salesforce blogger

List of items that cannot be deployed in salesforce

2015-05-02T16:39:00.001+05:30

Recently when I was deploying configuration for an org which has not gone live, into UAT I made note of manual tasks as i need to reuse that for deploying from UAT to production. I thought i will add few more items on the list to the list i already had. These items had to be manually configured and cannot be deployed.

Renaming Standard fields labels
Deletion of standard Picklist values
Configuring Search Layouts for all standard objects
Escalation rules and Assignment rules
Quote Templates

Always as a golden rule Deploy anything with profiles as all the necessary permissions will be carried over. Please feel free to add anything in the comments

Calculate Nth Business Day using Apex in Salesforce.com

2014-05-09T05:28:00.002+05:30

It's been a year since I've posted anything on my blog. I've been busy with a lot of custom development on force.com. :)

You might run into a situation where you have to calculate the Nth working days from a specified date.
You will find this post very useful to calculate Nth business day from a given date.

My client has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements in which they need to act on customer complaints within N business days depending upon the severity.

So I came up with the following apex code to determine the Nth business day from a given date. (This APEX CODE Utilize the Holiday object.)
It's pretty straight forward, and it might come in handy for you.

To setup holidays Go to : Administrative setup > Company Profile > Holidays> add few entries e.g. 26th May 2014 >Memorial Day

Apex code is as below:

//to calculate Nth business day
    public static Date calculateNthWorkingDay(Date fromDate, Integer N){

         //Query hoildays from Org
                List<Holiday> holidays=[Select StartTimeInMinutes, Name, ActivityDate From Holiday ];

                Date NthDay = fromDate;

                for(Integer k=0;k<N ;k++ ){
                    if(checkifWorkDay(NthDay.addDays(1),holidays)){
                        NthDay = NthDay.addDays(1);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                      NthDay = NthDay.addDays(1);
                      K--;
                    }
                }

                return NthDay;//send Nth Business day

      }

    //To check if sent date is a working day by comparing with org holidays
  public static boolean checkifWorkDay(Date sentDate,List<Holiday> holidays){

                Date weekStart  = sentDate.toStartofWeek();

                for(Holiday hday:holidays){
                        if(sentDate.daysBetween(hday.ActivityDate) == 0)
                        return false;
                }

                if(weekStart.daysBetween(sentDate) ==0 || weekStart.daysBetween(sentDate) == 6)
                {
                       return false;
                } else
                       return true;
    }

Add these methods in your apex class. lets say name of the apex class > Your_APEX_Class_Name

In order to get 10th business day from today call this method as follows:

date nday = Your_APEX_Class_Name.calculateNthWorkingDay(system.today(),10 );
system.debug('nday is**'+nday);

Hope you will find this code useful.

Thanks,
Rahul G

Display a Popup when a User Login to Salesforce

2013-04-12T03:59:00.002+05:30

Many times there is a need to broadcast a message to all the SFDC users whenever they log into the org, the message could be just a Reminder/Policy changes

or sometimes user needs to accept the terms & condn to use a particular application.

So when the user logs into the org and the first thing he/she sees is a pop up screen. He can neglect the message and continue working on his tasks but This

message needs to be displayed every time user logs in till the USer Accepts the information.

e.g. Lets say you have launched a new app in your sfdc org and you want to display the app usage policy to all the users before they can start using the

app. i.e. you want the Users to accept the policies.

In order to build this the following steps can be implemented in your SFDC org:

1) Develop a VF page which will display a popup to the end user: Something like this http://www.salesforcegeneral.com/salesforce-modal-dialog-box/

2) You will need a corresponding apex class too to support the VF page.

3) In order to check whether the User has accepted the policy or not; lets add a checkbox field on the User records... lets say Policy Accepted

4) In our controller class we can use UserInfo method to get the current user details and check whether this flag is checked or not.

If the flag is checked then we'll redirect the user to the std Home page if its unchecked we'll display the popup to the User. The pouup will have Accept

Button, if user clicks this button the Policy accepted flag on the User record will be set to true.

Final & the most important Trick :)

5) Create a VF custom TAB and overwrite this TAB with the VF page we created above.

6) Add this TAB as a default landing TAB in all of your Apps and you are done!!

Let me know if you need more explanation....I hope this post will be helpful to many salesforce developers.

- Rahul

batch & scheduler class testing

2013-02-08T19:23:00.005+05:30

Template for batch & scheduler class test method:

@isTest

private class Test_Nameofurclass {

static testmethod void test_Nameofurclass (){

DateTime currTime = DateTime.now();

Integer min = currTime.minute();

Integer hour = currTime.hour();

String sch;

if(min <= 58)

sch = '0 '+ (min + 1) + ' ' + hour + ' * * ? '+ currTime.year();

else

sch = '0 0 '+ (hour + 1) + ' * * ? '+ currTime.year();

Test.startTest();

nameofschedularclass obj = new nameofschedularclass ();

String jobId = system.schedule('test', sch, obj);

CronTrigger ct = [SELECT id, CronExpression, TimesTriggered, NextFireTime FROM CronTrigger where id = :jobId];

System.assertEquals(sch, ct.CronExpression);

insert test records satisfying your query.

database.executeBatch(new nameofurbatchclass());

Test.stopTest();

}

Build a dynamic SOQL query string

2013-01-22T06:30:00.000+05:30

This post is one of my promises to myself this year to build reusable components. I will try to post a few here. But whenever i write a code, Good design pattern is to make it as reusable as possible.

