Tooling API Overview

Tooling API provides SOAP and REST interfaces that allow you to build custom development tools for Force.com applications. For example, you can:

• Add features and functionality to your existing Force.com tools.
• Build dynamic modules for Force.com development into your enterprise integration tools.
• Build specialized development tools for a specific application or service.

Tooling API exposes objects used in developer tooling that you can access through REST or SOAP, and works just like the Salesforce REST API and SOAP API.

Tooling API provides both SOAP and REST interfaces.

• Use REST API if you’re using a language that isn’t strongly typed, like JavaScript.
• Use SOAP API if you’re using a strongly typed language like Java that generates Web service client code. 

Tooling REST API

The base URI for each Tooling REST API resource is http://domain/services/data/vXX.X/tooling/ where domain is a Salesforce instance or a custom domain and vXX.X is the API version number. For example: http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v28.0/tooling/

For complete list of Tooling API resources, refer below URL:

http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_tooling/index_Left.htm

Available Custom Objects using tooling API

If you have to find out all available custom objects in your org, then use below code sample :

Available Validation Rules using Tooling API

Below apex code will give all validation rules in your organization:

Tooling API can be used to perform the following tasks

• Manage working copies of Apex classes and triggers and Visualforce pages and components using the ApexClassMember, ApexTriggerMember, ApexPageMember, ApexComponentMember and MetadataContainer objects.
• Manage working copies of static resource files using the StaticResource object.
• Check for updates and errors in working copies of Apex classes and triggers and Visualforce pages and components, and commit changes to your organization using the containerAsyncRequest object.
• Execute anonymous Apex. 
• Manage custom fields on custom objects using the CustomField object.
• Access code coverage results using the ApexCodeCoverage, ApexOrgWideCoverage and ApexCodeCoverageAggregate objects.
• Execute tests, and manage test results using the ApexTestQueueItem and ApexTestResult objects.
• Manage validation rules and workflow rules using the ValidationRule and WorkflowRule objects.

Spring 15 Release-Enhancements and new Features

The Force.com Spring '15 Release introduces compelling new enhancements and features that will automate time-based processes, enhance mobile experiences and streamline your overall development. Run more tests in Sandbox and Developer orgs, and monitor jobs for asynchronous execution.

Analytics: Introducing Wave, the Analytics Cloud

Analytics Cloud gives you a fast, fluid way to drill through data, discover compelling insights, and share the right visuals to tell your data story. Datasets, lenses, dashboards, and apps are collections of data that represent different levels of refinement—everything from raw data uploaded from your source systems to highly curated, packaged views of your data. With the mobile-first Analytics Cloud, you can explore all types of data from your mobile device. Check in on this quarter’s customer cases, track progress toward sales goals, and instantly share learnings.

With new Salesforce analytics clouds, users can gain insight in your business through data. Users can:

• User can explore millions of data points from multiple sources with ease.
• Insights are not and should not be restricted to the desktop. With the mobile-first Analytics Cloud, you can explore all types of data from your mobile device. Check in on this quarter’s customer cases, track progress toward sales goals, and instantly share learnings with your team. No matter where you are, collaborate and share insights with colleagues and know your customers like never before.
• User can share their findings with other teams or users.

Analytics Cloud brings data from different business process and systems. Data can be from Salesforce, data warehouses, CRM and ERP systems, log files, CSV files, XML files and more. Data Sources can be provided in structured, semi-structured or unstructured form. Salesforce uses powerful indexing technology. It provides capacity to scale to many rows with any data type.

