How can i extract attachments from salesforce? - salesforce

Question

I need to extract attatchments out of salesforce? I need to transfer some notes and attachments into another environmant. I am able to extract the notes but not sure how to go about extracting the attatchments
Thanks
Prady

Answer 1

This mostly depends on what tools/utilities you use to extract. The SOQL for Attachment sObject will always return one row at a time if Body field is included in the query. This is enforced to conserver resources and prevent overbearing SOQL scripts.
Approach #1, if queryMore is not available: Issue a SOQL without Body field to enumerate all attachments, then issue one SOQL per attachment ID to retrieve Body
Approach #2: Issue a SOQL to retrieve all needed attachments then loop using queryMore to get them one at a time.
Approach #3: If you can "freeze" the SF environment and just want to take snapshot of the system to pre-load a different one to be used going forward you can use "data exports". In setup menu, in data management there is an export data command, make sure you click "Include in export" to include all binary data. After due process it will give you a complete data backup you can crunch offline.
Btw, body is base64 encoded, you'll need to decode it to get the actual binary

Answer 2

Here is the solution I've used to get the attachment binary content from SalesForce. The example in their documentation points the following:
curl
https://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/Document/015D0000000NdJOIA0/body
-H "Authorization: Bearer token"
So there are a couple different elements here. The host (https://na1.salesforce.com) you should be able to get after the login process, this host is session based so it can always change. Second element is the rest of the URL, that you will get from the "body" field of the Attachment object. Third and last element is the Authorization header, which is composed by the string "Bearer ", plus the token that is given to you after you authenticate with the SF backend.
The response is the binary file, it is NOT in base64, just save it to a file and you are good to go.
Here is an example of how I did it in Objective C:
// How to get the correct host, since that is configured after the login.
NSURL * host = [[[[SFRestAPI sharedInstance] coordinator] credentials] instanceUrl];
// The field Body contains the partial URL to get the file content
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#%#", [host absoluteString], {AttachmentObject}.body]];
// Creating the Authorization header. Important to add the "Bearer " before the token
NSString *authHeader = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"Bearer %#",[[[[SFRestAPI sharedInstance] coordinator] credentials] accessToken]];
NSMutableURLRequest * urlRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringCacheData timeoutInterval:60.0];
[urlRequest addValue:authHeader forHTTPHeaderField:#"Authorization"];
[urlRequest setHTTPMethod:#"GET"];
urlConnection = [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:urlRequest delegate:self];
Hope it helps.

Answer 3

You can use SOQl Query options, or if you are looking for some automation tool that will help you with quick export, then you can try AppExchange App Satrang Mass File Download - https://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EcsAOUAZ&tab=e
Disclaimer: I work at Satrang Technologies, the publisher of this Mass File Download AppExchange App.

Answer 4

In SalesForce attachment will be against an Object for e.g. Account object.
Steps to retrieve attachment (in Java)
Get the ID of the Object to which a file is attached. e.q. Account Object
String pid = Account__r().getId();
Execute a Query on Salesforce Object "Attachment" for the ID in Step 1
*String q = "Select Name, Body, ContentType from Attachment
where ParentId = '" + pid + "'";
QueryResult qr = connection.query(q);
SObject[] sarr = qr.getRecords();*
SObject so = sarr[0];
Typecast Salesforce Generic Object (SObject) to "Attachment" object
*Attachment att = (Attachment)so;*
Retrieve the Byte Array Stream from Body of Attachment, and do the operation needed on byte array.
*byte[] bName = att.getBody();
// Do your operation in byte array stream*