Connect Salesforce to your Aha! Builder application to bring customer data into one place and write updates back from your application. Once connected, you can pull in opportunities, accounts, and contacts — and create or update Salesforce records directly from your application.
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Prerequisites
Action |
Requirement |
|---|---|
Integration direction |
Read and write |
Credential type |
Connected App with OAuth 2.0 client credentials flow |
Aha! Builder plans |
All Aha! Builder plans |
Required Aha! Builder permissions |
Application owner |
Salesforce plans |
Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, or Developer Edition (Professional Edition does not include REST API access by default) |
Salesforce permissions |
System Administrator to create the External Client App and assign the run-as user |
The level of access — read-only or read and write — comes from the permissions assigned to the integration user, not from the OAuth scope alone. Plan to use a dedicated user with the level of access your application needs.
Create an External Client App and get your credentials
You will need three values from Salesforce to connect it to your Aha! Builder application:
Consumer Key
Consumer Secret
Salesforce instance URL
To create the client in Salesforce:
Sign in to Salesforce as a System Administrator.
Open Setup.
In the Quick Find box, enter "App Manager" and select it.
Click New External Client App.
Enter an App Name. The API Name field fills automatically. Enter a Contact Email.
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Under API (Enable OAuth Settings):
Select Enable OAuth Settings.
In Callback URL, enter your Salesforce URL. For example,
https://{yourorg}.my.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/callback.In Selected OAuth Scopes, add Manage user data via APIs (api).
Select Enable Client Credentials Flow.
Click Create. Wait two to 10 minutes for the app to propagate before continuing.
In App Manager, find your app, click the dropdown arrow next to it, and select View.
Under API (Enable OAuth Settings), click Manage Consumer Details. Verify your identity by email, if prompted.
Copy the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret.
Copy your credentials now and store them somewhere safe. Salesforce may only show them once.
Salesforce support resources |
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Set up a Salesforce integration user
Use a dedicated integration user so you can control exactly what data the application can access.
Create or choose a user for the integration.
Give that user API access.
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Grant the level of permissions your application needs:
For read-only access: Grant read access to the Salesforce objects your application needs, such as Opportunity, Account, and Contact.
For read and write access: Grant both read and write access to the objects your application needs to display and update.
If Salesforce requires you to assign a run-as user for the client credentials flow, assign this dedicated user.
If Salesforce requires pre-authorization or policy settings for the client, complete those steps before testing the connection.
This setup keeps the integration focused and easier to review later. Start with the narrowest permissions your application needs and expand them if your use case grows.
Add your secrets in Aha! Builder
Once you have your credentials, add each one to your application in Aha! Builder as a separate secret:
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Click Configuration in the top navigation bar.
Click the Integrations tab.
Click Add secret.
In the Secret name field, enter
SALESFORCE\_CLIENT\_ID.In the Secret value field, paste your Consumer Key.
Click Save.
Repeat the steps above for
SALESFORCE\_CLIENT\_SECRET(your Consumer Secret) andSALESFORCE\_INSTANCE\_URL(your Salesforce instance URL, such ashttps://yourcompany.my.salesforce.com).After saving the last secret, click Ask Elle to integrate to start an AI chat.
Your credentials are now available to your application code. Secrets are encrypted and stored securely — they are never exposed in your application's frontend code.
Secrets are environment-specific. If you have both a Preview and a Production environment, you will need to add the secrets to each one separately.
Use the integration
With your secrets saved, you can ask Elle to build features that read from or write to Salesforce. Elle generates the code to connect to the Salesforce REST API using your secrets.
Read data from Salesforce:
"Add a dashboard that shows my open Salesforce opportunities with their stage, amount, and close date."
"Create a page that lists Salesforce opportunities closing this quarter, sorted by amount."
"Show recent Salesforce activity for the accounts assigned to my team."
Write data to Salesforce:
"Create a new Salesforce opportunity when a deal is approved in this application."
"Update the stage of a Salesforce opportunity when its status changes here."
"Add a new contact in Salesforce when someone completes the onboarding form in this application."
Write operations depend on the permissions of the integration user. If the user has read-only access, write requests will fail.
Update a secret
You can update a secret's value at any time. For example, update it when you rotate your API token:
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Click Configuration in the top navigation bar.
Click the Integrations tab.
Click Edit next to the secret you want to update.
Enter the new value and click Save.
Remove a secret
To remove an integration secret from your application:
Navigate to your application in Aha! Builder.
Click Configuration in the top navigation bar.
Click the Integrations tab.
Click the More options button (...) next to the secret you want to remove.
Click Delete.
Click OK to confirm.
Removing a secret breaks any features in your application that depend on it. Review your application after removing a secret to confirm it still functions correctly.