Best API option for returning records with only specific changes?

Question

Looking for advice on the best API option to return a list of Ids in a particular object when only specific changes are made to the records. From what I gather, the REST option of GetUpdated doesn't allow for filtering based on changes, so it'll return records with unrelated changes.

Field history is enabled on some of the fields I'm interested in, but not on others, and it's not a scalable option to add to all of them.

Would Streaming API be the best fit here? Or is there another option? The basic gist of what I'm doing is data replication for an external warehouse, but I'm only concerned with a handful of fields and real-time updates isn't really necessary.

Answer 1

The best object will be dependent on a number of factors, such as how quickly you want to know about the change, how many records are expected to change over the period of interest, and how many API calls you can burn to monitor the changes.

There are several options:

1. Use an Outbound Message fired by a Workflow rule that is monitoring the fields of interest for changes. That will give you a built in queuing and retry mechanism with a SOAP callout to a service you host.

2. Use the Streaming API with NotifyForFields.

   Streaming API provides two types of events that you can publish and subscribe to: PushTopic and generic. PushTopic events track field changes in Salesforce records and are tied to Salesforce records. Generic events contain arbitrary payloads. Both event types don’t provide the level of granular customization that platform events offer. You can send a custom payload with a generic event, but you can’t define the data as fields. You can’t define those types of events in Salesforce, and you can’t use them in Apex triggers. Source

3. Use the new Platform Events to raise an event when the fields of interest are changed.

   Platform events enable you to deliver secure, scalable, and customizable event notifications within Salesforce or from external sources. Platform event fields are defined in Salesforce and determine the data that you send and receive. Apps can publish and subscribe to platform events on the Force.com Platform using Apex or in external systems using CometD. Source

4. Use a trigger to add the records of interest to your own queue table where you can query them as needed and then remove them from the queue once processed. This is similar to your existing solution of setting a flag field via a workflow rule and then querying for it and clearing the flag. Perhaps not the most elegant or efficient solution, but it is robust and proven over the years.

5. Both the REST API and SOAP API have methods to get only changed records during a period. As you noted, these will find any record updated in the given time period. Not just those where the fields of interest have been updated.

6. There is the current External Services (Beta) running. You could have Salesforce callout to a service of your own implementation when a change occurs.