Enterprise Territory Management – Auto Account Assignment using Apex

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Use Apex code to auto assign Accounts on basis of Enterprise Territory Assignment rules

Using Territory Management in Salesforce, we can auto assign territories to Account and give access to users working in common region. When we create Account, Territory Assignment rules automatically runs. On Account update we have a checkbox on page layout allowing to run Territory rules. However, Lightning experience does not support Territory Assignment checkbox yet on page layouts.

Unfortunately, Apex also does not support Account Assignment using Territory rules. Only way left is to use Salesforce API. Question is, just to run Enterprise Territory Management rules, should we import WSDL and convert it to respective Apex classes ? There must be some better way.

Then I remembered this article which I wrote around 5 years back. Instead of importing WSDL into Salesforce and converting it to Apex classes, we can take help of SOAP UI to find the request format and using HttpRequest, we can simulate request. Continue reading “Enterprise Territory Management – Auto Account Assignment using Apex”

Salesforce Path – Read Only Lightning Component

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Chevron Component build in Lightning with Same look and feel as of Salesforce Path in read only mode

Salesforce Path is awesome feature, where you can display picklist value at top of record page and on click, it updates value in Salesforce database. However same solution does not fit in all scenario. Consider situation where picklist field is supposed to be changed by some other process or Integration. Now you don’t want anyone to change it from user interface. Even though you like Salesforce Path to show summary at top of page however it won’t be useful in above scenario.

Because of this, I created a Read Only Path Component in Lightning. I tried to keep same look and feel as of Standard Path component. This component will need only two inputs

  1. Record Id – It would be automatically passed if we use it using App Builder
  2. Field API Name – API name of picklist type of field

Now think about it. Only thing I got is Record Id. How would I know Object Name ? How would I know all picklist values for field name supplied ?

 With the help of this post, I will get Object name on basis of record Id.  And, with the help of this post, I will get Field Description. Hopefully you got it, I am talking about Dynamic Apex here 🙂 .

Continue reading “Salesforce Path – Read Only Lightning Component”

Winter 18 – Automatic Styling of Visualforce Pages in Lightning Experience

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How to use lightningStylesheets attribute to render Visualforce in Lightning Experience Stylesheet

Reason I posted previous blog was to showcase life of Visualforce developer before and after Winter 18. If we want to use same Visualforce in classic and Lightning experience then we had to check theme of logged-in user in Visualforce and render page section accordingly.

However, not any more. With Winter 18, we have LightningStylesheet attribute available for apex:page tag. Below source code produces same output as of previous code, however no extra logic to detect and render page section as per logged in user theme. Continue reading “Winter 18 – Automatic Styling of Visualforce Pages in Lightning Experience”

Use Visualforce in Classic and Lightning Experience

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How to design a Visualforce page so that It would be displayed properly in classic as well in Salesforce Lightning Experience

This topic was subset of my presentation in Salesforce Boston World Tour 2017. Sometimes we find our-self in situation where custom Visualforce page should be displayed with Old theme in classic but with Lightning theme in Lightning Experience.

If you can convince client to use same user interface in classic and Lightning, then it would be an ideal approach. Even Salesforce displays classic user interface for many setup pages inside Lightning experience.

If client does not agree, then we simply need to detect that in which context Visualforce is running and then enable or disable the section as per UIThemeDisplayed global variable as shown in below Apex code snippet. Continue reading “Use Visualforce in Classic and Lightning Experience”

Performing Load Testing in Salesforce using Selenium and TestNG

Author posted by Jitendra on Posted on under category Categories JAVA, Salesforce and tagged as Tags , , , , with Leave a comment on Performing Load Testing in Salesforce using Selenium and TestNG

Parallel execution of browsers in Selenium with the help of TestNG and determining maximum operating capacity of custom code in Salesforce

When we build any custom solution in Salesforce, key is to write an efficient and meaningful Apex test classes for sure. However sometime we may need to test how custom application would behave in maximum operating capacity. Here, I am talking about Load Testing of custom applications built on top of Force.com platform. Recently I needed to push my code to its limit to know how many concurrent users can use it before hitting any governor limits. Quickly I realize that its time to call my friends Selenium and TestNG.

Before doing any extensive stress or load testing on Salesforce, we must need to contact Salesforce support and explain them what we are trying to achieve. More detail available in this official Salesforce blog post.

I have published some blog posts about Selenium in past as well however whats different this time ? I need to determine after how many simultaneous user interactions, I would hit Concurrent Apex Limit error as shown in below image.

Salesforce Governor Limit error - Concurrent Apex Limit
Salesforce Governor Limit error – Concurrent Apex Limit

Continue reading “Performing Load Testing in Salesforce using Selenium and TestNG”

How to Retrieve and Deploy Custom Metadata Types using ANT

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Using Salesforce ANT Migration toolkit to retrieve and deploy custom metadata types with record. Sample Package.xml and ANT script included.

Most of you must already know that there is new way to control your program behavior in Salesforce with the help of Custom Metadata Types. Previously we were using List Custom Settings to create functionalities like managing Trigger’s On/Off behavior or controlling Integration endpoint URLs. However we were not able to use Migration tools to import export records into custom settings.

