[SalesForce] REST API: How to insert values for picklist and lookup field types

Introduction

Hello, I'm working on synchronising data from a MySQL database into Salesforce using the REST API. I've got as far as inserting basic text values, but for complex field types such as picklist and lookup, I'm unable to find any documentation on the correct format. I've tried to send in objects and arrays, as well as having spent quite a few hours looking for solutions. I keep getting errors like:

{"message":"Cannot deserialize instance of multipicklist from START_ARRAY value [line:1, column:51]","errorCode":"JSON_PARSER_ERROR"}

From JSON payloads like:

{"FirstName":"Doug","LastName":"Proctor (testing)","s360__Contact_Code__c":["Individual supporter - donor"]}

Where s360__Contact_Code__c is a picklist field. I'm also having problems with lookups, where I need to refer to another object of the same type as a referrer.

As I said, I have no problems with actually getting basic objects into the database when I only populate text fields.

Question

Where would I find the correct formats when POSTing/PATCHing fields of these types?

Sorry if I'm not being clear, I'm a real Salesforce novice and the amount of information and capabilities the product has is quite overwhelming.

Best Answer

Picklist values are strings. Multi Select Picklist values are semicolon-separated strings. Lookups are 18 character strings where the 18 character string is the ID of the record being looked up to.

This documentation should help.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] REST API: How to update active values for picklist

I was finally able to figure it out. It was a combination of using the RecordType with the metadata.update() call:

public void recordTypeSample() throws InterruptedException
{
  try
  {
    RecordType productInfo = new RecordType();
    productInfo.setFullName("Product_Information__c.OHM");
    productInfo.setLabel("OHM");

    PicklistValue version1 = new PicklistValue();
    version1.setFullName("7.4.5");

    RecordTypePicklistValue ohmVersions = new RecordTypePicklistValue();
    ohmVersions.setPicklist("Licensed_Version__c");
    ohmVersions.setValues(new PicklistValue[] { version1 });
    productInfo.setPicklistValues(new RecordTypePicklistValue[] { ohmVersions });

    UpdateMetadata updateMetadata = new UpdateMetadata();
    updateMetadata.setMetadata(productInfo);
    updateMetadata.setCurrentName(productInfo.getFullName());

    AsyncResult[] asyncResults = this.metadataConnection.update(new UpdateMetadata[] { updateMetadata });

    AsyncResult asyncResult = asyncResults[0];

    // set initial wait time to one second
    long waitTimeMilliSecs = 1000;
    while(!asyncResult.isDone())
    {
      Thread.sleep(waitTimeMilliSecs);
      // double the wait time for the next iteration
      waitTimeMilliSecs *= 2;
      asyncResult = metadataConnection.checkStatus(new String[] { asyncResult.getId() })[0];
    }
  }
  catch(ConnectionException ce)
  {
    ce.printStackTrace();
  }
}

[SalesForce] How to insert and get value for lookup field (Trigger)

Lets start with populating lookup fields:

Order_product__c= [select Product2 OrderItem where OrderItemNumber='0000000028']

It's clear what you're trying to do, but that won't work. Firstly, the SOQL statement can return an (empty) list or object, but a lookup field is actually populated with the ID. Conveniently you have this value as you're in the After Insert context!

Order_product__c = o.id;

That's it!

Though, I'd like to point your attention to bulkification. It's good to see that you're putting all your new records in a list and only inserting your list of new records to the database once your for-loop is over. That's a core way of dealing with bulk processing of records, another important one is avoiding SOQL queries in your for-loops.

So in any future trigger, where you would need to query for related data, you'd first collect all the ID's for which you need to query, do the query to get the data, and then apply it to your list of records.

Welcome to developing in salesforce and salesforce.Stackexchange :-)

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