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Ask Wendy

View Your SFDC Data Schema or Entity Relationship Model

Wendy Close Feb 2, 2007

Recently an application support analyst from a salesforce.com customer asked for an application where one can easily view and print one’s current salesforce.com Data Schema or Entity Relationship Model.  Four solutions come to mind:

  1. Developers’ Sidekick by Upside Outcomes is a free client app that instantly displays the objects and attributes of your salesforce.com schema. Handy for developing custom apps or designing reports.

  2. Sforce Explorer is a .NET and Partner API based executable that provides a simple user interface for testing SOQL queries and browsing your salesforce.com data model. Source is included with the download. Requires .NET Framework 1.1 or later.

  3. SnapShot by Dreamfactory allows an account administrator to take a picture of the current state of the customizations in their salesforce.com org and track all changes over time, between different accounts, or between different user profiles.

  4. Simon Fell’s Soqlx (for Mac only). It also allows for export to PDF and has a nice graphical schema explorer.

      Take a look and let community know which one you like best. Have a CRM question? Askwendy@crmsuccess.com.

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    5 Comments

    Wendy Close

    The customer that asked this question just wrote back with some good feedback stating:

    I registered with Upside Outcomes, downloaded “Developers Sidekick” and used it.

    It seems like a GUI for the WSDL; what I found useful was I was able to quickly see the list of fields contained in objects; and see which fields were referenced by other objects, i.e. used as keys. The “cut & paste” feature was the most valuable tool, but was limited to listing the field names in objects. It would be much more useful to be able to do the same for the other attributes.

    Posted by: Wendy Close | February 02, 2007 at 12:33 PM

    Gareth Davies

    Hi,

    Thanks for the comments. I am really happy you like the program. We have a new version which is currently being prepared for AppExchange listing. 1000% better and includes a syntax-marking S-Control editor. It's still free for use on Developer Edition Accounts and very low cost for Enterprise/Unlimited due to sponsorship of other partners!

    Please download from this URL:

    http://www.shareit.com/programs.html?productid=300134853

    Best Wishes
    Gareth
    Founder Upside Outcomes

    Posted by: Gareth Davies | February 02, 2007 at 01:24 PM

    Wendy Close

    Just heard back again from my contact (application support analyst) at the customer site that first posed the question this post answers, and he shared more valuable feedback on the tools mentioned. He writes, "Thanks very much for your valuable info! I thought SOQLX was among the BEST, (it has a graphical display) as I got to see it at the Developers’ Track at the last “APEX Day.” I do have the Sforce Explorer and it’s very useful."

    If your looking for something better than the Entity Relationship Diagram in Salesforce.com, check out these tools.


    Posted by: Wendy Close | February 02, 2007 at 03:34 PM

    Bill Emerson

    QueryAmp will not only let you explore the schema but also graphically build SOQL statements using the schema.

    www.queryamp.com

    Posted by: Bill Emerson | February 02, 2007 at 06:29 PM

    Melissa

    Hi my name is melissa I would like to know if you have an entity relationship diagram with 40 entitys...it will be very heplful for me thanks... my e-mail is jan_meli_dehoyos@hotmail.com

    Posted by: Melissa | May 27, 2007 at 07:34 AM

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