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Glossary

Quick, plain-language definitions for terms used throughout this course. Where a term has its own lesson, the entry links to it.

  • Access token — a short-lived credential sent with each API call to prove who's calling; see Authentication Basics.
  • API (Application Programming Interface) — a defined way for one piece of software to talk to another.
  • Asynchronous — the caller doesn't wait for the work to finish before moving on; see Inbound vs Outbound Integration.
  • Base64 — a way of encoding binary or text data as plain ASCII text, commonly used to encode Basic authentication credentials.
  • Bearer token — a token sent in the Authorization header that grants access to whoever "bears" (holds) it; see Authentication Basics.
  • Bulk API — Salesforce's API designed for loading or exporting very large record volumes asynchronously, instead of one record at a time.
  • Callout — Salesforce's term for an outbound HTTP request made from Apex or Flow.
  • Change Data Capture (CDC) — a Salesforce feature that publishes an event whenever a record is created, updated, deleted, or undeleted, for other systems to subscribe to.
  • CometD — a server-push messaging technology; see Terms You Will Meet.
  • CSV (Comma-Separated Values) — a simple, flat text format for tabular data, commonly used for bulk file-based integration.
  • Data mapping — the work of matching fields from one system's data shape to another's (e.g. the external system's cust_id maps to Salesforce's Account.Id).
  • Endpoint — the specific URL a request is sent to.
  • ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) — the classic pattern of pulling data out of a source system, reshaping it, and loading it into a target system, usually in batch.
  • External Credential — the newer Salesforce model that separates how to authenticate (protocol, tokens) from where to send the request; see Authentication.
  • GraphQL — a query language letting clients request exactly the fields they need in one call; see Terms You Will Meet.
  • gRPC — a high-performance binary RPC framework built on HTTP/2; see Terms You Will Meet.
  • Governor limit — a strict, enforced ceiling on resource usage (callouts, queries, etc.) per transaction, to keep Salesforce's shared infrastructure fair for every org; see Why Salesforce Is Different for Integrators.
  • Header — metadata attached to a request or response, separate from the body (e.g. Content-Type, Authorization).
  • HTTPS / TLS — HTTP carried over an encrypted connection (Transport Layer Security), so data in transit can't be read or tampered with by a third party.
  • Idempotent — an operation that produces the same result no matter how many times you repeat it with the same input (e.g. "set status to Closed" is idempotent; "increment count by 1" is not).
  • iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) — a hosted platform (e.g. MuleSoft, Workato) for building and running integrations without managing your own middleware infrastructure.
  • JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) — a lightweight, text-based data format built from objects, arrays, and primitive values; see JSON and XML Basics.
  • Message queue — a system (e.g. RabbitMQ, Amazon SQS) that holds messages for a receiver to process independently, decoupling sender and receiver in time.
  • Middleware — software that sits between two or more systems, handling translation, routing, or orchestration of data between them.
  • Named Credential — the Salesforce feature that stores an endpoint (and often authentication) so Apex/Flow never hardcode secrets directly; see Authentication Basics.
  • OAuth — the standard protocol for granting an application access on a user's or system's behalf without sharing a password; see Authentication Basics.
  • OData (Open Data Protocol) — a standard for exposing and querying data over HTTP with consistent filtering/sorting/paging; see Terms You Will Meet.
  • OpenAPI — a standard, machine-readable way of describing a REST API's operations, inputs, and outputs (formerly known as Swagger).
  • Path parameter — part of a URL's structure that identifies a specific resource, e.g. the 1 in /todos/1; see Anatomy of a Request and Response.
  • Payload — the actual data being sent in a request or response body.
  • Platform Event — a Salesforce event object that other systems (or Salesforce automation) can subscribe to and react to in near real time.
  • Polling — repeatedly asking "has anything changed?" on a timer, instead of being notified when something actually happens.
  • Pub/Sub API — Salesforce's event-streaming API (built on gRPC) for publishing and subscribing to Platform Events and Change Data Capture.
  • Query parameter — a key/value pair appended to a URL after ?, typically used to filter or page results, e.g. ?userId=1; see Anatomy of a Request and Response.
  • Rate limit — a cap on how many requests can be made in a given time window.
  • REST (Representational State Transfer) — an architectural style where each resource has a URL and you act on it with HTTP methods; see HTTP, REST and SOAP: Protocols Explained.
  • Retry — automatically re-attempting a failed request, usually after a delay, ideally only for errors that might succeed on a second try.
  • SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) — a secure protocol for transferring files between systems, commonly used for scheduled batch integration.
  • SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) — a stricter, XML-based protocol with a formal WSDL contract; see HTTP, REST and SOAP: Protocols Explained.
  • Status code — the three-digit number in an HTTP response indicating the outcome (e.g. 200, 404); see HTTP, REST and SOAP: Protocols Explained.
  • Synchronous — the caller waits for the work to finish before moving on; see Inbound vs Outbound Integration.
  • System of record — the single source of truth for a given piece of data, when the same data might exist in more than one system.
  • Timeout — how long a caller waits for a response before giving up.
  • Token — a piece of data representing proof of identity or permission, used instead of sending raw credentials on every call.
  • Webhook — a callback where another system calls you the instant something happens, instead of you polling for it; see Terms You Will Meet.
  • WSDL (Web Services Description Language) — an XML document describing a SOAP service's available operations and data shapes.
  • XML (eXtensible Markup Language) — a tag-based, nestable data format; see JSON and XML Basics.