This Apex method basically returns the dynamic soql query string when you feed the list of field api names, object name , conditions and limit .
[Edit] This works only for soql and does not do aggregate functions or polymorphic soql or sosl

/* Return dynamic soql query string
Inputs list of field api names
Object name
list of Condition strings eg 'name=\'test\'' , 'noofemployees=0'
limit string eg '50000'*/
*/ ----------------------------------------------------
usage
list<string> fieldname = new list<string>();
fieldname.add('id');
fieldname.add('name');
list<string> conditions = new list<string>();
conditions.add('name=\'test\'');

eg1:dynamicSoqlString(fieldname,'account',null,null)
eg2:dynamicSoqlString(fieldname,'account',null,'2')
eg3:dynamicSoqlString(fieldname,'account',conditions,'2');
*/

public static string dynamicSoqlString(List<string> apiNames,string objectname, list<string> conditions, string limitcount){
if(objectname == null || apinames.size()==0){
return null;
}
string soqlstring ='select ';
for(integer counter =0;counter<apinames.size();counter++){
if(counter!=0){
soqlstring+=',';
}
soqlstring+=apinames[counter];
}
soqlstring += ' from '+ objectname;
if(conditions != null && !conditions.isempty()){
soqlstring+=' where ';
for(integer counter =0;counter<conditions.size();counter++){
if(counter!=0){
soqlstring+=' and ';
}
soqlstring+=conditions[counter];
}
}
if(limitcount != null && limitcount !=''){
soqlstring+=' limit '+limitcount;
}
return soqlstring;
}

Prevent inserting duplicate records without coding!!!

2012-10-20T04:14:00.002+05:30

Hi Friends,

Today implemented this simple technique to prevent inserting duplicate records ( records with same name)

In one of my customer's org... there was a trigger written on a campaign object to prevent inserting campaign with same name...some developer wrote it few months back... though its a simple trigger but there was a logical bug in it.... however when our system admin informed me about this issue....i thought of the following solution:-

1- Create a new text field called "custom_name__c"
2- Check "Unique(do not allow dups)" checkbox while you are creating this field
3- Create a workflow rule that updates this field with the standard name field of the object every time record is inserted or updated.....

simple right?????

so there is no need of that trigger anymore!!!!!!!!!!!1 :)

dashboard auto refresh

2012-05-24T07:03:00.000+05:30

Auto refreshing dashboard:

This is the feature many sfdc admins have been asking for.... Currently it is not possible to refresh the dashboard automatically when the sfdc user logs in to salesforce.com.

use the following steps to refresh the dashboard( automatically...after 5 seconds) when the user logs in to the salesforce OR the user clicks the home tab:-

1) Create a new custom Home Page Component( type:HTML)

2) Add the following code:-(click the show html button before pasting the code)
<script type="text/javascript"> function refreshDashboardTimeout() {var dashboardButton = document.getElementById("db_ref_btn");dashboardButton.click()}window.setTimeout("refreshDashboardTimeout();", 5*1000); </script>

3) save and Add this component to your Home Page Layout.

quiet simple....right?? :)

Object sharing using email approval

2012-04-12T12:11:00.002+05:30

This solution gives record access to a Salesforce user via email approval. Here we are providing access to the Accounts but this can be generalized for any standard or custom object.

In order to grant access to the Account, an approval workflow request would be sent to the record owner and upon approval Apex code would be executed to add the requested user in the Account Team/Share objects.

1 1.   Provide a Request for Access button against each Account record on the Visual force page.
a.      Display a pop-up to the end user: A Request Email has been sent for Access.
b.      Create a Custom Object “Account Sharing Request” and add an Entry in this object:
AccountID, OwnerID, RequestedBy(UserID),IsApproved(False) for the request.

2.      Create an Approval process for Account Sharing Request in the controller class and send an approval request email to the record owner.

3.      Enable email approval response so that the user can approve or reject the request by replying to the email: approve, approved, yes, reject, rejected, or no.

4.      Update IsApproved field to True upon approval: This is the Final approval action.

5.      Update trigger on the Account_Sharing_Request__c object would add the requested User to the Account Team and Account share Object.

Query User access Level in Apex

2012-04-07T00:07:00.000+05:30

With API 24 salesforce has given access to UserRecordAccess table. This gives us more power in querying whether user have access and upto what level so that we can build our VF and apex accordingly.

http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/index_Left.htm#StartTopic=Content/sforce_api_objects_userrecordaccess.htm

I was writing a VF page in which i needed to have a table of sobject records with Edit and del links for each line item. I was using{!URL for} function which would take care of the link automatically. It would even prevent users who do not have permission to edit or delete the record to take it to the page 'you do not have sufficient permission'.

I thought it would be nice to know if the loggedin user or profile permission can be queried based on which i could display or hide these links instead of user clicking the link and finding out. Thats when i searched i figured it could be handled with Api 24.0

SELECT RecordId, HasReadAccess, HasTransferAccess, MaxAccessLevel
     FROM UserRecordAccess
     WHERE UserId = [single ID]
     AND RecordId = [single ID]      //or Record IN [list of IDs]

so i needed to get info on hasEditAccess and hasDeleteAccess for loggedin user and based on which i displayed or hid the link. It worked like charm.

