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The Salesforce ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Salesforce account data, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Salesforce data like you would a database - read, write, and update Leads, Contacts, Opportunities, Accounts, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

How to Use a Microsoft Access Database to Update Salesforce Data in Real Time



Update Salesforce data by creating a linked table in Microsoft Access with the CData Salesforce ODBC Driver.

CData ODBC drivers connect your data to any database management tool that supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). This includes many of the most popular productivity tools, adding new capabilities for document sharing and collaboration. Using the CData ODBC driver for Salesforce, you can update live Salesforce data in Microsoft Access; for example, you can make updates that can be immediately seen by other users.

Connect to Salesforce as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: Login, OAuth, and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.

If you do not have access to the username and password or do not wish to require them, you can use OAuth authentication.

SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and TokenUrl connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for more information.

Create a Linked Table to Account Data

Follow the steps below to create a linked table, which enables you to access live Account data.

  1. On the External Data tab in Access, click ODBC Database.
  2. Select the option to link to the data source. A linked table will enable you to read from and write data to the Account table.
  3. Select the CData Salesforce data source from the Machine Data Source tab.

  4. Select the Account table. For more information on this table, see the "Data Model" chapter in the help documentation.
  5. Double-click the linked table to make edits. The linked table will always have up-to-date data and any changes will be reflected back to the underlying table.