Jon Mountjoy has written another super post over at developer.force.com. This one is titled An Introduction to Apex. It goes through some of the basics of the language and provides some examples. Everyone should read this; beginners will get a better orientation than otherwise available, and experienced Apex developers will probably also learn a thing […]
Archives for 2008
Winter 09 Full Training Orgs
Sure, prerelease orgs are nice, but something’s always lacking. We have to go in and enable all the cool features, which is nice in that we learn them better, but it’s also nice to get to play in a full-featured org. Salesforce CRM (the new name) has had Exercises to teach us what to do, and I’m sure they will again this time…
Meanwhile, I stumbled upon an even better treat: TRAINING orgs. Yes, orgs with tons of data and all the add-ons you could ever want:
Where is this? I’ll tell you:
Standard Prerelease org: https://prerelwww.pre.salesforce.com/form/trial/prerelease_winter09.jsp
Premium Training org: https://prerelwww.pre.salesforce.com/form/trial/training_winter09.jsp
Absentee Voting Forms (Necessary for Dreamforce Attendees)
I realized a while ago that Dreamforce would be on Election Day. Somehow it took a while to register (no pun intended) that I needed to fill in an absentee ballot. But where to get one? Thankfully, there is a website devoted to absentee ballots, http://www.longdistancevoter.org/. Please go to this site and do what is […]
Winter 09 (156) – New And Updated Documentation
More Winter 09 documentation has been released. Scott Hemmeter wrote a post listing some of the pages containing new content, but I wanted to go a bit in-depth on those and some other parts of developer.force.com.
Documentation
This should be your first stop whenever you have any questions about ANYTHING on the Platform. It has sections on Web Services API (formerly just called API, to distinguish it from Metadata API), Metadata API, Apex, Visualforce, AJAX, Office Toolkit, Force.com Migration Tool, IDE, and the Library.
Core Resources
In addition to a super Documentation page, force.com has a new section which contains, well, resources sectioned by the Platform’s service categories: Logic (Apex), User Interface (Visualforce), Database (Objects, formulas, triggers, etc.), Integration (API, REST), Services –What? We now have Services as a Service?–(Workflow), Packaging and Distribution (AppExchange), Development (Metadata), and Tools (IDE, Force.com Builder, Data Loader).
Salesforce Application Name Change to Salesforce CRM
As you can see from these logos, with the Winter 09 release the application Salesforce is now called Salesforce CRM.
To clarify any confusion:
The company is called salesforce.com (no capitalization).
The application is called Salesforce CRM.
The platform is still force.com.
How to Deploy QUICKLY Between Orgs
I just came across one of the most useful posts on developer.force.com that I have ever seen:
Full instructions (along with a best-practice) on deploying quickly from one org to another using the Eclipse IDE.
Read it at http://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/Deploy_Force.com_Applications_Faster. You’ll be glad you did.
Convert between Business and Person Accounts (B2B – B2C)
I’m a huge fan of Person Accounts (Salesforce’s phenomenal combination of Account and Contact that allows selling B2C–the best example I use is Land’s End, which sells to people). Orgs can use a hybrid model, allowing a company to track its, e.g. partner companies (B2B) and individual customers (B2C).
There is an interesting limitation to Person Accounts: They cannot be converted to B2B via the Salesforce front-end. The record type can only be changed via the API, using a tool like Data Loader or the Excel Connector.
I set out to create a tool that would use the API to convert the record type of a B2B to B2C and back.
Activities Tabs – Enhanced View and One Set of Tabs
What was I thinking? Using something as complicated as a hijacked (from the Console) Task view was bound to have problems when creating an Activities tab.
Let’s restate our goals:
Create a tab that will show Activities, using the Enhanced Lists view.
Don’t have two rows of tabs.
Question: Is there any way to make a view and to specify that we don’t want to see the Sidebar AND the Tabs?
Answer: YES. The answer is Visualforce!
Zipcar: CaaS (Car as a Service)
A few weeks ago, I went on a Low Car Diet. No, I didn’t come up with the name; it’s the invention of Zipcar, a growing company with a product that, in these times of rising gas prices, is not only filling a growing demand, but is creating a market for its service.
After speaking to some people at Zipcar, and having rented cars a few times, I have come to realize the following:
In this age of Web 2.0 (and, according to some, Web 3.0), when Software as a Service is growing faster than ever, the on-demand model can be applied to other sectors, creating, for instance, Car as a Service.
OWN NOTHING
Ask anyone who drank the Software-as-a-Service Kool-Aid about in-house servers and you’ll be greeted with a face that looks like someone just took a bite out of a lemon, peel and all. In today’s quickly-evolving Information Technology world, ownership is nothing; rental is everything. How much does it cost to own a file server (including hardware, electricity, air conditioning, salaries for the in-house geeks, space that can’t be used for an office refrigerator, and more) per year? Compare that to the cost of storing files on Amazon Web Services! Compare purchasing a VPN appliance to the monthly cost of certificate-based Single Sign-On products like MyOneLogin by TriCipher. Pooling capital costs and being charged only for what we use is the new model. I don’t want to have to buy a 1TB NAS drive, and then to worry about if it is filling up; I’d rather pay per GB for shared storage, where my information is just as private, and arguably more accessible while being more secure (since nobody can walk into my office and steal my drives).
Cloud Computing is where it’s at. This is the solution to problems caused by using in-house systems and desktop applications inaccessible from any computer outside the office. And Cloud Driving seems to be just as viable a solution to the headache of owning a car and paying for gas, insurance, parking, and maintenance.
Let’s compare Salesforce, the top on-demand software application created by salesforce.com to Zipcar, a leading on-demand driving service created by, well, Zipcar.
Google Docs Now Has Templates for Google Apps
Google Docs has templates, and those of us using Google Apps with our Salesforce org (which should be almost everyone, since it’s free and easy to use) can design company-wide templates. This, combined with Google Docs’ super collaborative features, should make things much easier for consultants.