Introduction

This is a distutils-packaged and updated version of the beatbox module by Simon Fell, which is a Python implementation of a client for the Salesforce.com Partner Web Services API.

beatbox module

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

• XMLClient

  The original beatbox version of the client which returns xmltramp objects.

• PythonClient

  Marshalls the returned objects into proper Python data types. e.g. integer fields return integers.

Compatibility

Beatbox 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:

• convertLead

• emptyRecycleBin

• invalidateSessions

• logout

• merge

• process

• queryAll

• undelete

• describeSObject

• sendEmail

• describeDataCategoryGroups

• describeDataCategoryGroupStructures

Beatbox has been tested with Python 2.4 and Python 2.6.

Basic Usage Examples

Instantiate a Python Salesforce.com client:

svc = beatbox.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.)

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 and get the ID of the newly created Lead:

contact = {'type': 'Lead', 'LastName': 'Glick', 'FirstName': 'David', 'Company': 'Individual'}
res = svc.create(contact)
res[0]['id']
# '00Q7000000RVyiHEAT'

More Examples

The examples folder contains the examples for the original beatbox. For examples on how to use the PythonClient see src/beatbox/tests/test_pythonClient.py.

Some of these other products that have been built on top of beatbox can also provide example of use:

• 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. Based on limited tests it appears to be somewhat slower than beatbox for operations that return a lot of data; however, it may be a better option if you want to be able to automatically generate a service proxy for a new WSDL (such as for the Enterprise web services API).

Ron Hess from Salesforce.com has adapted beatbox for use with Google App Engine. See <http://code.google.com/p/force-app-engine/>

Running Tests

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

Create a sfconfig file in your python path with the following format:

USERNAME='your salesforce username'
PASSWORD='your salesforce passwordTOKEN'

where TOKEN is your Salesforce API login token. Add ‘./src’ to your PYTHONPATH Run the tests:

python src/beatbox/tests/test_beatbox.py
python src/beatbox/tests/test_pythonClient.py