significant efforts on obtaining unambiguous, accurate, and objective information about the state of affairs.
The business defines the conditions for which analysts collect and transform data to create a single point of truth to rely on when managing the company.
One of the main questions that has become of interest to businesses recently is strategy and forecasting — finance, sales, production, logistics, etc. Companies are developing. The value of analytics is becoming more apparent — business is no longer just satisfied with performance indicators to build effective strategies and forecasts.
The common practice of the data management and analytics improvement strategy is using the Salesforce and Oracle integration solutions for CRM and ERP processes.
Let’s review the connection methods provided, their benefits, and business cases to select the most suitable one for your needs.
Table of Contents
- Benefits of Salesforce and Oracle connection
- Oracle Integration Cloud with Prebuilt Salesforce Adapter
- OData approach. Skyvia Connect and Salesforce Connect
- ETL approach. Skyvia Data Integration
- Conclusion
Benefits of Salesforce and Oracle connection
So, why does your business need to use the Salesforce and Oracle connect options? What benefits may you obtain here depending on the user scenarios? Let’s review the examples of dependencies in the table below.
| Scenarios | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Data warehousing | – Single source of truth on the DWH side. – Analytics and ML. – Possibility of Reverse ETL of data back to business systems, etc. |
| Data synchronization | – Single source of truth on the side of Salesforce without the need to drive the data through DWH. – Business processes’ automation. |
| Data connectivity | – Connect multiple products for ML/AI. Both pre-created ones and your own. It’s much better suited for companies of developers and integrators. – Use the pre-created CRM functionality, like mailing. It’s suitable for small businesses with limited budgets. – Create a full-fledged corporate repository with clear and harmonized data prepared for analytics. The solution fits more for large companies that can support the infrastructure. – Apply real-time data integration within Odata to get a 360-degree customer view. |
And now, let’s go through the methods that provide Salesforce and Oracle connection using different services and tools.
Oracle Integration Cloud with Prebuilt Salesforce Adapter
The Salesforce Adapter helps users to integrate with Salesforce CRM applications. It allows connecting OData 2.0 and OData 4.0 adapters and communicating them with third-party data sources.
Features
- Bulk Create, Update, Upsert, Delete, etc., performances on all of the business objects supported by Salesforce.
- Core (Convertlead, GetDeleted, GetUpdated, Process, Merge, Undelete, and Upsert).
- CRUD (create, delete, retrieve, and update) actions.
- Declaratively defining and executing SOQL and SOSL queries.
- Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) search.
- Utility (GetUserInfo, GetServerTimestamp, and SendEmail) performances.
Pros
- Easy bi-directional integration with Salesforce.
- Easy mapping to and from Salesforce business objects.
Cons
- The pricing is high enough (about $4000 per month).
- The number of created external objects is limited (100).
- The number of connections between external and other entities per request limitation (4).
- The number of OAuth tokens by an external system limitation (4000 characters).
- The total page size for server-managed paging Limitation (2000 lines).
Click here for more details on how to connect to apps for sharing data.
The limitations and unfriendly pricing of such a semi-native tool make data exchange entirely on the Skyvia platform a more profitable solution.
OData approach. Skyvia Connect and Salesforce Connect
What is Odata?
So, what’s OData, and what are the approaches to work with it? This Open Data Protocol helps to build and use RESTful API easily. With this protocol, you may forget about the queries’ language differences and don’t need manual coding to manage all the API zoos. That’s convenient and time-saving. In other words, OData works like a bridge between different solutions and technologies.
Features
- With it, you may connect data from the Oracle database with Salesforce without programming, using a combination of OData connection for Oracle and native Salesforce Connect.
- OData allows users to create an OData endpoint for an Oracle database that will be exposed as an external object in Salesforce using Salesforce Connect.
Pros
- OData provides real-time data export from legacy systems such as SAP, Microsoft, etc.
Cons
- OData isn’t as fast as REST because REST works directly over HTTP/HTTPS, and OData is an extension of HTTP/HTTPS.
