This is intended to be a hands-on guided introduction such that experience developers new to Salesforce can get to know the offering deeply yet quickly.

This is a living document and will continue to be updated with more helpful information and examples as they become available. QUESTION: and ??? mark where I need input.

How to Contribute

I welcome you to contribute on this GitHub https://github.com/wilsonmar/Salesforce. When this repo is changed, changes are pushed to Gitbook.io automatically.

Editing the book can be done either by updating the markdown files with a text editor, or opening the repository in the Gitbook desktop app. The desktop app will give you a live preview option.

License

Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) unless otherwise stated

Why Salesforce?

For end-users, get away from:

Reliance on spreadsheets
Collaboration via email
Documents shared on local file directories
Time-intensive, manual steps

I think Salesforce provides an easy and fast way to create apps.

Free development environment (no 7 day trials)
Integrations
Free, full-featured copy of the Salesforce1 Platform
Develop apps with clicks or code
Fine-grained access control
highly scalable
API-first to integrate anything with everything
Use popular UI frameworks like Bootstrap, JQuery and more
Lightning components for user-developed apps.

Browsers and compute pods

One of the distinctives about Salesforce is that it works completely over the public internet.

This means users need to use internet browsers: Internet Explorer that comes with Windows or Firefox and Chrome installed by users.

DEVDOC: In Supported Browsers some Internet Explorer support is limited. Firefox needs to be configured.

In 2014 Salesforce announced Superpod, offering on HP servers Salesforce will maintain as a dedicated offering for "the largest of the world's largest enterprises" such as the US FDA.

Salesforce has 15 compute pods distributed across its global datacenters to run its entire operation.

In August, 2016, Salesforce announced that it is moving to use the infrastructure maintained by Amazon.

Developer Setup

Get a developer account from http://developer.salesforce.com/signup or http://sforce.co/WBtUN7 for a Developer Edition (DE) environment.

PROTIP: During registration, the Username needs to be in the form of an email address. But email is not sent to the username, so you can use something unique such as wilsonmar-234@jetbloom.com where -234 is unique to another developer instance.

PROTIP: Have a "main" developer environment that you use for Chatter and Help.
When the email "Your Developer Edition Login Information" arrives, click on the link to change password.

PROTIP: Use the unique portion in your password to make it easier to remember.
Turn on Developer from Setup | Personal Information. Click Edit. Scroll to click Development Mode and Show View State in Development Mode. Save.

The blue sausage (app selector) at the upper-right lists apps. An app is a group of tabs that work as a unit to provide functionality. Users can switch between apps using the Force.com app drop-down menu at the top-right corner of every page. 2,700+ apps have been created by Salesforce partners.

Standard apps:

Call Center
Community
Content
Marketing
Sales
Salesforce Center

A custom landing page can be configured for custom apps.

Clicking on a menu item displays on the main window in the middle of the screen.

Each app has a different set of menu tabs going across the screen, beginning with Home

A key differentiator with Salesforce is that, unlike menus on Mirosoft Office software, which has menu items focused on user actions such as Edit and Print, Salesforce menu items are focused on information such as Opportunities and Contacts.
Click the [+] at the right end of the menu.

Instances among Orgs

After login, note the URL, such as https://na31.salesforce.com/...

The "na31" in this case is the "multi-tenant" instance identifier used by about 8,000 customers (tenants) each on the same hardware infrastructure.

Multi-tenancy is what has enabled Salesforce to offer services to SMB at an affordable price.

Salesforece maintains 50 production instances (potentially 400,000 orgs). Currently, Salesforce reportedly has 55,000 enterprise customers and 1.5 million individual subscribers.
Availability history of each instance is listed at http://www.trust.salesforce.com/trust/instances
The mobile version of instance na31 is at URL:

https://na31.salesforce.com/one/one.app
Click the "pancake" / "hamburger" icon at the upper left.
Click "Show more".