Sort an Apex class Object List

2012-03-28T23:54:00.000+05:30

[Edit : Now there is an interface natively provided by salesforce to sort the class object lists]

I recently needed to sort an apex class object List which was retrieved through a webservice callout as it could not be sorted at the service end.

This is the apex method which was used to build it

public void testsort(){
        map<string,List<accClass>> stracc = new map<string,list<accClass>>();
        for(accClass a:accClassobj ){
            if(stracc.containsKey(a.name))

                stracc.get(a.name).add(a);
            else
              stracc.put(a.name,new accclass[]{a});
        }
        accclassobj= new list<accclass>();
        list<string> nameList = new list<string>();
        nameList.addAll(stracc.keyset());
        nameList.sort();
        for(string s:nameList){
           accclassobj.addAll(stracc.get(s));
        }

Steps involved in sorting

1. build a map with object parameter as the key by which we gonna sort and List<object> as the value.
2. sort the keyset
3. arrange the values based on the sorted keyset, so that object gets sorted by that parameter

It is a map of parameter and list of object but not parameter and just object to handle the records which will have same parameters. This sorting handles null values automatically. This sorting can never be dynamic and you will need to create more methods based on the object parameter by which sorting is needed.

Filter list alphabetically

2012-03-23T22:24:00.004+05:30

There was a requirement where i needed to build a list which can be filtered based on the starting alphabet. And also the List needs to remember the selections made as we move through other pages.

<apex:page controller="Pagin_alpha">
<style type="text/css">
      .loadingIcon {
            background-image: url(/img/loading.gif);
            width: 16px;
            height: 16px;
        }
     </style>
<script type="text/javascript">
function checkAll(cb,cbid)
        {
            var inputElem = document.getElementsByTagName("input");
            for(var i=0; i<inputElem.length; i++)
            {

                 if(inputElem[i].id.indexOf(cbid)!=-1){
                inputElem[i].checked = cb.checked;
                }
            }
        }
</script>
<apex:form id="form">
<br/>
<div style="align:right;">
<apex:repeat value="{!alphabet}" var="a">
<apex:commandLink value="{!a}" action="{!refreshList2}" rerender="form" style="{!if($CurrentPage.parameters.alpha=a,'font-weight:bold','')}" status="stat">
<apex:param name="alpha" value="{!a}"/>
</apex:commandLink>
 | 
</apex:repeat>
</div>
<br/>
<apex:pageBlock id="block">
<apex:pageBlockButtons >
<apex:commandButton rendered="{!standardsetcon.hasprevious}" value="Previous" action="{!standardsetcon.previous}" rerender="block,block2" status="stat"/>
<apex:commandButton rendered="{!standardsetcon.hasnext}" value="Next" action="{!standardsetcon.next}" rerender="block,block2" status="stat"/>
</apex:pageBlockButtons>
<apex:actionStatus id="stat">
<apex:facet name="start">
<apex:outputPanel layout="block" styleClass="message infoM4">
<apex:panelGrid columns="2" styleClass="messageTable" columnClasses="messageCell" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;">
<apex:panelGroup >
<img class="loadingIcon" src="/s.gif"/>
</apex:panelGroup>
<apex:panelGroup >
<div class="messageText">Please wait...</div>
</apex:panelGroup>
</apex:panelGrid>
</apex:outputPanel>
</apex:facet>
<apex:facet name="stop">
<apex:pageBlockTable value="{!CurrentList}" var="c" id="table">
<apex:column >
<apex:facet name="header"><apex:inputcheckbox onclick="checkAll(this,'check')" value="{!fals}" /></apex:facet>
<apex:inputcheckbox value="{!c.checked}" id="check">
</apex:inputcheckbox>
</apex:column>
<apex:column value="{!c.ocontact.name}" headerValue="Name"/>
</apex:pageBlockTable>
</apex:facet>
</apex:actionStatus>
</apex:pageBlock>
<apex:pageBlock title="Selected Contacts" id="block2">
<apex:commandButton value="Display Selected" rerender="block2"/>
<apex:pageBlockTable value="{!DisplaySelectedList}" var="c">
<apex:column value="{!c.name}" headerValue="Name"/>
<apex:column value="{!c.phone}" headerValue="Phone"/>
</apex:pageBlockTable>
</apex:pageBlock>

</apex:form>
</apex:page>

In the VF page i am displaying the List 'CurrentLsit' which would hold the contact list with checkbox which is paginated and 'DisplaySelectedList' which would remember the selected contact. Array Alphabet is used in repeat to build the link of alphabets at the top of page

Controller method

public with sharing class Pagin_alpha {


    private List<contactSet> contactSetList{get;set;}
    private string contactListQuery;
    private set<contact> selectedContact;

    public List<string> alphabet{get;set;}
    public boolean fals{get;set;}

    public Pagin_alpha(){
      fals=false;
      alphabet=new string[]{'All','a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z' };
      contactSetList = new List<contactSet>();
      selectedContact = new set<contact>();
      contactListQuery= 'select id,name,phone from contact limit 1000';
    }