Click here for detailed instructions on connecting Salesforce with external data systems via OData adapters.
OData 2.0 vs. OData 4.0
Let’s compare these two popular solutions to see which suits your business scenario best.
| Parameter | OData 2.0 | OData 4.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Methods for entities update | MERGE HTTP method | HTTP PATCH method with Edit semantics |
| Supported formats | XML and JSON | JSON by default, but the metadata may be retrieved in the XML format |
| Certifications | OSP | ISO, OASIS |
| Amount metadata control of query response for JSON | – | – Full – Minimal – None |
| Batch requests support | – | + |
| Search abilities | Search filter (allows a query to specify that the selected properties match some appropriate criteria) | Search (can search by any entity property) |
Connection via OData
Selecting Skyvia Connect is a great idea. Why? It’s cloud-based, easy to use, convenient, secure, and pretty balanced between offers and prices, so it fits businesses of any size.
Features
- Provides support for the following types of operations with business objects obtained from the Salesforce application:
- Bulk creation, update, deletion, etc., for all Salesforce-supported business objects.
- Support for most OData protocol features.
- CRUD operations (create, delete, retrieve, and update).
- Provides support for OAuth cloud apps, including cloud and on-premises databases, even if the ones are not accessible directly via secure agent apps.
Pros
- Simplified two-way integration with Salesforce.
- Easy search of business objects for comparison operation with Salesforce business objects and vice versa.
- Ease of use and a simple means of comparing objects.
- Cloud advantages:
- Security.
- Manual impact decreasing.
- Solution’s scalability.
- Cloud agility.
Cons
Please go here to review the most helpful scenarios of using Skyvia for Salesforce and Oracle data integration.
ETL approach. Skyvia Data Integration
Skyvia is a great tool for ETL, ELT, and reverse ETL. And, of course, it offers an ETL approach for Salesforce and Oracle connection among its 160+ connectors
Let’s review two real-life use cases showing how it works.
Case 1: Building a single source of truth in Salesforce CRM
Imagine that company leads decided that even passive sales via the Internet must be under management control.
In this case, for CRM Salesforce Source of Truth, there will be packages of import, e.g., “Create Salesforce records (Contacts, Opportunity, Product) from rows in Oracle Table.”
Let’s down the steps on how to do it:
- Go to the top menu and click +NEW.
- Select Import in the Integration column.
- Select the Source Type (databases or cloud apps), Connection (Oracle), and Target (Salesforce) appropriately.
- Go to the Task Editor, click Add New, and select the necessary tables like Contacts in the Source drop-down list. (Note: You may add the specific conditions here by clicking +Condition).
- On the next step, select Contacts in the Target drop-down.
- Go to the Mapping Definition tab and configure the mapped columns.
- Set up the package’s schedule and click the Save button.
The same scenario works with Oracle’s single source of truth. You just have to change the source and target name. And, of course, you may use Data Flow or Control Flow features to create and manage multi-stage data pipelines for more complex integration.
Case 2: Data warehousing replication
Mostly, this is the replication of all systems in a single repository. Replicate Salesforce tables (Contacts, Opportunity, Product) to the data warehouse and keep it up to date automatically.
How to do it:
- Start with the top menu by clicking +NEW.
- Select Replication in the Integration column.
- Choose the Connection (New Salesforce) and Target (BQCon) in the Source Type fields.
- Check the necessary Options from the list below:
- Incremental updates.
- Update Schema.
- Create Tables.
- Drop Tables.
- Create Foreign Keys.
Note: In this case, you need the ones checked on the screenshot.
- Choose the replication objects, and click Run and Save to finish the process.
Note: You may use the Schedule option for the automated replication procedure, as it was described in the Contacts Import scenario.
Note: You have to use the Import package to load Oracle data into DWH.
Conclusion
If you compare the methods and solutions, each is fine for solving the daily routine and some usual tasks depending on your business needs. But while selecting the most valuable scenarios, Skyvia is a bit ahead with its capabilities, meaning simplicity, intuitive UI, and keeping the offering and pricing in balance.