Apex Code Enhancements

• Submit More Batch Jobs with Apex Flex Queue: Submit up to 100 batch jobs simultaneously and actively manage the order of the queued jobs to control which batch jobs are processed first. This enhancement provides you more flexibility in managing your batch jobs.
• Make Long-Running Callouts from a Visualforce Page: Use asynchronous callouts to make long-running requests from a Visualforce page to an external Web service and process responses in callback methods. Asynchronous callouts that are made from a Visualforce page don’t count toward the Apex limit of 10 synchronous requests that last longer than five seconds. As a result, you can make more long-running callouts and you can integrate your Visualforce pages with complex back-end assets.
• Set Up Test Data for an Entire Test Class: Use test setup methods (methods that are annotated with @testSetup) to create test records once and then access them in every test method in the test class. Test setup methods can be time-saving when you need to create reference or prerequisite data for all test methods, or a common set of records that all test methods operate on.
• Chain More Jobs with Queueable Apex: Queueable Apex was introduced in Winter ’15 and enables you to easily start and manage asynchronous processes. Previously, you could chain a queueable job to another job only once. You can now chain a job to another job an unlimited number of times. For Developer Edition and Trial organizations, your chain can have up to five queueable jobs.
• Access Address and Geolocation Compound Fields Using Apex: You can now access address and geolocation compound fields in Apex using the new Address and Location classes. Previously access only compound fields’ component fields in Apex. You can now query compound fields and their components using the new Address and Location class methods.
• Make Apex Callouts with More Data: The callout size limit for requests and responses has been increased to the heap size limit. With a larger callout size for requests and responses, you can send and receive more data from an external Web service.
• List Apex Classes and Triggers With a Tooling API Endpoint: Use the apexManifest Tooling API endpoint to list all of your Apex classes and triggers, including global classes and   triggers from your installed managed packages. Rather than querying both the ApexClass and ApexTrigger objects, you can retrieve a quick list of both classes and triggers with just one API call. Unlike ApexClass, apexManifest retrieves your inner classes—previously, you needed to get and parse the symbol table to retrieve your inner classes.
• String Methods Fixed for Escaping Additional Characters: When you activate this update, these Apex String methods will escape additional characters: escapeHtml3, escapeHtml4, and escapeEcmaScript.

Salesforce 1 Enhancements 

• You can turn your users into power users with Salesforce Adoption Manager. If you enable this feature, users receive customized suggestions based on how they work in both the full Salesforce site and the Salesforce1 mobile app. To enable Salesforce Adoption Manager, from Setup in the full Salesforce site, click Manage Users > Adoption Manager and select Enable Salesforce Adoption Manager.
• Salesforce introduce Create New task that allows end users to create task directly from post in their chatter feed.
• To take advantage of the larger screen on tablets, Salesforce1 uses a different object home page interface than what’s provided on smartphones. Tablet users can see more details about recently viewed records, directly access standard and custom list views, and search across other objects as well as the current object. The tablet version of object home pages is currently available in the Salesforce1 mobile browser app app only.
• When using Salesforce1 on tablets, users get an enhanced list view experience that shows more record details at a glance and includes more sorting options and intuitive controls for navigating through this extra information. The tablet version of list views is currently available in the Salesforce1 mobile browser app only.
• When using Salesforce1 on smartphones, users can now see more than four list views for an object directly from an object’s home page. It’s no longer necessary to first open a specific list view to access other list views. When using the mobile browser app, simply tap More List Views on an object home page. (If a user hasn’t yet accessed any list views at all, the option is Show List Views.) Users see up to 200 list views for the object, including list views that haven’t been accessed recently in the full Salesforce site.
• Now users can add a file and a link directly from the New Post page. This feature is available in the Salesforce1 mobile browser app only.
• If Chatter Questions is enabled for your organization, you can give moderators the ability to escalate questions in Chatter to cases, making it easier to track and resolve your customers’ issues. Question-to-Case is available in the Salesforce1 mobile browser app only.
• Put all your content at users’ fingertips. If Files Connect is set up for your organization, Salesforce1 mobile browser app users can browse and share files from external data sources, such as Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive for Business.
• Data.com Duplicate Management lets you control whether and when you allow users to create duplicate records inside Salesforce. Set up duplicate rules in the full Salesforce site and you can also manage whether Salesforce1 users can save records that are identified as possible duplicates. Duplicate management is now generally available in all versions of the Salesforce1 mobile app. Duplicate rules tell Salesforce what action to take when users attempt to create records that might duplicate existing Salesforce records. For example, the rule could block users from saving the possible duplicate record or allow them to save it anyway.
• Records with standard address fields now display a Google Maps image of the address. This saves user’s time by letting them see where their contacts or accounts are located, instead of having to locate addresses in an external map application. This feature is available in all versions of Salesforce1.
• Sales representatives on the go can now convert qualified leads to contacts and create opportunities (beta), which helps sales representatives grow their revenue pipeline. This option is available in all versions of Salesforce1.