     Private void updateSelectedContact(){
        for(contactSet cs:contactSetList ){
           if(cs.checked)
               selectedcontact.add(cs.ocontact);
           else{
               if(selectedcontact.contains(cs.ocontact))
                   selectedcontact.remove(cs.ocontact);
               }
       }
    }

      public ApexPages.StandardSetController standardSetCon {
        get {
            if(standardSetCon == null) {
                standardSetCon = new ApexPages.StandardSetController(Database.getQueryLocator(contactListQuery));
                // sets the number of records in each page set
                standardSetCon .setPageSize(20);
            }
            return standardSetCon ;
        }
        set;
    }

    public List<contactSet> getCurrentList() {
       updateSelectedContact();
       contactSetList = new List<contactSet>();
        for (contact category : (List<contact>)standardSetCon.getRecords()){
            if(selectedContact.contains(category))
            contactSetList.add(new contactSet(category,'true'));
            else
            contactSetList.add(new contactSet(category));
        }
        fals=false;
        return contactSetList;
    }

    public PageReference refreshList2() {
       standardSetCon = null;
       string s;
       if(apexpages.currentpage().getparameters().get('alpha') == 'All')
           s='%';
       else
           s= apexpages.currentpage().getparameters().get('alpha')+'%';

       contactListQuery= 'select id,name,phone from contact where name like' +'\''+s +'\''+ 'limit 5000';
        return null;
    }



    public List<contact> getDisplaySelectedList(){
        updateSelectedContact();
        List<contact> displaycon = new list<contact>();
        displaycon.addall(selectedcontact);
        return displaycon;
    }

    public class contactSet {
        public Boolean checked{ get; set; }
        public contact ocontact { get; set;}

        public contactSet(){
            ocontact = new contact();
            checked = false;
        }
        public contactSet(contact c){
            ocontact = c;
            checked = false;

        }
        public contactSet(contact c,string s){
            ocontact = c;
            checked = true;

        }
    }


}

getCurrentList populates the currentList in the page. refreshList2 will refresh the list when the link on top of the page to filter the contact is clicked.

This concept can be extended to multiple fields in the List .

Hierarchy in VisualForce

2012-03-10T12:43:00.001+05:30

This is an example of how to build a hierarchy Lists in VF page with select checkboxes. It will have a checkbox at parent level with which you can select all the child automatically. It has a neat link with which you can show or hide children under a parent row. It uses jquery libraries for achieving this. It has a list of accounts with each accounts displaying all its contacts in a hierarchy view.

Apex Class

public class accconhierarchy {
    Private list<account> acc;

    public List<accountWrap> accountList { get; set; }
    public accconhierarchy (){
        List<contactWrap> cw;
        accountList = new List<accountWrap>();
        acc = [select id,name,industry,billingcountry,createdbyid,(select id,name,email,phone from contacts) from account limit 20];
        for(account a:acc){
            cw = new list<contactWrap>();
            For(contact co : a.contacts){
               cw.add(new contactWrap(co));
            }
            accountList.add(new accountWrap(a,false,cw));
        }
    }

    public class accountWrap{
        public account oAccount{get;set;}
        public boolean isSelected{get;set;}
        public List<contactWrap> contactset{get;set;}
        public accountWrap(account a,boolean b, List<contactWrap> c){
            oAccount=a;
            isSelected=b;
            contactset =c;
        }
    }

    public class contactWrap{
        public contact oContact{get;set;}
        public boolean isSelected{get;set;}
        public contactWrap(contact a){
            oContact=a;
            isSelected=false;
        }
    }

}

Visualforce Page

<apex:page controller="accconhierarchy">
<apex:form >
      <apex:pageBlock >
      <style type="text/css">
        .showContacts {
            background: transparent url('/img/alohaSkin/twisty_sprite.png') 0 0 no-repeat;
        }
        .hideContacts {
            background: transparent url('/img/alohaSkin/twisty_sprite.png') 0 -11px no-repeat;
        }
    </style>
                  <apex:outputPanel layout="none"
                        rendered="{!accountList.size!=0}">
                        <table id="tableAccount" class="list" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                            <thead>
                                <tr class="headerRow">
                                    <th class="actionColumn">Action</th>
                                    <th>Account Name</th>
                                    <th>Industry</th>
                                    <th>Billing Country</th>
                                    <th>Createdby</th>
                                </tr>
                            </thead>
                            <tbody>
                            <apex:repeat id="repeatAccount"
                                value="{!accountList}"
                                var="item">
                                <apex:variable var="acc" value="{!item.oAccount}" />
                                <tr id="{!$Component.repeatAccount}:account" class="dataRow">
                                    <td class="actionColumn">
                                        <apex:inputCheckbox id="selectAccountRow"
                                            value="{!item.IsSelected}"
                                            onclick="javascript:toggleSelectAll(this, '{!$Component.repeatAccount}');"/>
                                    </td>
                                    <td class="dataCell">
                                        <apex:outputLink id="linkShowHide" value="javascript:toggleContactRow('{!$Component.repeatAccount}')">
                                            <img id="{!$Component.repeatAccount}:Img" src="/s.gif" class="showContacts" border="0" height="11px" width="11px" style="padding-right: 4px;"/>
                                            <apex:outputField value="{!acc.Name}" />
                                        </apex:outputLink>
                                    </td>
                                    <td class="dataCell"><apex:outputField value="{!acc.Industry}" /></td>
                                    <td class="dataCell"><apex:outputField value="{!acc.billingcountry}" /></td>
                                    <td class="dataCell"><apex:outputField value="{!acc.CreatedById}" /></td>
                                </tr>

