Custom App Development

Learn about the various APIs available for custom app development.

After you set up Data Cloud with data, and use the Customer 360 model and identity resolution rules to create unified profiles, you can use APIs to access and manage profiles and calculated insights.

Check out this comparison table to understand the capabilities of each API available in Data Cloud. To learn more about each API, check out the section corresponding to each API.

Use Connect REST API in your custom app to run queries, and access profiles, calculated insights, identity resolution rulesets, data source records, and metadata.

These are the actions you can perform on the Data Cloud resources using Connect REST API.

• Query Library: Query data across data model, lake, unified, and linked objects.
• Calculated Insights: Get metadata for calculated insights. Metadata includes dimensions and measures. Create and manipulate calculated insights metadata. Query calculated insight objects. Trigger a run for a calculated insight.
• Profile: Get metadata for data model objects in the profile category, including Individual, Contact Point Email, Unified Individual, and Contact Point Address objects. Metadata includes the objects, their fields, and category. Also, query a Profile data model object.
• Identity Resolution Rulesets: Get, create, and manipulate identity resolution rulesets. Also, run an identity resolution ruleset job on demand.
• Segments: Get, create, manipulate, and publish market segment definitions.
• Universal ID Lookup: Look up objects by source ID.
• Metadata: Get all metadata in your Data Cloud instance, including profiles, calculated insights, segments, and other objects, as well as their relationships to other objects.

For more information, see Data Cloud Resources in the Data Cloud Connect REST API Guide.

Make calls and queries to the Connect REST API by using the Data Cloud Connect API Postman Collection. The Postman collection provides a handy template of API calls with prefilled URIs. For more information, see Salesforce Data Cloud Connect APIs. To view a video that walks you through the steps of calling Data Cloud Connect REST APIs with Postman, see Data Cloud Connect APIs and Postman Quick Start Video.

Use Apex, Salesforce’s cloud-based programming language that runs on the Salesforce Platform, to query, create, and manipulate Data Cloud components and to query components. The components you can access in Apex are a subset of the ones you can access with Connect REST API.

The Apex classes in the ConnectApi namespace enable you to access and manipulate Data Cloud components.

• ConnectApi.CdpQuery Class: Get Data Cloud metadata and query data.
• ConnectApi.CdpCalculatedInsight Class: Create, delete, get, run, and update Data Cloud calculated insights.
• ConnectApi.CdpIdentityResolution Class: Create, delete, get, run, and update Data Cloud identity resolution rulesets.
• ConnectApi.CdpSegment Class: Create, delete, get, publish, and update Data Cloud segments. Get segment members.

For more information about Apex, see the Apex Developer Guide.

The Data Cloud API provides similar capabilities as the Connect API but it is optimized for use when making calls only to the Data Cloud tenant and when not accessing Salesforce Platform features. Use the Data Cloud API in your app to query data, and to retrieve and manipulate profiles and calculated insights. If your app integrates with the Salesforce Platform features, we recommend you use the Connect REST API or Connect API in Apex.

For more information, see these resources in the Data Cloud Reference Guide.

• Query Data using Query API V2
• Query Data using Query API V1
• Query Services Status Codes
• Query Source Record IDs
• Query Calculated Insights
• Query Customer Profile Information with Profile API
• Retrieve Metadata

Make calls and queries to the Data Cloud API by using the Salesforce Data Cloud APIs Postman Collection. The Postman collection provides a handy template of API calls with prefilled URIs. For more information, see the Direct APIs. For Connect API, see Salesforce Data Cloud Connect APIs.

Because the Data Cloud API is within a Data Cloud tenant, the OAuth authorization to the Data Cloud API involves a two-step process to exchange the Salesforce access token with a Data Cloud access token.

To use the Data Cloud API, an API user must first authenticate to Salesforce using OAuth, which returns an access token. The user can then post that token to an API endpoint, which is accessed via the Salesforce org’s MyDomain. The endpoint returns a Data Cloud API access token as well as the tenant-specific endpoint. Next, the user can make Data Cloud API calls from the tenant-specific endpoint. For more information about the steps to obtain the access tokens, see Getting Started in the Data Cloud Reference Guide.

In comparison, when using a Salesforce API, such as the Connect REST API, an API user can authenticate to Salesforce using OAuth, and then make API calls via the Salesforce org's My Domain.

Use the REST API query call or Apex to execute SOQL queries against the Unified Profile, Data Source objects, or Data Model objects. SOQL is Salesforce's query language that's integrated with the Salesforce Platform. Use SOQL as an alternative to using query API calls with ANSI SQL in Connect API and Data Cloud API.

For more information about what SOQL keywords are supported for Data Cloud queries, see Data Cloud Query Profile Parameters in the REST API Developer Guide.

Use the Salesforce Metadata API to migrate metadata, which are definitions of configurations and components of Data Cloud from one Data Cloud org to another. Metadata API currently provides partial support for Data Cloud metadata.

Metadata API is used in these parts of Data Cloud:

• AWS Data Streams
• Ingestion API Data Streams
• Mobile and Web Data Streams
• Data Lake
• Data Model

To get a list of all the metadata types available for Data Cloud, see Data Cloud Metadata Types in the Metadata API Developer Guide. For more information, see Using the Metadata API in Data Cloud in Salesforce Help.

A subset of Data Cloud components can be packaged. To find out which components are available in packaging, see Metadata Components for Data Cloud Cheat Sheet) in the Data Cloud Partner Guide. Also, check out the Metadata Coverage Report.

As an alternative to Metadata API, you can use unmanaged packages to deploy metadata by installing the packaged components in another org. See Packages and Data Kits.

Use Consent API to opt in or opt out of data-related actions, such as exporting or processing of data, and storage of personally identifiable information.

For more information, see:

• REST API Developer Guide: Use the Consent API with Data Cloud
• Trailhead: Learn Privacy and Data Protection Law
• Trailhead: Data Cloud and the Ethical Use of Data

Send an alert or an event to a target based on streaming insights and engagement data to trigger an automation or data integration. The supported targets are Salesforce Platform Event, webhook, and Marketing Cloud.

When a data change occurs in Data Cloud in Data Model Object (DMO) records or calculated insights, the data action sends the DataObjectDataChgEvent platform event. The platform event can be received by a subscriber, such as a flow, which performs an action based on this change. For more information, see Webhook Data Action Targets in Data Cloud in the Data Cloud Reference Guide.

For more information about using a webhook as a data action target, see the Unleashing the Power of Data Actions Using a Webhook as a Target blog post in Salesforce Developers.

For more information about using actions with Flow, see the Integrating Data Cloud Data Actions with Flow topic.

For more information about data actions in general, see Data Actions in Data Cloud in Salesforce Help.