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How-to guide

How to set up Event Relays in Salesforce

Event Relays forward Salesforce Platform Events and Change Data Capture events to external event buses — Amazon EventBridge, Confluent Kafka, etc. — without writing polling integrations. Real-time, push-based streaming. Setup involves a Connected App on the external side, then configuring the relay endpoint in Salesforce.

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated Apr 20, 2026

Event Relays forward Salesforce Platform Events and Change Data Capture events to external event buses — Amazon EventBridge, Confluent Kafka, etc. — without writing polling integrations. Real-time, push-based streaming. Setup involves a Connected App on the external side, then configuring the relay endpoint in Salesforce.

  1. Confirm licensing

    Event Relay is part of Salesforce's event-streaming offering. Some editions include a baseline; high-volume usage requires add-on capacity.

  2. Set up the destination event bus first

    For AWS EventBridge: in your AWS account, create a Partner Event Source for Salesforce. AWS provides a Source ARN you'll paste back into Salesforce.

  3. Open Setup → Event Relays

    Setup gear → Quick Find: Event Relays → Event Relays.

  4. Click New Event Relay

    Top-right.

  5. Set Name and Description

    Convention: per-destination ("AWS Prod EventBridge").

  6. Pick the source channel

    Which Salesforce events to relay — Change Data Capture event types, Platform Events. Per-channel config.

  7. Set the destination ARN / endpoint

    Paste from the destination event bus's setup.

  8. Activate

    Inactive relays don't forward events. Activate when ready.

  9. Verify by triggering a Salesforce event

    Update a record (CDC), or publish a Platform Event. Confirm the event appears in the destination event bus within seconds.

Key options
Source Channelremember

CDC / Platform Event. Per-channel relay.

Destinationremember

AWS EventBridge / Kafka / other event-bus partners.

Throughput Capsremember

Per-edition limits on events per minute.

Gotchas
  • Event Relays count against your Platform Event delivery quota. High-volume CDC streaming (millions of events / day) hits limits — confirm capacity before scoping.
  • Destination side must be configured first. Salesforce-side relay setup fails if the AWS / Kafka partner event source isn't ready.
  • Failed event delivery doesn't automatically retry indefinitely. Salesforce keeps a small retry buffer; persistent destination failures result in dropped events. Monitor relay health.

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