The One UI is more similar to Apple in confirmation icons at the upper right and go back/cancel icons on the upper left.

MORE READING: Salesforce1 Mobile Basics > Getting Started with the Salesforce1 Mobile App https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead/salesforce1_mobile_app/salesforce1_mobile_app_intro

https://github.com/forcedotcom/SalesforceMobileSDK-Android

Redundancy

4 copies of each Oracle RAC database Array is maintained via real-time async replication across 2 instances: 2 on-line and 2 off-line.

Corporate Global Settings Defaults

To set OWD (Organization-Wide Defaults), such as Fiscal Year start date, Record Currency.

Click Setup at the upper-right corner.

A Locale selection determine how dates, time, numbers, names are displayed, based on Language, Locale, Time Zone.

Company Profile
UI Settings
Calendar Settings
Search Settings
Chatter

One-time User Setup

The 6 standard profiles of permissions:

Administrator
Solution Manager
Read Only
Standard User
Marketing User
Contract Manager

Up to 1000 Permission sets per org can be setup to grant additional permissions without changing user profiles.

Click Setup at the upper-right corner.

Selections in the left-menu is organized into Administer, Build, Deploy, and Monitor.

Setup video

[__] Setup verification to mobile phone.
[__] Setttings: Personal: Language & Time Zone.
[__] Add a photo of yourself https://na31.salesforce.com/_ui/core/userprofile/UserProfilePage?tab=sfdc.ProfilePlatformFeed
[__] Setttings: Personal: Advanced User Details: Use a token generated from an authenticator app on your mobile device. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.salesforce.authenticator

Standard UI Declarative

Collapsable Sidebar can be enabled to reduce horizonal scrolling.

Create a new page layout for the Contacts object.

Most Common UI Actions and Keyboard Shortcuts

Salesforce does not provide keyboard shortcuts in the Setup "Aloha" UI. However, if you have downloaded Google Chrome, you can add-on Salesforce Hotkeys at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/salesforce-hotkeys-beta/hkpmdgakkflkddmiffelfaokkgoamlil?hl=en

The list of hotkeys is here.

CTRL + ALT/Option is used to select tabs:

G = List view
R = Reports

CTRL + SHIFT + F or META + SHIFT + F keys are used to Find text in the Search box.

CTRL + SHIFT or META + SHIFT keys are used to select Create New:

A = Account (with related contacts, opportunities, and cases)
C = Contact (of individual people)
O = Opportunity (associated with a Contact in an Account with potential sales)
L = Lead (associated with campaigns)

The other standard objects that are the bread-and-butter data Salesforce CRM was built to handle:

? = Case
? = Solution
? = Campaign

Additionally:

R = Report
T = Task
E = Event
S = Suggestion

CTRL + key within a dialog:

E = Edit
S = Save
Q = Quit / Cancel

Up to 10 Recent Items are displayed.

Recycle Bin

When a customer object is deleted, Salesforce does not immediately add it to the Recycle Bin. Instead, deleted objects appear in the Deleted Objects list for 15 days. During an object's "soft deleted" time, it can be restored before being permanently erased (hard deleted).

Soft-deleted custom objects and their data still count against your organization’s limits; hard-deleted items do not.

See them in the Schema Browser.

Businesses from the Salesforce Corporation (CRM)

At http://www.salesforce.com/crm/editions-pricing.jsp note DE has Enterprise capabilities, more powerful than the Professional Edition.

Salesforce as a company has several offerings (all SaaS in the cloud):

Salesforce.com CRM (Customer Relationship Management) -- the company's stock market symbol -- is categorized as a SaaS (Software as a Service) offering a complete package much like what Google Apps (Gmail), Zoho, and Quickbooks Online. Salesforce also includes project management.

http://www.salesforce.com/platform/overview/

There are separate feature licenses
- Marketing User
- Apex Mobile User
- Salesforce CRM Content User
- Force.com Flow User

Other businesses:

Service Cloud - Sales force automation and CRM
Sales Cloud - Complete CRM customer service solutions
Marketing Cloud - Build and manage 1:1 customer journeys.
Commmunity Cloud - Connect customers, partners, and employees
Analytic Cloud - Business intelligence and analytics software solutions
Salesforce1 Platform - Turn your idea into apps today with the Salesforce1 Platform.

