What is a significant risk involved with integrating Salesforce via the SOAP API?

Integrating Salesforce via the SOAP API does present certain risks, one of the most significant being the potential to reach an API call limit. Salesforce imposes strict limits on the number of API requests an organization can make within a 24-hour period. This is to ensure fair usage and optimal performance across all customers. When integrating systems that require frequent data exchanges, organizations can easily exceed these limits, which can lead to disruptions in service and the inability to perform necessary operations.

This limitation can directly impact integrations that rely on real-time data updates or transactions between systems, as exceeding the allowed number of API calls can result in rejected requests. Understanding this risk is crucial for anyone architecting integrations with Salesforce, as it necessitates careful planning and management of API usage in order to maintain functionality and data integrity over time.

Other risks, like too many concurrent sessions or record-lock errors, may arise but are generally less concerning in the overall integration strategy. The login limits are also typically not the primary focus when discussing integration via the SOAP API, as they pertain more to user access rather than automated system interactions.