Working with Salesforce data 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 by using an ODBC driver.

The Salesforce ODBC driver enables you to connect Alpha Anywhere to Salesforce.

The Salesforce ODBC driver is available to download from the Easysoft web site:

1. Download the Windows Salesforce ODBC driver.
2. Install and license the Salesforce ODBC driver on the machine where Alpha Anywhere is installed.

   For installation instructions, refer to the Salesforce ODBC driver documentation.

Before you can use the Salesforce ODBC driver to connect Alpha Anywhere to Salesforce, you need to configure an ODBC data source. An ODBC data source stores the connection details for the target database (in this case, Salesforce) and the ODBC driver that is required to connect to it (in this case, the Salesforce 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 Data Source Administrator (%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe).

To create a Salesforce 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 DSN Setup dialog box:

   Setting	Value
   DSN	Salesforce
   User Name	The name of your Salesforce user. For example, myuser@mydomain.com.
   Password	The password for your Salesforce user.
   Token	The security token for your Salesforce 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 emails the security token to the email address associated with your Salesforce user account. If you have not received a security token, you can regenerate it. Salesforce will then email the new security token to you. To regenerate your security token, log in to Salesforce and then choose Setup from the user menu. Search for "security token" in the Quick Find box. Choose 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.

Follow these steps to access your Salesforce 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, enter 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 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, enter Salesforce Account.
16. Choose Yes when prompted whether to view the data.