"Salesforce1" is the brand name to emphasize that mobile capabilities are automatically provided
when apps are created.

Data.com - B2B prospecting and data cleansing
Demandware.com acquired in 2016
Pardot - B2B marketing automation
Desk.com - Customer support for small business
ExactTarget Fuel Marketing Cloud emails to target specific prospects.
FinancialForce.com is also a SaaS providing software for managing financial information.
Force.com runs underneath SaaS, and is categorized as a PaaS (Platform as a Service) service which generalizes the coding in CRM for use in other user domains
Heroku.com provides free hosting for low-volume apps written in open-source programming.

Getting Started with Ruby on Heroku
Database.com
Site.com ???
Work.com was retired July 10, 2015. It was a sales performance management solution for on-boarding new reps faster, coaching reps to close more deals, and and rewarding successful behaviors.

Work.com chatter

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrKA3cJmoms "Multi Tenant Magic" ([45] 17 Nov 2014) in the Salesforce Developers YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKORm8sxh3cheBpqs0akkhg
Read the whitepaper in http://developer.Force.com

The company exposes data in each of these businesses in an API for computers to access without a human UI.

BTW, Colors in Salesforce screens

Labor Demand

Here is why you want to spend time on Salesforce.

The company has seen a growth rate of 35% year-over-year unrivaled in the stock market:

Gartner says "Salesforce leads market share with 16% in 2013 vs. SAP with 13%, and Oracle with 10%."
Salesforce is not cheap: thousands of dollars per month
Salesforce has not been profitable, but its market value (stock price x shares) is $48 billion dollars.
Microsoft's $50 billion offer was rejected.
The prediction is for a buyout from Oracle, where Salesforce CEO Benoitt had worked.

Salesforce and Force.com are more attractive to mid-market customers than SAP and Oracle, which tends to impose industry-specific workflows on implementations. So you're not as much forced to work for large consulting firms living out of hotels.

DISCUSSIONS: Jobs Board

Salesforce, as a company, pioneered the 1:1:1 model, which donates one percent of our time, equity, and product to non-profit organizations via http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/

Technologically:

The declarative aspects of the platform is why the company's main number is 800.NO-SOFTWARE.

It has CRUD style security permissions model. Learn this first.
The Apex (Java-like) object-oriented programming language managing classes and triggers defined in a database. This includes Apex Email services and Call-Outs and Apex (SOAP & REST API) web services

DISCUSSIONS: Apex Code Development
The Visualforce web development language managing HTML+CSS+JS pages and components using HTML tags like PHP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion.

DISCUSSIONS: API Board
SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)
Chattr instant-message

Skill Certification

For Administrators:

ADM201
ADM211 Advanced Administrator Certification

For Developers (which includes database administrators):

DEV401 (Building Applications with Force.com and Visualforce) http://certification.salesforce.com/developers focuses on declarative configuration rather than programming.
DEV501 involves Apex coding

For Solution Architects:

Certified Technical Architect

Version Change Management

Salesforce was launched in 2000, with SOAP API (web service) added 2004. The Salesforce1 brand name appeared in 2014.

Three releases are planned per year, named by season (avoiding Fall):

Force Version	API Version
Summer '15	34.0
Spring '15	33.0
Winter '15	32.0
Summer '14	31.0
Spring '14	30.0
Winter '14	29.0

Additionally, beta releases of Minimally Marketable Features (MMF) go out. So certification holders must keep taking tests to keep up.

