Do your formulas run more like a wagon than a sports car? Join us as we take you "under the hood" of the Force.com formula engine and show you how to tune it for maximum performance. We'll explore some common designs that make formulas slow to a crawl, then discuss how to use formula fields to improve the scalability of applications handling very large data volumes.

1. Revving Up the Force.com Formula Engine
Bud Vieira, salesforce.com, @aavra
Daisuke Kawamoto, salesforce.com, @daisukeSfdc
Nathan Shilling, Appirio, @nds9619

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3. You are a Force.com developer,
architect, or administrator ...

4. … you want to know why your
queries & reports that use
formula fields are so slow ...

5. … so you can design a
solution that
scales & performs
better.

6. You need to understand how
formula evaluation works under
the hood!

7. Takeaways …
Index selective formula fields!
Reduce run-time overhead!

8. Why use formula fields?
Data
Logic
Display

9. How does a formula field work?

10. Filtering on formula fields
[SELECT …
FROM Invoice__c
WHERE Portfolio_Formula__c = ‘US Portfolio’
LIMIT 150]
Report
List View

11. To be indexed, a formula
MUST
be deterministic

12. How does indexing work?
Click SAVE
Save to Object
Edit Record
Evaluate
Formula
Write to
Index
Table

13. A field is deterministic …
… when the value of the field
DOES NOT CHANGE
between save events on its record

14. What prevents formula fields from being indexed?
Formula Element
Can be Indexed?
Why?
Contact__r.LastName
No
Values change between
formula record updates
< (Today() + 3)
No
Date functions change
in real time
Opportunity.Amount
No
Special functionality
Country__c
Depends
Formula field could be
non-deterministic

15. Fields that Force.com cannot index
Exhaustive list of fields: http://bit.ly/XL8ybp

16. Solution #1
Store lookup values
on the same object

17. Solution #1
1. Create custom field on object
2. Define workflow rules
3. Add field update actions
Or use Apex triggers

18. Solution #2
Split the formula

19. Solution #2
IF(AND((Invoice_Total__c > 1000),(Recurring__c),(Collective__c)),
IF(AND(Contact__r.Country__c="United States",(Invoice_Total__c >= 10000)), "US Over 10K",
IF(AND(Contact__r.Country__c="United States",(Invoice_Total__c >= 5000)), "US Over 5K",
IF(AND(Contact__r.Country__c="United States",(Invoice_Total__c < 5000)), "US Under 5K",
IF((Invoice_Total__c >= 8000),
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Canada", "CAN Over 8K",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Italy", "IT Over 8K",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Australia","AU Over 8K","Other"))),
IF((Invoice_Total__c >= 4000),
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Canada","CAN Over 4K",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Italy", "IT Over 4K",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Australia", "AU Over 4K","Other"))),
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Italy", "IT Under 4K",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Canada","CAN Under 4K",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Australia","AU Under 4K"
,"Other”))))))) ,NULL)
Invoice Total
SELECT …
FROM Invoice__c
WHERE Formula__c = ‘US Over
8K’
SELECT …
FROM Invoice__c
WHERE Formula1__c = ‘US’
AND Formula2__c = true
AND Invoice_Total__c >= 8000
Country (lookup)
Invoice is BOTH
Recurring AND
Collective
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="United States", "US"
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Canada", "CAN",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Italy", "IT",
IF(Contact__r.Country__c="Australia","AU","Other"
))),NULL)
Country (lookup)
IF( AND(Recurring__c, Collective__c ),TRUE,FALSE)
Invoice is BOTH
Recurring AND
Collective

20. Solution #3
Spell it out in your QUERY
Age__c = TODAY() - CloseDate
SELECT Id, Name
FROM Opportunity
WHERE Age__c > 14
AND Age__c <= 21
SELECT Id, Name
FROM Opportunity
WHERE (CloseDate > LAST_N_DAYS:14)
AND (CloseDate = LAST_N_DAYS:21)

21. Demo

22. Index selective formula fields
save thousands of ms (runTime)
Call Customer Support
Get your selective formula fields indexed

23. When to index formula fields
Deterministic?
Selective?
Frequently used?
INDEX

24. Formula complexity can
EXPLODE
run-time SQL

25. The formula field in this simple SOQL query …
SELECT Formula__c FROM Invoice__c

26. … has moderately complex logic …
IF( (Invoice_Total__c > 1000),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "United States") &&(RPE__c > 500000), "US Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "United States") &&(RPE__c <= 500000), "US Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Canada") &&(RPE__c > 400000), "CAN Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Canada") &&(RPE__c <= 400000), "CAN Non-Portfolio",
IF((RPE__c > 300000),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Italy"),"IT Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "France"),"FR Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Australia"),"AU Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Japan"), "JP Portfolio","Other")))),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Italy"), "IT Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "France"), "FR Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Australia"), "AU Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Japan"), "JP Non-Portfolio","Other"
))))))))),NULL)

27. … which generates run-time SQL like this!

