ADO.NET Provider for Salesforce

dotConnect for Salesforce is an ADO.NET provider for working with Salesforce data through the standard ADO.NET or Entity Framework interfaces. It allows you to easily integrate Salesforce data into your .NET (C#, VB, etc.) applications, and integrate Salesforce services with widely used data-oriented technologies.

dotConnect for Salesforce has the same standard ADO.NET classes as other standard ADO.NET providers: SalesforceConnection, SalesforceCommand, SalesforceDataAdapter, SalesforceDataReader, SalesforceParameter, etc. This allows you quickly get started with it and eliminates the need to study any Salesforce data access specificities.

Work with Salesforce Data Easily

In dotConnect for Salesforce, the complexity of Salesforce API and SOQL is wrapped into widely known and easier to use ADO.NET and Entity Framework interfaces. This allows .NET developers to immediately access Salesforce data via SQL or LINQ without studying Salesforce specificity. It's powerful design-time editors together with seamless Visual Studio integration allow you to work with Salesforce data with less efforts and less code writing. See how easy it is with dotConnect for Salesforce.

Connecting to Salesforce from Server Explorer

To create a Server Explorer connection, you just need to:

Click Connect to Database on the Server Explorer toolbar
Change Data Source to Salesforce Data Source
Specify the login url to the data source, your Salesforce user id and password

That's all, now you can work with Salesforce data right in Visual Studio - select data from Salesforce entities and edit it.

Salesforce connection in Server Explorer

Salesforce Data Binding

Build your data access layer without writing code manually
Configure dotConnect for Salesforce components in powerful design-time editors
Bind data grids and other controls to Salesforce data just by configuring the smart tags
Work with Salesforce data just like with a database

Power of SQL

dotConnect for Salesforce allows you to perform SQL queries against your Salesforce data. Use SQL statements to work with Salesforce accounts, contacts, leads, contracts, products, campaigns opportunities, and other objects.

Our provider offers full CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) support and allows you to get Salesforce data with SELECT statements and manage data with INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements.

No need to study and use complex Salesforce API, just use familiar SQL statements. You may use complex JOINs, WHERE conditions, etc. - all the SQL benefits, not available with Salesforce API.

Entity Framework Support

dotConnect for Salesforce allows you to access Salesforce data via Entity Framework - Microsoft's recommended data access technology. It supports Entity Framework v4, v5, v6, and Entity Framework Core, and enables you to use the following Entity Framework features with Salesforce data:

LINQ to Entities (no need for Salesforce API)
Entity relations with lazy/eager loading
No need to post each edited/created object separately - a single SaveChanges() call to persist all the changed objects

dotConnect for Salesforce provides enhanced Entity Framework support for Salesforce data with a bundled visual designer for ORM models with Visual Studio integration - Entity Developer. Standard Visual Studio Entity Data Model designer is also supported.

How it Works

Advanced Queries

Simple Queries

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More complex queries are split in parts, and parts of query are executed against Salesforce

Simple queries are directly compiled to Salesforce calls

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Our local SQL engine processes the results and applies advanced SQL features, used in the query

These API calls are executed on Salesforce side providing the best performance

Data
Returned data are passed to the application

dotConnect for Salesforce offers powerful local SQL engine for SELECT statement execution. It executes SQL statements in the following way:

Simple SQL statements are translated to Salesforce API calls and executed on the Salesforce side directly. However, dotConnect for Salesforce also supports more advanced SQL features, such as SQL functions or expressions, complex WHERE conditions, joins, etc.

If you use these more advanced SQL features, dotConnect for Salesforce queries all the data from the objects that participate in the query, and executes the statement locally.