force-meta-backup

A tool to help download Salesforce.com Metadata.

Using the Salesforce Metadata API, this tool will dynamically generate Ant build.xml files and Salesforce Metadata package.xml files for downloading the Metadata from your Organisation.

The metadata is downloaded in 3 phases:

• All bulk retrievable components are downloaded first, the bulkRetrievable Ant target is dynamically generated and executed.
• Queries are performed on the Salesforce Org. to determine all folders for Dashboards, Documents, Email Templates and Reports. Then build.xml and package.xml files are dynamically generated with this information. A bulk retrieve is then invoked for all folders and content.
• The remaining miscellaneous metadata components that can not be retrived by bulk or by wildcard methds are downloaded by building a package.xml file that explicitly lists these items.

It uses the Force.com Migration Tool along with Ant to do most of the heavy lifting. Salesforce SOAP API and Metadata API are used in a Groovy script to dynamically build up lists of components for downloading.

Inspired by:

http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Syncing_Salesforce_Org_Metadata_to_Github https://github.com/danieljpeter/salesforceMetadataBackup

Prerequisites

The following tools should be installed before use:

• Ant
• Groovy

Ensure the GROOVY_HOME environment variable is defined and you are able to execute both ant and groovy on command line: e.g.

$> ant -version
Apache Ant(TM) version 1.8.2 compiled on December 3 2011

$> groovy -version
Groovy Version: 2.1.5 JVM: 1.7.0_51 Vendor: Oracle Corporation OS: Linux

Usage

• Copy build.sample.properties to build.properties
• Edit build.properties and specify your Salesforce credentials. Note: Credentials used should be those of an Adminstrator, to ensure the correct access for retrieving metadata components.
• Open command prompt and enter command ant backupMetadata

The results will be downloaded to build/metadata

How to exclude types from backup

To exclude specific metadata types from backup you can specify a comma list of metadata types in the build.properties.

For example to exclude Reports and Documents form backup add the following line to build.properties

sf.excludeTypes=Report,Document