Salesforce1 Reporting Enhancements

• Subscribe to Receive Report Notifications: Your users can now sign up for report notifications, to stay up-to-date on the metrics they care about most. Subscribe to a report and set the conditions that should trigger notification.
• Increase the Session Security Level Required to Export and Print Reports: You can now set a security policy that requires users to have a high assurance session to export and print reports. Set this policy to restrict access to users who can perform these tasks. Previously, you could require a high assurance session to access resources like reports, dashboards, and connected apps. Now, to give you finer access control, you can also require a high assurance session to restrict access to exporting and printing reports.
• Dashboard Wizard and API Create Correct Relative URLs:  The dashboard wizard and API no longer cause errors when you enter Drill Down to locations other than absolute URLs. To fix a potential security issue, the dashboard builder, wizard, and API now create correct relative URLs when you use text to represent the location Salesforce takes users to when they click a dashboard component. The text you enter is escaped with a backslash and converted into a relative URL. All three ways of creating dashboard components accept absolute URLs as is and don’t convert them to relative URLs. (Absolute URLs look like salesforce.com and www.salesforce.com)
• The Reports and Dashboard Tabs Are Protected from Clickjacking: For enhanced security, clickjack protection is now enabled for Salesforce1 Reporting. This means that the Reports and Dashboards tabs can no longer be embedded inside an iframe. Previously, you could turn clickjack protection on and off. Now, clickjack protection is always active.

Lightning Process Builder

The Process Builder is a new workflow tool that helps you easily automate your business processes by providing a powerful and user-friendly visual representation of your process as you build it. The Process Builder’s simple and powerful design allows you to:

• Create your processes using a convenient visual layout with point-and-click efficiency.
• Create your whole process in one place rather than using multiple workflow rules.
• Create processes by collaborating with different teams in your business.
• Stop using Apex code to automate simple tasks.

Automated processes in the Process Builder consist of criteria that determine when to execute action groups and immediate and scheduled actions to execute when those criteria are met. Any change that causes a record to match the criteria can automatically trigger the action group.

You can use the more powerful and flexible Process Builder to perform the same actions as workflow. The process builder doesn’t support outbound messages, but you can easily create one yourself with Apex. With the Process Builder, you can:

• Create a record
• Update any related record—not just the record or its parent
• Use a quick action to create a record, update a record, or log a call
• Launch a flow—as an immediate or a scheduled action
• Send an email
• Post to Chatter
• Submit for approval

If you need your process to do more than what those actions allow, don’t worry. You can also call Apex from a process.

Manager Groups

Share records up or down the management chain using sharing rules or manual sharing or apex managed sharing. Manager groups were previously not automatically enabled in your organization. With Spring ‘15, you can enable this feature on the Sharing Settings page.

• Allows users share records with their management chain, instead of all managers in the same role.
• Manager groups can be used wherever other groups are used, such as in a manual share or sharing rule. But they cannot be added to other groups and don’t include portal users.
•  Manager groups can contain Standard and Chatter Only users only.

Import Accounts and Contacts with Ease

My Accounts & Contacts wizard, which makes it even easier to get accounts and contacts from the data sources that matter to you into Salesforce. If you have a new Salesforce organization, you can get to the wizard from the Accounts and Contacts tabs in Salesforce. Or, just click Your Name > My Settings > Import > Import My Accounts & Contacts, and then start the import wizard.

You can import Accounts & Contacts from 15 different sources like Outlook, Excel, Gmail, LinkedIn, Act, Quickbook etc.

Visualforce Remote Objects

JavaScript remoting is a popular, powerful, and efficient method for building web apps with Visualforce, especially for creating pages for use in Salesforce1, or working with JavaScript libraries like jQuery or AngularJS. Visualforce Remote Objects are proxy objects that allow basic DML operations on sObjects directly from JavaScript. Remote Objects take some of the complexity out of JavaScript remoting, by reducing the need for @RemoteAction methods in an Apex controller or extension. Like JavaScript remoting, Remote Objects calls don’ t count towards API request limits.

Using Visualforce Remote Objects consists of implementing two separate pieces of functionality on the same page.

• Access definitions, written in Visualforce using the new Remote Objects components. These components generate a set of JavaScript proxy objects that you can use in the next step.
• Data access functions, written in JavaScript. These functions use the proxy objects made available by the access definitions to perform create, select, update, and delete operations on your data.

Your page then uses the data access functions to respond to user interaction, including form submissions or controls changes, or in response to timers, or pretty much anything you can write in JavaScript.

