How do I develop Salesforce API code for a custom object without Enterprise/Unlimited edition?

Question

Background: I'm building a small application that will be run daily, pulling data from our own in-house databases and sending it over to our corporate Salesforce instance. I've built a custom object (called Marqui_Instance) in our Salesforce instance to house the data. The app will be creating a couple hundred of these, and attaching them to various Account records.

The Problem: Our Salesforce instance is Professional edition, which means I can't generate the WSDL for our instance, which makes me think I'm not going to be able to develop code that can create/edit/delete Marqui_Instance objects.

Before I start floundering around in the dark, I thought I'd post on here for advice. The only thing I can think of is to create an identical object in a Salesforce developer account, and use the WSDL from there... but then when I go to deploy the code in production, will it work? I'm scared that the WSDL from my dev account will have some guids or something similar, and my code will only work against the dev account.

Answer 1

Access to the web services API for Salesforce is only available in Developer, Enterprise, and Unlimited Editions.

I believe that you aren't allowed to login to the API, so even if you managed to generate a WSDL it wouldn't work.

See the full edition comparison chart [PDF].

Answer 2

If you get your application certified by Salesforce they will provide you with a "Partner Application API" token. Using this when establishing the Salesforce API session will allow your application to work with a professional edition org.

Alternatively, you can also obtain API access to a Professional Edition org by paying an additional fee. You will need to contact your salesforce.com sales person.

See also: Re: Use of the API and Salesforce.com Professional Version