Salesforce Cat : 2014

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Controlling Approval Proccesses From Apex

Salesforce Approval Processes are one of the greatest declarative features comes with the platform.It saves tons of work you have to do as developer if you had to implement them via code.Although they are very useful in their default form, you may come up against requirements that require more than declarative customizations provide. Programmatic access to Salesforce Approval process via Apex come can handy in such situations. This Post discusses how Approval Process Submit ,Approve and Reject actions can be triggered from Apex code

Submit

 Approval.ProcessSubmitRequest req1 = new Approval.ProcessSubmitRequest();  
 req1.setComments('Submitting request for approval.');  
 req1.setObjectId(RecordId);  
 //RecordId is the id of the record that is submitted for Approval  
 Approval.ProcessResult result = Approval.process(req1);

Approve

 //RecordId is the id of the record that is submitted for Approval

List<ProcessInstance> PI = [Select Id,TargetObjectId FROM ProcessInstance WHERE TargetObjectId=:RecordId AND Status='Pending'];  
 if(PI.size() > 0)  
 {  
  List<ProcessInstanceWorkitem> PIWI = [Select Id ,ActorId FROM ProcessInstanceWorkitem WHERE ProcessInstanceId=:PI[0].Id];  
  if(PIWI.size() > 0)  
  {  
   Approval.ProcessWorkitemRequest req2 = new Approval.ProcessWorkitemRequest();  
   req2.setComments('Approving request.');  
   req2.setAction('Approve');  
   req2.setNextApproverIds(new Id[] {UserInfo.getUserId()});  
   req2.setWorkitemId(PIWI[0].Id);  
   Approval.ProcessResult result2 = Approval.process(req2);  
  }  
 }

Reject

 //RecordId is the id of the record that is submitted for Approval

List<ProcessInstance> PI = [Select Id,TargetObjectId FROM ProcessInstance WHERE TargetObjectId=:RecordId AND Status='Pending'];  
 if(PI.size() > 0)  
 {  
      List<ProcessInstanceWorkitem> PIWI = [Select Id ,ActorId FROM ProcessInstanceWorkitem WHERE ProcessInstanceId=:PI[0].Id];  
     if(PIWI.size() > 0)  
     {  
          Approval.ProcessWorkitemRequest req2 = new Approval.ProcessWorkitemRequest();  
         req2.setComments('Approving request.');  
         req2.setAction('Reject');  
         req2.setNextApproverIds(new Id[] {UserInfo.getUserId()});  
         req2.setWorkitemId(PIWI[0].Id);  
         Approval.ProcessResult result2 = Approval.process(req2);  
     }  
 }

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Salesforce Sending Mail Attachments

Sending attachments via mail has become a common occurrence in everyday life.So it is not much of a surprise if you get a requirement to send and attachment via system generated mail as I did. So in this article I am going to discuss how to send an Word document generated by Visualforce as a mail attachment.I am going to use the Visualforce Word document generated in my previous post Render Visualforce Page As A Word Document as the attachment for the purpose of this article.

given below is the Apex code for sending Word Form as an mail attachment.

     List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage> EmailMessages= new List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage>();  
     List<User> loggedUser = [Select Id,Name,Email from User where Id=:UserInfo.getUserId()];  
      Messaging.SingleEmailMessage EmailMsg = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();  
      //define mail body content -begin (here i used html tags to format my mail body because I am setting htmbody  
      String EmailBody = '<html><body> Dear User,<br/><br/>';  
      EmailBody ='Please Fill the attached document and send us';  
      EmailBody += '<br/><br/>Thank you,<br/>'+loggedUser[0].Name+'<br/><br/>';  
      EmailBody += '</body></html>';  
      //define mail body content -end  
      EmailMsg.setHtmlBody(EmailBody); // set the html body contnet  
      EmailMsg.setToAddresses(new String[]{'mailaddreses seperated by commas'});//set recipient mail addresses  
      EmailMsg.setSubject('SalesforceCat Demo');  
      EmailMsg.setReplyTo(loggedUser[0].Email);// set reply to email address becuase I expect this mailed to be replied  
      EmailMsg.setUseSignature(true);  
      PageReference Word = new PageReference('/apex/WordDownloadExample'); // url of ur visualforce page rendered as a word  
      //Word.getParameters().put('Id','xxxx'); if any parameters need to be passed to the page 
      Word.setRedirect(true); //do a virtual redirect to the page so we can get page content using page reference
      Blob b;  
      b = Word.getContent();// get the content of the page and assignment to blob  
     
