This guide will help you understand the basic concepts of CloudExtend Excel. Topics covered include:

Templates are used by CloudExtend Excel to define the Salesforce Objects that users will interact with.

The CloudExtend Excel Add-In allows Salesforce Objects & Fields to be selected via an easy-to-use interface. When a template is loaded on a Worksheet, it becomes an Excel table and is bound to a Salesforce object. Each column in the table is bound to a Salesforce field.

The table can then be used to retrieve and/or update data from Salesforce, as well as create new records in Salesforce.

Step 1: Click on the + sign to create a new template.

Step 2: Type or scroll to select the Salesforce object the template will be associated with.

Step 3: Select your object. In the example below, I chose Opportunity.

Step 4: Type ahead and search for the fields you want to have in your template. Scroll down for more fields.

To remove a field hover over it and click on the Trash Can Icon that appears to the right.
When you’re done adding your fields, hit next.

Step 5: Give your template a name and save it. Use Save & Load to start using it right away.

Step 6: You can load your template by clicking on it in the list of templates.

You will be warned that loading a table will clear the sheet. Click confirm to load the template on the sheet.

When creating a template, the field label that appears on the object in Salesforce may be different than the field name. The field name is what is initially displayed in the template field list. If you are not sure of the field label go into Salesforce:

Salesforce field labels - You can see below the Field label is called ‘Account Name’ but the Field Name is just Account.

The Account is what you would select in CloudExtend Excel.

There are three ways to retrieve data from Salesforce:

Use the template’s data filter to avoid downloading large unnecessary object sets.

Step 2: After you click DOWNLOAD again in the middle, the relevant records are returned to Excel. Now you can manipulate the data and send it back to Salesforce by updating as described later.

Typically used to bring in a very limited number of records or to call Salesforce to return the most recent results of the selected objects by entering the record ID’s.

Reports CANNOT be edited and sent back to Salesforce. They are for viewing purposes only.

Step 1: In the example below the Opportunity Owner field is being updated from "Integration User "to user "Vaibhava". To update the value, just type the name partially in "Owner" column in Excel, and CloudExtend will dynamically identify picklist values after you type and auto-complete the complete value.

If it finds multiple matches for entered value, the user will be alerted to pick the correct value by clicking on the view picklist values in the task pane.

To pick the matching value,

It is not necessary to use the Picklist to populate each cell in the Column. Once you have retrieved the value you can copy/paste, drag, etc. to populate the values.

Step 2: Once the data you want to update is ready, click Update and then check off All Rows and then click INSERT/UPDATE in the middle. Those opportunities will be updated in Salesforce with the new owner. The Record ID will turn green on each row as the updates are successfully completed.

Notifications: CloudExtend will give you 2 types of color-coded notifications after an update

Record ID’s in Green indicates a successful update.

Record ID's in red indicate an error and the update was NOT pushed to Salesforce. Correct the error(s) and update again.

CloudExtend tables already interact with Salesforce. When your table loads CloudExtend begins to cache possible values for drop-down fields in the Picklist at the top right of the Add-In. You can simply start entering values in Columns to begin. A more common use case, however, is for end-users to use Excel formulas (or even copy/paste) to populate the table.

The video below shows a quick overview of creating new records in CloudExtend Excel for Salesforce.

Here are the steps involved in creating new records in Salesforce using CloudExtend Excel for Salesforce

Step 1: Load your template in the Excel sheet and enter the information. In the example below I want to add a new lead.

Step 2:  Click on Update and then INSERT/UPDATE as shown below.

Step 3: The lead is now created in Salesforce (evidenced by the “Operation Successful for 2 records” message in the Add-in as well as the color green in the Id column.

Step 4: See the new lead below in Salesforce by copying the lead ID and pasting it into the URL.

Step 1: Click on Delete then select only the rows you want to delete or ‘All Rows’ and then DELETE.

Step 2: The 9 selected Opportunities are now deleted in Salesforce (evidenced by the “Operation Success for 9 records” message in the Add-in as well as the color gray in the Reserved and Record ID columns.

Accidentally deleted the data? No worries, in most cases removing the values from the Record ID’s and clicking on ‘Update’ will create new Opportunity Records with identical values.