App logos that appear at the upper left should be no larger than 300 pixels wide by 55 pixels high. Adjust the number of colors in .gif or .jpg so they are under the 20kb size limit.

Running on 1,000 machines, half of which are for redundancy.

Developer Docs

Force.com Platform Fundamentals is the "Bible" for Salesforce certification questions. It has "Try it" hands-on exercises to develop a Recruitment app. The January 2015 version 9 online contains 402 pages.

Glossary of terms.

Developer.salesforce.com/Docs
Developer.force.com/architect
Developer.force.com/security
Developer.salesforce.com = Developerforce.com with email dev@developerforce.com

Social Media

Among Quizzes:

https://quizlet.com/87010545/dev-401-all-flash-cards/ has over 1,000 items.
Salesforce ADM 201 - Up through Spring '14 Release has over 300 items.

Salesforce for Outlook does not work on Mac Office 2011 Outlook.

But Salesforce can link to Google Apps Gmail accounts in Setup | Google Apps (on left menu).

Salesforce enterprise customers can open up tunnels and share data with each other. Cool. It’s EDI for the masses.

Trailhead forum
In Twitter follow each of the Force.com MVPs in the Discussion Forum
Plan to be in San Francisco September 15—18, 2015 for the Dreamforce user convention which includes a hackathon. Vidoes sessions into YouTube.
Salesforce Success Community https://success.salesforce.com/

LinkedIn
List of Meetups are at http://salesforce.meetup.com/all/
- https://success.salesforce.com/userGroups
- https://seattlenpsf.wordpress.com/ is the Seattle Non-profit
Stackoverflow
Consultanting Partners
Github repos
http://careers.force.com/jobs for jobs inside Salesforce.

Training

Obtain a Trailhead account at https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead for FREE tutorials which reward points appearing in your profile.

Trail/Project	Hours	Points
Admin Intro. Trail	9	10,200
Admin Intermediate Trail	5.9	8,200
Developer Beginner Trail	15	19,400
Developer Intermediate Trail	10	8,100
Developer Trail - Mobile SDK	6.8	3,000
Build a Conference Management App	3	550
Build Suggestion Box App	1.9	?
Quick Start: Lightning Components	0.5	150
Quick Connect: Lightning Connect	0.3	100
Total:	50	45,000

Chris Duarte (@TheChrisDuarte) is the Managing Editor of #Trailhead
Sandeep Bhanot (@cloudysan) is the #Trailhead Product Owner/ Evangelist.

Workbook shows you how to create a cloud app in a series of tutorials.

There is also Salesforce University (@SalesforceU) which offers paid classes. See http://www.salesforce.com/services-training/training_certification/training.jsp ( $3,750 for the 5-day course)

http://www.shellblack.com/administration/how-to/ lists many admin videos

Build Conference App

Build a Conference Management App used during Step-by-step Salesforce1 Developer Workshop. Click "Start Now" on that page and you'll get to the github.io website created by Christophe Coenraets, of http://coenraets.org/blog/ (Salesforce Developer Evangelist by day and Ionic Framework expert at night). Questions and questions about the trailhead content can be entered in the Disqus component in

makes use of Connected app whose source is in a github repo that contains http://goratchet.com/ CSS library and ForceTK (https://github.com/developerforce/Force.com-JavaScript-REST-Toolkit) to integrate with Salesforce.

Visualforce includes its own ExtJS JavaScript library.

Apex remoting forms an async parametized bridge between JavaScript and Apex.

Build Suggestion Box App

Build a Suggestion Box shows how to create reports and dashboards.

Questions and questions about the content can be entered in the Disqus component in the github.io website Advanced Developer Workshop generated from a github repo.

