Real-time Salesforce integration with Boomi: A step-by-step guide

Have you ever needed to sync Salesforce records with another system the moment they’re updated without delay or manual intervention? Real-time integration is essential when accurate, up-to-the-minute data drives your operations. Whether it's syncing account data, automating customer notifications, or triggering backend processes as soon as something changes in Salesforce, speed and reliability are critical.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to build a real-time Salesforce integration using Boomi. You'll learn how to set up outbound messaging in Salesforce, configure a listener in Boomi, respond to messages to avoid duplication and fetch full record data, all in a structured, scalable way. 

By the end, you’ll have a complete working example that you can adapt to your own use case.

Prerequisites: What you'll need before you start

Before we begin, make sure you have access to:

1. Boom: if you do not already have access to Boomi, sign up for a trial here: Boomi Free Trial
2. Salesforce Admin account: if you do not have one already, you can sign up for a Developer Edition here Salesforce Developer Signup

How to build a real-time integration with Salesforce and Boomi

Follow the steps below to configure Salesforce and Boomi to exchange data in real time using outbound messaging and Boomi.

Step 1: Configure Salesforce for Outbound Messaging

Create a Custom Field

The first thing we are going to do is create a custom field on the Account Object

1.Click the cog in the top right corner of Salesforce to get into the setup

2.On the left-hand side under Platform tools, click on “Objects and Fields” then “Object Manager”

3.Within Object Manager, click on the Account Object

4.Then we need to go into “Fields & Relationships”

5.Click “New” in the top right and select “Checkbox” as the field type

6.Name the field “Send To Boomi” and set the default to checked, click next, then next again and save

Set up an outbound message

1.Go back to the setup page, then on the left-hand menu go to “Process Automation > Workflow Actions > Outbound Messages”

2.Click on the “new outbound message” button, select the Account Object, and click next

3.Name the message as “Send To Boomi Message” for now, we can also set the Endpoint URL to a holding URL until we have generated the final URL within Boomi later on. You can also set the user to an integration user if you wish; otherwise, leave it as your user.

At this point, we can select the fields to send. It would be tempting to select all fields and send the entire record, which you can do if you choose. However, it would be best practice not to do that and just send the ID of the record, then we can query the new record within Boomi.

4.Click Save

Create a Workflow Rule

1.On the left hand menu click “Workflow Rules”

2.Click “New Rule”  and then “Continue with Workflow Rules”

3.Select the account object from the drop down and click next, set the rule name to “Send to Boomi Rule” the evaluation criteria to “created, and any time it's edited to subsequently meet criteria”. In the Rule Criteria section select the “Send To Boomi” field we created earlier, set the operator to equals and the value to True then click “Save & Next”

4.Click Add Actions, then “Select Existing Actions”, and add “Send To Boomi Message” to the selected actions. Click Save, then done.

Also, add an action to update the "Send to Boomi field "to "false".
That is all the setup we need to do in Salesforce for now. Do not activate the work rule at this time. We will do this later when we are ready to use the rule.

Step 2: Build the listener process in Boomi

Create a New Boomi Process

1.Go to Boomi and create a new process, set the start shape connector to Web Services Server, and the action to Listen

2.Create a new Operation, Name it and set the operation type to create and the object name to Salesforce_Account and expected Input Type to “Single Data”, copy the simple URL Path and keep this for later, then click “save & close”.

Create the final endpoint URL

1.Add a connector to save the incoming message. I am using an FTP server to save the incoming text to a text file, as I intend to use Boomi's Cloud Runtime, so I will not be able to write to the local disk.

2.Next, we need to build the URL to put in Salesforce for the outbound message; we already have part of it from the previous step.
“ws/simple/createSalesforce_Account”
We need to add the host at the start of this by going to “Manage > Runtime Management” from the menu at the top.

3.Select your runtime, for me it's Boomis Cloud Runtime, then go to the share web server section

Copy the Base URL and add it to the beginning of the build URL you saved from earlier, which should now look like this: https://c01-gbr.integrate-test.boomi.com/ws/simple/createSalesforce_Account

4.Boomi's cloud runtime requires authentication for an incoming HTTP request. The username and token can be found in the shared web server section under the user management tab. Copy the username, click show token and copy this too.

