Introduction

This is a reluctant fork of the beatbox project originally authored by Simon Fell, (their version locked at 0.92) later drastically changed by these folks https://code.google.com/p/salesforce-beatbox/ (versioned at 20.0).

Renamed to pyforce to avoid confusion related to the fractured community version. (https://github.com/superfell/Beatbox/issues/6) Long story short, the python client in the fork at version 20.0 is exceptionally useful, so going back to 0.92 would be a mistake, however the beatbox version at 20.0 is also no longer maintained (judging by the issues). pyforce builds off the version available there, integrating bug fixes, and new features.

This module contains 2 versions of the Salesforce.com client:

XMLClient An xmltramp wrapper that handles the xml fun. PythonClient Marshalls the returned objects into proper Python data types. e.g. integer fields return integers.

Compatibility

pyforce supports versions 16.0 through 20.0 of the Salesforce Partner Web Services API. However, the following API calls have not been implemented at this time:

• emptyRecycleBin
• invalidateSessions
• merge
• process
• queryAll
• undelete
• describeSObject
• describeDataCategoryGroups
• describeDataCategoryGroupStructures

pyforce supports python 2.x for values of x >=7 as well as Python 3.x.

Basic Usage Examples

Instantiate a Python Salesforce.com client:

svc = pyforce.PythonClient() svc.login('username', 'passwordTOKEN')

(Note that interacting with Salesforce.com via the API requires the use of a 'security token' which must be appended to the password. See sfdc docs for details)

The pyforce client allows you to query with sfdc SOQL.

Here's an example of a query for contacts with last name 'Doe':

res = svc.query("SELECT Id, FirstName, LastName FROM Contact WHERE LastName='Doe'")
res[0]
{'LastName': 'Doe', 'type': 'Contact', 'Id': '0037000000eRf6vAAC', 'FirstName': 'John'}
res[0].Id
'0037000000eRf6vAAC'

Add a new Lead:

contact = {
        'type': 'Lead',
        'LastName': 'Ian',
        'FirstName': 'Bentley',
        'Company': '10gen'
    }
res = svc.create(contact)
if not res[0]['errors']:
    contact_id = res[0]['id']
else:
    raise Exception('Contact creation failed {0}'.format(res[0]['errors']))

Batches work automatically (though sfdc limits the number to 200 maximum):

contacts = [
    {
        'type': 'Lead',
        'LastName': 'Glick',
        'FirstName': 'David',
        'Company': 'Individual'
    },
    {
        'type': 'Lead',
        'LastName': 'Ian',
        'FirstName': 'Bentley',
        'Company': '10gen'
    }
]
res = svc.create(contacts)

Send a new email, optionally using templates, including attachments and creating activities for associated objects:

simple_email = {
    'subject': 'Test of Salesforce sendEmail()',
    'plainTextBody': 'This is a simple test message.',
    'toAddresses': 'johndoe@example.com,
}
res = svc.sendEmail( [simple_email] )
res
[{'errors': [], 'success': True}]

complex_email = {
    'templateId': '00X80000002h4TV',    # Id of an EmailTemplate used for Subject and Body, supports field merge from whatId.
    'targetObjectId':'003808980000GJ',  # Id of a Contact, Lead or User which the email will be sent to.
    'whatId':'500800000RuJo',           # Id of a SObject to create an Activity in.
    'saveAsActivity': True,
    'useSignature': True,
    'inReplyTo': '<1234567890123456789%example@example.com>',  # RFC2822, a previous email thread.
    'references': '<1234567890123456789%example@example.com>',
    'fileAttachments': [{
        'body': base64_encoded_png,
        'contentType':'image/png',
        'fileName':'salesforce_logo.png',
        'inline':True
    }]
}
res = svc.sendEmail( [complex_email] )
res
[{'errors': [], 'success': True}]

More Examples

The examples folder contains the examples for the xml client. For examples on how to use the python client see the tests directory.

Some of these other products that were built on top of beatbox can also provide example of pyforce use, though this project may diverge from the beatbox api.

• Salesforce Base Connector
• Salesforce PFG Adapter
• Salesforce Auth Plugin
• RSVP for Salesforce

Alternatives

David Lanstein has created a Python Salesforce Toolkit that is based on the suds SOAP library. That project has not seen any commit since June 2011, so it is assumed to be abandoned.

.. Python Salesforce Toolkit: http://code.google.com/p/salesforce-python-toolkit/

Running Tests

At the fork time, all tests are integration tests that require access to a Salesforce environment. It is my intent to change these tests to be stub based unit tests.

From the beatbox documentation:

First, we need to add some custom fields to the Contacts object in your Salesforce instance:

*Login to your Salesforce.com instance

• Browse to Setup --> Customize --> Contacts --> Fields --> "New" button
• Add a Picklist (multi-select) labeled "Favorite Fruit", then add
  • Apple
  • Orange
  • Pear
• Leave default of 3 lines and field name should default to "Favorite_Fruit"
• Add a Number labeled "Favorite Integer", with 18 places, 0 decimal places
• Add a Number labeled "Favorite Float", with 13 places, 5 decimal places

Export environment variables with your Salesforce credentials:

SF_USERNAME, SF_PASSWORD, SF_SECTOKEN

Run the tests::

make test