Pluralsight Tutorials

As of this writing, video tutorials at Pluralsight are rather dated:

Force.com Platform - The Big Picture http://www.pluralsight.com/courses/forcedotcom-bigpicture for Beginners by Don Robins 1h 24m 29 Jan 2013 is

Force.com for .NET Developers 1h 37m 25 Feb 2013 video by Dan Appleman, author of http://advancedapex.com/

App Building Blocks

User Interface:

* Applications
* Tabs
* Page Layouts
* Record Types

Business Logic:

* Workflow
* Validation Rules
* <a href="#Formulas">Formula</a>

Data Model:

* Objects
* Fields
* Relationships

App Entity Types

Code managed by the Developer Console must be within one of these Entity Types:

Classes
Triggers
Pages
Page Components
Objects
Static Resources
Packages

Force.com Architectural Stack

Various Architecture Diagrams

View layer for UI
Controller / APIs (for external programmatic access)
Application Logic
Database
Infrastructure

All these are involved in each cross-cutting service.

Force.com cross-cutting Services

3:19

Metadata Driven Functionality
Declarative Customization
Programmatic Customization (APEX and VisualForce)
User Authentication and Authorization
Multi-Featured (Sales and Service Cloud CRM)
Social Networking (Chatter)
Messaging and Notifications (Email Services, Outbound Messages)
Monitoring and Logging
Polymorphic Behavior
Memory Management
Metadata Synchronization
Transactional Data Persistence

Dev Tools

Developer Console online (look in the pull-down under your name), which opens a new browser window.
Force CLI
Force.com IDE plugin on top of Eclipse
Mavens Mate plugin on top of SublimeText

Apex Coding

Force.com Apex Code Developer's Guide

Mobile Apps

The Salesforce1 mobile emulator is at http://.salesforce.com/one/one.app See https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.salesforce1.meta/salesforce1/dev_best_practices_development_process.htm

Mobile apps for iOS | Android
- SalesforceA, the mobile app for admins for Android and iOS.
- Salesforce1 mobile app for end-users for Android and iOS.

WEBINAR: Building Mobile Apps using SDK by Akhilesh Gupta

Visualforce Tutorials

Visualforce coding is much like Ruby on Rails and Django. Visualforce generates HTML based on markup such as:

<apex:page standardController="Speaker__c">
<apex:form >
    <apex:pageBlock title="Edit Speaker">
        <apex:pageBlockSection columns="1">
            <apex:inputField value="{!Speaker__c.First_Name__c}"/>
            <apex:inputField value="{!Speaker__c.Last_Name__c}"/>
            <apex:inputField value="{!Speaker__c.Email__c}"/>
        </apex:pageBlockSection>
        <apex:pageBlockButtons >
            <apex:commandButton action="{!save}" value="Save"/>
        </apex:pageBlockButtons>
    </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:form>
</apex:page>

Visualforce coding can declare logic such as a repeat loop:

<apex:repeatvalue="{!users}"var="user">
{!user}<br />
</apex:repeat>

Setting the default page is not the most intuitive. An example:

In Setup, select Build > Create > Objects and click the Speaker object link.
Scroll down to the Buttons, Links, and Actions section, and click Edit next to New.
Check Override With Visualforce Page, and select SpeakerForm.

DISCUSSIONS: Visualforce Board

There was (31 Jul 2013) a 2h 32m Pluralsigh [paid] tutorial Introduction To Visualforce by Matt Lacey.

Bulk Actions

With its focus on UI, Salesforce does not provide a Bulk Delete natively. A Java wrapper is described in the 3h 2m [paid] Pluralsight tutorial from 26 Nov 2012 Force.com Design Patterns - Part 1 by Adam Purkiss. There is also a 1h 45m 01 May 2013 Force.com Design Patterns - Part 2 by Adam Purkiss.

MetaData

Metadata literally means data about data. Read https://developer.salesforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Force.com_Metadata

A Salesforce Org (short for organization) is a container for metadata that drives the dynamic engine (kernel).

Salesforce’s secret sauce: It queries its databases with “The Multi-Tenant Optimizer”

System objects are: User, Event, Activity, Task.

