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Many data savvy companies have teams that live in tools like Salesforce. Some of our customers embed Looker in their Salesforce implementation so people can get a quick view of account activity and lead information from their internal database.
Here is an example of how we embed Looker into Salesforce (at Looker):
Embedding Looker into Salesforce requires that each user have Looker access. Data is embedded as a parameterized iFrame, not passed to the Salesforce platform.
Here are some quick instructions to get you started:
Prerequisites:
- Looker!
- Salesforce administrator account
- Mappable relationship (joinable key) between a SFDC record and an in-database record
Step 1:
Create a VisualForce page (Setup - Develop - Pages). Depending on whether you want to insert a dashboard or a single look/query, the code will look slightly different. You should play with the width and height to appropriately fit the element onto the page.
Dashboard Example
From a dashboard or explore URL, you will simply insert a wildcard that takes advantage of a Salesforce variable to filter a query. Our first example inserts a page’s Salesforce Account ID, {!Account.Id}, is inserted into a salesforce_userid filter for a Looker dashboard. Note that you will need to prepend /embed/ to the typical dashboard URL.
<apex:page standardController="Account">
<apex:iframe src="https://example.looker.com/embed/dashboards/123?salesforce_userid={!Account.Id}"
width="900px" height="600px" id="account_app_usage" scrolling="true"/>
</apex:page>
Single Query / Look Example
We can use that same technique to insert the Account ID into a single query. In this case, replace /explore/ with /embed/query/ for the typical query URL.
<apex:page standardController="Account">
<apex:iframe src="https://example.looker.com/embed/query/pinger/daily_usage?fields=daily_usage.usage_week,daily_usage.approximate_usage_in_minutes_non_looker&f%5Blicense_users.user_id%5D=NOT+NULL&f%5Blicense_users.user_is_looker%5D=No&sorts=daily_usage.usage_week&limit=500&column_limit=50&vis=%7B%22type%22:%22looker_column%22,%22show_null_labels%22:false,%22stacking%22:%22normal%22,%22x_axis_scale%22:%22auto%22,%22y_axis_labels%22:%5B%22Approximate+Use+in+Minutes%22%5D%7D&filter_config=%7B%22license_users.user_id%22:%5B%7B%22type%22:%22!null%22,%22values%22:%5B%7B%7D,%7B%7D%5D,%22id%22:0%7D%5D,%22license_users.user_is_looker%22:%5B%7B%22type%22:%22is%22,%22values%22:%5B%7B%22constant%22:%22No%22%7D,%7B%7D%5D,%22id%22:0%7D%5D,%22client.salesforce_account_id%22:%5B%7B%22type%22:%22%3D%22,%22values%22:%5B%7B%22constant%22:%22{!Account.Id}%22%7D,%7B%7D%5D,%22id%22:0%7D%5D%7D&show=vis,fields&title=Client+Looker+Use&f%5Bclient.salesforce_account_id%5D=%22{!Account.Id}%22&run=1" width="100%" scrolling="true" id="account_app_usage"/>
</apex:page>
Step 2:
After creating your data frame, add the corresponding VisualForce component to the appropriate page layout (e.g. Setup - Account - Page layouts).
Step 3:
Save and test your changes.
Edit: Thanks to @mschiff and the team at Heroku/Salesforce for doing this and showing me how to do it at Looker!
