Posts Tagged ‘Salesforce.com’
If This Then Salesforce
I’ve been enjoying IFTTT for a while now and if you haven’t experimented with it yet then I’m not sure we’ll ever be friends. Essentially it’s a very easy tool that lets you set triggers on a source API e.g. Foursquare and have some information from that API be posted to a target API e.g. Jawbone Up. IFTTT calls these recipes and I’d like to demonstrate some particularly delicious combinations that can be used with Chatter.
Salesforce Org Alerts and Known Issue posted to Chatter
Salesforce makes Instance Alerts e.g. “Perfomance degradation on EU0.” available through an RSS feed so all you need to do is create a recipe (or copy mine) that monitors the appropriate RSS url for changes and posts to a particular Chatter group.
You can do a similar thing with Salesforce Known Issues.
Tweets posted to Chatter
Quite often there are interesting tweets that I want to share with a particular group on Chatter. One of the recipes I’ve created in this class uses the hashtag #tqcd to push a particular tweet to our “Development” Chatter group.
We also have more than a few Reid Carlberg fans in Tquila so we have a recipe that shares his tweets to a dedicated group in our Org. His tweets are mostly about facial hair at the moment but who am I to judge genius.
Limitations
At this point Chatter can only be used as a target system in any recipe but I’m hoping they’ll change that in future.
Best Practices
So far I’ve established two guidelines:
- Create a separate Chatter group for recipes that will be executed often. This gives people the option to opt-out of those posts.
- If possible create a separate Salesforce user to post on Chatter. This will reduce the number of explicit posts you making it easier for others to find information in your feed.
You can find all these recipes on my IFTT profile. There are quite a few other interesting recipes regarding Salesforce on the IFTTT website but I’m hoping that you’ll be inspired to think of new creative ways to use the tool. If you do please let me know in a comment below or on Twitter.
Developing Chrome Extensions for Salesforce
Chrome extensions are awesome, they provide amazing convenience that is limited only by your imagination. There are some amazing Chrome Extensions for Salesforce already, some of my favourites being:
As a great fan of JavaScript I’ve always wanted to create a Chrome Extension for Salesforce and I’ve finally gotten around to it. The hardest part was figuring out what context the JS executes in (e.g. in the current tabs context, or in some separate context). Let me step through the code to show you how it’s done.
Chrome Extension Structure
A Chrome Extension is made up of a JavaScript, HTML, images and JSON. At its core is a manifest file which contains the metadata describing your application in JSON. There is a lot of documentation about the structure of this file but some of the key elements are shown below.
{
"name": "Get off my case!",
"version": "0.8.1",
"description": "Presents a notification above the favicon with the number of cases assigned to the current user.",
"manifest_version": 2,
"icons" : {
"16": "img/icons/16.png",
"48": "img/icons/48.png",
"128": "img/icons/128.png"
},
"permissions": [ "tabs", "https://*.force.com/*", "https://*.salesforce.com/*"],
"update_url": "https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx",
"author": "Wesley Nolte",
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "img/tquila_lozenge.png"
},
"content_scripts": [ {
"js": [ "js/jquery.js",
"js/forcetk.js",
"js/tinycon.js",
"js/contentscript.js" ],
"matches": [ "https://*.salesforce.com/*", "https://*.force.com/*" ]
}]
}
This file references all external resources (JavaScript, images etc.), the important parts here being the JavaScript i.e. jquery.js, forcetk.js, tinycon.js and contentscript.js. In short these files represent:
- jquery.js – the jQuery library
- forcetk.js – the JavaScript wrapper for the Salesforce.com REST API, but with one modification i.e. the ability to fetch info about the current user
- tinycon.js – a small library used to create the notification on the tab
- contentscript.js – the JavaScript file that brings them all together
The JavaScript
The first 3 JavaScript files are libraries that great, but aren’t particularly interesting in the context of this tutorial. The last file is where the magic happens, the code is listed below.