                                <tr id="{!$Component.repeatAccount}:Contact" class="dataRow" style="display:none;">
                                    <td colspan="100" style="padding:10px; padding-left: 45px;">
                                        <h3>Contacts</h3>
                                        <br/>
                                        <apex:outputPanel layout="none">
                                            <table id="tableAccountContacts" class="list" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                                                <thead>
                                                    <tr class="headerRow">
                                                        <th class="actionColumn">Action</th>
                                                        <th>Name</th>
                                                        <th>Email</th>
                                                        <th>Phone</th>
                                                    </tr>
                                                </thead>
                                                <tbody>
                                                <apex:repeat id="repeatAccountContacts"
                                                    value="{!item.contactSet}"
                                                    var="subitem">
                                                    <apex:variable value="{!subitem.oContact}" var="con" />
                                                    <tr class="dataRow">
                                                        <td class="actionColumn"><apex:inputCheckbox id="selectContactRow" styleclass="ContactCheckbox" value="{!subitem.IsSelected}"/></td>
                                                        <td class="dataCell"><apex:outputField value="{!con.Name}" /></td>
                                                        <td class="dataCell"><apex:outputField value="{!con.email}"/></td>
                                                        <td class="dataCell"><apex:outputField value="{!con.phone}" /></td>
                                                    </tr>
                                                </apex:repeat>
                                                </tbody>
                                            </table>
                                        </apex:outputPanel>
                                    </td>
                                </tr>
                            </apex:repeat>
                            </tbody>
                        </table>
                    </apex:outputPanel>
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
        jQuery.noConflict();
        function toggleContactRow(rowId) {
            try {
                var AccountImg = jQuery(document.getElementById(rowId + ":Img"));
                var ContactsRow = jQuery(document.getElementById(rowId + ":Contact"));
                if (AccountImg.hasClass("hideContacts")) {
                    AccountImg.attr("class", "showContacts");
                    ContactsRow.hide();
                }
                else {
                    AccountImg.attr("class", "hideContacts");
                    ContactsRow.show();
                }
            }
            catch (e) { alert(e); }
        }

        function toggleSelectAll(elCheckbox, rowId) {
            try {
                var SelectAll = jQuery(elCheckbox);
                var ContactsRow = jQuery(document.getElementById(rowId + ":Contact"));
                ContactsRow.find(".ContactCheckbox").each(function() {
                    jQuery(this).prop("checked", SelectAll.is(":checked"));
                });
            }
            catch (e) { alert(e); }
        }

    </script>
    </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:form>
</apex:page>

JS function toggleContactRow is used to show or hide contacts and toggleSelectAll is for header level checkbox at the parent Level.

SFDC API 24.0 test failure issue

2012-02-22T01:12:00.001+05:30

Yesterday I was experiencing a weird issue.

For a new requirement we did development in our DEV environment…We wrote new test methods and we thought the work is done :)...
However, there were Null Pointer Exceptions when we ran the test methods.
And it was pointing to the custom settings….we doubled checked and confirmed that the custom setting had the default values. Also, it was accessible to anyone (public).

After some time I realized that the test method API version was 24.0.. I changed it to 23.0 and there were no errors :)

Edit - SFDC has introduced test classes not to access data directly with API 24. Even though it is a good move , I would like to access certain info by default like custom settings, and Pricebook. But there is always an option to use @istest(seealldata=true) to access live data.

http://boards.developerforce.com/t5/General-Development/Custom-setting-not-accessible-from-test-class/m-p/399669#M66636

Account address to be displayed as single block

2012-02-04T22:49:00.001+05:30

Small code snippet to display Account address as a single block just like in standard page

<apex:outputText label="Shipping Address"

escape="false"

value="{!IF(NOT(ISNULL(Account.ShippingStreet)),'{0}<br/>{1}, {2} {3}<br/>{4}', ' ')}">

<apex:param value="{!Account.ShippingStreet}" />

<apex:param value="{!Account.ShippingCity}" />

<apex:param value="{!Account.ShippingState}" />

<apex:param value="{!Account.ShippingPostalCode}" />

<apex:param value="{!Account.ShippingCountry}" />

</apex:outputText>

Identifying SobjectType Dyanamically

2012-01-25T13:13:00.001+05:30

getKeyPrefix of Schema.getGlobalDescribe can be used to identify dynamically the SobjectType in Apex.

String prefix = recordId.substring(0,3);
String objectType;
Map<String, Schema.SObjectType> gd = Schema.getGlobalDescribe();
for(Schema.SObjectType s : gd.values()){
   if(prefix == s.getDescribe().getKeyPrefix()){
       objectType = s.getDescribe().Name;
   }
}

recordId consists the Id of the sobject Record for whose SobjectType needs to be identified. Above piece of code does it well.

Build your Own Standard set controller

2012-01-11T22:36:00.002+05:30

Standard set controller can be used for many objects . Recently i found that it cannot be used with activity objects(Open activity and activity history). Also there are many other Restrictions placed on these objects. You cannot query on these objects directly. It has to be a nested SOQL within an object using a relationship name.

