Salesforce enables companies of all sizes to build amazing app experiences that drive stronger customer relationships. Heroku makes it easy to deliver engaging apps on the public cloud that integrate customer data. Heroku Connect is an easy way to keep your Salesforce data up-to-date with practically unlimited scaling, containers, and support for various application frameworks. 

This blog post will cover everything that developers need to use Salesforce's latest API version, including hassle-free cloud data integration, aggregate data from multiple data sources, and enriching your Salesforce data. 

This guide also covers technical details, including how Heroku Connect automates the data collection and replicated objects between Salesforce and Heroku's PostgreSQL database. 

Table of Contents

  1. Why Use Heroku with Salesforce
  2. Salesforce Developer Certifications
  3. Heroku Connect
  4. Build Apps
  5. Dynos & Databases
  6. How Integrate.io Can Help
  7. Security & Compliance
  8. Conclusion

Why Use Heroku with Salesforce

Heroku is a perfect fit for companies that want the best of both worlds for development. Whether you need something simple and easy or have an enterprise-level project in mind — Heroku has got you covered! 

With Heroku Connect, you have a nearly live copy of your Salesforce data in the PostgreSQL database. It's easy to get started with this cloud-based computing service that offers app containers (referred to as dynos) that can quickly scale and group together for more space. You build everything in the Cloud — there's no need to manage an actual server.

Salesforce is one of the world’s most popular CRM (customer relationship management) software platforms, helping businesses of all sizes and industries beat their competitors and better serve their clients. But instead of keeping your Salesforce data inside the CRM platform itself, you can make better use of this information by moving it into a target data warehouse.

Heroku offers a high-performance Salesforce integration. The right ETL solution will let you extract data from, and load data to, your Salesforce accounts using a range of data sources and transformations. This enables you to enrich the data in your Salesforce and empower your Salesforce users with valuable information.

Salesforce Developer Certifications 

There are three main types of Salesforce Developer Certifications:

  • Platform Developer 1 and 2
  • B2B Commerce Developer
  • Platform App Builder

There are over 30 certifications and 100 online resources. According to the company, the Salesforce Certified Heroku Architecture Designer "is designed for individuals who have the knowledge, skills, and extensive experience with architecting scalable solutions, deploying and managing apps, and managing teams and build-workflows on Heroku — specifically, Heroku Enterprise." The exam guide is now available on Salesforce Trailhead

If you don't have the certifications or the time to pursue the Heroku Architecture Designer certification, keep reading to learn how you can get the most out of your Heroku and Salesforce integration.

Heroku Connect

Heroku Connect is a service that offers nearly live copies of Salesforce data in the PostgreSQL database. It’s 100% cloud-based and includes app containers (known as dynos) which can be easily scaled to power your entire application if necessary, or you may group them together for increased stability.

Heroku eliminates any hassle with managing servers offline by building everything on the cloud. It creates a bridge that is crucial to analyze data from any company with an easy installation and a simplified point-and-click UI for end-users. Whether it's working with open source stacks or popular programming languages like Ruby on Rails, C# .Net MVC/ASP.NET Web Forms, there are just some things that need development work that require access to the cloud database powering our apps at scale (e.g., Postgres).

Build Apps

Heroku is a powerful tool that you can use to develop your own applications as well as manage them quickly by providing all you need from operating systems to software with its fully managed platform. Heroku provides an easy way to do this for apps developers without much database experience or back-end programming knowledge.

Heroku Connect allows you to build apps with open source stacks, natively integrate the apps with Postgres, and directly sync them with Salesforce. By integrating your Salesforce data with Heroku Postgres, it's easy to combine the power of the Lightning Platform with Heroku. Heroku Connect makes building apps that bring your data and processes to your users as easy as coding in SQL.

Heroku Connect is a way to integrate your Salesforce database with external databases. Heroku will do all the work of synchronizing and keeps everything up-to-date so that you don't have to worry about it anymore!

Dynos & Databases

Dynos are versatile, and Heroku recognizes this by supporting eight different programming languages. In fact, they have a wide variety of software available that can accommodate any need you might have.

Postgres is Heroku’s SQL database of choice, and it has some powerful features specific to the Heroku platform. Databases can be forked (cloned) with a single command which facilitates scaling besides providing a valuable backup copy you don't have to worry about losing.

Heroku Connect allows the administrator to create a uni- or bi-directional sync between tables in Salesforce and objects in a Heroku Postgres database.

How Integrate.io Can Help

The ability to share Salesforce data is one of the biggest reasons companies like it. You can send information collected from different organizations or groups, and most find that easier than sending between two separate Salesforce accounts.

Integrate.io has a small learning curve, offering a visual, drag-and-drop interface that requires no coding skills. This cuts back the time your team will take watching tutorials and interfacing with support staff, and it allows you to get back to app development far quicker. Integrate.io's integrations allow you to transfer data across your entire company in a snap!

With Integrate.io, you can clean up your Salesforce data with no coding required. From there, use the ETL process to pass it along and modify it as desired. Learn more: Heroku Connect SecurETL to your data warehouse in minutes.

Integrate.io’s Scheduler is a one-stop shop for any scheduling requirement. Use the Cron expression feature to schedule your data processes when you need them, or create regular execution intervals that are specific to whatever time frequency you require.

Powering Salesforce with Heroku and Integrate.io will enable you to streamline the entire process of collecting, transforming, and loading data. Any developer that’s searching for a Salesforce integration for its sales accounts or lead tracking will benefit from combining these platforms.

Security & Compliance

Integrate.io is committed to security and compliance. To ensure compliance, we are SOC 2 certified, HIPAA compliant. The platform has Field Level Encryption and hashing transformation features, ensuring compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other data regulations. Our security team members can provide you with a security and compliance audit upon request.

Conclusion

If you're thinking of using Heroku for Salesforce, but you're not a fully certified Salesforce developer, or you're short on resources, you need a partner. Heroku is not a one-stop solution, despite being one of the most-needed Heroku add-ons, and Integrate.io can help you get the most out of your investment. Our platform provides simple visualized data pipelines for automated data flows across a wide range of sources and destinations, including Postgres and Connect. Save time, money, and personnel hours with Integrate.io. Schedule a demo of Integrate.io today.

Integrate.io can seamlessly connect with a large variety of data stores and relational databases. Data warehouses include Google BigQuery, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift. Relational databases include Heroku Postgres, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, ClearDB, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server. NoSQL data stores such as MongoDB, MongoLab, Compose, MongoSoup. Cloud Storage is also an option (with Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage), and file storage such as HDFS and SFTP. Connect to web services such as Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Hubspot, or Mixpanel. Integrate.io supports all web services that are accessible via Rest API.

All of this makes Integrate.io one of the best solutions on the market. Being highly scalable and accessible across the board, Integrate.io can grow with your company with no special training or accommodation.