28. Where is all the SQL coming from?
• Spanning objects
• Nesting logic
• Nesting other formula fields
All at RUN TIME

29. Solution #1 – Store static values
• Workflow actions
• Triggers
• Integrations

30. Now the runtime SQL statement looks like this!
Save 100s of ms

31. Solution #2 – Split up the formula
IF( (Invoice_Total__c > 1000),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "United States") &&(RPE__c > 500000), "US Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "United States") &&(RPE__c <= 500000), "US Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Canada") &&(RPE__c > 400000), "CAN Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Canada") &&(RPE__c <= 400000), "CAN Non-Portfolio",
IF((RPE__c > 300000),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Italy"),"IT Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "France"),"FR Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Australia"),"AU Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Japan"), "JP Portfolio","Other")))),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Italy"), "IT Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "France"), "FR Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Australia"), "AU Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Japan"), "JP Non-Portfolio","Other"
))))))))),NULL)
IF( (Invoice_Total__c > 1000),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "United States") &&(RPE__c > 500000), "US Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "United States") &&(RPE__c <= 500000), "US Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Canada") &&(RPE__c > 400000), "CAN Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Canada") &&(RPE__c <= 400000), "CAN Non-Portfolio",
"Other"
)))),NULL)
North America
IF( (Invoice_Total__c > 1000),
IF((RPE__c > 300000),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Italy"),"IT Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "France"),"FR Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Australia"),"AU Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Japan"), "JP Portfolio","Other")))),
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Italy"), "IT Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "France"), "FR Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Australia"), "AU Non-Portfolio",
IF(CONTAINS(Country__c , "Japan"), "JP Non-Portfolio","Other"
))))),NULL)
APAC and EMEA
Save about 100 ms

32. Making formulas scream!
Customer case studies

33. Nathan Shilling
Regional Practice Lead
Certified Technical Architect
@nds9619

34. All About Appirio
Appirio is a global services provider that helps enterprises
reimagine their business and become more agile using
crowdsourcing and cloud, social and mobile technology.
▪ More than 600 enterprise customers successfully moved to the cloud
▪ Strategic partner of salesforce.com since 2006
▪ On-demand access to 600,000 of the world’s top developers,
designers and data analysts through Appirio’s community

35. Business Challenge
• Users have multiple managers
in a hierarchy
• User Z sometimes has data
rolling up to Manager A

36. Details – Business Challenge
• The object we will report on is assigned to only one leaf
member of the hierarchy
• The user running the query can be a manager to multiple
members of the hierarchy
• The query should show all records at or below the Managers
top-level node
• Standard Role Hierarchy clearly doesn’t solve this!

37. Technical Solution – Query “My Team” records
• Formula is needed to determine “My Team” query
• “My Team” cannot be indexed
• “My Team” references Normalized data on Hierarchy record
•
If(Lead.Hierarchy__r.Parent__r.Parent__r.Level__c == User.Level__c…
•
If(Lead.Hierarchy__r.Parent__r.Level__c == User.Level__c…
• First try: Formula complexity taxed the query optimizer
• Lead object contains more than 10 million rows at any given
time

38. Denormalization & static values solve our problem

39. All the pieces put together…
• Store de-normalized hierarchy level values on Lead
• Store User’s top-level hierarchy value on User
• Simplify “My Team” formula to compare just those two sets
of fields

40. And the results querying from 10 million rows…
• First Iteration: 30 second query returning 1000 rows
• Using formulas to compare normalized reference fields
• Second Try: 6 second query returning 1000 rows
• Reduced formula to use de-normalized static values
• Still not fully performant because formula is not indexed
• Final Result: subsecond query returning 150 rows
• Negotiated business requirement change to only show
“Last 30 Days” of created Lead data
• A selective query using an index always wins!

41. Takeaways …
Index selective formula fields!
Reduce run-time overhead!

42. Related DevZone hands-on, mini-workshop
Wednesday
9:15AM
or
3:45PM

43. Bud Vieira
Daisuke Kawamoto
Nathan Shilling
Architect Evangelist
@aavra
Architect Evangelist
@daisukeSfdc
Regional Practice Lead
Certified Technical Architect
Appirio@nds9619

44. We want to hear
from YOU!
Please take a moment to complete our
session survey
Surveys can be found in the “My Agenda”
portion of the Dreamforce app

46. Hands-on Work Shop
@ Developer Zone
Wednesday 9am & 1 pm

47. Appendix

48. Formula Limits