You or your administrator can set up and manage your authentication settings for external systems. With valid authentication settings, you can access external systems from within your Salesforce org.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience |
|
Named credentials are available in: All Editions. Salesforce Connect is available in: Developer Edition and for an extra cost in: Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions. Files Connect for cloud-based external data sources is available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To store authentication settings for an external data source: | The data source enabled under External Data Source Access |
| To store authentication settings for a named credential: | The named credential enabled under Named Credential Access |
| To edit another user’s authentication settings for external systems: | Manage Users |
Your administrator defines external systems in external data sources and named credentials. External data sources specify how to access data or content that’s stored outside your Salesforce org. Named credentials specify callout endpoints, which receive Web service callouts from your org.
Before you begin, your administrator:
- Sets up the external data source or named credential to use per-user authentication.
- Grants you access to the external data source or named credential.
- Verifies that your org can connect to the external system.
- Tells you the authentication settings to enter.
- Sets up the community, if applicable, by using the Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce
template.
If the community is built with the Customer Service template, only your administrator can set up and manage your authentication settings for external systems. You can’t complete these steps on your own.
If you don’t see the expected settings or options, contact your administrator.
-
Access your authentication settings for external systems with one of these methods.
From within a community, if you have a community license, click My Settings | Authentication Settings for External Systems. Otherwise, from your personal settings, enter Authentication, then select Authentication Settings for External Systems.
From Salesforce, go to your personal settings and enter Authentication in the Quick Find box, then select Authentication Settings for External Systems.
- Click New or Edit.
-
Complete the fields.
Field Description External System Definition If you’re not sure which option to select, ask your administrator.
- External Data Source: Provides access to external objects, whose data is stored outside your Salesforce organization.
- Named Credential: Enables your actions to trigger authenticated callouts to the endpoint that’s specified in the named credential.
A named credential can handle the authentication for an external data source. In this scenario, your administrator instructs you to select Named Credential in this field to access external objects.
External Data Source
or
Named Credential
Which field appears depends on what’s selected for External System Definition.
If you’re not sure which option to select, ask your administrator. Your administrator can change the option labels to make them more relevant or easier to distinguish from each other.
User Available only to administrators. Select the user whose authentication settings you’re entering. -
Select the authentication protocol that the external system requires. If you’re not
sure which option to select, ask your administrator.
If you select Password Authentication, enter your username and password for the external system.
If you select OAuth 2.0, complete these fields.
Field Description Authentication Provider If you’re not sure which option to select, ask your administrator. Your administrator can change the option labels to make them more relevant or easier to distinguish from each other. Scope If you’re not sure what to enter, ask your administrator.
Specifies the scope of permissions to request for the access token.
Start Authentication Flow on Save To authenticate to the external system and obtain an OAuth token, select this checkbox. This authentication process is called an OAuth flow.
When you click Save, the external system prompts you to log in. After successful login, the external system grants you an OAuth token for accessing its data from this org.
Redo the OAuth flow when you need a new token—for example, if the token expires—or if you edit the Scope or Authentication Provider fields. When the token expires, the external system returns a 401 HTTP error status.
- Click Save.