[SalesForce] Upsert into Contact without knowing AccountId but relate to existing Account

I upsert into Contact with external id using REST API like this :

https://myinstance.salesforce.com/services/data/v32.0/sobjects/Contact/clinician_id__c/1000

I send PATCH request along with Contact json data.
It works just fine, and creates an orphaned Contact record since I don't include AccountId. I don't send AccountId because I do not have AccountId in my database.

But I do have external id field in Account that I can lookup in Account to find AccountId that I want to relate the Contact being upserted.

But I believe it'll require me to send two API requests, one to lookup AccountId in Account using external id, then upsert into Contact passing retrieved AccountId.

What's the best way for me to upsert into Contact without looking up AccountId, therefore, saving me a API call?

Best Answer

Thanks TC Sutton.

For all those keeping track of Salesforce generated ID, this should help.

There is no need to create another relationship to Account. It won't work anyways. Contact already has relationship to Account. It's not Account__r. It's just Account.

So I have custom external id field in Account called Org_ID__c. It can be referenced by "Account":{"Org_ID__c":1234} in your json data that's PATCHed to REST API point.

So if I go back to my question...

Send PATCH request to along with your "Authorization" header to

https://myinstance.salesforce.com/services/data/v32.0/sobjects/Contact/clinician_id__c/1000

along with JSON data of

{
    "FirstName":"Michael",
    "LastName":"Jordan", 
    "Account": {
         "Org_ID__c":3973
    }
}

And see magic happen.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] How to align existing contact owners with account owners

You have several options:

Use the salesforce.com DataLoader (simplest)
Run an Execute Anonymous script to do the cleanup (2000 records is not that large)

To use DataLoader, you would need to query the Contact object with the following SOQL query:

select Id, AccountId, OwnerId, Account.OwnerId from Contact

Once the data is exported to .CSV file, you should be able to open it and compare the Account.OwnerId + OwnerId fields. You would then delete every column except for Account.OwnerId (rename to OwnerId)and Id.

Finally, save this file nd run it as an update on the Contact object.

This option will avoid any governor limits, allows you to backup your data, and is the most straightforward/common approach.*

Option 2:

If you want to avoid files, you can run this code snippet in the Execute Anonymous window of the developer console in salesforce.com (including production orgs).

Execute Anonymous Apex:

List<Contact> contactsToChangeOwner = new List<Contact>();


//loop through child contacts and replace owner if different...

for(Contact c :  [select Id, AccountId, OwnerId, Account.OwnerId from Contact]){

    if(c.OwnerId != c.Account.OwnerId){

        //replace current contact Owner...
        c.OwnerId = c.Account.OwnerId;

        contactsToChangeOwner.add(c);

    }


}

update contactsToChangeOwner;

[SalesForce] Create case with no accountId although contact has related account

Create an additional lookup relationship with Contact on the Case object
Use the newly created Contact field in your Pagelayout and hide the Original one.
Use a Workflowrule or process to update the original Contact lookup field with the Value in your newly created Contact field.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] How to align existing contact owners with account owners

[SalesForce] Create case with no accountId although contact has related account

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