/* Get the cookie values om nom nom */
function getValueFromCookie(b) {
var a, c, d, e = document.cookie.split(";");
for (a = 0; a < e.length; a++)
if (c = e[a].substr(0, e[a].indexOf("=")), d = e[a].substr(e[a].indexOf("=") + 1), c = c.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, ""), c == b) return unescape(d)
}
/* Encapsulating code instead of just letting it lay about */
function init() {
// Get an instance of the REST API client and set the session ID
var client = new forcetk.Client();
client.setSessionToken(getValueFromCookie("sid"));
// Retrieve the data representing the current user
client.currentUser(function(response){
var user = response;
// Find cases that belong to the current user
client.query("SELECT COUNT() FROM Case WHERE ownerId = '{0}'".replace("{0}",user.id), function(response){
Tinycon.setBubble(response.totalSize);
});
});
}
init();
In short the code gets the session ID from the user’s cookie (the extension works in the context of the current user session for that tab) and uses that to call in using the REST API. Pretty easy huh?
Sourcecode and Extension Install
The sourcecode is on github if you want to experiment with it, and if you’d like to see it in action you can install it from the Chrome Web Store.
Salesforce Certified Technical Architect
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
– Japanese proverb
Finally, I have this certification. This has been a journey for me, and taken much longer than I anticipated. I did fail the first attempt, but was given a retry (make-up exam) in the sections that I’d failed. I subsequently failed that too. My second, full attempt saw me pass, and in fact I found it quite easy so let me help you learn from my mistakes.
Attempt 1
Late last year I booked in my board review exam. I’m not going to go into the detail of what the board exam entails it’s because this has been discussed in detail here, here and here. I spent a lot of time preparing, and had some ad hoc coaching from the UK SFDC certification team but in the end the hypothetical exam destroyed me. Here’s why:
- I’d been developing apps for nearly a year and was rusty with regards to various features of the platform used heavily in projects e.g. sharing, roles, content, knowledge
- I missed the “formal coaching” that SFDC offers for those that pass the board exam, and thought I wouldn’t need it
Together these two things meant that my approach to the hypothetical, and my real-world experience were weak. I knew I’d failed 2 hours into the 4 hour board. Luckily (I suppose) I did very well in the other areas, and my case study was rock-solid so I was given a “make up” exam (2 months later) in my weakest areas.
Attempt 1.1
At this point I’d been back into consulting and oiled my rusty hinges. I also brushed up on any areas of weakness and felt quite prepared. However, the destruction this time around was even worse, I knew I’d failed in the first hour! The reasons here were:
- I felt the hypothetical here was much more difficult
- I focussed too much on creating the presentation, and too little on understanding the question
- I panicked and solved problems that didn’t exist
Attempt 2
Six months after my original attempt I was back in the swing of consulting, working in every role imaginable from sales through to QA and release management. I’d also gone through the “Seed the Partner” official coaching. I honed my approach to the hypothetical and brushed up on Summer 13. And I passed. And it wasn’t that difficult, here’s why:
- I’d gone through the official coaching with SFDC
- I’d known the theory all along, but also had the opportunity to flex the old consulting muscles
- I convinced myself not to panic
- I read every word of the hypothetical at least twice, focussing on understanding instead of focussing on creating the presentation
- I drew. I’m not very comfortable with Powerpoint as an architecting tool but for some reason felt compelled to use it in my hypothetical previously. This time around I did what I was comfortable with, telling a story backed by several diagrams drawn in front of the judges as I presented.
I’ve also developed several assets that helped me to study and will be sharing them in a series of posts in the coming weeks.
– Wes Nolte, Force.com MVP, Certified SFDC TA, BBQ Master
Knowledge Tree for Salesforce User Roles
UX that makes you say things like, "Gee Whizz" and "Cowabunga"
Many moons ago @ratherGeeky was searching for an AppExchange app that would neatly display user roles so that she could be the best admin she could be. I had a poke around and there were a few nice apps out there but nothing with a simple, neat display of user roles.
Since then CloudSpokes was created, and a competition to that effect was released using the concept and tools that I was going to use (@jeffdonthemic smells like turnips btw). The outcome of the competition was a few very cool apps, but nothing that was package-ready so I pressed ahead anyway.