Below are some sample example where Visualforce remote objects being used:

• Create new record with Visualforce Remote Objects

Create a record by calling create() on a Remote Objects model instance.

create() accepts two arguments, both optional

RemoteObjectModel.create({field_values}, callback_function)

The field_values block enables you to define and create a record in one statement. Set field values as you do when you create a model, using a JSON string. For example, the following two calls to create() are equivalent. The callback function enables you to handle the server response asynchronously.

Below is code snippet:

• Retrieve records from object with Visualforce Remote Objects

Retrieve records by calling retrieve() on a Remote Objects model instance.Retrieve() requires two arguments, one for query criteria and one for a callback handler.

RemoteObjectModel.retrieve({criteria}, callback_function)

criteria can be a Remote Objects query object or a function that returns one.

Below is code snippet:

Points to remember:

• Remote Objects respects your organization’s field level security settings. Keep this in mind when you create pages that use Remote Objects. Fields that aren’t accessible to the person viewing the page appear blank. Actions that modify field data (create(), update(), and upsert()) fail with an error if they include inaccessible fields in the request.
• Each Remote Objects operation (create(), update(), and so on) is a separate transaction. Each operation succeeds or fails on its own, which can be a problem when you need to create or modify multiple related objects as part of a business process. In contrast, JavaScript remoting transaction boundaries are on the Apex@RemoteAction method. It’s easy to create the invoice and related line-item records inside one method, where automatic Apex transactions ensure that all records are created together or not at all.
• Remote Objects calls aren’t subject to API limits.
• You can retrieve a maximum of 100 rows in a single request. To display more rows, submit additional requests by using the OFFSET query parameter.
• Setting the rendered attribute to false on Remote Objects components disables the generation of the JavaScript for those Remote Objects. Any page functionality that depends on unrendered Remote Objects should also be disabled.
• Remote Objects isn’t a way to avoid Salesforce service limits. Remote Objects calls aren’t subject to API limits, but Visualforce pages that use Remote Objects are subject to all standard Visualforce limits.

Onclick Javascript-AJAX Toolkit

When working with small amounts of data, use the AJAX Toolkit.

AJAX works best with relatively small amounts of data (up to 200 records, approximately six fields with 50 characters of data each). The larger the data set returned, the more time it will take to construct and deconstruct a SOAP message, and as the size of an individual record gets larger, the impact on performance becomes greater. Also, as more HTML nodes are created from the data, the potential for poor performance increases. Because browsers are not efficient, careful consideration needs to be given to browser memory management if you intend to display a large amount of data.

The following are examples of appropriate uses:

• Updating a single record.
• Modifying few fields of related child records.
• Perform one or more simple calculations and then update a record.

Here I will be sharing basic sample code for 3 scenarios mentioned above.

1. Updating a record

Support users can assign cases (assign to queue) to themselves by clicking on "Accept" button present in Case detail page. On click on "Accept" button, system will change the case ownerid to current logged in user. Below is sample code:

1. Updating child records or list of records

Notify Contacts of Account to update their Contact details. Create a checkbox field(contact_update_required__c) in Contact. Create a workflow rule which will send email to all contacts to update their contact details whenever checkbox field is true. Create a related list button for Contact object “Update Contact Details” and add it to Contact related list on Account page layout. Whenever this button is clicked, onclick javascript modify the checkbox field to true in all related contacts of Account.

1. Performing logic by calling apex method

There are few scenarios where you want to perform complex logic in apex class and want to execute that logic on click of button. For example, you want send notifications to attendees of event based on some logic. For this, you need to create global class and create webservice method and then call it from onclick javascript.

Others capabilities of AJAX  toolkit are:

• Performing synchronous and asynchronous calls.
• Query,create,edit,delete,undelete,merge and search records. 
• Convert lead,send email and initiate approval process.
• Use describe to get object and fields information.

Refer below URL for more reference on AJAX toolkit:

AJAX Toolkit Developer guide

                            Click here for Salesforce Interview Questions

Creating custom lookup field in VF page for objects

Recently I got requirement in which I have to store information like Email template name, frequency of sending emails and few other fields in custom object. While selecting email template, salesforce standard look up pop should open which usually comes while creating Email Alerts (for selecting email template). Already custom fields like EmailTemplateid (text), and EmailTemplateName(text) were created in custom object. Also user want flexibility to create many records at once.

Below is sample code to create custom look up in VF page for email template:

Explanation:

First look at input elements:

• Input text with id='Template_lkid' stores email template id.
• Input text with id="Template_lkold" stores email template name.

