SimbaSalesforceODBCDriverQuickstartGuide
Revised: October 8, 2013
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Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver Quickstart Guide
Contents
Purpose ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Do you need Salesforce? ............................................................................................................................... 4
Do you need data in Salesforce? ................................................................................................................... 5
Install the Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver ..................................................................................................... 6
Connect from Excel ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Connect from Tableau ................................................................................................................................ 16
Troubleshooting .......................................................................................................................................... 26
Architecture Mismatch Problems ........................................................................................................... 26
For assistance at any point in this installation process, please contact Simba for free Engineering Level
Support at: [email protected].
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Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver Quickstart Guide
PurposeThis document is targeted towards users of the Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver. The following sections
will outline how to get your Windows environment quickly set up to allow for evaluation and use of the
driver.
Use the following flow‐chart to determine what page of the guide to start on.
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Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver Quickstart Guide
DoyouneedSalesforce? Note: For the purposes of this Quickstart Guide, it is assumed that you already have an Enterprise level
account or higher account with Salesforce the ODBC driver to work. In addition, you should check that
API access is enabled in your version.
Trial versions of Salesforce will not currently work, as they are Professional level accounts. As described
here (https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewSolution?id=000005140&language=en_US) only Enterprise
accounts and above have access to the web service API.
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DoyouneeddatainSalesforce? If you would like your own data, see here for instructions on importing data:
http://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewQuickStarts?id=000113376&language=en_US
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InstalltheSimbaSalesforceODBCDriver How to Get the Simba Salesforce Driver?
Step 1: Download from: http://www.simba.com/connectors/salesforce‐odbc
Choose either the 32 or 64 bit version as appropriate. Follow the steps in the install guide
(http://www.simba.com/wp‐content/uploads/2013/05/Simba‐Salesforce‐ODBC‐Driver‐User‐
Guide.pdf) to install on your machine.
Step 2: You should receive an email with a license key attached. This license key should be placed
alongside the driver DLL in the installation directory. By default, the directories for the licenses
are:
C:\Program Files\Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver\lib
32‐bit driver on 64‐bit Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver\lib
Note that if you use Outlook, you may need to save the license file locally before placing it in the
above directory to avoid permission problems.
How to Configure the DSN (Data Source Name)?
Step 1: Open the ODBC Administrator
Note: Use the ODBC Administrator that matches the bitness of the driver you are using. See
http://www.simba.com/wp‐content/uploads/2010/10/HOW‐TO‐32‐bit‐vs‐64‐bit‐ODBC‐Data‐
Source‐Administrator.pdf for information.
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Step 2:
Choose the System DSN tab.
Step 3:
Choose the “Sample Simba Salesforce DSN” and press “Configure…”
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Step 4:
No changes need to be made to the driver configuration at this time to evaluate the driver. User
credentials will be asked for during connection to the driver.
Step 5:
Press the “OK” button to save the configuration.
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Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver Quickstart Guide
ConnectfromExcel How do I connect and make a basic query with the Simba Salesforce Driver to Excel? Note: The version of Excel used is Excel 2010 32‐bit, however the driver will work with any version and bitness of Excel.
Step 1:
Open Excel
Step 2:
Choose the Data tab, then choose “From Other Data Sources” and select “From Data Connection
Wizard”.
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Step 3:
Choose “ODBC DSN” from the list and press “Next >”.
DSN stands for Data Source Name, which is what was configured when installing and configuring
the driver. Essentially, it’s a preconfigured and stored set of connection settings which allow you
to easily connect a driver to the data source.
Step 4:
Choose the “Sample Simba Salesforce DSN” (or the DSN that you have created and configured)
from the list and press “Next >”.
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a. If you see the following image, the connection to the driver did not succeed.
b. If you press the “Test Connection” button will give you the following dialog.
c. Issue Diagnosis: Bitness is incorrectly matched.
You must match the bitness of the application with the bitness of the driver to correctly
connect such as use 32‐bit Excel with a 32‐bit driver, or 64‐bit Excel with a 64‐bit driver.
See Architecture Mismatch Problems (page 26) for more information.
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Step 5:
Enter your login Username and password for your Salesforce account.
