Step 2: Creating a Job

Before you can load any data, you first have to create a job. The job specifies the type of object, such as Contact, that you're loading, and the operation that you're performing, such as query, insert, update, upsert, or delete. A job also grants you some control over the data load process. For example, you can abort a job that is in progress.

To create a job using cURL:

1. Create a text file called job.txt containing the following text:
   1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   2<jobInfo xmlns="http://www.force.com/2009/06/asyncapi/dataload">
   3    <operation>insert</operation>
   4    <object>Contact</object>
   5    <contentType>CSV</contentType>
   6</jobInfo>

   The operation value must be all lower case. For example, you get an error if you use INSERT instead of insert.

   Warning

2. Using a command-line window, execute the following cURL command:

   curl https://instance.salesforce.com/services/async/33.0/job -H "X-SFDC-Session: sessionId" -H "Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8" -d @job.txt

   instance is the portion of the <serverUrl> element and sessionId is the <sessionId> element that you noted in the login response.

   Salesforce returns an XML response with data such as the following:

   1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   2<jobInfo
   3   xmlns="http://www.force.com/2009/06/asyncapi/dataload">
   4  <id>750x0000000005LAAQ</id>
   5  <operation>insert</operation>
   6  <object>Contact</object>
   7  <createdById>005x0000000wPWdAAM</createdById>
   8  <createdDate>2009-09-01T16:42:46.000Z</createdDate>
   9  <systemModstamp>2009-09-01T16:42:46.000Z</systemModstamp>
   10  <state>Open</state>
   11  <concurrencyMode>Parallel</concurrencyMode>
   12  <contentType>CSV</contentType>
   13  <numberBatchesQueued>0</numberBatchesQueued>
   14  <numberBatchesInProgress>0</numberBatchesInProgress>
   15  <numberBatchesCompleted>0</numberBatchesCompleted>
   16  <numberBatchesFailed>0</numberBatchesFailed>
   17  <numberBatchesTotal>0</numberBatchesTotal>
   18  <numberRecordsProcessed>0</numberRecordsProcessed>
   19  <numberRetries>0</numberRetries>
   20  <apiVersion>33.0</apiVersion>
   21</jobInfo>

3. Note the value of the job ID returned in the <id> element. Use this ID in subsequent operations.