      
      Messaging.EmailFileAttachment attachment = new Messaging.EmailFileAttachment();// create an attachment instance  
      attachment.setBody(b); // set the blob as attachment content  
      attachment.setFileName('attach.doc'); // set the attachment name  
      EmailMsg.setFileAttachments(new Messaging.EmailFileAttachment[] { attachment}); // link the attachment to the mail  
      EmailMessages.add(EmailMsg);  
      if(!Test.isRunningTest())  
      {  
      Messaging.sendEmail(EmailMessages);   
      }

Mail with word form as an attachment

mail sent

Monday, November 24, 2014

Render Visualforce Page As a Word Document

Normally we use Visualforce pages to generate online forms and pages but lately I met with a requirement where Visualforce page should be rendered as an downloadable word document.So in the post I thought of sharing simpler version of my code as some of you may find it useful.

So lets get into work Although you may think rendering a page as a Word document may involve lot of work all you have to do is add one attribute to <apex:page> tag. That attribute is contentType.

eg:contentType="application/msword#SalesforceCat.doc"

In above example

application/msword# means page should be rendered as word document
SalesforceCat.doc means default name of the downloaded document would be SalesforceCat

When you are rendering Visualforce page as a word document please take below points also into consideration

Some Visualforce native page elements such as <apex:pageblock>, <apex:pageblockSection> doesn't have same styling effect on pages rendered as Word document. Therefore it is better you can use standard html tags and do the styling using inling css or css classes defined within the page.
<Apex:form> or other child apex form components do not render in document mode therefore use html form elements if your document need to include form components such as radio buttons and text fields..