Object names generated are suffixed by two underlines followed by a letter:

__c for custom object.
__r for relationship to follow.
__s for latitude and longitude (a single compound geolocation field with two components).

https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=custom_field_types.htm&language=en_US

LIMIT: Picklists are limited to 300 values

Use data type Text(encrypted) for credit card numbers and national ID such as US social security numbers. To keep users from editing:

Validation Rules
Field-level Security
Page Layout Settings

An object can have up to 3 external ID fields. External IDs (not case-sensitive) are used with upsert command to prevent duplication during import. But external IDs can only be data type number, unencrypted text, email (not phone).

WEBINAR: Encrypt Sensitive Data while Preserving Platform Functionality with Salesforce Summer '15 Shield "encryption as a service" feature bundle using customer-managed keys stored in the new TenantSecret sObject. This requires additional licensing.

Controller Extension

In the Create trail, an increment() method and a counter property can be added:

public with sharing class SpeakerControllerExtension {
    public Integer counter {get; set;}
    private final Speaker__c speaker;
    private ApexPages.StandardController stdController;
    public SpeakerControllerExtension(ApexPages.StandardController stdController) {
        this.speaker = (Speaker__c)stdController.getRecord();
        this.stdController = stdController;
        counter = 0;
    }
    public void increment() {
        counter++;
    }
}

Formulas

To access a graphic image, you need to create two data types: One is a 255-length text field namee Picture_path which is referenced by a Formula data type IMAGE(Picture_Path__c, '', 350,300) with Text return type.

In the Developer Console, see run output to System.Debug('Hello'); by filtering execution logs for just USER_DEBUG events.

IsChanged(Field) is based on whether the specific field value has changed.
PrioValue(Field) allows access to previous vale of the field.
IsNew() checks for create v/s update action.

For more about formula fields:

https://developer.salesforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Formulas * https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=useful_advanced_formulas.htm&language=en_US

APIs

From https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Salesforce_APIs

REST API - Access objects in your organization using REST.
SOAP API - Integrate your organization’s data with other applications using SOAP.
Tooling API - Build custom development tools for Force.com applications. Coming soon!
Chatter REST API - Access Chatter feeds and social data such as users, groups, followers, and files using REST.
Each org Salesforce provides 5,000 Chatter Free licenses.
Bulk API - Load or delete large numbers of records.
Metadata API - Manage customizations in your org and build tools that manage the metadata model (not the data, itself).
Streaming API - Provide a stream of data reflecting data changes in your organization.
Apex REST API - Build your own REST API in Apex. This API exposes Apex classes as RESTful Web services.
Apex SOAP API - Create custom SOAP Web services in Apex. This API exposes Apex classes as SOAP Web services.
Data.com API - Data.com provides data updated in real-time in the cloud, with comprehensive coverage worldwide. Data.com APIs work with Salesforce Data.com Prospector and Data.com Clean to provide accurate account and contact data from Data.com.

SOAP format APIs are mainly for metadata (not business data).

The REST API returning JSON or XML uses "hypermedia" design.

The "BULK" REST API for large datasets (of 50 million rows) of XML and CSV (rather than JSON) format. Dan Appleman (Advanced Apex Programming) believes that all code should be designed and developed in bulk (multi-object) rather than bulkify later.

The Streaming API is a publish/subscribe push model to notify changes to object data. It uses Bayeux Protocol and CometD libraries used mainly in social networking apps.

DISCUSSIONS: <a target="_blank" href="https://developer.salesforce.com/forums/#!/feedtype=RECENT&dc=APIs_and_Integration&criteria=ALLQUESTIONS">
API Board</a>

https://github.com/jorgevaldivia/salesforce_bulk sample bulk API interface Ruby gem.

