This weekend I'm at the [Go Code Colorado][1] Challenge Weekend event in Durango. The purpose of Go Code Colorado 2016 is for teams to build something useful for businesses using one or more of the [Colorado Public Datasets][2]. Some teams are using Salesforce for the back-office / business process side of the app they are building. So I decided to see if I could pull a Colorado Public Dataset into Salesforce. Turns out it's super easy! Just follow these steps:

1. [Sign up for a Salesforce Developer Edition][3]
2. [Create a new External Data Source][4] with the following field values:</p> 
    > External Data Source = Colorado Public Data  
    > Name = Colorado\_Public\_Data  
    > Type = Lightning Connect: OData 2.0  
    > URL = https://data.colorado.gov/OData.svc  
    > Special Compatibility = Socrata
    
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104214/new_external_data_source.png" alt="new_external_data_source" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4165" /> </li> 
    
3. Save the new External Data Source and then hit "Validate and Sync" to fetch the metadata for the services.
4. Select one or more tables from the list. A good table to test with is the "Occupational Employment Statistics" dataset.
  
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104211/validate_and_sync.png" alt="validate_and_sync" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4164" />
  
5. Sync the table and you should see a new "External Object" in the [list of External Objects][5].
  
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104210/external_objects.png" alt="external_objects" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4163" /> 

6. The data is now available in Salesforce. An easy way to see the dataset is to create a tab in the Salesforce UI. On the [Custom Tabs Setup page][6] create a new Custom Object Tab for the "Occupational Employment Statistics" object and select a Tab Style:
  
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104209/new_custom_object_tab.png" alt="new_custom_object_tab" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4162" />
  
7. Complete the creation of the tab (select Next, Next, Save). 
8. Select the "Occupational Employment Statistics" tab (which might be in a drop-down menu depending on the width of your browser:
  
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104208/custom_tabs.png" alt="custom_tabs" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4161" />
  
9. Next to the View - All selector, hit "Go!" to fetch the data from the Colorado Public Data source. You'll now see the records:
  
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104206/records.png" alt="records" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4160" />
  
    Note: The columns displayed in this view can be customized in the External Object's Search Layout.
  
10. Selecting a record's ID will display the record details:
  
    <img src="/uploads/2016/04/02104205/record_details.png" alt="record_details" width="1347" height="985" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4159" /> </ol> 
    
That's it! Now you can build all sorts of business processes and other employee-facing interactions around the public data.
    
Good luck to all of the Go Code Colorado teams!

 [1]: http://gocode.colorado.gov/
 [2]: https://data.colorado.gov
 [3]: https://developer.salesforce.com/signup
 [4]: https://login.salesforce.com/0XC?setupid=ExternalDataSource
 [5]: https://login.salesforce.com/p/setup/custent/ExternalObjectsPage?setupid=ExternalObjects
 [6]: https://login.salesforce.com/setup/ui/customtabs.jsp?setupid=CustomTabs