Introduction
As Salesforce integrations grow, many teams struggle with systems that constantly poll Salesforce or depend on tight, real-time connections. This leads to performance issues, API limit problems, and fragile integrations. Event-driven integration is a different approach that solves many of these issues. In simple terms, instead of asking Salesforce for changes over and over, Salesforce notifies other systems only when something important happens. In this article, we explain event-driven Salesforce integrations using Platform Events with real-world examples, common mistakes, and guidance on when to use them in production.
What Event-Driven Integration Means (In Simple Words)
Event-driven integration means systems react to events instead of constantly checking for updates.
Real-world example
Think of a delivery app. You do not refresh the app every second to check the status of your order. Instead, you receive notifications like "Order confirmed" or "Out for delivery." Platform Events work in the same way. Salesforce sends an event when something changes, and other systems respond.
This approach reduces unnecessary API calls and improves integration efficiency.
What Are Salesforce Platform Events
Platform Events are a Salesforce feature that publish events when something happens, such as a record update or a business process completion.
Other systems can subscribe to these events and process them asynchronously. Platform Events are designed for high-volume, loosely coupled integrations.
Why Polling-Based Integrations Break at Scale
Many traditional integrations use polling, where an external system checks Salesforce every few minutes for changes.
What teams usually notice
API limits get exhausted faster than expected
Data updates arrive late or in batches
Performance drops during peak business hours
Real-world analogy
Polling is like repeatedly asking a colleague, "Did the report change?" every five minutes. Event-driven systems are like getting a message only when the report is updated.
How Platform Events Work in Production
When a business event occurs in Salesforce, an event message is published. Subscribed systems receive the message and process it independently.
Before vs After
Before Platform Events: External systems poll Salesforce every 5 minutes, creating thousands of unnecessary API calls.
After Platform Events: Salesforce sends one event per change, and systems react only when needed.
This dramatically improves scalability and reliability.
Common Use Cases for Platform Events
Platform Events are commonly used for:
Syncing data changes to downstream systems
Triggering background processing
Notifying analytics or reporting systems
Integrating Salesforce with microservices
Who should care
Handling Delivery Guarantees and Retries
Platform Events are asynchronous, which means delivery is not instant and may occasionally be delayed.
Important concept explained simply
Think of Platform Events like email, not instant messaging. Messages are reliable but not immediate. Systems must be designed to handle retries and occasional duplicate events.
Consumers should be idempotent so processing the same event twice does not cause issues.
Ordering and Duplicate Events
Events may arrive out of order or more than once.
Wrong way
Right way
This prevents data corruption under load.
When Platform Events Are a Bad Choice
Platform Events are not suitable for everything.
Avoid Platform Events when
Users need immediate confirmation
Operations are very small and infrequent
Strong transactional consistency is required
In these cases, real-time APIs may be a better fit.
Monitoring Event-Driven Integrations
Event-driven systems still need observability.
What to monitor
Event publish failures
Consumer lag
Processing errors
What teams usually miss
Events may fail silently if monitoring is weak. Strong dashboards and alerts are essential in production.
Business Impact of Event-Driven Integrations
Event-driven integrations reduce API usage, improve system resilience, and scale naturally as traffic grows.
For businesses, this means fewer outages, faster downstream processing, and better user experience without constant firefighting.
When This Becomes Important
This approach becomes critical when:
Multiple systems depend on Salesforce data
API limits are frequently hit
Near-real-time updates are needed without tight coupling
Summary
Event-driven Salesforce integrations using Platform Events replace inefficient polling with scalable, asynchronous communication. By reacting to changes instead of constantly checking for them, systems reduce API usage and improve reliability. With proper handling of retries, duplicates, and monitoring, Platform Events enable resilient, production-ready integrations that grow smoothly with business demand.