These should be combined to form a single string separated by a colon like this.
Username: Token

5.This new combined string should be base64 encoded. This can be done using a free tool online like https://www.base64encode.org/ 

6.Now add a semicolon, “boomi_auth=” ,and the encoded auth details to the end of the URL, which should now look like this
https://c01-gbr.integrate-test.boomi.com/ws/simple/createSalesforce_Account;boomi_auth=Y2hha3JheXVrbHRkLVRPNUE0jfhjwhwjekfhwTI1ZTk0YTihskjhfsmMwLWI4NmMtZwowoowmQzNTE1M2Vh
This is the final URL we need, which can now be added to the Salesforce outbound message we created earlier.

Return a response to Salesforce

1.In our Boomi process, we are going to add a message object with the below XML in it and after that, a Return Document object. This will return the XML in the message object back to Salesforce, confirming that we have received it so it doesn't keep trying to send it.

1<element name="notificationsResponse">
2               <complexType>
3                   <sequence>
4                       <element name="Ack" type="xsd:boolean" />
5                  </sequence>
6             </complexType>
7            </element>

2.Add in a branch after the start shape and connect path 1 to the new message we just created, and the return documents, then add the rest to the second branch. Your process should now look something like this:

A branch object runs things in the order stated. In this case, it will send the response back to Salesforce before continuing the other branches. This will stop Salesforce from repeatedly sending us the same message.

3.Save and deploy this process to the cloud runtime

Step 3: Activate and Test the Integration

Activate the Workflow Rule in Salesforce

1.We are now ready to use our process to capture the incoming XML. In Salesforce, we need to activate our workflow rule, open the workflow rule in Salesforce and click the activate button.

Trigger the Integration

1. Go to an account within Salesforce and edit the record, setting the “Send To Boomi” field to be checked, then click save.
   
   What will happen now is that Salesforce will be triggered to send a message to Boomi, which our process will save the response to our FTP which should look like this:

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
3 <soapenv:Body>
4  <notifications xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2005/09/outbound">
5   <OrganizationId>00DgL000005BQHIUA4</OrganizationId>
6   <ActionId>04kgL0000001HDJQA2</ActionId>
7   <SessionId xsi:nil="true"/>
8   <EnterpriseUrl>https://orgfarm-a0755f54b1-dev-ed.develop.my.salesforce.com/services/Soap/c/64.0/00DgL000005BQHI</EnterpriseUrl>
9   <PartnerUrl>https://orgfarm-a0755f54b1-dev-ed.develop.my.salesforce.com/services/Soap/u/64.0/00DgL000005BQHI</PartnerUrl>
10   <Notification>
11    <Id>04lgL000000zLh3QAE</Id>
12    <sObject xsi:type="sf:Account" xmlns:sf="urn:sobject.enterprise.soap.sforce.com">
13    <sf:Id>001gL000009EUlvQAG</sf:Id>
14    </sObject>
15   </Notification>
16  </notifications>
17 </soapenv:Body>
18</soapenv:Envelope>

2.Now that we have our example XML, we can remove the set properties object and the FTP object.

Step 4: Query Salesforce for Full Record

Create XML Profile

1. Create a new XML profile and use the example XML we got earlier with the import wizard.

Add Salesforce Connector

1.Add a Salesforce connector object to step 2 of the branch and configure the authentication details for your Salesforce instance. Note that you would need to use your password combined with the token in the password field.

The action should be set to get, then create a new operation and import the accounts object using the wizard.

2.Under the filter section, add an expression, the field should be ID, and the operator should be set to Equal To Then click save and close

3.In the connector step click the tab Parameters and add a parameter, select the expression we just created to the input and select Profile Element for the type. Add in the XML profile that we created before and select the ID field under the notifications/sObject node, press ok and save the connector step.

Step 5: Map and send the Data to your target system

Add Mapping

1. Now you can add a map object to map the generated XML profile for the account information to the target system of your choice. In my process, I am simply saving the XML to my FTP for now.

So let's recap, we created a workflow rule which, when a new record is created or edited, and the send to Boomi field is checked, will send an outbound HTTP message to a Boomi Web server listener.

When Boomi gets this message, it sends a response back to acknowledge the message so that Salesforce does not keep sending the message. We then query the account record using the ID we got from the incoming message. From that point on, it's simply a case of mapping the data to your desired target system.

Conclusion

Real-time integrations can greatly improve operational accuracy, response time, and data consistency between systems. With Boomi’s low-code tools and Salesforce’s native automation features, organisations can quickly deploy scalable integrations that react to data changes as they happen.

As a certified Boomi Partner, our team specialises in helping organisations design and implement tailored integrations that deliver long-term value. If you're looking to optimise your real-time data workflows or need support with Boomi implementations, we're here to help.

Contact us today to discuss your project needs and learn how we can support your business.

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