NodeJs – Jitendra Zaa's Blog

Salesforce Integration with Nodejs based applications using Canvas

Salesforce Canvas Integration

Salesforce provides many ways to integrate with external systems like SOAP, Rest, Bulk API, User Interface API and so on. One of useful way to integrate any existing web applications with Salesforce is using Canvas.

For sake of this post, I’m using Nodejs application and complete source code can be found here , on my Github repository. It can be deployed on Heroku easily, however I used my local computer to run canvas. That also proves point that integration is happening via Browser and therefore canvas application can be hosted on premise and not necessarily on DMZ layer.

Step 1 : Create Connected App in Salesforce

Enable OAuth in Connected app and provide any Callback URL. Canvas app does not use callback URL however we DO NEED scope.

Next step would be enabling canvas app itself connected app along with locations where we would be using it.

Using JWT Flow to Authenticate Nodejs application with Salesforce

JWT OAuth

JWT OAuth uses digital signature to authenticate external application with Salesforce. JWT can be used to request an OAuth access token from Salesforce when a client wants to use a previous authorization.

Complete Source code is available here.

How JWT OAuth works

Developer creates a connected app and provides digital certificate in OAuth settings. You can refer this post to understand how openssl can be used to create digital certificate locally.
We need to make sure this connected app is already pre – approved either by using WebServer, User Agent or any other flow. You can find this step in video recorded.
We need to generate JWT token and sign it with certificate. This code snippet is available in this file in method getJWTSignedToken_nJWTLib(). I have used njwt module of Nodejs to create a JWT token. This is very useful website to validate and generate JWT token as per digital certificate.
Next we need to send JWT request to token URL – https://login.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/token
If JWT request is valid then Salesforce returns access_token , which can be used in subsequent requests to perform allowed operations in Salesforce via Nodejs application.

Use Lightning Components on external websites – Lightning Out

Show Lightning Component in Node.js using Lightning Out

If you were the users of IGoogle, few years back, you would be excited to know that web development is progressing in that direction. Architect of web application development is getting shifted towards component based development by introducing concepts like Web Components and frameworks like polymer and Lightning Components. One of the possible use case of component driven development is ability to use whole component externally. In IGoogle, components were built by partners and then was exposed as widgets to be used on your custom Google home page. Salesforce product team, being visionary came up something like this by introducing Lightning Out. With the help of Lightning Out, we can surface our existing Lightning Component to external websites. Previously, we already discussed that how Lightning components can be used on Visualforce pages using Lightning Out.

Let’s see how we can do it.

Why to use Bower for your web developement

What is Bower
It is client side package Manager and Great tool to manage all you web dependencies like JavaScript libraries and other assets.

Bower

What can be done from Bower
Web sites are made of lots of things — frameworks, libraries, assets, utilities, and rainbows. Bower manages all these things for you.

# registered package
$ bower install jquery

# GitHub shorthand – download repository SOQLBuilder from user Jitendra on Git
$ bower install JitendraZaa/SOQLBuilder

# Git endpoint
$ bower install git://github.com/user/package.git

# URL
$ bower install http://somewebsiteURL.com/script.js

How to use PostgreSQL in Nodejs

I have written many articles on Node.js and AngularJs. In this article, I will demonstrate how to use PostgreSQL with Node.js and deploy on Heroku. I think you already smelled that this is one of starting article which will finally merged with Salesforce to create some cool application.

Assuming you already have some background knowledge on Node.js and Heroku, If not please visit previous articles of this blog or my Slideshare account. Using Angularjs is totally optional and you can use library like JQuery or plain JavaScript.

To connect PostgreSQL, we need “pg” module.

Dreamforce 2014 Session – create web based IDE for Salesforce

In Dreamforce 2014, I got chance to present demo of creating online IDE for Salesforce using Tooling API. I used Node.js as a language to communicate with Salesforce API on Heroku Platform.

Demo

Simple Editor

Complete source code (Github)

Dont forget to share your feedback.

Below is the presentation slide I used

Creating Salesforce Query Builder in Node.js and AngularJs using Salesforce REST API and OAuth2 with Heroku Button

In this post, we will be creating a Salesforce Query (SOQL) Builder. It uses Google’s Angularjs MVC Javascript library and REST API provided by Salesforce. For Authentication, it uses OAuth2.

Node.js is used as a primary language and hosted on Heroku. If you want to directly deploy to your Heroku Account, You can use Heroku Button on this Git Repository.

We have many tools available online for Query builder, However none of them were satisfying me so though to create my own tool.

This Node.js application is used for building SOQL with following features :

Toggle between API name and Label Name
Search Objects or Fileds needs to build SOQL (In my case, it was primitive. I had more than 70 Objects and many of those objects has 300+ fields)
Checkboxes to select fields (No need to hold control button to select multiple fields)
Automatic Query Builder at Right side of page
Shows API count used by application
Search returned records
Sorting on Table Headers
Pagination

Note : You will need to create “Connected App” in Salesforce to allow OAuth as explained in this post.

Live Demo of application

Create Node.js Application using Eclipse and deploy to Heroku – Video Tutorial

In Below video, I have explained how to create basic Node.js application in Eclipse with help of Egit and Heroku plugin and deploy to Heroku.

Please read below two articles, to get familiar of Plugins and how to setup :