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Derek_CDerek_C 

Best way to programmatically get data with PE?

I'm doing an integration project for a client that is using Salesforce Professional Edition, and they don't have the budget to upgrade to Enterprise Edition. I need to download all leads and all users once per day. Common story, I'm sure.

I've been looking around, and so far, it looks like using VBA and the Excel Connector would work. Is this the right way to go?

Also, might anyone be able to help me get started by providing some links or information on using VBA and the Excel Connector?

Thanks for reading,
Derek
wgrwgr
Depending on the use case you may have a look at Demand Tools for Appexchange
which is a very powerful tool for similar situations. You may just download a trial version to get an idea if this could solve your problem - I use it as a standard tool for all ETL (extract, transform and load) transactions I'm doing for  my customers.
Derek_CDerek_C
Thanks! That does look like the right tool, but it may be too expensive for my use.
wgrwgr
Pricing is described as follows in the "Demand Tools for Appexchange Datasheet":

DemandTools Pricing
DemandTools pricing is scalable based upon the size of your salesforce.com installation, the base price is $5000 / year
with significant discounts for salesforce.com installations of less than 100 users (a 20 seat salesforce.com customer can
use DemandTools for $1000 per year). Please contact sales@crmfusion.com for more information or visit our website at http://www.crmfusion.com/


If you calculate down for your number of seats in a linear mode.... it is not expensive :-) That's also my experience with the tool.
Derek_CDerek_C
Ok. I will find out how many seats we have.

Thank you.
Tyke3090aTyke3090a
Try using Excel with the Office Edition Add in
What you do is write and save a couple of reports in Salesforce which extract the data that you want.
Then in Excel you use the Office Edition Add in to run the reports and show the results in Excel.
You then save the excel spreadsheet.
Al you need to do then is every day start up Excel and use the Office Edition Add in to refresh the data.
Derek_CDerek_C
Thanks. I'm familiar with regular VB and launching external programs. Now, the only technical piece that's missing for me is this: how do I run the macro in Excel?

Writing the VBA is another issue. I've seen some examples of VBA code with the connector here: http://community.salesforce.com/sforce/board/message?board.id=Excel_Connector&message.id=81
and here: http://community.salesforce.com/sforce/board/message?board.id=Excel_Connector&message.id=156

... I think I can handle writing the VBA code, but I don't know how to launch it at a certain time once per day.

Anyone have any tips?
Tyke3090aTyke3090a
If you use the Office Edition Add in (Not the Excel connector) then you don't have to write a single line of VBA.