Force.com Connect Offline

Force.com provides a solution for offline access called Force.com Connect Offline. It
allows read and write access to Force.com data while you’re disconnected from the network.
When you’re connected again, the data you’ve created or modified offline is synchronized
and reconciled with Force.com, and any new records created by other users
while you were disconnected are cached on your computer.
You should consider two viewpoints when getting to know Force.com Connect
Offline. First, an administrator configures the feature for users, specifying the data available
for offline access.Then there are the users themselves, who must be running a Windows
operating system.They use a dedicated client application to access Force.com when disconnected,
in place of their normal Web browsing application.

Administration of Force.com Connect Offline

Two independent tracks exist within offline configuration. One is called the Briefcase, and
it allows users to directly control the data they need to access offline.The Briefcase is limited
to sales objects: accounts, contacts, opportunities, and leads.This option is not discussed
further because it is a CRM-specific feature and does not work with custom
objects.
The full version of offline configuration is performed by administrators at the profile
level. It allows any custom object to be available for offline access and provides filters to
limit the amount of data.
To define your own offline configuration, in the Administration Setup area, click Desktop
Administration -->Offline Briefcase Configurations. .
Two profiles are granted access to a data set made up of records from seven
objects.
The majority of the work in creating an offline configuration is in defining the data
sets.A data set is simply a group of records cached on users’ machines that they can interact
with while disconnected from the network. Data sets consist of the following components:
 Objects: Select one or more objects to enable for offline access. Objects can be
nested in a hierarchy, leveraging relationships between objects to filter records.

Record Ownership Filters: Four options are available for restricting data by
owner.The default is to include all records the user has access to read.Two other
options filter on owner, limiting records to those owned by the user directly or by
the user and its subordinates in the role hierarchy.The final option provides search
access to all records but doesn’t actually synchronize the data.
Field Filters: Field filters restrict data based on their values. Filters consist of a
field, an operator to compare the values, and a static value. Multiple filters are additive
by default but can be chained together in more complex ways using the
Advanced Filter Conditions.
Record Limits:You can set a maximum number of records to retrieve for a given
data set. If you do not set a limit, Force.com internally limits the data set to 5,000
records per object.

Using Force.com Connect Offline

In the Personal Setup area, click Desktop Integration ➝ Force.com Connect Offline.
Click the Install Now button to download the desktop client. It is available only for Windows
operating systems.After proceeding through the installation program, you should
have an icon on your desktop and in your Start menu called Offline Edition. Launch it
and enter your username and password in the login dialog. Be sure to include your security
token after your password.


After you’re logged in and the initial synchronization is performed, you should see the
tabs associated with objects included in your offline configuration.You are now working
offline. Figure 4-12 shows a detail record in the offline client application.The user interface
is similar to the standard Force.com native user interface, with some elements
removed.The list of applications in the upper-right corner is gone, so the tabs from all
applications are shown together in a single line

At this point, you can browse your offline data sets, search, create new records, edit existing
records, and delete records. Click the Synchronize Briefcase link in the upper-right
corner to send your changes back to Force.com when you’re connected to the network.
If conflicts occur between the data entered offline and data in Force.com, you get the
opportunity to manually reconcile the changes.  Each pair of conflicting changes is
 displayed side-by-side, and you decide which version of the data is correct.