3rd Party API Integrations

There are 3rd-party Salesforce API integrations:

* https://zapier.com/zapbook/salesforce/

Apps and AppExchange Marketplace

https://appexchange.salesforce.com/ (described at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/overview/) is an online marketplace where you can browse, test drive, download, and install pre-built apps and components right into your Salesforce environment.

Menu Build | Develop | AppExchange Marketplace.
Search for apps by keyword.
Click Get It Now.

Read https://www.salesforce.com/form/conf/platform-appguide.jsp

DOCUMENT: Application Installation Guide

In 2015 Salesforce has 30M lines of code written by others via APPExchange.

Salesforce Wear https://developer.salesforce.com/wear includes a set of apps for Apple Watch, Google Glass, and more wearables that all access Salesforce data via APIs.

The highest rated 3rd-party apps:

Adobe EchoSign: This application adds enterprise document management functionality to Salesforce. EchoSign allows users and clients to view, edit, sign, track, and file cross-platform documents.
Informatica Cloud: This SaaS application is designed to simplify the integration of cloud-based Salesforce data with on-premise systems. Using pre-built connectors, Informatica makes it easy to synchronize Salesforce information with ERP, databases, and other on-premise systems.
Marketo Marketing Automation: Marketo is an application designed to integrate marketing efforts with Salesforce. It automates and simplifies the creation, support, and monitoring of marketing campaigns, while providing up-to-date information to the sales department.

Sandbox

Sandboxes are copies of your organization in a separate environment. They are used for development and testing. See Sandbox Overview at https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=create_test_instance.htm&language=en_US

Changesets are used release to production.

PROTIP: Most professional developers prefer to use the Force.com IDE with a local copy rather than the on-line Developer Console to avoid losing work if a refresh occurs.

Revision to earlier changes may not be possible.

PROTIP: Build your own instrumentation.

developer console

https://na31.salesforce.com/_ui/common/apex/debug/ApexCSIPage

Database Access

Because parent-child and other data relationships are defined up front in the Data Model UI, the Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) coded to retrieve filtered data does not allow dynamic implicit joins like those used in ANSI SQL. Furthermore, SOQL is like Microsoft's LINQ because it contains domain-specific names like "Opportunities".

This approach enables Salesforce engineers to optimize indexing their own way, invisible to developers and users, such as returning variable data types in multi-dimensional arrays.

SOQL can be coded and executed dynamically within the Developer Console Query Editor. Examples:

for (Speaker__c s : [SELECT Email__c FROM Speaker__c]) 
{
    System.debug(s.email__c);
}

An example from the class to retrieve Rose Gonzalez:

SELECT Id, Name, Phone, Account.Name  
       FROM Contact
       WHERE Phone <> null 
       AND Name LIKE '%rose%'
       ORDER BY Name
       LIMIT 50

For a master-detail example:

SELECT Name, 
       (SELECT FirstName, LastName, Phone
               FROM Contacts)
       FROM Account

Individual rows returned from SOQL can be dynamically edited, inserted, and deleted.

Junction Object is a custom object (of auto-number data type) joining two Master Detail Relationships.

Other Languages:

Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL)
Salesforce Analytics Search Language (SASL)

DML

Salesforce Data Manipulation Language (DML) is coded in Apex classes and triggers to insert, update and delete data, in the Developer Console Anonymous Window.

See the Force.com SOQL and SOSL Reference

Some insert:

Session__c session = new Session__c();
session.name = 'Apex 101';
session.level__c = 'Beginner';
insert session;

Session__c session = new Session__c(
    name = 'Apex 201',
    level__c = 'Intermediate'
);
insert session;

Update sample:

String oldName = 'Apex 101';
String newName = 'Apex for Beginners';
Session__c session = �  [SELECT Id, Name FROM Session__c
                   WHERE Name=:oldName];
session.name = newName;
update session;

Sample Delete:

String name = 'Testing 501';
Session__c session = 
   [SELECT Name FROM Session__c
               WHERE Name=:name];
delete session;

Sample Undelete: ???

