Hi All,
Hope you all aware of Saleforce Solutions Feature. Each solution is associated with one or more Categories which is called 'Solution Category'. Salesforce provide some basic solution browsing feature. I was thinking to implement something more Interactive UI perspective.

Then i found one jQuery solution for this here by filamentgroup.
I found it is very useful for Hierarchical Data representation. It actually an iPod style browsing categories. So i used this idea and implemented Solutions Browsing in Salesforce using this jQuery menu way But i think this can be used to implement any object records hierarchical data like Account and parent accounts, Users and their managers etc.

Here is the working demo for this:-
http://labsprojects-developer-edition.ap1.force.com/solutions_menu_demo

Try to browse AllCategory->Entertainment->Movies OR
All Category -> Breaking News -> Politics

You will see on demand filter results. For rest of the menu items i just provided all records for demo purpose.

If you need the complete code for this demo then mail me at: aslam.bari@gmail.com

Thanks
Aslam Bari

Hi All,
Recently i faced one issue where i need to use a simple search on some table and fetch the results on screen. But the main problem i faced that how to highlight the search word in the screen in some color format. So here is the solution for that. (It is inspired from one PHP Code blog: http://www.phpro.org/articles/Highlight-Search-Words.html).

For SFDC work around, here is the solution with code:

1) Apex Class:- I used the contact for my searching example. Here is the code:-






2) VisualForce page and code for Search and highlight




3) And finally here is the link to check it right now online. Just try to search something like "park", or "usa', or "and"

http://labsprojects-developer-edition.ap1.force.com/ContactSearchHighlight



Is it nice!!!


Thanks
Aslam Bari

Hi,
Today I want to discuss you about one scenario which I came across recently and how I find the best way to do it. Here is the scenario:-

Scenario:
Suppose you have Case object which have two parent records, One is Contact Lookup and another is "MyCustomObject" object lookup. All three objects have one 'Email' field each. There is one another Custom Object called 'ChildObject' which is the child of Case object. The object structure is as below.


What we want to do is. On Insert of a new 'ChildObject' record we need to Notify Parent 'Case' Record using 'Workflow'. But the email should go to as logic below:-

If Contact.Email is filled then send email to that, otherwise if MyCustomObject.Email__c is filled then send email to that, Otherwise send email to Case.Email__c field.

Suggested Solutions and Problems:
1) Sending mail using Trigger on 'ChildObject'. Either do bunch of SOQL on all parent records and use final email to send mail within 'Trigger' OR you can use one custom email field on ChildObject it self to set email from parent in trigger and use workflow to use that email field to send emails but you can't avoid SOQLs.

2) One Before insert/update trigger on Parent Case Object. Which will set one extra Email field based on our conditions but for that you need again bunch of SOQL and logics. You can do same thing for ChildObject also.

3) Formula field on either ChildObject or Parent Case object which will filled our Email according to our logic. It is good way, it will avoid all SOQL and Logics. BUT main problem with this is that Formula Field CAN NOT be used in workflows.

My Solution (Somehow Better).

1) Create one Formula Field 'Formula_Email__c' on 'ChildObject which have following condition for fill this field

If(Case__r.Contact.Email != null, Case__r.Contact.Email, if(Case__r.MyCustomObject__r.Email__c != null, Case__r.MyCustomObject__r.Email__c, Case__r.Email__c));

2) Create one Email type field 'Case_Email__c' on 'ChildObject which will have the value from above formula field as below:

trigger on ChildObject (before insert, before update){
for(Case c: Trigger.NEW){
c.Case_Email__c = c.Formula_Field__c;
}
}

3) Thats it. See you saved so many SOQL and complex logic. Now used this final 'Case Email' field on 'ChildObject' workflow to send emails.

Is it good!!!

Thanks
Aslam Bari

Hi,
Here i am going to tell you about some good practice to avoid "Too many SOQL queries: 21" error on Triggers. I got this approach from one of my good colleague "Prakash Gyamlani" (Thanks for him).