So coming back to my requirement i needed to roll up related list for all the activities in the account hierarchy for the topmost parent. For other related list i achieved it through standardset controller. But for activity alone i created a class which would behave like a standard set controller.

public class SetActivityClass {
        public integer pagenumber{get;set;}
        public integer totalpages{get;set;}
        public integer pagesize{get;set;}
        public list<sobject> sobjectList{get;set;}
public SetActivityClass(list<sobject> sobjectList){
        pagenumber =1;
        pagesize = 60;
        this.sobjectList=sobjectList;
        totalpages= Integer.valueof(math.ceil((double)sobjectList.size()/(double)pagesize ));
        }
        public boolean gethasprevious(){
          return (pagenumber != 1);
        }
        public boolean gethasnext(){
            return (pagenumber != totalpages);
        }
        public pagereference Previous(){
        if(gethasprevious())
            pagenumber--;
            return null;
        }
        public pagereference next(){
        if(gethasnext())
            pagenumber++;
            return null;
        }
        public list<sobject> getRecords(){
        list<sobject> Sactivity = new list<sobject>();
            for(integer counter2=(pagenumber-1)*pagesize;counter2<(math.min(pagenumber*pagesize,sobjectList.size()));counter2++){
                Sactivity.add(sobjectList.get(counter2));
            }
            return Sactivity;
        }

    }
oActivityHistory= new SetActivityClass(ActivityHistoryList);
        oOpenActivity= new SetActivityClass(OpenActivityList);

public List<OpenActivity> getGoToListOpenActivities() {
    return oOpenActivity.getRecords();
    }
public List<ActivityHistory> getGoToListActivityHistories() {
    return oActivityHistory.getRecords();
    }

Just like the standard set controller, this SetActivityClass has methods to return next set or previous set of records. These can be added to command links as they are pagereference method. Also Hasprevious and Hasnext can be called from the page to check if the previous or next set of records exist.Pagenumber denotes the current page number. Pagesize determines no of records to be displayed in the page. I would recommend a size of 40 -60 in a page for better readability by Users(I have hardcoded it as 60). Total pages is calculated based on this pagesize.

Also note that getRecord function accepts and returns generic sobject. I used the same class for both activityhistory and openactivity.This Class can be slightly tweaked to handle list of objects of your custom class as well.

Here is how i would display it in the page

<apex:panelGrid columns="2">

<apex:commandLink action="{!oOpenActivity.previous}" rendered={!oOpenActivity.hasPrevious}"> Previous </apex:commandLink>
<apex:commandLink action="{!oOpenActivity.next}" rendered="{!oOpenActivity.hasNext}" >Next </apex:commandLink>
</apex:panelGrid>

<apex:pageBlockTable id="tableMasterAccountOpenActivities" var="openact" value="{!GoToListOpenActivities}">
<apex:column .....
.......
</apex:pageblocktable>

And whenever the next and previous is click make sure atleast the pageblock tabele is rerendered if not the whole page based on your logic. I have shown the VF for openactivity. similarly u can use it for activity history. Also you can use the same logic in building your own custom class wrapper object standard set controller this way.

Javascript for Ghost Text in Salesforce

2012-01-07T22:11:00.002+05:30

There will be a need to add ghost text which will be like a help text or format in which the value needs to be there for a particular input field in visual force. I would suggest use visual force help text for it. But if ghost text is required use the following script.

Trick here use the script after all the component is loaded preferably before </apex:page> tag.

Also Make sure to handle the save if the field is filled with ghost text(Default text here).

Cool links for salesforce.com tools and best practices

2011-12-09T21:02:00.002+05:30

I was going through the Best practices for force.com and Trigger template. It will be really helpful if we could follow it in our code.

You can also find lots of interesting tools for salesforce.com here.

Found this awesome IDE and data loader on the cloud !!! - Workbench . I would have loved to have metadata export on this. If anyone knows a tool not an app through which we can export metadata (not like an XML) more like a spreadsheet which can be used for documentation and data mapping please drop a comment here.

Finally Vote for all the ideas in this link. These are all the features worth having in SFDC.

There are many a times where we need to mimic a standard page through VF. Creating them to mimic it is a hard thing. But it can be done with a single click , whole code gets generated. You can check that out here. Pretty cool stuff aint it.

Javascript to select all checkboxes in visualforce page

2011-10-18T15:17:00.006+05:30

I needed to develop a custom visualForce page which would hold a page block table which would contain a checkbox and details of a custom object based on which user can select and click on buttons to perform some operations.

I wrapped the custom object record and check box in a wrapper class. I needed a simple functionality when the header checkbox is selected or deselected accordingly all the checkbox will get selected or deselected accordingly. So i looked into community and first result community gave is this(controller way). It involved calls to back end and as a result functionality is little slow.

So I went for a Javascript solution which would provide a faster,elegant and much simpler way.Here is the VF code which was used in the page above.

<apex:pageBlockTable value="{!wrapreportsobj }" var="w" id="Selected_PBS">
<apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">
<apex:inputCheckbox onclick="checkAll(this,'checkedone')"/>
</apex:facet>
<apex:inputCheckbox value="{!w.selected}" id="checkedone"/></apex:column>
<apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Id</apex:facet><apex:outputfield value="{!w.rep.id}"/></apex:column>
<apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Name</apex:facet><apex:outputfield value="{!w.rep.name}"/></apex:column>
</apex:pageBlockTable>

Note that I have set the id of the checkbox as checkedone and while clicking on header checkbox it calls a javascript function checkAll. Giving an id will segregate all the checkboxes in the table. Here is the javascript which would handle the selecting and deselecting all of the checkboxes which has id checkedone in it.

