Salesforce Big objects-Everything You Wanted to Know

Posted By AJ on Sep 19, 2019 | 0 comments

Big data is widely used by businesses nowadays as it offers a ton of benefits. However, as there’s a dark side to everything, big data also comes with its own set of issues. Handling large data sets is a growing challenging task to manage performance and data scalability effectively. In order to process and manage such large data sets, the right tools are needed to keep everything streamlined, relevant, and productive.

For this, Salesforce provides a game-changing feature within its platform known as Big Objects. The biggest advantage of Big Objects is that it does not count against the data storage limit.

Two Types of Big Objects

Standard Large Objects – These objects are defined and included in standard Salesforce products to support data requirements for certain functionalities. An example of a large standard object is FieldHistoryArchive, which allows Salesforce to track the value of field history data as part of a field audit log for up to one year. Useful for regulated industry data that needs to be archived.

Custom Large Objects – These objects are defined and implemented via the Metadata API. In order to define a custom Big Object, users are required to simply create an object file that includes:

• An Object File that contains object, field, and index definitions likewise special object files with small differences specifically the index.
• A Permission Set (optional) to define object permissions and field levels permissions for objects. Existing permission sets can be used to grant permissions. 
• A Package for the deployment of metadata definitions and permission.
• Developers and others who have used the Ant Migration Tool are more than familiar with the package.

Important points to be considered when implementing Big Objects

1. Big Objects only support fields and objects permissions. This is important if there is a sharing limitation around the object data based on roles.
2. You must use the metadata API to specify or add fields to a custom big object. You cannot do this through the UI. This might not be a bad choice if the administrator doesn’t need to modify Big Object definitions.
3. SOQL relationship queries depend upon the lookup field from a big object to a standard or custom object in the select field list (without filters or queries).
4. Big Objects support custom Salesforce Lightning and Visualforce components, and not standard UI elements (home page, detail page, list view, and so on). Another big restriction is the inability to expose Big Object data without customization.
5. You can create up to 100 large objects in org. Limits on large object fields are similar to the limits on custom objects and depend on the type of your org’s license.
6. Big Objects do not support transactions that contain big objects, standard objects, and custom objects.

Supported features of Big Objects

1. Big Objects can be used in Einstein analytics and not for report builder.
2. These objects can be used for securing data and access support field and object permissions.
3. These objects can be included in managed packages.

Limitations Of Big Objects

1. You cannot use Salesforce triggers, flow, processes, and data to maintain the amount of data in a big object.
2. You cannot track field history on big objects.

Steps to create Big Objects in Salesforce

To create Big Objects you need to use only Metadata API and you will be required to create an object file, permission set file, and package.xml file.

Step 1: Create two folders like BigobjectName and PermissionSet

Step 2: In Big Object folder store object information.  It needs to have extension as __b 

Step 3: Add Permission set in PermissionSet folder and store permission set file

It needs to have extension as _Permission_Set

Step 4: Add package.xml file that is needed to store in a major folder

Historical Archives – Track historical data for analysis or compliance purposes by optimizing the performance of your core CRM or Lightning Platform applications.

Big Objects is the best solution to Salesforce data storage challenges

Standard or external objects are excellent for handling millions of rows of data. However, when you reach billions of rows in Salesforce, you will need extra storage space and the price of additional data storage in salesforce is high.

Big Objects provide a storage solution or option that allows you to store less accessible data that is no longer used. Your unused data will be fine in your Salesforce ecosystem without being exposed to external systems. This is cost-effective and gives you the benefit of storing a huge amount of your historical data. On other systems, you might need to do the integration and maintain it.

Conclusion

Today, organizations need business process automation for record-keeping. For this purpose, Big Objects provide a strategy for users to archive a huge amount of data without worrying about storage capacity. These big object behaviors ensure a consistent and scalable experience. In short, Salesforce Platforms handle Big Data easily for businesses and developers.