Here is some background what problem i faced:-

In one of my organization i had 7 triggers on Case. Some triggers are "before update", some triggers are on "after update". In some triggers i was also updating Case object itself based on some criteria. So it generally again calls some Triggers ( I have taken care of Recursion, that's not the problem).
After some days when i tried to save one case record i started getting "Too many SOQL queries: 21" error. I search debug logs and found that my queries are going beyond the 20. After some research i found the area which was causing the root problem.

Root Problem:-

There was one "Before Update" trigger on Case which was querying Record Types on top of the trigger like below:-

trigger SendEmailsOnCaseComment on Case (before update) {

Map<id,RecordType>mapRecordTypes = new Map<id,RecordType>([SELECT Id, Name from RecordType WHERE SObjectType = 'Case']);

for(Case cs: Trigger.NEW){
//logic
}
//extra code
}

The problem in the above code is that the query on top will always be executed whenever our control comes in this trigger. Suppose because of 7 triggers, on Case update (and inner updates), this trigger is called 6 times then we have 5 time SOQL queries extra. We only interested to execute this query one time only within the execution of a Trigger Thread.

How to solve this:-

So we should code our trigger in this way that if there are any queries which are general, not dependent on any conditions, then put those queries in a place where they can be executed only once. And Whenever we need the results we get our results always in single execution of Trigger Thread.


Code:-
The solution for above problem is to code like this:-

Make one utility class for getting record types and initialize that (Fire SOQL) in a "Static" block. In this way we will always have that soql fired only once.

public class CaseManagementUtility{
public static Map<id,RecordType> mapRecordTypes = null;
static {
mapRecordTypes = new Map<id,RecordType>([SELECT Id, Name from RecordType WHERE SObjectType = 'Case']);
}

public static Map getRecordTypeMap(){
return mapRecordTypes;
}
}


Now, in our trigger use this code like this:-
trigger SendEmailsOnCaseComment on Case (before update) {

Map<id,RecordType> mapRecordTypes = CaseManagementUtility.getRecordTypeMap();

for(Case cs: Trigger.NEW){
//logic
}

//extra code
}

Now, suppose above trigger is called 10 times (in a single execution), but SOQL query will be fired only once.


Quite simple. Isn't it.

Thanks
Aslam Bari

Hi,
I recently came across with 'Twitter Search Widget', which is very useful for getting recent tweets for in which topic you are interested and you can embed this widget anywhere you like for example your salesforce org, public site, blogger etc.

I created one search widget for Salesforce Business Tweets and Embedded this to Sidebar of the salesforce org. See below:-

Hi,
Last day I Explored PhoneML by Teleku. It is very good "Phone Web Service API". Enterprise-grade, cloud-based RESTful Phone Web Service API for building speech & touch tone Voice and SMS phone applications! Control any phone with simple & open PhoneML XML or JSON Web responses that work with all Web programming languages.


The best part i found with Teleku is that i can easily test my application built on Teleku using "Skype" without need of any Phone etc. (My last experience was with Twilio, a very advance and cool TwiML APIs. But the applications i built on Twilio, i had to test it using a Phone, by that time they do not provide Skype support, as per my knowledge. Dont know, now they have provided or not).

So, it is very easy to build your extension applications on Teleku and test it on Skype. Here are the steps:-

1) Register for free on Teleku.
2) Make your sample application using <Speak> PhoneML as below
<phoneml><speak>Hello Dear, how are you</speak></phoneml>

3) Now you will be provided one extension number.
4) After saving your application , you will be provide some numbers to call including Skype. Just click on Skype call and you will be prompted for entering Extension number. After entering you will listen you message. Isn't it good.

Teleku Provide folloing PhoneML commands:-

i) <speak>
<speak> allows you to speak or read text-to-speech (TTS) sentences and data to the caller

ii) <play>
<play> allows you to play MP3, WAV, or VOX audio files to the caller.

iii) <input>
<input> allows you to specify input options (grammars) to collect from the caller. These options can include both numeric touch tone options or words for speech recognition (ASR). Values are separated by commas. If you are interested in allowing the caller to enter or say a string of digits, you may specify free form entry as <input>digits<input>.

iv) <record>
<record> allows you to record an audio file and post it to your desired URL.

v) <transfer>
<transfer> allows you to transfer the call to another number. Note: ";postd=ppp1234" or simply "x" can be added to the dial string to represent pauses in dialing.

vi) <goto>
<goto> allows you redirect the flow of the voice application to another URL for processing.

vii) <hangup>
disconnects the call. You may specify a URL of your application to call for processing within the tags.

