Build Consumer-Facing Apps with 
Heroku Connect 
Jeff Douglas 
Developer Evangelist Architect 
@jeffdonthemic
Safe Harbor 
Safe harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: 
This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of 
the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking 
statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of product or service 
availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future 
operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments andcustomer contracts or use of 
our services. 
The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, 
new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or 
delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and 
acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and 
manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.comproducts, and utilization 
and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our 
annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and 
others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site. 
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be 
delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. 
Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.
Jeff Douglas 
Developer Evangelist Architect
What is the Heroku Connect? 
Native bi-directional data sync service between 
Salesforce and Heroku Postgres allowing you 
to build salesforce.com-powered apps faster and 
easier.
Makes Developers Happy! 
• Knows how to build customer-facing web and 
mobile apps 
• Familiar with Heroku, Postgres and add-ons 
• Uses standard open source stacks 
• Already knows SQL 
• Uses familiar tools and workflows 
• Doesn’t need a deep understanding of how 
Salesforce works 
[ForceLogic]
Makes Salesforce Users Happy! 
• Data is happy, safe & secure in Salesforce 
• Ensure data integrity. 
• Control & maintain business processes. 
• Easier to find development resources. 
No need to build an admin 
interface for the web app. 
Use the standard Salesforce 
UI & save $$! Brilliant!
How does Heroku Connect work? 
• Synchronizes data with standard or custom Salesforce objects 
• Uses LastModifiedDate to detect changes to Salesforce objects and database 
triggers for Postgres changes 
• Only syncs modified columns 
• Implements “last writer win” 
• Does not support inflight transformations 
• Does not automatically detect schema changes
Mapping Object & Tables 
• Creates database tables & columns during 
setup. Uses the same names as 
Salesforce, except with all lower-case 
letters 
• Each database table defines a native, 
unique, auto-increment integer primary 
key column named ‘id’ 
• The Salesforce Id field is renamed as ‘sfid’ 
in the database table 
• Supports external ids for master-detail 
relationship mapping (see docs)
Syncing Data 
• Salesforce modes: Read-only & Read/Write 
• Utilizes SOAP, Bulk, and other batch 
processes to optimize inbound Salesforce 
records and minimize API calls. 
• Sync modes: 
– Polling 
• Every 2-60 minutes (10 minutes default) 
• Drops to 3 minutes when in UI 
– Evented (recommended) 
• Uses Streaming API if available for object 
• Still polls every 10 minutes 
Estimate 300 API calls per day per bidirectional object
Logging
Operating Heroku Connect
Examples in the Wild
More Heroku Postgres Awesomeness 
Fork databases for faster development 
Create follower database for reporting or external access 
Share SQL results with Dataclips
Demo (Short)
Best Practices 
• Update mappings when you delete fields from Salesforce. 
• Be careful when creating validation rules or required fields as inserts may fail. 
• Connect to your org with a user with “View All Data” permissions or a SysAdmin 
user if possible. 
• Watch your API consumption for hungry tables. Dial-down sync time if possible. 
• No record level permissions in Postgres so your app must implement them if 
necessary. 
• If Heroku Connect stop syncing, try Restarting before reloading the object. 
• No support for image or file sync so store them in S3 and sync the URL. 
• Write to Postgres and Salesforce when real-time update necessary
Questions?
Build Consumer-Facing Apps with Heroku Connect

