Using OAuth to authenticate your ODBC connection to Salesforce

The Salesforce ODBC driver for Windows now supports the OAuth authentication mechanism.

The OAuth client ID and secret are coded into the driver. When you set up your Easysoft Salesforce ODBC data source, you obtain an OAuth token. You can then use OAuth to authenticate the connection to Salesforce.

1. Download the Salesforce ODBC driver.
2. Install and license the Salesforce driver on the machine where is your ODBC application is installed.

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

Before you can use the Salesforce ODBC driver to connect 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).

To create a Salesforce ODBC driver data source:

1. In ODBC Data Source Administrator, choose the System DSN tab, and then choose Add.
2. Do one of the following:
   • If you want to use SQL to work with your Salesforce data, in the Create New Data Source dialog box, choose Easysoft ODBC-Salesforce Driver, and then choose Finish.

     –Or–

   • If you want to use SOQL to work with your Salesforce data, in the Create New Data Source dialog box, choose Easysoft ODBC-Salesforce SOQL Driver, and then choose Finish.
3. Choose Use OAuth.
4. If you want to be prompted for an OAuth token each time you connect to Salesforce, skip to step 7. (Note that this OAuth method can't be used with a SQL Server linked server.) Otherwise, choose Authenticate and obtain token.
5. Login to your Salesforce account when prompted.
6. Close the browser window.
7. Use the Test button to verify that you can successfully connect to Salesforce.