Working with Salesforce.com in Alpha Anywhere

Alpha Anywhere (also known as Alpha Five) is a wizard-driven development platform for building and deploying mobile, web, and desktop business applications. Alpha Anywhere applications can perform CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations on a variety of different data stores, including ones that are accessible via an ODBC driver.

The Salesforce.com ODBC Driver enables you to connect Alpha Anywhere to Salesforce.com.

The Salesforce.com ODBC Driver is available to download from the Easysoft web site:

  1. Download the Windows Salesforce.com ODBC Driver. (Registration required.)
  2. Install and license the Salesforce.com ODBC Driver on the machine where SAS is installed.

    For installation instructions, see the Salesforce.com ODBC Driver documentation.

Before you can use the Salesforce.com ODBC Driver to connect Alpha Anywhere to Salesforce.com, you need to configure an ODBC data source. An ODBC data source stores the connection details for the target database (e.g. Salesforce.com) and the ODBC driver that is required to connect to it (e.g. the Salesforce.com ODBC driver).

Alpha Anywhere is a 32-bit application and so you need to use it with a data source configured in the 32-bit ODBC Administrator (%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe).

To create a Salesforce.com ODBC Driver data source:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • To create a User data source, in the User DSN tab, choose Add.

      –Or–

    • To create a System data source, choose the System DSN tab, and then choose Add.
  2. In the Create New Data Source dialog box, choose Easysoft ODBC-Salesforce Driver, and then choose Finish.
  3. Complete the Easysoft ODBC-Salesforce Driver DSN Setup dialog box:
    Setting Value
    DSN Salesforce.com
    User Name The name of your Salesforce.com user. For example, myuser@mydomain.com.
    Password The password for your Salesforce.com user.
    Token The security token for your Salesforce.com user, if required.

    To find out whether you need to supply a security token, choose the Test button. If the connection attempt fails with an error which contains LOGIN_MUST_USE_SECURITY_TOKEN, you need to supply one.

    Salesforce.com emails the security token to the email address associated with your Salesforce.com user account. If you have not received a security token, you can regenerate it. Salesforce.com will then email the new security token to you. To regenerate your security token, log in to Salesforce.com and then choose Setup from the user menu. Search for "security token" in the Quick Find box. Click Reset Security Token in the Reset Security Token page. When you receive the token in your email client, copy it and then paste it into the Token field.
  4. Use the Test button to verify that you can successfully connect to Salesforce.com.

Follow these steps to access your Salesforce.com data in Alpha Anywhere.

  1. In Alpha Anywhere, choose Tools > External Databases > AlphaDAO Connection Strings.

    The AlphaDAO Connections dialog box is displayed.

  2. Choose New.

    The New AlphaDAO Connection dialog box is displayed.

  3. Choose Build

    The Create SQL Connection String dialog box is displayed.

  4. Choose ...

    The Select an API dialog box is displayed.

  5. Choose ODBC from the list, and the choose OK.

    The Create SQL Connection String dialog box is displayed.

  6. In the Data Source Name list, choose your data source, and then choose OK.

    The New AlphaDAO Connection dialog box is displayed.

  7. In the Connection Name box, type "Salesforce", and then choose OK.

    The AlphaDAO Connections dialog box is displayed.

  8. Choose Close.
  9. In Alpha Anywhere, choose Tools > External Databases > SQL Query Genie.

    The SQL Genie dialog box is displayed.

  10. Choose Add Table.

    The Add Table dialog box is displayed.

  11. Double-click "DBO.Account".
  12. Choose Execute Query

    The Salesforce.com data is retrieved.

  13. Choose ! Action.

    The Action dialog box is displayed.

  14. In the Actions list, choose Import as Alpha Anywhere table, and then choose OK.

    The Specify Table Name dialog box is displayed.

  15. In the Table Name box, type "Salesforce Account".
  16. Choose Yes when prompted whether to view the data.