Migrating Opportunity line item

2011-09-16T10:30:00.024+05:30

This post is a continuation of my earlier post on Product, Pricebook and Pricebook entry.Opportunity Product(line item) is a junction object between opportunity and pricebookentry table.

List of fields in opportunity products

ID
OPPORTUNITYID
PRICEBOOKENTRYID
CURRENCYISOCODE
QUANTITY
TOTALPRICE
UNITPRICE
LISTPRICE
SERVICEDATE
DESCRIPTION

Fields indicated in red are mandatory fields and fields which are in grey are read only. Unit price field specifies the price at which the product was sold. List price is the price of the product in the pricebook. use either one of the totalprice or unitprice field while loading.The other field will be automatically calculated based on quantity while loading. Refer to my previous post for inserting a new pricebook entry/ Exporting existing pricebookentry. Prepare a csv file with all these data.Also optional fields like service date and description can be filled for CSV. Use data loader to insert data. Click here for Sample CSV

Notes on loading

pricebook entry should be in the same pricebook that is assigned to the opportunity. The pricebook name can be found in pricebook2id field in opportunity
If the opportunity does not have an associated pricebook2, the API automatically sets the pricebook on the opportunity if the line item corresponds to a Pricebookentry in an active Pricebook2. Changing the pricebook association would delete existing opportunity line items.
Creating an OpportunityLineItem increments the OpportunityAmount value by the TotalPrice of the OpportunityLineItem. Additionally, inserting an OpportunityLineItem increments the ExpectedRevenue on the opportunity by the TotalPrice times the opportunity Probability.
The OpportunityAmount becomes a read-only field when the opportunity has line items.
If multi-Currency is enable for your organization, Choose a price book that contains products with the same currency as the opportunity. pricebook entry currency code should match opportunity currency code.You cannot update the CurrencyIsoCode field on the opportunity if line items exist.

Escalation Queues and workflows.

2011-09-08T22:17:00.000+05:30

I recently had a need to escalate a case which has status value new and in a queue for 2 hours, So that if nobody picks up the case it would be escalated to manager.

It took me about a day to figure out how to write the entry criteria to check whether the case is in a queue or assigned to a owner. salesforce Ids has a certain pattern across all org for certain objects. so by that i figured out that users always started with 005 and group and queue always started with 00G.

Also i had to use 'Formula evaluates to true' instead of easy 'Criterias are met' as owner ids are not available in this. Here is the formula i used.

AND( ISPICKVAL( Status ,"New") , BEGINS(OwnerId, "00G") ,not( IsClosed ) )

Now coming to other stuffs

Realized that Case Escalation cannot trigger a workflow. Case escalation would cause an 'isEscalated' flag to be checked. I assumed that it can be used to trigger a workflow. i used the same entry criteria in workflow as in the escalation rule and used time dependent action instead. Thankfully my use case needed field updates only for the first time the case is escalated.

Couple of more things changes to formulae field would not trigger the workflow and so also field update from a workflow. This link might be useful Workflow considerations

If you could find if salesforce has documented somewhere which all will trigger a workflow, Let me know

Loading Converted Leads

2011-08-23T15:47:00.001+05:30

When you are migrating data from one system to another there will be a need to load the leads as converted as they would have been already converted in the source system.

First step is to raise the case with salesforce.com to open up the audit fields for your organisation. The fields CONVERTEDACCOUNTID, CONVERTEDCONTACTID, CONVERTEDOPPORTUNITYID and CONVERTEDDATE will not be visible while inserting or updating by default.

Once the salesforce allows you to load these system fields you can start your process.

Steps for Loading

Firstly, Load Account, Contact and Opportunity which needs to be associated with the converted lead.
Next prepare a csv files with information of lead and get the ids from previous step and load it into the appropriate converted fields of file as mentioned above.
The field Isconverted should be set to true
Insert, Update or Upsert the leads as necessary.

Things to consider while loading

Converted Account is mandatory . Converted contact and opportunity is not mandatory. converted contact and opportunity need not belong to converted account.
You cannot see the information of converted leads. If you go to the lead detail page through its id you will see information on Converted date, Converted account, Contact and opportunity whichever was mapped. Only way to extract the information is through API
Lead conversion mapping will not be respected.For eg Lead description is mapped to contact description and when u load the converted lead with description it will not be carried over to the converted contact.
Converted date if not mapped will give value This lead was converted on {0} on lead detail page. If you need to enter converted date make sure you also enter created date . Otherwise it would error out as created date would be defaulted to now which will be at future date when compared to converted date.
Lead triggers and validation rules will be fired.
Converted Leads cannot be updated but can be deleted

click here to have a look at the sample csv file.

If you have any questions please post it in comments section

Rendering VF page as pdf and sending pdf as an attachment from a list view

2011-08-18T21:05:00.001+05:30

Thought i would share something which i needed to work on. I thank Jeff Douglas for his awesome post which helped me in this assignment.