I’m happy to announce that you can now get Knowledge Tree for Roles on the AppExchange for free. It’s definitely a point solution, very specific in the problem it’s trying to solve but I think it does that well. I have a roadmap for the product and will [ever so slowly] be releasing new features e.g. drag and drop will be killer.
I
f you install the app and like it then please, please, please (please (please)) review it as it helps exposure and will hopefully lead to me getting more time to work on it. If you don’t like it let me know why via email (wes@cloud-corporation.com) and I’ll do my best to turn your frown upside down.
Across the Pond with Shannon Hale
Shannon is Senior Product Manager for Declarative Apps at Salesforce.com
@abhinavguptas and I were curious as to the identity of the creator of the SetupScripter, which is now incorporated into the salesforce.com Org setup menu. I dug around a bit and managed to uncover her real identity – community please meet Shannon Hale, Shannon Hale this is the community. She didn’t just stop with that wonderful piece of UX but has moved onto bigger and better things, but I’ll let her tell you about those.
If you’d like to learn more about the genius that is Shannon or just have a chat with her you can get her on twitter at @shannonsans or @bathtubdreamer. You can also check out her online presence at shannonsansserif.com and bathtubdreamer.com.
Onto the Q&A!
Who is Shannon Hale? How did you get into software development and UX design?
I started out as a writer, but in a different field — I wrote and edited for some independent Canadian music and culture magazines. I started technical writing to help pay the bills, and from there wandered through a series of tech positions: technical training, systems analysis and design, and software development. In 2001 I became obsessed with why a product I was coding was difficult to use, and began to independently study interaction design and user experience.
When I’m not being a complete geek — which I am even at home, I always have personal and volunteer web projects going on — I’m sewing, knitting, or binding books. I’m one of those people who always needs to be doing something with their hands.
London Force.com Meetup – 20 October 2011
Yip it’s that time again and boy do we have some very cool speakers this time around. The gig is at Skillsmatter at 6.30pm on 20 October and is summarised in the info below. Please don’t forget to RSVP. Of course there will the be usual beers and pizza 😉
Hope to see you there!
AMJAD KHAN ON FORCE.COM ERD USING SCHEMASPY
Amjad Khan will give a talk to the SafesForce user group on How to Install and run SchemaSpy on any Salesforce Org to generate an ER diagram. More details…
SIMON GOODYEAR ON MAKING BETTER USE OF INTERFACES ON THE FORCE.COM PLATFORM
Simon Goodyear’s talk for the SalesForce user group will give a quick overview on what interfaces are, how you can make better use of them in APEX, and what we gain from doing so. More details…
TESTING ON THE FORCE.COM PLATFORM
Keir Bowden gives a talk for the SalesForce User Group on Testing on the force.com platform, covering TDD, unit testing, continuous integration and test scripting. More details…
EFFECTIVE B2C MANAGEMENT
Stony Grunow gives a talk for the SalesForce User Group on Effective B2C management for companies using the “Contacts and Organisations” package. More details…
TURNING YOUR ORG INTO A FULLY OPERATIONAL BATTLE STATION USING RUBY AND SELENIUM
Bruce Durling will give a talk for the SalesForce User Group on turning your org into a fully operational battle Station using ruby and selenium More details…
Logging into Salesforce through the Web Interface
You Shall Not Pass!
There are a number of ways to authenticate with the Force.com Platform and I thought I’d create a few lightning posts documenting my findings for each.
The first method in this series will be logging in through the web interface. There are 2 sites that you would hit in order to authenticate:
- http://login.salesforce.com – for Developer Edition and Production Orgs
- http://test.salesforce.com – for all other sandboxes
If you’re not able to log in with a username and password that you know is correct then the first port of call is to check that you’re using the correct URL above. I’ve seen many developers forget to hit ‘enter’ after swapping “test” for “login” (or vice versa) and then being puzzled because their credentials still didn’t work so don’t forget (okay by “many developers” I actually mean me).
