You can use a single object as a target for a synchronization task.
The target connections that you can use depend on the task operation you select for the task. For example, if you select the upsert task operation, you cannot use a flat file target connection because you cannot upsert records into a flat file target.
Flat file target creation
If a task has a flat file target, create the flat file before you save the task. Or, you can create the flat file target with the synchronization task wizard when all of the following are true:
•The source connection type is Salesforce, database, or ODBC.
•The source object is Single or Custom.
•The target connection type is Flat File.
The synchronization task wizard uses the source object name as the default name of the flat file target. It truncates the name of the flat file to the first 100 characters if the source name is too long. If the target name conflicts with the name of another target object, the following error appears:
Object named <object name> already exists in the target connection.
Database target truncation
You can configure a synchronization task to truncate a database target table before writing new data to the table when you configure the task to use an Insert task operation. By default, Data Integration inserts new rows without truncating the target table.
Salesforce targets and IDs for related objects
Data Integration identifies records of a Salesforce object based on one of the following types of IDs:
•Salesforce ID
Salesforce generates an ID for each new record in a Salesforce object.
• External ID
You can create a custom external ID field in the Salesforce object to identify records in the object. You might create an external ID to use the ID generated from a third-party application to identify records in the Salesforce object. You can use one or more external IDs to uniquely identify records in each Salesforce object.
If you create a task that writes to a Salesforce target, the source must provide either the Salesforce IDs or the external IDs for the records in the Salesforce target object and applicable related objects. To configure external IDs for related Salesforce objects, use Related Objects to select the external ID for each applicable related object. A related object is an object that is related to another object based on a relationship defined in Salesforce. The task uses the Salesforce ID or external ID to update changes to related objects.
If the source in a task contains external IDs for Salesforce objects, you must specify the external IDs for all related objects when you create the Salesforce target for the task. If you do not specify the external ID, Data Integration requires the Salesforce ID to identify records in each related object.
Update columns are columns that uniquely identify rows in the target table. Add update columns when the database target table does not contain a primary key and the synchronization task uses an update, upsert, or delete task operation.
When you run the synchronization task, the synchronization task uses the field mapping to match rows in the source to the database table. If the synchronization task matches a source row to multiple target rows, it performs the specified task operation on all matched target rows.