What You'll Set Up

By the end of this guide, your AI agent will be able to work with your Salesforce CRM — querying records, managing accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities, and searching across your entire database. The setup takes about fifteen minutes, most of which is spent creating a Connected App inside Salesforce.

Once connected, your agent can handle tasks like "Find all leads from last month that haven't been contacted" or "Create a new opportunity for Acme Corp" using live data from your Salesforce org.

Salesforce

20 tools · AI-powered CRM operations at scale

Before You Begin

Make sure you have:

A Salesforce account with admin access — You need permission to create Connected Apps. Sign up for a free Developer Edition if you want to test first.
A Pipeworks workspace — Sign up at pipeworks.ai if you haven't already

Info

Salesforce's free Developer Edition gives you full API access, making it a great way to test the integration before connecting your production org.

Steps

Create a Connected App in Salesforce

Log into Salesforce and go to Setup (click the gear icon in the top right). In the Quick Find search box, type App Manager and click on it.

Click New Connected App in the top right corner. Fill in the required fields:

Connected App Name — Enter "Pipeworks"
API Name — This auto-fills from the name
Contact Email — Your email address

Under API (Enable OAuth Settings), check the box to enable OAuth. For the callback URL, enter https://login.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/callback. Under Selected OAuth Scopes, add Full access (full) and Perform requests at any time (refresh_token, offline_access).

Click Save. Salesforce may take a few minutes to create the app.

Get your Client ID and Client Secret

After saving, click Continue on the confirmation page. You will see the details of your Connected App.

Copy the Consumer Key (this is your Client ID) and click Consumer Secret > Click to reveal to get your Client Secret. Save both values — you will need them in the next steps.

Get your Security Token

Salesforce also requires a Security Token for API access. If you do not know yours, you can reset it: go to Settings (click your profile photo in the top right, then Settings), navigate to My Personal Information > Reset My Security Token, and click Reset Security Token. Salesforce will email the new token to you.

Open your Pipeworks console

Log into your Pipeworks workspace and go to the Integrations page. Find Salesforce in the list and click on it.

Enter your credentials

Fill in the credential fields:

Client ID — The Consumer Key from your Connected App
Client Secret — The Consumer Secret from your Connected App
Security Token — The token from Step 3

Click Connect to save your credentials. Pipeworks encrypts everything with AES-256-GCM before storing it. The plaintext is never saved to disk.

Start the integration

Click Start to launch the Salesforce integration container. Once the status shows Running, your agent is ready to work with your CRM data.

Test the connection

Use the Test button to verify everything works. This sends a query to your Salesforce org to confirm the credentials are valid and the API is accessible.

What Your Agent Can Do

Once connected, your AI agent has access to Salesforce tools for:

Queries (SOQL) — Run structured queries to find specific records, filter by criteria, and pull reports
Accounts — Create, update, and manage company accounts in your CRM
Contacts — Add and update contact records linked to accounts
Leads — Create new leads, update lead status, and manage your pipeline
Opportunities — Track deals, update stages, and manage opportunity details
Search (SOSL) — Search across all objects in your Salesforce org at once

Tip

Use tool profiles to control what your agent can do. Set the profile to read-only if you want your agent to query and report on CRM data without creating or modifying any records.

Connecting from Your AI Agent

Add the Pipeworks tools endpoint to your agent's configuration. Here's an example for Claude Desktop:

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworks-salesforce": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://app.pipeworks.ai/tools/salesforce"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop will prompt you to sign in through Pipeworks when you first connect. No access key needed.

Troubleshooting

Authentication fails? Make sure you are using the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret from your Connected App, not your Salesforce login credentials. Also verify that you have the correct Security Token — if in doubt, reset it from your Salesforce personal settings.

Connected App not ready? After creating a Connected App, Salesforce can take up to 10 minutes to activate it. If the connection fails immediately after creation, wait a few minutes and try again.

API access denied? Your Salesforce edition must include API access. Professional Edition and above include it. If you are on Essentials, you may need to upgrade or use a Developer Edition for testing.

Agent can't find tools? Verify your Pipeworks session is authenticated and that the integration status shows "Running" in your Pipeworks console.

Connect Salesforce to Pipeworks

Prerequisites