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Summary

The streaming sync method involves listening to events from Salesforce’s pub/sub API and a log of Postgres events, then transacting any events using the REST API and SQL.

The benefits of streaming are faster syncs (max 30-second latency), optimized Salesforce API usage, and less data stored on Bracket’s servers.

Under streaming, the only data Bracket stores on its own servers is a list of primary keys corresponding to unprocessed records from Salesforce, which helps us retry any failed record syncs. This data can also be self-hosted on your servers.

This is the format of the unprocessed_records table:

Right now, streaming is only available between Salesforce and Postgres, and only on the enterprise plan. Reach out to us at eng@usebracket.com to learn more.

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Requirements

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Salesforce

  1. Bracket must have a dedicated Salesforce account with the correct permission. This helps us separate valid user edits from changes synced by Bracket.
  2. Salesforce must be the primary source, meaning it will win any merge conflicts
  3. The synced Salesforce object must have a unique Id field. In most objects, this is automatic.

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Postgres

  1. There must be a separate schema called bracket_audit. This is where Bracket will store the trigger log table, which contains a history of Postgres events.
Create schema statement
CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS bracket_audit;
  1. Bracket must have a dedicated Postgres user with the permissions below:
Create user statement
CREATE USER bracket WITH PASSWORD '<any_safe_password>';
GRANT CONNECT, CREATE ON DATABASE <postgres> TO bracket;
GRANT USAGE, CREATE ON SCHEMA bracket_audit TO bracket;
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, REFERENCES, TRIGGER ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA bracket_audit TO bracket;
GRANT EXECUTE ON ALL FUNCTIONS IN SCHEMA bracket_audit TO bracket;
  1. Any synced table has bracket_pkey as the primary key field, with UUIDv4 values. Bracket will generate these for you for any created tables.
  2. Any synced table has a field called id, which syncs with the Salesforce ID field.
  3. You should see the following sql executed in your postgres:
CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS bracket_audit;

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The streaming sync method, step-by-step

At cadences as fast as every 30 seconds, Bracket performs the following:

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First Step

Bracket checks the Salesforce pub/sub API to see if any events have occurred since the last successful data read/write. E.g., if the last change read by Bracket on your Salesforce object was processed six minutes ago, Bracket will only check the pub/sub API for any events with a commitTimestamp greater than the last six minutes.

If there are no new events, and it’s been less than 10 minutes since the last successful poll, Bracket does not poll Salesforce—this is where Brackets saves you from costly REST API usage.

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Second Step

If there are events reported by the pub/sub API, or if it’s been greater than 10 minutes since the last poll, Bracket polls Salesforce via REST API for all records modified or created since the last successful poll. We store these records in unprocessed_records.

Consistent 10-minute polling intervals make sure any events missed by pub/sub are still ultimately synced.

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Third Step

Bracket reads records from the Postgres trigger log that have status='UNPROCESSED' and queries records with the corresponding primary keys from the synced Postgres table.

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Fourth Step

Bracket writes Salesforce edits to Postgres. The record is then marked as PROCESSED or ERROR in unprocessed_records. If ERRORED, Bracket will try syncing the erroneous record at the next poll attempt only if a new change has been detected.

If during a given sync period a corresponding Postgres record was also updated, Bracket will remove the record from the next step.

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Fifth Step

Bracket writes Postgres edits to Salesforce. For inserts, which don’t yet have a Salesforce ID assigned, Bracket makes a “round trip”, capturing the newly-created SFID in the insert response and updating the Postgres record with it.