The Salesforce Data Provider for ADO.NET offers the most natural way to access Salesforce data from any .NET application. Simply use Salesforce Data Provider objects to connect and access data just as you would access any traditional database. You will be able to use the Salesforce Data Provider through Visual Studio Server Explorer, in code through familiar classes, and in data controls like DataGridView, GridView, DataSet, etc.

Using the Salesforce Data Provider

The Salesforce Data Provider wraps the complexity of accessing Salesforce services in an easy-to-integrate, fully-managed ADO.NET Data Provider. Applications then access Salesforce through the Salesforce Data Provider with simple Transact-SQL.

 

The Salesforce Data Provider for ADO.NET hides the complexity of accessing data and provides additional powerful security features, smart caching, batching, socket management, and more.

Working with DataAdapters, DataSets, DataTables, etc.

The Salesforce Data Provider has the same ADO.NET architecture as the native .NET data providers for SQL Server and OLEDB including: SalesforceConnection, SalesforceCommand, SalesforceDataAdapter, SalesforceDataReader, SalesforceDataSource, SalesforceParameter, and SalesforceTransaction. Because of this you can now access Salesforce data in an easy, familiar way.

For example:

using (SalesforceConnection conn = new SalesforceConnection("...")) {
	string select = "SELECT * FROM SalesforceOpportunities";
	SalesforceCommand cmd = new SalesforceCommand(select, conn);
	SalesforceDataAdapter adapter = new SalesforceDataAdapter(cmd);
	using (adapter) {
		DataTable table = new DataTable();
		adapter.Fill(table);		
		...
	}
}

More Than Read-Only: Full Update/CRUD Support

Salesforce Data Provider goes beyond read-only functionality to deliver full support for Create, Read Update, and Delete operations (CRUD). Your end-users can interact with the data presented by the Salesforce Data Provider as easily as interacting with a database table.

using (SalesforceConnection connection = new SalesforceConnection(connectionString)) {
	SalesforceDataAdapter dataAdapter = new SalesforceDataAdapter(
	"SELECT Id, Where FROM Opportunities", connection);
  
	dataAdapter.UpdateCommand = new SalesforceCommand(
		"UPDATE Opportunities SET Where = @Where " +
		"WHERE Id = @ID", connection);

	dataAdapter.UpdateCommand.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Where", "Where");
	dataAdapter.UpdateCommand.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Id", "80000173-1387137645");

	DataTable OpportunitiesTable = new DataTable();
	dataAdapter.Fill(OpportunitiesTable);

	DataRow firstrow = OpportunitiesTable.Rows[0];
	firstrow["Where"] = "New Location";

	dataAdapter.Update(OpportunitiesTable);
}