There’s also a neat trick that’s quite well-known and can be used to log you in automatically based on bookmarked URLs. All you need to do is append 2 URL parameters onto the appropriate environment HTTPS URL e.g. I could create a bookmark with the URL https://test.salesforce.com?un=wes@cloud-corporation.com&pw=abc123 where:
- un = your username for that environment
- pw = your password for that username
Pro-tip: Make sure that the URL is using HTTPS.
If you exclusively use Chrome you might want to use the Force.com Logins plug-in which will save you some hassle.
How many Salesforce Roles do you have in your Org?
I’ve worked with many Org instances in my career with salesforce.com and the Force.com Platform and was stunned by an Org that had a massive number of Roles, way beyond anything I’d ever seen before. This made me curious as to what other people were dealing with and I’m sure the result will be interesting.
Note: If you work with several Orgs and you have a high tolerance for boredom please submit an answer for each 🙂
Across the Pond with Jason Venable aka TehNrd
The face of TehNrd
Today I start a series of posts that’ll appear here and on the Tquila blog. The series will be in the format of Q&A with some of the finest Salesforce.com and Force.com evangelists, admins and developers. I’m starting with Jason Venable aka TehNrd and I’ll let him introduce himself.
Q: Tell me a bit about yourself. How long have you worked with the CRM vs the Force.com Platform? Were you always a developer?
A: My name is Jason Venable. I am 27 years old. I live in Seattle, Washington, USA. Oh, wait, you want something more interesting, got it. I’ve been working with salesforce.com CRM for a little over 4 years. Three of these years have also been working with force.com. All of this time has been administering and developing for a large enterprise salesforce.com deployment at F5 Networks. A lot of what I do is merging the two worlds of salesforce.com and force.com to meet business needs. This includes using all of the features force.com has to offer including, custom objects, validation rules, Apex code triggers, Visualforce pages, and web services to enhance and improve our companies use of salesforce.com.
Have I always been a developer? Heck no! If you told me I’d be doing coding and web app development 4 years ago I would have laughed at you. College classes that had me coding in notepad and some not so great experiences with the now dead s-controls left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to development. Then salesforce.com released Apex code and I saw how it could solve some of the problems we where facing. I taught myself the basics and the rest is history.
I also have a little blog related to all sorts of force.com goodness at tehnrd.com and some people follow around @TehNrd in Twitterland.
Q: What is your favourite type of development on the platform? What piece of work are you most proud of?
A: Databases design, triggers, and workflow are all cool but what I really like is building snazzy web apps. This has become even funner after jumping on the jQuery and jQueryUI bandwagon (disclaimer: I am a major jQuery fanboy). These JavaScript libraries allow you to make rich web apps with animations, drag & drop, and all sorts of other slick effects with minimal code. Pair this with Visualforce and the force.com database and you’ve got yourself a recipe for some great awesomesauce applications.
I think the coolest thing I’ve ever built on force.com was Gameforce. If anyone from salesforce.com reads this please don’t sue me for stealing your naming convention. Gameforce is a site built with force.com where you can play games. There is a single player black jack card game but what I think is even cooler is multiplayer Connect 4 and what I mean by multiplayer is two people on separate computers anywhere in the world. What I’m really proud of is this site is pure force.com. There is no flash, JavaScript, or any other tricks to handle the multiplayer game. You can check it out here.
Q: Where do you think “The Cloud” is headed?
A: I won’t even pretend to be the first person to say or think this, you talked about it here: http://tquilamockingbird.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/salesforce-com-crm-vs-oracle-ondemand/
But I really believe the younger generation will push adoption of the cloud to the next level. The CTOs and CEOs of today pick “the cloud” because it’s easy to manage, cheaper, and scalable. The CTOs and CEOs of tomorrow will choose cloud solutions for these same reasons but also because they know nothing else. Kids today use “the cloud” every day but don’t even realize it. Webmail, google docs, and mobile me to name a few. How many people under 20 use a local web client to check their personal mail, probably 3. How many people under 20 upload every picture they take to Flickr or Facebook and then don’t worry about the local copy, a lot. When it is time for these kids to choose solutions that solve business problems they will look to “the cloud” without even realizing “the cloud” is something new and useful. To them it will be their norm and the way things have always been.
