OData Adapters for Salesforce Connect

Your users and the Lightning Platform interact with the external data via external objects. Salesforce Connect converts each of those interactions into an OData query that contains the relevant parameters to filter the results. Salesforce performs an OData callout each time that:

• A user clicks an external object tab for a list view.
• A user views a record detail page of an external object.
• A user views a record detail page of a parent object that displays a related list of child external object records.
• A user performs a Salesforce global search.
• A user creates, edits, or deletes an external object record.
• A user runs a report.
• The preview loads in the report builder.
• An external object is accessed via flows, processes, APIs, Apex, SOQL, or SOSL.
• You validate or sync an external data source.

The OData adapters for Salesforce Connect can access external data that’s exposed via services called OData producers. Learn more about OData producers at www.odata.org.

To understand the limitations on Apex code accessing external objects via the OData adapters, see Apex Considerations for Salesforce Connect External Objects.

• External IDs and OData Entity Keys
  When you access external data with the OData 2.0, 4.0, or 4.01 adapter for Salesforce Connect, the values of the External ID standard field on an external object are derived according to the entity key that’s defined in the OData service metadata document.
• Client-Driven and Server-Driven Paging for Salesforce Connect OData Adapters
  It's common for Salesforce Connect queries of external data to have a large result set that's broken into smaller batches or pages. You can decide whether to have the paging behavior controlled by the external system (server-driven) or by the OData adapter for Salesforce Connect (client-driven).
• General Limits for Salesforce Connect OData Adapters
  Understand the limits for the OData 2.0, 4.0, and 4.01 adapters for Salesforce Connect.