Question

A developer needs to perform an automated extract of data from Salesforce nightly at 2:00 a.m. How would the developer accomplish this?

1) use the schedule Manager of the import wizard
2) use the Export scheduler of the Data Loader's GUI
3) use the Data Export Service to perform a nightly extract
4) use the command-line interface of the Data Loader

Answer 1

To automate nightly data extraction at 2:00 a.m. from Salesforce, the developer should use the Data Loader's command-line interface and schedule the task using the operating system's task scheduler services.

Step-by-step explanation:

To perform an automated extract of data from Salesforce nightly at 2:00 a.m., the developer should use option 4, the command-line interface of the Data Loader. The Data Loader's command-line interface allows for automation of tasks through scripting and can be scheduled using operating system features like scheduled tasks in Windows or cron jobs in Unix/Linux. Neither the Data Loader's GUI, the Import Wizard, nor the Data Export Service offers the capability to schedule extracts as specifically as required for the use case presented.

To set up an automated extract using the Data Loader command-line interface, the developer would need to:

1. Create a batch (.bat) file or script that invokes the Data Loader CLI with appropriate parameters and mappings.
2. Use built-in scheduler services on the server (Windows Task Scheduler or cron) to execute this script daily at 2:00 a.m.

This approach allows the developer to have full control over the extraction process, including error logging, specifying the exact query for the data to be extracted, and post-processing activities if needed.