So, into the new world of Custom Metadata Types, I used change sets mostly to perform deployments. Recently, I needed to use ANT migration toolkit to retrieve and deploy Custom Metadata Types. I was able to do it however If you ask me, I spent more time then expected.

Received errors like :

package.xml - Entity type: 'Custom​Metadata' is unknown

Just to make sure not to repeat same mistake and save time in future, lets discuss how we can import / export or rather I will say retrieve and deploy Custom Metadata Types in Salesforce using ANT Migration toolkit. Continue reading “How to Retrieve and Deploy Custom Metadata Types using ANT”

Housie / Tambola / Bingo Game Number Generator

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Online free Housie / Tambola / Bingo Game. Simple to use and play with Bingo Number descriptions

Its not education , technical or Salesforce related post. Its source code of Family fun game Tambola.

Free online Tambola Game
Free online Tambola Game

This weekend, we all friends gathered together to play one of most famous Indian game Tambola. This game is also known as Housie or Bingo.  Normally there is central pot where numbers between 1 to 90 placed in piece of paper or plastic balls. Host reveals numbers one by one by randomly selecting those balls or piece of papers from pot. Problem for us were, we all have children and there is no way they will allow us to play with this way. Instead of host picking numbers, our kids would have been played with those. So what I did is, simple HTML page with random number generator between 1 to 90. Plugged my laptop to chromecast and voila, everyone in room playing traditional game in modern way 😉 Continue reading “Housie / Tambola / Bingo Game Number Generator”

Lightning Data Service – Standard Controller for Lightning Components

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Best Practices for Salesforce Lightning Component. How Lightning Data Service can improve Lightning Component performance and solve inconsistent data problem without writing single line of Apex code. Demo source code, image and slides included.

If you have worked on Visualforce and started playing with Lightning Component, you must have identified one important missing feature, which is standard Controller.

Lets assume a scenario, you have two Lightning Components on Account page. One Lightning Component is used to show some fields and other component is used to edit same record.

Problem 1 :

To achieve this, both Lightning components would invoke Apex method separately at the cost of performance, by issuing duplicate server calls. Below image depicts problem, where multiple Lightning component requests same content by making separate server calls.

Lightning Components - Duplicate Server Calls
Lightning Components – Duplicate Server Calls

Continue reading “Lightning Data Service – Standard Controller for Lightning Components”

Lookup component in Salesforce Lightning

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Salesforce Lightning component in plain JavaScript and SLDS with complete source code

Salesforce comes up with many out of box UI components and Lightning Base components. However, one important component missing is Lookup component or Type ahead component in Lightning. There are some lookup components available however either they are using some JavaScript library or UI doesn’t match with Salesforce Lightning Design system. So, I wanted to have something similar used by Salesforce Lightning interface itself and come up with this component. Complete source code of this component can be found on my Github repository also.

Before, jumping directly to source code, lets first discuss some important points. Continue reading “Lookup component in Salesforce Lightning”

Use Hierarchy custom settings to avoid hard coding in formula field, custom button, process builder or workflow rules

Author posted by Jitendra on Posted on under category Categories Salesforce and tagged as Tags , , with Leave a comment on Use Hierarchy custom settings to avoid hard coding in formula field, custom button, process builder or workflow rules

Example of using Hierarchy custom settings in formula field, custom button, process builder and workflow rules. Youtube video included.

Avoiding hard coded Ids or values from formula field, custom button, process builder, Workflow rules or Approval process using Hierarchy custom setting is not something new. This idea exists from many years in Salesforce ecosystem. However, some times I have seen developers and admins debating on same question, so though to put a consolidated blog post on same.

Why you should avoid hard coded values or Ids in Salesforce ?

Answer is very simple, maintenance. When sandboxes are refreshed or metadata deployed to different instances, admins would need to change values manually. If we are talking about manual post deployment step, then we are also talking about nightmare of maintaining list of manual post build steps.

Can we use Custom Labels to avoid hard coded Ids / values in Salesforce ?

Technically yes, but I would suggest not to use custom labels in Salesforce to avoid hard coded Ids because of below Issues

  •  Dataloader does not support custom label bulk load / restore / export
  • Imagine there are 100’s of custom label and it needs to be different for each Salesforce instances. You would be left either with manual step or some external tool which may not be allowed / approved by customer.

Hierarchy Custom Settings to Rescue

If you are from Java / C#, consider Custom setting as resource file. Here, you would store information about your application which doesn’t change frequently and controls behavior of application. There are two types of custom settings

  • List Custom Setting
    • This custom setting is equivalent to custom / standard object. We can store values in tabular format.
  • Hierarchy Custom Settings
    • This custom setting can be used in formula field, process builder, custom button, Workflow rules or Approval process.
    • Most unique feature about Hierarchy custom setting is that we can have different values at Organization level, profile level and user level.
    • Custom setting can be used in formula fields using global variable $Setup. Syntax to use custom setting is 
      
{!$Setup.CustomSettingName__c.CustomFieldName__c}
    • Highest priority is given to value defined at user level then profile and at last organization level.

Continue reading “Use Hierarchy custom settings to avoid hard coding in formula field, custom button, process builder or workflow rules”