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Has anyone implemented external objects/lightning connect? It's my understanding that lightning connect is simply a rebranding of external objects.

Is there an additional licensing cost to use external objects? I don't see much mention of it but found some info. here on the investors site regarding lightning connect: http://investor.salesforce.com/about-us/investor/investor-news/investor-news-details/2014/Salesforce-Launches-Salesforce1-Lightning-Connect-The-Fastest-Easiest-Way-to-Integrate-Any-Data-Source-with-Salesforce/default.aspx

Salesforce1 Lightning Connect is priced per data source and monthly subscription pricing starts at $4,000 per month.

Can anyone confirm this either way?

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  • WOW - If that is the case it kills the theory of moving data from SF to Heroku as the cost of Data storage on SF would be cheaper for everyone except those with small number of users and large data. 48K a year for connection to an external source amazing.
    – Eric
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 15:20
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    Synching to Heroku is a different situation than Lightning Connect. Connect is to any database of your choice so to speak, like AWS, etc.
    – crmprogdev
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 15:24
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    Yes, Lightning Connect and Heroku Connect are not the same and have different prices as far as I know.
    – Samuel De Rycke
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 15:48
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    48k is the list price I have always heard as well. It used to be the case that unauthenticated endpoints were free, but if you required any authentication, it cost 4k per connection per month, but I don't have any links to back that up
    – BritishBoyinDC
    Commented Nov 21, 2018 at 15:27

2 Answers 2

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It appears that Salesforce has a pdf document with prices for all add-ons - https://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/documents/pricing/all-add-ons.pdf

It is stated that Salesforce Connect is $4,000 per connection per month.

Salesforce Connect

$4,000 connection/month

Access, display, and change data from an external data source in real time without importing data.

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Yes, I can confirm that Lightning Connect is an additional cost. See your Account Rep for details on cost.

Note: The product is now referred to as Salesforce Connect.

Since posting this original answer, I can say that I've implemented Connect. It can be implemented as either OData 2, OData 4, or as C-Data. Underneath the hood, the connector uses Apex to create rest calls that send and retrieve queries to the external server which contains the external objects.

You can create custom connectors or use OOTB connectors. It all depends on what your specific needs are and the server you're connecting to that resides outside of Salesforce. It works best for data you don't want to hold in Salesforce that isn't going to be "hit" too heavily. Otherwise you can run into bottlenecks with it in terms of payload. It uses TLS for security when making connections between Salesforce and external databases. Its definitely not cheap but neither is storing data in Salesforce.

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    It'd be nice if they were more upfront with this type of stuff, it would make planning much easier.
    – Phil B
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 16:26
  • In the webinars I watched on Lightning earlier this Spring and during Lightning Week at the Dallas DUG meetup, they were very upfront about it. Perhaps it's a matter of what you were exposed to...
    – crmprogdev
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 16:33

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