Build Consumer-Facing Apps with Heroku Connect

  • 1.
    Build Consumer-Facing Appswith Heroku Connect Jeff Douglas Developer Evangelist Architect @jeffdonthemic
  • 2.
    Safe Harbor Safeharbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments andcustomer contracts or use of our services. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.comproducts, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.
  • 3.
    Jeff Douglas DeveloperEvangelist Architect
  • 4.
    What is theHeroku Connect? Native bi-directional data sync service between Salesforce and Heroku Postgres allowing you to build salesforce.com-powered apps faster and easier.
  • 5.
    Makes Developers Happy! • Knows how to build customer-facing web and mobile apps • Familiar with Heroku, Postgres and add-ons • Uses standard open source stacks • Already knows SQL • Uses familiar tools and workflows • Doesn’t need a deep understanding of how Salesforce works [ForceLogic]
  • 6.
    Makes Salesforce UsersHappy! • Data is happy, safe & secure in Salesforce • Ensure data integrity. • Control & maintain business processes. • Easier to find development resources. No need to build an admin interface for the web app. Use the standard Salesforce UI & save $$! Brilliant!
  • 7.
    How does HerokuConnect work? • Synchronizes data with standard or custom Salesforce objects • Uses LastModifiedDate to detect changes to Salesforce objects and database triggers for Postgres changes • Only syncs modified columns • Implements “last writer win” • Does not support inflight transformations • Does not automatically detect schema changes
  • 8.
    Mapping Object &Tables • Creates database tables & columns during setup. Uses the same names as Salesforce, except with all lower-case letters • Each database table defines a native, unique, auto-increment integer primary key column named ‘id’ • The Salesforce Id field is renamed as ‘sfid’ in the database table • Supports external ids for master-detail relationship mapping (see docs)
  • 9.
    Syncing Data •Salesforce modes: Read-only & Read/Write • Utilizes SOAP, Bulk, and other batch processes to optimize inbound Salesforce records and minimize API calls. • Sync modes: – Polling • Every 2-60 minutes (10 minutes default) • Drops to 3 minutes when in UI – Evented (recommended) • Uses Streaming API if available for object • Still polls every 10 minutes Estimate 300 API calls per day per bidirectional object
  • 10.
  • 11.
  • 12.
  • 13.
    More Heroku PostgresAwesomeness Fork databases for faster development Create follower database for reporting or external access Share SQL results with Dataclips
  • 14.
  • 15.
    Best Practices •Update mappings when you delete fields from Salesforce. • Be careful when creating validation rules or required fields as inserts may fail. • Connect to your org with a user with “View All Data” permissions or a SysAdmin user if possible. • Watch your API consumption for hungry tables. Dial-down sync time if possible. • No record level permissions in Postgres so your app must implement them if necessary. • If Heroku Connect stop syncing, try Restarting before reloading the object. • No support for image or file sync so store them in S3 and sync the URL. • Write to Postgres and Salesforce when real-time update necessary
  • 16.

Editor's Notes

  • #3 Key Takeaway: We are a publicly traded company. Please make your buying decisions only on the products commercially available from Salesforce.com. Talk Track: Before I begin, just a quick note that when considering future developments, whether by us or with any other solution provider, you should always base your purchasing decisions on what is currently available.
  • #5 If you are familiar with Informatica, Boomi or dataloader.io you should feel right at home. How does it make building app faster? I’m glad you asked.
  • #6 Heroko connect makes developers happy! This is my buddy Enrico. He’s a web developer. And knows how to build customer facing mobile and web apps using open stack technologies like Javascript, Ruby and PHP. He’s quite familiar with Heorku and their add-ons and he’s a big fan of postgres. He’s been doing SQL for years and very confortable with it. Now Enrico loves Heroku connect because he can uses his favorite editors like Sublime text or Atom to write code directly against Postgres just like he’s done for years. He’s a ruby guy and ActiveRecords works great and he can run all of his test using Rspec. Familiar tool and familiar workflows. For him, it’s just like any other web or mobile project. He doesn’t need a deep understanding of Salesforce to complete the project.
  • #7 This is my fellow Appirian Jarrod Kingston who is a Salesforce MVP, administrator and consultant. He’s running a project to create a ecommerce site for a client. He’s smiling because he know his data is safe, happy and secure inside salesforce. He can create, update and delete records and knows that they will be reflected on the site in a couple of minutes. He can write any Apex code, workflow, validation rules or whatever he needs in salesforce to control and enhance the necessary business processes for the application. As a bonus, he’s able to staff the project easier as he has a much larger pool of developers since he’s using HC.
  • #9 Creates the table for you!