Triggers

Each trigger is coded in Apex to a particular sObject.

"(before insert, before update)" are coded as part of the definition.

Triggers work on lists of records, not single records. This is to support bulk operations (Data Import, Bulk API, etc.)

Example before trigger:

trigger on Account (before update) {
    for (Account acc: Trigger.New) {
        // Compare new value with old value
        if (acc.Rating != Trigger.oldMap.get(acc.Id).Rating) {
            // Your Logic
        }
    }
}

Example of after trigger:

trigger WelcomeKit on Account (after insert) {
    List<Case> cases = new List<Case>();
    for (Account account : Trigger.new) {
        Case case = new Case();
        case.Subject = 'Mail Welcome Kit';
        case.Account.Id = account.Id;
        cases.add(case);
    }
    insert cases;
}

Triggers are active as soon as they are saved.

Data Architecture

It doesn't have ORM (but seems to be there).

OrgID hashed to one of 32 keys used to distribute. Smart Primary Keys and Polymorphic Foreign Keys. Creative de-normalization and pivoting.

Chatter

Chatter History maintains 72 hours of feeds.

A Chatter group has only one owner but can have many managers.

Search

Lists return 25 by default. But 5 - 50 can be set.

There is a maximum of 10 columns (fields)

Using Apache SOLR.

Salesforce is basically implementing Track (the ability to search and monitor conversations by keyword and topic)

Create forms and page layouts using drag-and-drop tools in the Page Layout editor.

C# .NET Programming

.NET C# Programming

DISCUSSIONS: <a target="_blank" href="https://developer.salesforce.com/forums/#!/feedtype=RECENT&dc=NET_Development&criteria=ALLQUESTIONS">
.NET Development</a>

Java Programming

DISCUSSIONS: <a target="_blank" href="https://developer.salesforce.com/forums/#!/feedtype=RECENT&dc=Java_Development&criteria=ALLQUESTIONS">
Java Development</a>

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/java-gs.html Getting Started (Authoring AWS Lambda Code in Java)

Clojure Programming

Most starred (and forked) public Github library for salesforce is Force.com mobile SDK for iOS applications

https://github.com/owainlewis/salesforce

Test Data

Each object is assigned an 18 character identifier for API transaction.

Each object is assigned a 15 character identifier for internal reporting and data loading.

Testing

Salesforce does not allow an app to deploy from a sandbox into production unless there is at least 75% coverage by tests.

Any modification of Apex code requires rerun of tests to refresh code coverage results. Salesforce also runs all tests before each major service upgrade and release to makes sure that no behavior in custom code has been altered as a result of any service upgrades.

Test classes don’t count toward the 3 MB maximum of Apex code in each org.

So construct test code in separate class file in the Developer Console | File | New Apex Class.

Decorating test code with @IsTest instead of the testMethod keyword allows parameters to be specified.

TUTORIAL: https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead/module/apex_testing on the Apex testing framework providea example.

@isTest
private class MyTestClass {
    @isTest static void myTest() {
        // code_block
    }
}

There is usually more test code lines for coverage of various state/conditions.

testWarmTemp of 70
testFreezingPoint of 32
testBoilingPoint of 212
testNegativeTemp of -10

Tests should also cover null values.

public classes are used in test data factory.

Test methods cannot send emails or call external services, only use mock callouts in tests.

Use the System.Test.loadData() with static resource (such as a CSV file). PROTIP: Include the System. prefix in case a local Test class is created, which would cause test failure.

List<Contact> contacts = PrepareTestData.

SOSL searches performed in a test return empty results. To ensure predictable results, you can use Test.setFixedSearchResults() to define the records to be returned by the search.

https://www.iridize.com/ provides customized on-boarding guides based on specific workflows on Salesforce and other apps. Force.com Design Patterns, Part 2

Work with me

I am interested into automatic generation of test code.

Why Salesforce?

Technologically:

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