Note: You may need to have your security token to successfully log in.
a. To get the security token for your account, if you do not already have it, go to
Salesforce and log in. Select your name and choose “Setup”.
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b. Expand the “My Personal Information” tab on the left and then “Reset My Security
Token”.
c. Choose the “Reset Security Token” button to have a new security token emailed to
your account. This security token should be appended (no spaces) to the end of your
password when logging in using the driver.
Step 6:
Choose the table that you wish to query and press the “Finish” button.
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Step 7: Choose the location for your returned data. Leave it as “=$A$1” and press the “OK” button.
Step 8: Wait while data is returned.
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Congratulations, your data is now available from Excel.
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Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver Quickstart Guide
ConnectfromTableau How do I connect and make a basic query with the Simba Salesforce Driver to Tableau? Note: The version of Tableau used is 8.0, however the driver should work without problems in Tableau 7 as well.
Step 1:
Open Tableau.
Step 2:
Select “Connect to data”
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Step 3:
Choose “Other Databases (ODBC)” at the bottom of the list.
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Step 4:
Select the “Sample Simba Salesforce DSN” (or the DSN that you have created and configured)
from the DSN drop‐down and press the “Connect” button.
a. You may see the following dialog if there is an error connecting to the driver.
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b. Issue Diagnosis: Bitness incorrect, using the 64‐bit driver.
At the time of this writing, Tableau is only available as a 32‐bit application, so you must
use a 32‐bit driver. You can confirm the bitness of the driver by pressing the “Show
Details” button and ensuring that the driver DLL name is SimbaSFODBC32.dll.
See Architecture Mismatch Problems (page 26) for more information.
Step 5: Enter your login Username and password for your Salesforce account.
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Simba Salesforce ODBC Driver Quickstart Guide
Note: You may need to have your security token to successfully log in. a. To get the security token for your account, if you do not already have it, go to
Salesforce and log in. Select your name and choose “Setup”.
b. Expand the “My Personal Information” tab on the left and then “Reset My Security
Token”.
c. Choose the “Reset Security Token” button to have a new security token emailed to
your account. This security token should be appended (no spaces) to the end of your
password when logging in using the driver.
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Step 6:
Select the “Single Table” option and press the magnifying glass to open the list of tables.
Step 7:
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Press “Load” to list the tables in the data source.
Step 8:
Choose one of the tables to query and press the “Select” button.
Step 9:
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Press OK to load the selected table. If a warning comes up, press OK as this will not affect
operation of the driver.
Step 10:
If a warning comes up, press OK as this will not affect operation of the driver. This warning is
displayed because Tableau sees only a generic driver and attempts to determine what the
capabilities are on its own. The warning does not affect how the driver will operate in Tableau.
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Step 11:
Choose to connect live so that Tableau does not import all of the data and you work on the data
in the cloud.
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Step 12:
The table will be loaded into Tableau with the columns listed as dimensions and measures
depending on data type. From here, you can create reports on the table you selected.
Congratulations, your data is now available for visualization in Tableau.
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Troubleshooting
ArchitectureMismatchProblemsIf you encounter an error message similar to “The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch
between the Driver and Application”, then the bitness of the application does not match the bitness of
the driver. You are likely connecting a 32‐bit application to a 64‐bit driver, or vice versa. Please ensure
that the bitness of your application matches the bitness of driver that you are trying to use.
To determine the bitness of Excel: Excel 2007 and earlier These versions of Excel are strictly 32‐bit.
Excel 2010 Step 1: Click on the “File” tab.
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Step 2: Click on the “Help” item on the left‐hand side.
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Step 3: Look at the version that is displayed on the help page. If Excel is 32‐bit it will show “(32‐bit)” (as
pictured) while if it is 64‐bit it will show “(64‐bit)”.
Excel 2013 Step 1:
Click on the “FILE” tab.
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Step 2: Click on the “Account” item on the left‐hand side.
Step 3: Click on the “About Excel” button on the right side.
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Step 4: Check the version string in the pop‐up dialog. If Excel is 32‐bit, it will show “32‐bit” in the string,
if it is 64‐bit then it will show “64‐bit”.
To determine the bitness of Tableau:
At the time of writing, all versions of Tableau are 32‐bit.