So go and Explore yourself:-

Teleku


Now my next plan is to integrate this with Salesforce Off Course !!!

Thanks
Aslam Bari

Hi All,

Here i am again with something interesting thing with Salesforce.

Do you think how it is cool if our Salesforce Organiztion's information will be displayed on variety of Adhoc Web clients. For example I want to display my open cases from my organiztion on iGoogle Home page as a Gadget, my Blackberry or iPhone mobile or My Gmail , Yahoo page or GTalk or Google Reader and so on .... at the same time and same information. Isn't it cool!!!

Yes this is the Power of RSS Feed.


What Is RSS and Why to use it.

RSS was designed to show selected data.

Without RSS, users will have to check your site daily for new updates. This may be too time-consuming for many users. With an RSS feed (RSS is often called a News feed or RSS feed) they can check your site faster using an RSS aggregator (a site or program that gathers and sorts out RSS feeds).

Since RSS data is small and fast-loading, it can easily be used with services like cell phones or PDA's.

Web-rings with similar information can easily share data on their web sites to make them better and more useful.

So, here in this tutorial i am going tell you how you can convert Case Information like your case number with priority and a small Case summary from your Salesforce Organization into RSS Feed and then how you can consume these feeds into your iGoogle/My Yahoo home page or any variety of consumers.

1) Make a contoller with following code (RssFeedController):-

public class RssFeedController{
public List<Case> caseList {get;set;}
public RssFeedController(){
caseList = [SELECT Id, CaseNumber, Subject, Priority from Case];
}
}

2) Make a Visual Force with following code (RssFeedGenerator):-
<apex:page contenttype="text/xml" sidebar="false" showheader="false" controller="RssFeedController">
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>SFDC Case List</title>
<description>The List gives you all cases open in Your SFDC Org</description>
<link>https://ap1.salesforce.com/500?fcf=00B90000001SEXr</link>
<apex:repeat value="{!caseList}" var="cnt">
<item>
<title>{!cnt.CaseNumber} - {!cnt.Priority}</title>
<description>{!cnt.Subject}</description>
<link>https://ap1.salesforce.com/{!cnt.Id}</link>
</item>
</apex:repeat>
</channel>
</rss>
</apex:page>

3) Enable sites in your organization and add VF page/Contoller to you sites. Also provide read permission on Case object for sites.

4) Now open your sites with our VF page like this:-
http://labsprojects-developer-edition.ap1.force.com/rssfeedgenerator

5) What you see on the page? Your page is converted to a RSS Feed Generator. Isn't it good!!!.
See the above section is for RSS Feed subscribtion area. The below is your feeds.

6) Now you can subscribe this page to variety of Feed Readers like google, yahoo , blogs etc.
For example click on My Yahoo or google from the top dropdown and click on subscribe. It automatically add one Feed Gadgets to your My Yahoo or iGoogle page like below:-


7) Now you can also play with it and add the above rss feed url to any consumer which support RSS Reading like blackberry, iPhone, GTalk, blogs or even your custom RSS Reader for you website.
For Example:-
a. iGoogle





b. My Yahoo

c. GTalk: There are many variety of free available bots which you can add into your gtalk for RSS Feed reading.

d. BlackBerry and iPhone: You can easily consume your rss feeds into your blackberry and iphone

e. Google Reader: Its easy to embed your rss feed into your Google Reader and let the worlds know about it

f. SMS: You can make one Google Channel with your RSS Feed. Then make it SMS enabled and whoever subscribe it , will get notified whenever a new feed comes via SMS.

g. Blog: There are many gadgets which are available for feed reading and you can just plug them into your blog easily into sidebar etc.

h. Website: Of course you can parse your rss feed with any language and add to your website.

So without login or not much code we can view useful information from our salesforce org to any of our client consumers. so, Play with this Good Feature.

Thanks
Aslam Bari