Create multiple sObjects with one create() call

December 21, 2013

I have been playing with the partner wsdl a lot lately. One of the things that I was trying to do was to create an Account, Contact and Opportunity object with one create() call to avoid calling the api multiple times.

After some digging I came across the create() api documentation that has a very good example of how you can create an Account and Opportunity using external id. I wrote the following the code the inserts all three objects with one create() call. Hope this helps some intrepid developer who is trying to do something similar.

// Create the connection object
    ConnectorConfig connector = new ConnectorConfig();
    connector.setUsername(username);
    connector.setPassword(password);
    connector.setAuthEndpoint(this.endpoint);
    PartnerConnection sourceConnection = new PartnerConnection(connector);

    // Set the allOrNone header to true to make the call atomic
    __header.setAllOrNone(true);
    sourceConnection.__setAllOrNoneHeader(__header);

    // Create the SObjects array   
    SObject[] sObjects = new SObject[3];
        
    // Create Account sObject
    SObject parentAccount = new SObject();
    parentAccount.setType("Account"); 
    parentAccount.setField("Name", "TestAccount1");
    parentAccount.setField("AcctExtId__c", "ACCT EXTID 1");
    sObjects[0] = parentAccount;

    // parent account reference - set the ext id same as above
    SObject parentAccountRef = new SObject();
    parentAccountRef.setType("Account");
    parentAccountRef.setField("AcctExtId__c", "ACCT EXTID 1");

    // Create Contact sObject
    SObject childContact = new SObject();
    childContact.setType("Contact"); 
    childContact.setField("LastName", "TestContact1");
    childContact.setField("ContExtId__c", "CONT EXTID 1");
    // Assign the Account field to the account ref
    childContact.setField("Account", parentAccountRef);
    sObjects[1] = childContact;

    // Create Opportunity sObject
    SObject childOpp = new SObject();
    childOpp.setType("Opportunity");
    childOpp.setField("Name", "TestOpportunity1");
    Calendar dt = sourceConnection.getServerTimestamp().getTimestamp();
    dt.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 7);
    childOpp.setField("CloseDate", dt);
    childOpp.setField("StageName", "Prospecting");
    childOpp.setField("OppExtId__c", "OPP EXTID 1");
    childOpp.setField("Account", parentAccountRef);
    sObjects[2] = childOpp;

    String result;
    // call the create method
    SaveResult[] results = sourceConnection.create(sObjects);
    // log the output
    for (int j = 0; j < results.length; j++) {
      if (results[j].isSuccess()) {
          result = results[j].getId();
          logger.debug("sobject was created with an ID of: " + result);
       } else {
          // There were errors during the create call,
          // go through the errors array and write
          // them to the console
          for (int i = 0; i < results[j].getErrors().length; i++) {
              Error err = results[j].getErrors()[i];
              logger.debug("Errors were found on item " + j);
              logger.debug("Error code: " + err.getStatusCode().toString());
              logger.debug("Error message: " + err.getMessage());
          }
       }
    }

Some things to note:

You can only insert objects one level deep with a single create() call. You can insert Account and Opportunity, but you cannot insert Account, Opportunity, and OpportunityLineItem with one call.
This method relies on external ids but you are only allowed upto 3 external ids per object so design your objects carefully.
This strategy only works with the create() method. The upsert() method requires you to insert an array of sObjects of a single type.
It will also work with the update() method if you set the id value of the sobjects. It doesn’t work with external ids. This requires you to make a query to your salesforce org to retrieve the ids before creating the sObject array.