Big Objects Implementation Guide

Big Objects
Define and Deploy Custom Big Objects
Populate a Custom Big Object
Delete Data in a Custom Big Object
SOQL with Big Objects
Async SOQL
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Big Objects

Big objects let you store and manage massive amounts of data on the Salesforce platform.
Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions

Big objects capture data for use within Force.com and are accessible via a standard set of APIs to clients and external systems. What differentiates big objects is that they have been built to provide consistent performance whether there is 1 million records, 100 million, or even 1 billion records. This scale is what gives big objects their power and what defines the features that are provided.

There are two types of big objects.
  • Standard big objects — Objects defined by Salesforce and included in Salesforce products. FieldHistoryArchive is a standard big object that stores data as part of the Field Audit Trail product.
  • Custom big objects — New objects that you create to store information unique to your org. Custom big objects extend the functionality that Force.com provides. For example, if you’re building an app to track product inventory, create a custom big object called HistoricalInventoryLevels to track historical inventory levels for analysis and future optimizations.

Custom Big Object Use Cases

  • 360° view of the customer — Extend your Salesforce data model to include detailed information from loyalty programs, e-commerce transactions, billing and provisioning information, and more.
  • Auditing and tracking — Track and maintain a long-term view of your user’s usage of Salesforce or your customer’s usage of your products for analysis or compliance purposes
  • Historical archive — Maintain access to historical data for analysis or compliance purposes while optimizing the performance of your core CRM or Force.com applications.

Considerations

  • Big objects support only object and field permissions.
  • You must use the Metadata API to define a big object or add a field to a custom big object.
  • SOQL relationship queries are based on a lookup field from a big object to a standard or custom object in the select field list (not in filters or subqueries).
  • Big objects support custom Lightning and Visualforce components rather than standard UI elements home pages, detail pages, list views, and so on).
  • You can create up to 100 big object per org. The limits for big object fields are similar to the limits on custom objects, and depend on your org’s license type.
  • Big objects don’t support transactions including both big objects, standard object and custom objects.
  • To support the scale of data in a big object, features like triggers, flows, processes, and the Salesforce app are not available.
  • You can’t use Salesforce Connect external objects to access big objects in another org.