Documentation Experience Platform Source Connectors Guide

Connect your Salesforce account to Experience Platform using the UI

Last update: June 3, 2025

Topics:
Sources

CREATED FOR:

Developer

This tutorial provides steps on how to connect your Salesforce account and bring your CRM data to Adobe Experience Platform using the Experience Platform user interface.

Getting started

This tutorial requires a working understanding of the following components of Experience Platform:

Experience Data Model (XDM) System: The standardized framework by which Experience Platform organizes customer experience data.
- Basics of schema composition: Learn about the basic building blocks of XDM schemas, including key principles and best practices in schema composition.
- Schema Editor tutorial: Learn how to create custom schemas using the Schema Editor UI.
Real-Time Customer Profile: Provides a unified, real-time consumer profile based on aggregated data from multiple sources.

If you already have an authenticated Salesforce account, you may skip the remainder of this document and proceed to the tutorial on configuring a dataflow for CRM data.

Gather required credentials

WARNING

Basic authentication for the Salesforce source will be deprecated in January 2026. You must move to OAuth 2 Client Credential authentication in order to continue using the source and ingesting data from your Salesforce account to Experience Platform.

The Salesforce source supports basic authentication and OAuth2 Client Credential.

Basic authentication

You must provide values for the following credentials to connect your Salesforce account using basic authentication.

Credential	Description
Environment URL	The URL of the Salesforce source instance. The format for environment URL is `https://[domain].my.salesforce.com`.
Username	The username for the Salesforce user account.
Password	The password for the Salesforce user account.
Security Token	The security token for the Salesforce user account.
API version	(Optional) The REST API version of the Salesforce instance that you are using. The value for the API version must be formatted with a decimal. For example, if you are using API version `52`, then you must input the value as `52.0`. If this field is left blank, then Experience Platform will automatically use the latest available version.

For more information on authentication, refer to this Salesforce authentication guide.

OAuth2 Client Credential

You must provide values for the following credentials to connect your Salesforce account using OAuth2 Client Credential.

Credential	Description
Environment URL	The URL of the Salesforce source instance. The format for environment URL is `https://[domain].my.salesforce.com`.
Client ID	The client ID is used in tandem with the client secret as part of OAuth2 authentication. Together, the client ID and client secret enable your application to operate on behalf of your account by identifying your application to Salesforce.
Client secret	The client secret is used in tandem with the client ID as part of OAuth2 authentication. Together, the client ID and client secret enable your application to operate on behalf of your account by identifying your application to Salesforce.
API version	The REST API version of the Salesforce instance that you are using. The value for the API version must be formatted with a decimal. For example, if you are using API version `52`, then you must input the value as `52.0`. If this field is left blank, then Experience Platform will automatically use the latest available version.

For more information on using OAuth for Salesforce, read the Salesforce guide on OAuth Authorization Flows.

Once you have gathered your required credentials, you can follow the steps below to connect your Salesforce account to Experience Platform.

Connect your Salesforce account

In the Experience Platform UI, select Sources from the left navigation to access the Sources workspace. You can select the appropriate category from the catalog on the left-hand side of your screen. Alternatively, you can find the specific source you wish to work with using the search option.

Select Salesforce under the CRM category, and then select Add data.

TIP

Sources in the sources catalog display the Set up option when a given source does not yet have an authenticated account. Once an authenticated account exists, this option changes to Add data.

The sources catalog on the Experience Platform UI with the Salesforce source card selected.

The Connect to Salesforce page appears. On this page, you can either use new credentials or existing credentials.

Use an existing account

To use an existing account, select Existing account and then select the account that you want to use from the list that appears. When finished, select Next to proceed.

A list of authenticated Salesforce accounts that already exist in your organization.

Create a new account

To create a new account, select New account and provide a name and a description for your new Salesforce account.

The interface in which you can create a new Salesforce account by providing the appropriate authentication credentials.

Next, select the authentication type that you would like to use for your new account.

Basic authentication

For basic authentication, select Basic authentication and then provide values for the following credentials:

Environment URL
Username
Password
API version (optional)

When finished, select Connect to source.

The basic authentication interface for Salesforce account creation.

OAuth2 Client Credential

For OAuth 2 Client Credential, select OAuth2 Client Credential and then provide values for the following credentials:

Environment URL
Client ID
Client secret
API version

When finished, select Connect to source.

The OAuth interface for Salesforce account creation.

Skip preview of sample data

During the data selection step, you may encounter a timeout when ingesting large tables or files of data. You can skip data preview to circumvent the timeout and still view your schema, albeit without sample data. To skip data preview, enable the Skip previewing sample data toggle.

The rest of the workflow will remain the same. The only caveat is that skipping data preview may prevent calculated and required fields from being auto-validated during the mapping step, and you will then have to manually validate those fields during mapping.

Next steps

By following this tutorial, you have established a connection to your Salesforce account. You can now continue on to the next tutorial and configure a dataflow to bring data into Experience Platform.

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