Force.com Tips and Tricks

291 Pages·2013·6.75 MB·English

by  Gupta Abhinav

Table of Contents
Force.com Tips and Tricks
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
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Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
Instant Updates on New Packt Books
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
When to adopt cloud computing
When to adopt Force.com for your project
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Learning to Fly with Force.com
What is cloud computing?
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
Platform as a service (PaaS)
Software as a service (SaaS)
What is Force.com?
What empowers Force.com?
Multitenancy
Metadata
Understanding the Force.com stack
Infrastructure as a service
Database as a service
Integration as a service
Logic as a service
User interface as a service
Development as a service
Force.com AppExchange
Introduction to governor limits
Salesforce environments
Summary
2. Admin Tools
Data Loader
When to use Data Loader
Strategy to import data
Identifying data sources
Data preparation
Testing the data import
Analyzing the test import
Final data import
Validating the import
Using Data Loader for data export
Using Data Loader for uploading attachments
The Import wizard
When to use the Import wizard
Notes on data import
Undoing data import
Third-party tools for data integration
Force.com Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
IDE communication
Force.com perspective
Problems view
Execute Anonymous view
Apex Test Runner view
Schema explorer
Deployment
Force.com Migration Tool
AppExchange – cloud application marketplace
DupeCatcher – real-time deduplication
Milestones PM – project and task management
Salesforce CRM dashboards
Salesforce for Twitter and Facebook (v4)
Appirio Contact Sync for Salesforce and Google Apps
Ribbit for Salesforce
SnapShot Change And Release Management
Salesforce Adoption Dashboards (2011)
Survey Force
Draggin' Role
Find Nearby – Accounts, Contacts, Leads – Managed,
PE/EE/UE/DE
AppExchange Dashboard Pack
Action Plans – v3 – Unmanaged – EE, UE, and DE
Project and Issue Management
CloudConverter for Force.com
Opportunity Planning Wall
Data Loader – Salesforce integration
Mass Edit + Mass Update + Mass Delete
Implementation Cloud – project management app
S-Docs – free document generator (PDF, Word, Excel)
CMSForce 2
FormFactory quotes and invoices
Chatter Usage Dashboards – Force.com Labs
FinancialForce Accounting for Salesforce
Professional Services Automation – PSA for Salesforce
CVM Supplier Central Enterprise Edition
CVM Supplier Locator
Summary
3. Making Best Use of Salesforce Objects
Understanding the field types
Basic non-relational field types
Relational field types
Identity fields
System fields
The Name field
Additional database features
Considerations for relationships
Types of objects
Standard objects
Account
Contact
Lead
Campaign
Opportunity
Forecast
Quote
Product and price book
Case
Custom objects
Design approach
Data
Relationships
User interface
Implementation steps
Tips
Custom objects
Relationships
Custom tabs
Page layouts
Record types
Summary
4. Understanding Analytics
Report types
Tips and considerations for report types
Defining report types
Choosing object relationships
Adding lookup fields
Reports
Organizing reports
Working with reports
Creating reports
Building custom summary formulas
Bucketing in reports
Using conditional highlighting
Subtotaling the report results
Filtering on reports
Tips for entering filter criteria
Tips for filter logic
Running reports
Scheduling a report
Printing and exporting reports
Report charts
Combination charts
Dynamic reports
Dashboards
Working with dashboards
Dashboard filters
Dashboard data refresh
Analytic snapshots
Tips for analytic snapshots
Tips on source reports
Tips on target objects
Summary
5. Setting Up Development Environments
Building apps on Salesforce
What is an environment?
Production environment
Development environments
Sandbox orgs
Configuration-only sandbox
Developer sandbox
Full sandbox
Typical uses of sandboxes
Tips for creating or refreshing a sandbox
Developer Edition orgs
Individual versus partner DE
When to use individual DE org
When to use partner DE org
Tips and best practices
Choosing a development environment
Development considerations
Testing environments
When to use a Partner Test Edition org
When to use a sandbox org
Various development scenarios
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Migrating changes between environments
Migrating changes manually
Establishing a change process for production org
Best practices for change processes
Tracking changes
Metadata migration
Migration using change sets
Best practices for using change sets
Migrating metadata files
Application lifecycle management
Production development
Developing with sandbox
Isolating development and testing
Multiple project development with integration, UAT, and staging
Developing enterprise applications
Summary
6. Tools and Destinations that Every Force.com Developer Should Know
Tools for developers and admins
Choosing the right IDE
Force.com IDE based on Eclipse
Using Eclipse already?
Developer console based on your browser
Sublime Text plugin for Force.com
Exploring objects, fields, and relationships using Schema Browsers
Schema Builder
Force.com Explorer
SoqlXplorer
Data Loaders
Data Loader for Windows
Force.com Excel Connector
LexiLoader for Mac OS
Utility tools and apps for productivity boost
Force.com migration tool
Salesforce Workbench
Force.com Security Code Scanner
Force.com Utility Belt
Trapdoor (Mac OS only)
Toolkits and libraries
Destinations
developer.force.com
Open source goodness
Queries and troubleshooting
Summary
7. Writing Better Apex Code
Understanding the language basics
Using the correct nomenclature for code files
Language constructs
Finding what's different with static keywords
Simplifying the loops
Making constants better with enums
Reducing script statements
Advanced Apex
Security data access via the with sharing keyword in classes
Enforcing CRUD and FLS
Writing better SOQL queries
Query-required fields only
Using SOQL for loops
Executing selective and index-based queries
Combining multiple SOQLs to avoid governor limits
Fixing SOQL that returns a single record
Making the most out of dynamic SOQL
Variable binding in SOQL
Taking care of errors and security
Taking control on DML operations
Controlling transaction commits and rollbacks
Fine-tuning with extra DML options
Error handling during DML operations
Decoding the Apex Describe Information
Getting info about sObjects and associated fields
Accessing/updating the sObject records based on field names
Getting SobjectType from ID
Instantiating classes dynamically
Writing better triggers
Understanding the order of execution for triggers
Writing triggers to handle bulk data
Multiple triggers on an sObject
Handling XML in Apex
Handling JSON in Apex
Packaging considerations with Apex
API version
Changing API versions
Editing a class in your browser
Editing a class in Force.com IDE (Eclipse)
Apex testing tips
Isolating test data from org data
Testing with various profiles
Letting your class know about the test context
Apex REST web services
API versioning with REST web services
Knowing the limits
Tracking resource (limit) usage
Using Debug Logs in the Setup area
Using the logging features of the Developer Console
Summary
8. Writing Better Visualforce Code
Knowing the Visualforce architecture
Reusing the platform's native look and feel
Starting the page design with native headers
Native detail sections/forms
Styling tables to look like native grids
Printing messages in a native style
Native (standard) versus custom controllers/extensions
Reusing VF code
Including other VF pages
Defining templates or page layouts
Defining your own components
Limiting view states
Use the view state inspector
Using static when possible
Trimming the view state by using transient variables
Identifying a transient variable
Avoid multiple forms
Query-required fields only
More tips and tricks on the view state
Flexible pages using field sets
Speeding up Ajax calls
Using the immediate attribute
Re-rendering required components only
Demarcating using action regions
Global variables and functions
JavaScript remoting
Public versus global – using the right access modifier
Making the most out of the method arguments and return types
Handling namespace prefixes in managed packages
Approach 1
Approach 2
Taking care of security compliance in pages
Encode/escape
Enforcing CRUD and FLS
Miscellaneous tips
Querying a million rows
Rendering a page as a PDF
Dynamic VF components
Charts
Summary
Index