How to Connect Excel to Salesforce CRM

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to help businesses connect with their customers and manage relationships effectively. By providing valuable insights into customer needs and behavior, Salesforce enables organizations to analyze and better understand their customers.

Salesforce allows users to integrate its data with various third-party tools. Despite these capabilities, many users prefer working with its data directly in Microsoft Excel for ease of use. To address this preference, Devart Excel add-ins offer the solution: a dedicated Salesforce Excel connector. It enables users to connect Salesforce directly to Excel, load data into worksheets, manage data efficiently using Excel features, and easily update online Salesforce records with local changes made in Excel.

Configure connection to Salesforce from Excel

Before you start configuring the Salesforce connection from within Excel via the Devart dedicated add-ins, you need to check and make sure that your system meets the requirements for installing and running this solution.

Download and install the Excel Add-in for Salesforce. When it is installed successfully, launch Excel. You will see a new Devart tab in the Excel toolbar. Navigate to it and click Get Data to connect Excel to Salesforce.

Devart tab in Excel

If the Devart tab is not present in Excel after installing the Excel Add-in, check if add-ins are enabled in File > Options > Add-ins, and restart Microsoft Excel.

1. After clicking Get Data, the Import Data Wizard opens. Select Salesforce as the source for Excel Salesforce import.

Select Salesforce

2. Enter the Salesforce connection parameters. To connect with UserNamePassword authentication you need to specify the following required details:

  • Host - the Salesforce.com or Database.com login URL
  • User ID - the Salesforce login account
  • Password - the password for the Salesforce login account
  • Security token - the automatically generated key that is used to log in to Salesforce from an untrusted network. To get it, log in to your online Salesforce account and navigate to the Reset My Security Token section.

Salesforce settings

The reset security token will be sent to your inbox. Copy it and paste it into the Import Data Wizard.

Salesforce token reset

Optionally, you can configure additional parameters:

  • Allow saving add-in specific data in Excel worksheet - when selected, it sets the Devart Excel Add-ins to save such information as queries, connections, etc. in the Excel document.
  • Allow saving connection string in Excel worksheet - when selected, it lets the Excel Add-in save the configured connection parameters in the Excel document to reuse automatically.
  • Allow saving password - it is recommended to leave this checkbox unchecked for security reasons.
  • Allow reuse connection in Excel - connection parameters will be saved on your PC for reuse every time you run Excel.

Verify the details by clicking Test Connection, and click Next to start configuring the Excel Salesforce import.

View parameters and test connection

3. If required, provide additional connection details. Click Advanced and specify the necessary parameters. You will see the Salesforce connection strings at the bottom of the Connection Editor window, so you can save the string and reuse it later.

Configure advanced connection parameters

Import data from Salesforce into Excel

Devart Excel Add-in for Salesforce allows you to configure the process of importing data from your Salesforce account in several clicks. After establishing the connection, the Data Import Wizard displays a list of available objects to load data into Salesforce.

1. Select the table containing the data you want to work with in Excel.

Select Salesforce table

2. Define the column or columns to import data from. On the right pane in the Visual Editor, you can see the SQL query used to load PostgreSQL data into Excel.

Select data portion from Salesforce table

3. You can edit the standard query or write a new query to match your requirements for data extraction on the SQL Query tab.

Query editor

4. Preview the data to be imported. The Excel Add-in lets you either create a new worksheet to load Salesforce data or replace existing data in an existing worksheet with the imported data. Make sure that the latter option, if chosen, won't cause accidental data loss.

Preview Salesforce data in Excel add-in

5. Click Finish.

Live edit Salesforce data in Excel

Integrating the Devart Excel Add-in for Salesforce allows you to not just import data into your worksheet directly but also work with it in a familiar manner using the available Excel functionality.

By default, the imported data is read-only. Click Edit Mode on the top to enable data editing in Excel.

Edit mode to work with data

The following options are available:

  • Modify cells by editing, deleting, or inserting records
  • Add rows by entering data into empty cells at the table's bottom and pressing Enter, or by inserting rows as in an Excel sheet
  • Delete unnecessary rows

All changes are highlighted with colors, which can be customized in the Appearance section under Options.

After completing your tasks, you can perform the Excel to Salesforce data export to update the data online with locally made changes.

Upload Excel data into Salesforce

With Devart Excel Add-in for Salesforce, you can upload Excel data to Salesforce, back to the target tables.

  • To upload the edited data back to Salesforce, click Commit on the top toolbar.
  • To cancel the uploaded data from Excel to Salesforce, click Rollback on the toolbar.

Commit or revert changes

You can check the data in your Salesforce account to verify that it has been updated successfully.

Conclusion

Devart Excel Add-ins for Salesforce make the local Salesforce data management with Microsoft Excel easy and efficient. It simplifies connecting to Salesforce, allows retrieving data, editing it in Excel, and uploading updates back to Salesforce, ensuring your changes are reflected online.

You can download and install the Devart Excel Add-in for Salesforce to enhance your workflows. Alternatively, consider the Universal Pack, a comprehensive solution offering connectors for over 25 data sources, including major databases and popular cloud platforms, for unified data management.

Excel Add-in Universal Pack

Use full power of Excel with your cloud or database data