Understanding Salesforce Objects: A Comprehensive Guide

December 08, 2025

Data Engineering Salesforce CRM Data Modeling

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps organizations manage their relationships with customers by centralizing data and tools for:

Sales (lead tracking, pipeline management, forecasting)
Customer service & support (cases, tickets, help desk)
Marketing (campaigns, automation, analytics)
Commerce (online shopping experiences)
Analytics & AI

Think of it as a single place (in the cloud) where a company stores everything about its customers and sales activities - who people are, what they bought, support tickets, marketing campaigns, and the tools to automate work and measure results.

What are salesforce objects?

Salesforce objects are the building blocks of the Salesforce database.
They are like tables in a database that store information about different things the business cares about.

Think of Salesforce as a big spreadsheet system.
Each object is a spreadsheet, with:

Fields = columns
Records = rows

Types of Objects

Standard Objects

These come built-in with Salesforce, and cover common business data.

Important standard objects:

Object	What it represents
Account	A company or organization
Contact	A person associated with an Account
Lead	A potential customer interest
Opportunity	A potential sale / deal
Case	A customer support issue
User	A Salesforce user (employee)
Product	Items you sell
Asset	Purchased products linked to customers
Campaign	Marketing effort

Salesforce gives these objects because almost all companies need them.

Custom Objects

These are objects you create yourself to track data specific to your business.

Examples:

“Job Applicant”
“Project”
“Invoice”
“Property”
“Shipment”
“Subscription”

You define:

Name
Fields (Phone, Amount, Status, etc.)
Relationships to other objects
Page layout / permissions

This makes Salesforce very flexible - you can model almost any business.

Object Structure

Each object contains fields:

Text
Number
Date
Checkbox
Picklist (dropdown)
Formula (calculated)
Lookup / Master-Detail (relationships)

And each field holds information for a record.

Example 1: Contact Object

Fields:

First Name
Last Name
Email
Phone
Account (lookup to company)

Sample Record:

Field	Value
First Name	John
Last Name	Doe
Email	john@acme.com
Phone	(555) 123-4567
Account	Acme Corp

Example 2: Opportunity Object

Fields:

Opportunity Name
Account (lookup to company)
Amount
Close Date
Stage (picklist: Prospecting, Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation, Closed Won, Closed Lost)

Sample Record:

Field	Value
Opportunity Name	Acme Corp - Software License
Account	Acme Corp
Amount	$50,000
Close Date	2025-12-31
Stage	Proposal

Why Objects Matter

Objects define what data exists in Salesforce and are fundamental to:

Data modeling - structuring business information
Automation - creating workflows and business rules (Flows, Apex)
UI - organizing page layouts and user interfaces
Security - controlling access via profiles and permissions
Reporting & dashboards - analyzing business metrics
Integrations - connecting external systems

Objects are the center of everything you build or use in Salesforce.

Why Use Objects?

In real life, companies handle different types of information:

Customers
People
Potential deals
Support issues
Products
Invoices

Without structure, this data would be chaotic. Salesforce uses objects to group similar data together, making it organized, searchable, and manageable.

Objects as Categories

Think of objects as categories (or containers) for different types of information:

Account → Companies
Contact → People
Opportunity → Deals
Lead → Potential customers
Case → Support tickets
Quote → Pricing proposals

Key Benefits

Objects help Salesforce users:

Store data in an organized way - grouped by type
Connect related data - link people to companies, deals to products
Search and retrieve information quickly - find what you need instantly
Run reports and dashboards - visualize business metrics
Automate business processes - create workflows triggered by object changes
Control security and access - restrict who sees what data
Provide consistent structure - standardized templates across the system

Simple Analogy

Imagine a smartphone with different apps:

Contacts app → stores people information
Messages app → stores conversations
Photos app → stores images

Each app stores a different type of data. Salesforce objects work the same way - they organize and store specific types of business data.

How Objects Are Used in Salesforce

1. Store Information

Users input data by creating records in objects:

Create a Contact with name, email, phone
Create an Opportunity with amount and close date
Create a Case with issue details and status

It's like filling out a form with structured fields.

2. View and Manage Information

Users open objects to view and update records:

Open an Account → see company details
Edit the phone number → it updates everywhere
See all related Contacts → view people linked to this company

3. Connect Related Information

Objects link records together for a complete picture:

An Account (company) can have many Contacts (people)
An Account can have many Opportunities (deals)
An Opportunity can have many Quote Line Items

Example:

Acme Corp (Account)
├── John Doe (Contact)
├── Jane Smith (Contact)
├── Q1 2026 Software Deal (Opportunity)
└── Q2 2026 Support Contract (Opportunity)

4. Track Business Activities

Objects maintain a record of what's happening:

Opportunities track deals from prospect to close
Cases track support issues from open to resolution
Campaigns track marketing efforts and engagement

5. Generate Reports and Dashboards

Salesforce uses object data to create business intelligence:

"How many deals did we close this quarter?"
"What's our average case resolution time?"
"Which sales reps have the highest win rate?"

Because data is structured in objects, you can analyze and measure it.

Practical Example: Extracting Salesforce Schema

The following Python script connects to Salesforce, extracts all standard objects and their field metadata, and saves the schema to a JSON file:

from simple_salesforce import Salesforce
import json

USERNAME = "your_email@company.com"
PASSWORD = "your_password"
SECURITY_TOKEN = "your_security_token"

def main():
    print("Connecting to Salesforce...")
    sf = Salesforce(
        username=USERNAME,
        password=PASSWORD,
        security_token=SECURITY_TOKEN
    )
    print("Login successful!")
    print("Instance URL:", sf.sf_instance)

    # Get all objects
    all_objects = sf.describe()["sobjects"]

    # Filter for standard objects only
    standard_objects = [
        obj for obj in all_objects
        if not obj["custom"] and not obj.get("namespacePrefix")
    ]

    print(f"Total standard objects found: {len(standard_objects)}")

    flattened_schema = []

    for obj in standard_objects:
        obj_name = obj["name"]
        obj_label = obj["label"]
        print(f"Describing object: {obj_name}")

        try:
            meta = sf.__getattr__(obj_name).describe()
            for field in meta["fields"]:
                flattened_schema.append({
                    "object": obj_name,
                    "object_label": obj_label,
                    "field_name": field["name"],
                    "field_label": field.get("label"),
                    "type": field.get("type"),
                    "length": field.get("length"),
                    "required": not field.get("nillable", True),
                    "picklist_values": [
                        v.get("value") for v in field.get("picklistValues", [])
                    ] if field.get("picklistValues") else []
                })
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Could not describe {obj_name}: {e}")

    # Save flattened schema to JSON
    with open("salesforce_standard_schema_flat.json", "w") as f:
        json.dump(flattened_schema, f, indent=2)

    print("\nFlattened schema extraction complete!")
    print("Saved to salesforce_standard_schema_flat.json")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

What This Script Does

Authenticates to Salesforce using credentials
Retrieves all standard objects via the Salesforce API
Extracts metadata for every field in each object (name, type, required status, picklist values)
Flattens the nested structure into a single array of field records
Exports the complete schema to JSON for easy analysis and integration with data pipelines

Use Cases

This approach is useful for data engineering tasks like:

Mapping Salesforce data to data warehouses
Validating data quality
Automating ETL workflows
Building data catalogs