Now look at javascript function:

JavaScript:openLookup('/_ui/common/data/LookupPage?lkfm=editPage&lknm='+templatenameid+'&lkrf=&epf=1&lktp=00X',670,'1','&lksrch=' + escapeUTF(getElementByIdCS(templatenameid).value.substring(0, 80)))";

About parameters which need to be set for replicating standard look up behaviour:

• lknm : This specify the id of input text where selected value in pop up will display
• lktp : This is object prefix( first 3 characters). in my case '00X' prefix for Email Template
• lksrch : This is search parameter. If you specify text, then in pop up system will search and show results.
• In order to store id of record selected in pop up, this function search input text field with id equal to value passed for lknm parameter appended by '_lkid'. For example, if we pass 'Template' as value for lknm parameters, then selected record id will be populated in input text field with id='Template_lkid'.

I have used <apex:inputtext/> tag inside pageblocktable, salesforce generate unique ids while rendering page. As it is repeating element, salesforce append numbers(index) starting from 0 (for first element) in front of id specified in apex:input tag. So in order to populate selected values to correct input text elements, I have created a counter variable in my wrapper. So whenever user clicks on lookup icon, I am passing the element id in javascript and extracting index (counter value) from it and then creating requird id which will be passed for lknm parameter.

In order to implement custom look up for other object, just change object prefix in javascriot openLookup function and it will work. For example, Account object prefix is '001'. Just change '00X' to '001' in order to open pop up for account records.

Snapshot

Hope this will help someone.
looking forward your comments and suggestions...

Headervalue not displayed in apex column tag

We have observed a strange behavior in headervalue property in <apex:column>tag. Header value won't display value if it is present within <apex:repeat> tags.

We were having a requirement where we need to display opportunity and its related competitor's record in one row. First Column will display opportunity fields and other columns will display field from different competitors related to opportunity. Number of columns will vary based on number of competitors. In order to display dynamic columns, we used <apex:column>  tags within <apex:repeat> tag. There are few fields which are common to opportunity and competitor object. User should be able to edit these fields for opportunity as well as for competitor in same page.

Below is sample code

Output:

In order to resolve this, we used Visualforce Dynamic Components. We created pageblocktable in apex and refereed it VF page.

Below is Code sample
Output after using Visualforce Dynamic Components:

Hope this might help you.

For more info on Visualforce Dynamic Components, Check below links:

https://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/pages/Content/pages_dynamic_vf_components_intro.htm
https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Dynamic_Visualforce_Components

Looking forward for everyone's comment and suggestions.

Quote to Cash Certification Overview

Quote-to-Cash Certification, is a free certification program designed for quoting and contracting knowledge. This certification consists of five video modules, followed by an online test to earn certification badge.

You need to register for this course on http://www.apttus.com/certification/ . After registration, you will get access to 5 training videos and study guide which will help you to clear the certification quiz.

In short, Quote to cash is integrated package of below mentioned functionality:

• Integrated CPQ, contract management & revenue management-
• Compensation management that incents reps to offer better deals-
• Echo sign e-Signature for speedy quoting and contract cycles
• Sync order details to enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Salesforc

Different modules involved:

• Quote-to-Cash- Introduction and its benefits
• Introduction to Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ)
• Minimizing Risk & Maximizing Revenue with Contract Management
• Getting Real Insight Into Cash with Effective Revenue Management
• Quote-to-Cash Success on Salesforce1

This training module will give you functional knowledge of Quote to cash process, helps in understanding CPQ and will explain what are challenges customers are facing to close deals faster . It also describe the functionality provide by APTTUS –Quote to cash package in order to deal with all the challenges while proposing deals or closing the deals.

Features which I like the most in Quote to cash:

• 100% native to Salesforce so need to integrate it with any 3^rd party quoting tool.
• Guide selling: It provide an ability to configure this app in such a way that sales reps can ask question from customer related to their requirement s and interest and system will populate the suggested products
• Marked as favorites:  Sales reps can specify products or combination of different products as favorites so that they don’t have to search it every time.
• Ability to configure discounts at account or partner level, quote level and quote line item level.
• Availability of API’s related to all CPQ functionality so that developers can customize the app based on customer requirements.
• Ability to configure E-commerce for external customer easily by using Exposed API’s provided by APTTUS.