How to Create External Credentials in Salesforce

In this Salesforce tutorial, we will learn how to create external credentials in Salesforce.

While working with an organization that uses Salesforce, I got a task where I needed to create external credentials in Salesforce. To fulfill this requirement I use the name credentials object that is present under security.

I found a solution that helped me to create the external credential in Salesforce. So, let us discuss step by step, how to create external credentials in Salesforce Lightning, you have come to the right place. This external credential is only available in Salesforce Lightning.

Table of Contents

External Credentials in Salesforce

An external credential can summarize the details of how Salesforce validates to a remote system.

The external credentials in Salesforce refer to the verification information that is used to fix the connection between the external system and Salesforce. These types of credentials are used to validate to fit the resources or execute the action in the external system.

This type of external credential is used in the integration scheme where the salesforce requires to interface with an external system like the web services, database, and other applications, etc.

This is an introduction to the external credential in Salesforce. Now, let’s move further and see how to create the external credential in Salesforce. We will explore the salesforce Lightning experience.

How to create external credentials in Salesforce Lightning

Here we are creating the external credential in Salesforce Lightning. If you want to learn how to create an external credential in salesforce lightning follow these steps:

Step-1: Login into your Salesforce lightning account, Go to the gear icon. Under the gear icon, there are two options present first one is Setup and another one is Service Setup. Here we are clicking on the Setup option.

How to create external credentials in Salesforce

Step-2: After clicking on the setup option, the setup page is open. Enter the named credential in the Quick Find Box and the named credential come at the top. Click on the named credential. And these named credentials are present under the security in the left sidebar.

How to create external credentials in Salesforce lightning

Step-3: After clicking on the named credentials, the named credentials page is open. Here you can see that there is two option first one is name credentials and the second one is an external credential. Here we want to create a new external credential.

Click on the external credentials option and here you can see that no external credential is created. For creating the new external credential the new button is present at the right side. Click on the new button.

Create external credentials in Salesforce — Click on the new button

Step-4: After clicking on the new button, the new external credential page is open. Now fill in the complete information related to an external credential. First, fill in the label here we are filling in the label as USAExternalCred after that fill the name field.

After that fill the authentication protocol. For filling the authentication protocol field click on the drop-down arrow. After clicking on the drop-down arrow the drop-down list is open. Under this drop-down list, there are three options.

The first option is OAuth2.0, the second option is AWS Signature Version 4 and the last option is Custom. Here we are selecting the custom option.

Create external credentials in Salesforce lightning — Select the custom option

Step-5: After selecting Custom as an Authentication protocol. Now click on the save button that is present at the bottom of the new external credential page.

Salesforce create external credentials — Salesforce creates external credentials

Step-6: After clicking on the save button, the USAExternalCred is created successfully and the pop-message is come up on the screen that is USAExternalCred was saved. We can also edit and delete the external Credentials by simply clicking on the edit and delete button.

This is how to create external credentials in Salesforce Lightning.

Conclusion

Here we have learned about the external credentials in Salesforce. The Salesforce external credential is used in the integration scheme where the salesforce requires to interface with an external system like the web services, database, and other applications, etc. We also discussed, how to create external credentials in Salesforce Lightning.