Requirement

There is a custom visualforce page which is rendered as pdf. There is a button on contact detail page which when clicked would call this vf page. These things were present. In addition to viewing this pdf from contact detail there was also a necessity to email these PDFs that too in bulk from list views.

Solution

list button was created with source as VF page.

<apex:page standardController="contact" recordSetVar="Props" extensions="emailcontact" action="{!sendingemail}">
</apex:page>

Controller is where all the code is

public class emailcontact {
     public ApexPages.StandardSetController propcontroller{get;set;}
    public list<contact> props{get;set;}
    public emailcontract(ApexPages.StandardSetController controller) {
    propcontroller =(ApexPages.StandardSetController)controller;
    }
    public pagereference sendingemail(){
        props = propcontroller.getSelected();// Contains the list of record which is selected from the list

        PageReference pdf = Page.VFpagetoberenderedaspdf;
        for(contact pr : props)
        {
            pdf.getParameters().put('id',pr.Id);
            attachment attach = new attachment();
            Blob body;
            try {
                body = pdf.getContentAsPDF();
                }
            catch (VisualforceException e) {
                body = Blob.valueOf('Missing Text');
                }
            // ********************* for attachment to the contactrecord ******************************
            try{
            attach.Body = body;
            attach.Name = 'Contact' +system.today+'.pdf';
            attach.IsPrivate = false;
            attach.ParentId = pr.Id;
            att.add(attach);
            }
            catch(exception e)
            {

            }
            // ************************ for email creation************************************

            Messaging.EmailFileAttachment attach2 = new Messaging.EmailFileAttachment();
            attach2.setContentType('application/pdf');
            attach2.setFileName('Contact.pdf');
            attach2.setInline(false);
            attach2.Body = body;
            Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
            String[] toAddresses = new String[] {pr.Email};
            mail.setToAddresses(toAddresses);
            mail.setSubject('Offer for' + pr.name);// alternatively use templates as well
            mail.setFileAttachments(new Messaging.EmailFileAttachment[] { attach2 });
            mail.setHtmlBody('Please find attached a cash offer for your listing at ');
            em_sent.add(mail);
        }
    }
    if(att!= null)
    insert att;
    if(em_sent != null)
    Messaging.sendEmail(em_sent);
    pagereference pr = new pagereference('/a0e/o');//will redirect to contact tab
    return pr;
    }
}

Also you can add a piece of code to send an email to yourself to indicate the success or failure of the action or display it in the page

Limitations

Major limitation i faced is no of the records the code can process (Governor limits on callouts). It was limited to 10 after which time out error happened. I tried using batch as well as future calls. Both returned me empty PDFs. Waiting for Salesforce to remove these limitations in future.

Setting a child record to play a unique primary role to parent through config

2011-08-18T18:12:00.000+05:30

There are many use cases where there is need to set one of the child record as primary and when another child record is updated as primary it should throw up an error saying that primary record already exists (similar to contact roles function). Many of the developers would suggest an apex trigger solution But this can be achieved through configuration alone.

Its a simple 2 step process.

Create a Roll up summary field on the parent object. It would roll up the count of the child records which have the primary checkbox set to true.
Create a validation rule on this field if the number becomes more than 1 validation error will be thrown.

U are good to go now. When the child record is updated to primary rollup would happen. But when there is a primary record rollup will try to become 2 triggering the validation error thus preventing it from saving the record. But if the relationship between child and parent is lookup or u want user to be pointed to the primary record in the error message listen to developers :)

Loading products , pricebooks and pricebook entry

2011-08-18T11:35:00.003+05:30

There is always a need to load Products into salesforce. Its a 3 step process to load products and associate them with pricebook . There is a standard pricebook which salesforce provides by default which can be deactivated. There is also an option to create custom pricebook as many as you want in accordance with the business.

Fields in red are required and fields in blue are read only

Pricebookentry is the junction object between product2 and pricebook2 object( For strange reasons they have suffix 2 for standard object) . It has lookup for product2 and pricebook2 field through product2id and pricebook2id field. Name and productcode is copied over from product2 based on product2id field.

Essentially for loading Products you need to load product2 table first. Create a CSV file. Name is the only required field. Optionally have columns for other fields indicated in the pic.set Isactive to true. use dataloader to insert data. Get the id of the products from success file which got created.

Pricebook2 will also have only Name as required field. Isstandard indicates whether its a standard or custom and its readonly. Also Isactive should be set to true if you are planning to use it. Get the Pricebook2id from success file. Alternatively export pricebook2 table to get id of pricebook already created.

Final step is to create pricebookentry. Pricebook entry needs to be created for each Pricebook.
populate ids of product2 in product2id column and pricebook2 in pricebook2id column. Unitprice is a required field where the price for this pricebook is set. Pricebook entry for a custom pricebook cannot be made if that product is not there in the standard pricebook.

Unitprice can be made read only if usestandardprice field is set to true. This can be made only for custom pricebook and when the product is added to standard pricebook. So the unitprice set in standard pricebook will be carried over to the custom pricebook. Make Isactive true whenever u are planning to use it. Use dataloader to insert the pricebookentry. you have to repeat the above 2 steps for each custom pricebook.If you have multiple currencies enabled there should be as many pricebook entry records for a single product in a pricebook for each currency.