Apex Developer Guide

Getting Started
Writing Apex
Ways to Invoke Apex
Invoking Apex
Apex Transactions and Governor Limits
Using Salesforce Features with Apex
Integration and Apex Utilities
Invoking Callouts Using Apex
Adding Remote Site Settings
Named Credentials as Callout Endpoints
Custom Headers and Bodies of Apex Callouts That Use Named Credentials
Merge Fields for Apex Callouts That Use Named Credentials
SOAP Services: Defining a Class from a WSDL Document
Invoking HTTP Callouts
Using Certificates
Callout Limits and Limitations
Make Long-Running Callouts from a Visualforce Page
JSON Support
XML Support
Securing Your Data
Encoding Your Data
Using Patterns and Matchers
Finishing Touches
Reference
Appendices
Glossary
PDF

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Named Credentials as Callout Endpoints

A named credential specifies the URL of a callout endpoint and its required authentication parameters in one definition. Salesforce manages all authentication for Apex callouts that specify a named credential as the callout endpoint so that your code doesn’t have to. You can also skip remote site settings, which are otherwise required for callouts to external sites.

By separating the endpoint URL and authentication from the callout definition, named credentials make callouts easier to maintain. For example, if an endpoint URL changes, you update only the named credential. All callouts that reference the named credential simply continue to work.

If you have multiple organizations, you can create a named credential with the same name but with a different endpoint URL in each org. You can then package and deploy—on all the orgs—one callout definition that references the shared name of those named credentials. For example, the named credential in each org can have a different endpoint URL to accommodate differences in development and production environments. If an Apex callout specifies the shared name of those named credentials, the Apex class that defines the callout can be packaged and deployed on all those orgs without programmatically checking the environment.

Named credentials are supported in web service callouts that are run asynchronously via Queueable Apex, that is, by implementing the Queueable interface. However, named credentials aren’t supported in web service callouts that use the Continuation class.

Note

Example

In the following Apex code, a named credential and an appended path specify the callout’s endpoint.
The referenced named credential specifies the endpoint URL and the authentication settings.Named credential detail pageYou can code the callout endpoint as the URL instead of the named credential, but your code then handles the authentication. Our example uses basic password authentication, but keep in mind that OAuth authentication is much more complex and is an ideal use case for named credentials.