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            External Object Relationships

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            External Object Relationships

            External objects support standard lookup relationships, which use the 18-character Salesforce record IDs to associate related records with each other. However, data that’s stored outside your Salesforce org often doesn’t contain those record IDs. Therefore, two special types of lookup relationships are available for external objects: external lookups and indirect lookups.

            Required Editions

            Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience

            Salesforce Connect is available in: Developer Edition and for an extra cost in: Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions

            Files Connect for cloud-based external data sources is available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions

            Federated Search is available in: Enterprise, Professional, Unlimited, and Developer Editions

            External lookups and indirect lookups compare a specific field’s values on the parent object to the relationship field’s values on the child object. When values match, the records are related to each other.

            To create an external object relationship, create a custom field on the child object with one of the following field types. If the child is an external object, you can instead change the field type of an existing custom field to one of the following.

            • Lookup Relationship
            • External Lookup Relationship
            • Indirect Lookup Relationship

            This table summarizes the types of relationships that are available to external objects.

            Note
            Note Federated Search supports only external lookup relationships, and the Federated Search external object is always the parent.
            Relationship Allowed Child Objects Allowed Parent Objects Parent Field for Matching Records
            Lookup

            Standard

            Custom

            External

            Standard

            Custom

            		 The 18-character Salesforce record ID
            External lookup

            Standard

            Custom

            External

            		 External The External ID standard field
            Indirect lookup External

            Standard

            Custom

            		 You select a custom field with the External ID and Unique attributes

            See Also

             
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