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Lookup Relationship Fields on External Objects

Use a lookup relationship when the external data includes a column that identifies related Salesforce records by their 18-character IDs.

Required Editions

Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience

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

Federated Search is available in: Enterprise, Professional, Unlimited, and Developer Editions

A lookup relationship field links a child standard, custom, or external object to a parent standard or custom object. A user who’s editing a child record can click the field’s lookup icon to select a specific parent record, and a user who’s viewing a parent record can view a related list of child records.

When you create a lookup relationship field on an external object, enter the External Column Name that contains the 18-character Salesforce IDs for identifying the parent records.

Example
Example
  • Account record (parent standard object) displays a related list of external SAP sales orders (child external object).
  • Account record (parent standard object) displays a related list of support cases (child standard object).

See Also