At Yahoo, our Salesforce developers are thinking 'above and beyond' to create innovative solutions with Apex and Visualforce. Join us as we discuss patterns for deep clone, mass and bulk edit, and walk through the data import wizard we built to allow our sales team to synchronously modify 10,000 records at a time.

1. Taking Apex and Visualforce Above
and Beyond
Jay Jayakumaran
Yahoo! Inc.
Senior Developer

2. Jay Jayakumaran
Senior Developer

3. Agenda
– Building synchronous data loader using Apex and Visualforce
– Bulk edit using Apex and Visualforce
– Grand Children Design Pattern
– Building custom field track history using Apex and Visualforce

4. Building Synchronous data loader
using Apex and Visualforce

5. Building synchronous data loader using Apex and
Visualforce
• Why?
– Give Standard Users insert, update, and deletion rights without extending them Admin rights
such as API
or Modify All Data.
– Existing desktop based tools require user training or users to rely on the admin for all data
loads.
– The functionality is not available out of the box
https://success.salesforce.com/ideaview?id=08730000000Bre6AAC
• What has Yahoo! done?
–We have customized Data import tools to bulk insert/update 10,000 records in real time
synchronously.

6. Highlights of the Visualforce data loader
 Step by step wizard process for Data import
 A Standard help template for the sObject to load the data
 UI Preview of the csv to be imported/updated
 Customized data import logic which parses a generic csv file and inserts Parent, Children, and
Grandchildren in one single transaction
 Advanced success and error records display with RollBack or finish options
 Sending success and error records as csv files to email
 Code can be reused if necessary by other teams with minimal changes

7. Visualforce data loader – Screen shots
STEP 1: Choose file
STEP 2:
Preview file
STEP 3: View Success
and Error records with
Rollback/Finish

8. Inserting Parent, Children, and Grand Children in one single
transaction
Data Import tool
(VF Page & Apex class)
Template sObject
csv
Parent sObject
Create Success
and error files; and
send email
Child sObject Grand Children sObject

9. Update/Delete Operation
sObject
csv
Data Import tool (Identifies records using
record name)
Create Success and error files; and
send email

10. Code walkthrough
 Convert csv blob to String
 Use DescribeFieldResult to get the API names of the field labels
 Parse the String to form a collection of sObjects
 Use Database methods to do insert or update so that we can handle success and
error records

11. Demo - Building Synchronous data
loader using Apex and Visualforce

12. Bulk Edit using Apex and
Visualforce

13. Bulk Edit using Apex and Visualforce
 Why ?
 Out of the Box list views in salesforce provides bulk edit in UI
 Users have to create first list view of their choice or clone list views
 User training required on how to customize list views and filter
 Highlights
 Visualforce page for bulk edit
 Real time filters and display of records meeting the criteria
 Has all the features of the standard bulk edit
 Error handling (Triggers and validation rules)

14. Demo - Bulk Edit using Apex and Visualforce

15. Grandchildren UI pattern

16. Grandchildren Pattern (User Navigation)
– In Standard SFDC, drilling down on the Grand Children records from the parent record requires 3 pages.
– Accommodate the CRUD of children and Grand Children records in just one page
– Used generally in the Parent record Detail/View page
– Achieved through Radio Button related lists or Expand Collapse pattern
– DEMO
Parent
Child
Grand Child

17. Custom Field Track History

18. Field Track History using Apex and Visualforce
Salesforce.com Field Track History limitations
 Can track only 20 fields per sObject (need to contact SFDC support to increase)
 Cannot record the value changes on MultiSelect Picklist and long text area fields
 Cannot do data migration on Standard History tables
 (We have to create custom history tables; data migrate legacy audit trail into custom
history tables; Combine both the standard history data and custom history data into one
List on UI).

19. Field Track History using Apex and Visualforce – Cont.
 Create after insert, after update triggers on sObject
 Track the value changes using Trigger.old and Trigger.New
 Insert the history records into custom history tables
Sample code:
// Save ContentLicense History for Multi-select picklist fields
//writing such code for every field on each sObject is not efficient and is repetitive consuming code lines
if(Trigger.isUpdate) {
List<ContentLicenseLegacyHistory__c> rhInsList = new List<ContentLicenseLegacyHistory__c> ();
for (ContentLicense__c rOld : Trigger.old) {
ContentLicense__c rNew = Trigger.newMap.get(rOld.Id)
if (rOld.Device__c != rNew.Device__c) {
rhinsList.add(new ContentLicenseLegacyHistory__c(parentid__c = rOld.id,field__c = 'Device__c',oldValue__c = rOld.Device__c, newValue__c =
rNew.Device__c, CreatedDate__c = rNew.LastModifiedDate, CreatedById__c = rNew.CreatedById));
}
if (rOld.UserGeo__c != rNew.UserGeo__c) {
rhinsList.add(new ContentLicenseLegacyHistory__c(parentid__c = rOld.id,field__c = 'UserGeo__c',oldValue__c = rOld.UserGeo__c, newValue__c
= rNew.UserGeo__c, CreatedDate__c = rNew.LastModifiedDate, CreatedById__c = rNew.CreatedById));
}
insert rhInsList;

20. Custom Field Track history - architecture
App. User Interface: (Visualforce, JavaScript, CSS, Apex class, and Config Tables)
Trigger and Generic Apex class framework: (Apex Trigger, Apex class, and Custom History tables)
Generic History UI Component ( Visualforce, Apex class)
Config Tables to
store the sObject
names and its fields
to be tracked
GUI config for sObject and
fields to be tracked
Apex Trigger
framework (after
insert, update)
Generic Apex class Framework
createHistory(sObjectName,
FieldName, OldObjectCopy,
newObjectCopy)
History
records
Insert field track history
records with field old and
new values into custom
history tables
Generic UI Component
Loads the history records
into standard pagelayouts
or sObject Visualforce
Pages

21. Q&A