Posts Tagged ‘authentication’
Logging into Salesforce through the Web Interface
You Shall Not Pass!
There are a number of ways to authenticate with the Force.com Platform and I thought I’d create a few lightning posts documenting my findings for each.
The first method in this series will be logging in through the web interface. There are 2 sites that you would hit in order to authenticate:
- http://login.salesforce.com – for Developer Edition and Production Orgs
- http://test.salesforce.com – for all other sandboxes
If you’re not able to log in with a username and password that you know is correct then the first port of call is to check that you’re using the correct URL above. I’ve seen many developers forget to hit ‘enter’ after swapping “test” for “login” (or vice versa) and then being puzzled because their credentials still didn’t work so don’t forget (okay by “many developers” I actually mean me).
There’s also a neat trick that’s quite well-known and can be used to log you in automatically based on bookmarked URLs. All you need to do is append 2 URL parameters onto the appropriate environment HTTPS URL e.g. I could create a bookmark with the URL https://test.salesforce.com?un=wes@cloud-corporation.com&pw=abc123 where:
- un = your username for that environment
- pw = your password for that username
Pro-tip: Make sure that the URL is using HTTPS.
If you exclusively use Chrome you might want to use the Force.com Logins plug-in which will save you some hassle.
Salesforce API Integration Using SOAP-based Web Services
Too Much Documentation (TMD) - The leading cause of baldness amongst men.
There are several tomes & tools to help you integrate with the platform; this article will concentrate on WSDL defined web services. Some help texts are specific to certain languages, others favour certain approaches but I’ve found there’s no short-and-sweet guide. As someone who’s nearly drowned in the documentation (including forums, tweets and blogs) I thought I’d try to save – at least some of you – the white-squall that is ‘Learning the basics of SFDC WSDL-based integration’.
I’ll be the first to admit that summarising such a broad topic can be difficult, so if I do miss anything out, y’all out there in the community just let me know. Read the rest of this entry »
The Silver Lining 