Salesforce CRM Archives - Page 6 of 7

Winter 09 Full Training Orgs

September 26, 2008 by David Schach Leave a Comment

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

Winter 09 (156) – New And Updated Documentation

September 19, 2008 by David Schach Leave a Comment

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

September 5, 2008 by David Schach 1 Comment

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

September 4, 2008 by David Schach Leave a Comment

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)

August 19, 2008 by David Schach 13 Comments

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

August 14, 2008 by David Schach 7 Comments

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!

Google Docs Now Has Templates for Google Apps

August 4, 2008 by David Schach Leave a Comment

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.

Activities Tab in Salesforce

August 3, 2008 by David Schach 4 Comments

To display a tab of Activities, just like you can with Accounts, Opportunities, etc., use the following URLs in the Web Tab configuration screen: /home/actlist.jsp?isdtp=mn /home/actlist.jsp these are especially useful if you have Enhanced Lists enabled – it looks amazing. Create additional views for Tasks or Events, and then save the URL for each as […]

Google Releases Data APIs Java Client Eclipse Plug-in

July 11, 2008 by David Schach Leave a Comment

Google just released its Google Data APIs Java Client Eclipse Plug-in, which seems to have great possibilities for developing in Google. Combined with the Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs, it could go even further.

Salesforce Mobile for iPhone is Ready!

July 10, 2008 by David Schach Leave a Comment

Jon Mountjoy posted a report that the AppStore for iPhone 2.0 software is available. Makes our mouths water even more for that iPhone 3G.