Q: Which of the Spice Girls do you most closely identify with?
A: Of course the one living in UK has to work in a Spice Girls question. A secret fan you are perhaps? I’m not that scary and I’m not a baby. I don’t have red hair and I haven’t played organized sports in over 9 years. So in some strange way I think I just identified myself as relating the closest to Posh spice. Oh boy, I’m not going to be able to live this one down. I’m definitely not snobby or upscale but the other day someone said I had cool shoes so I guess that makes me stylish and poshy? Posh Dev!
Q: What advice do you have for beginners on the Force.com platform?
A: For beginners the Force.com Workbooks are a great resource. http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Forcedotcomworkbook I am super jealous these didn’t exist when I first started. They are clear, concise, and walk you through the steps of building a full blown application. I also hear pretty good things about the Salesforce Handbook. apparently two guys that know a thing or two about salesforce.com and force.com development wrote it. The forums at developer.force.com are also a great place to hang out. When I first started doing force.com development the forums where the only resource available and the community helped me solve problems that ranged from the “simple face palm I can’t believe it was that easy” problems to the “holy smokes there is no way on earth I would have ever figured this out on my own” problems.
Q: Do you by any chance know of a better way to peel an orange?
A: Funny you ask because I actually do know the most superior method in the entire universe on how to consume an orange… http://www.tehnrd.com/the-best-way-to-eat-an-orange/
Salesforce: Force.com Sites and Google Analytics
This is a cross-post from the Tquila blog.
My Favourite Chart Type
Not having analytics built into your public sites is much like having a Q&A site but not allowing people to answer. In this case some of the questions are:
- Where did you come from?
- How long did you stick around for?
- Where did you hang out on your visit?
Now I’m not going to debate which set of analytics is best but I did come across a few quirks when setting Google Analytics (GA) up for wesnolte.com that I suspect are fairly universal.
Build a Site
This of course is quite a big step and I’m going to assume you’re just about done. To get analytics up and running though you’re going to have to do a few extra bits.
Don't hack me pls.
- Sign up for a GA account, create a Website Profile and you’ll receive an Analytics Code. My code has been blocked out in orange in the image alongside, your code should appear in it’s place.
- Insert the standard Google Analytics Visualforce component into your page.
- Enter the same Analytics Code as above on the Force.com Site Detail page – the field is called “Analytics Tracking Code”.
If you go back to your Analytics home page and refresh you’ll see a little warning sign that tells you something is amiss – and it is but it’s difficult to figure out just what that something is.
S.O.S
The problem in this case is that the default robots.txt file for Force.com Sites blocks all bots. This is not a bad idea but it’s not obvious when setting all this up.
Michaelforce and myself seemed to have had these pains at the same time and he posted his findings here. You’ll need to apply step 3 from his post to allow GA to peek at your site.
Now in my particular case I did all of this and GA was still not able to access my site so I threw in the towel and coded the GA JavaScript straight into my page. A few days later however I realised that the robots.txt was probably caching so I ripped out that funky ol’ JavaScript, plugged the Visualforce component back in and BHAM! It worked. Now I know that exactly 5 people visit my site per day, and that 4 of them of from the UK 😛
Some Advice
My analytics are working a charm but I’ve realised there’s a snag. Since salesforce.com doesn’t allow you access to their nameservers you have to point your root domain to your Force.com Site using URL forwarding at the domain registrar’s side i.e. I can use a CNAME to point www.wesnolte.com to my Force.com site but wesnolte.com has to bounce to my registrars forwarding server before it finally hits the real site. What this means is that – to GA – the traffic directly to wesnolte.com looks like it’s all coming from one source, that is the forwarding server. The only way that I know to work around this is to get people to only use the http://www.domain.com form of your URL – not ideal I know.
The Silver Lining 