Visualforce Page Rendered as Word Document

Code of the above given Visualforce Page

 <apex:page applyHtmlTag="true" showHeader="true" contentType="application/msword#SalesforceCat.doc"  >  
   <div>  
   <h3>Applicant Refree FeedBack From </h3>  
   </div>  
    <head>  
     <style>   
       body { font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; }  
       .caption {  
          background: #cfeef8;  
          height:30px;  
          font-size:15px;;  
          margin-left: -1px; /* Fix FF 1px issue */  
         }  
       .Question  
       {  
        height:30px;   
        background-color:#efefef;   
        border:1px solid #ccc;   
        padding:2px 2px; width:50%;  
       }  
       .Answere  
       {  
         height:30px;    
         border:1px solid #ccc;   
         padding:3px 2px 3px 4px;  
       }    
       .rowstyle {  
        height:50px;  
       }  
       .rowstyle td{width:30%;}  
     </style>  
   </head>  
   <apex:outputPanel >  
   <table border="0"  cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="resultTable" width="100%">  
    <caption style="background: #cfeef8;height:23px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 16px; margin-left: -1px; text-align:left; padding:0 0 0 4px;">Feed Back Questions</caption>  
    <tr>  
    <th class="height:30px; background-color:#efefef; border:1px solid #ccc; padding:2px 2px; width:50%;" >Answere All the Questions</th>  
    </tr>  
    <tr >  
     <td class="Question">  
     <apex:outputLabel value="Radio Button Type Question? ">  
     </apex:outputLabel>  
     </td>  
     </tr>  
     <tr>  
     <td class="Answere">  
       <apex:outputPanel >  
        <input type="radio" name="group1" value="Poor"/> Poor  
        <input type="radio" name="group1" value="Average"/> Average  
        <input type="radio" name="group1" value="Good"/> Good  
        <input type="radio" name="group1" value="Excellent"/> Excellent  
       </apex:outputPanel>  
     </td>  
    </tr>  
    <tr>    
    <td width="400" class="Question">  
     <apex:outputLabel value="Check Box Type Question? ">  
    </apex:outputLabel>  
    </td>  
    </tr>  
     <tr>  
     <td style="height:30px;  border:1px solid #ccc; padding:3px 2px 3px 4px;">  
       <apex:outputPanel >  
         <input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="Bike">I have a bike </input>  
         <input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="Car">I have a car  </input>  
         <input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="Bike">I have a van </input>  
         <input type="checkbox" name="vehicle" value="Car">I have a lorry </input>  
       </apex:outputPanel>  
     </td>  
    </tr>   
    <tr>    
    <td width="400" class="Question" >  
    <apex:outputLabel value="Select List Type Question? ">  
    </apex:outputLabel>  
    </td>  
     </tr>  
     <tr>  
     <td style="height:30px; border:1px solid #ccc; padding:3px 2px 3px 4px;">  
       <apex:outputPanel >  
         <select value="select">  
         <option value="volvo">Volvo</option>  
         <option value="saab">Saab</option>  
         <option value="mercedes">Mercedes</option>  
         <option value="audi">Audi</option>  
        </select>  
       </apex:outputPanel>  
     </td>  
    </tr>    
   </table>  
   </apex:outputPanel>  
    <table width="100%">  
    <tr>  
     <td class="Question">  
      <b>Referee Name</b>  
     </td>  
     <td class="Question">  
      <input type="text" size="35" />  
     </td>  
    </tr>  
    <tr>  
     <td class="Question">  
     <b>Contact Number</b>   
     </td>  
    <td class="Question">  
      <input type="text" size="35" />  
     </td>  
    </tr>  
     <tr>  
     <td class="Question">  
     <b>Date</b>  
     </td>  
     <td class="Question">  
      <input type="text" value="(Enter in DD/MM/YYYY Format" size="35" />  
     </td>  
    </tr>  
    </table>  
 </apex:page>

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Salesforce Access All Object List Views From Visualforce

Salesforce standard list views are one of the most useful built in features comes with the platform.They serve well for users reporting and filtering needs.Although Salesforce standard list views are great to provide end users access to them you have to either create tab for each of your objects or built custom Visualforce pages with <apex:Listviews> tag for each of your objects.Although above solutions work fine for org with limited number of objects as the number of objects grow you may find it bit unpractical.

In this post I am going to describe you how you can access all the custom object list views via one Visualforce page using Salesforce meta data api.

For this purpose i have created a Visualforce page named ListViewManager and an Apex controller named
ListviewController.

ListviewController

 public class ListviewController {  
   public List<SelectOPtion> Objectlist {get;set;}  
   public String Selectedview {get;set;}  
   public String objectName {get;set;}  
   Map<String,String> prefixtoName {get;set;}  
   public ListviewController()  
   {  
     Objectlist = new List<SelectOption>();  
     prefixtoName = new Map<String,String>();  
     Objectlist.add(new SelectOption('','Select'));  
     //get all object meta details using meta data api  
     Map<String, Schema.SObjectType> gd = Schema.getGlobalDescribe();  
     for(String sObj : gd.keySet()){  
       //get details of each object  
       Schema.DescribeSObjectResult r = gd.get(sObj).getDescribe();  
       //get only custom object with key perfix, there are some internal standard objects without key       //prefix. If you want standard objects also considered you must check them by name as all         //standard objects does't have list views  
       if( r.getKeyPrefix() != null && r.getKeyPrefix()!='' && r.getName().contains('__c'))  
       {  
        //Create a list of selectoptins with keyprefix as value and object label as label of selectoption  
        Objectlist.add(new SelectOption( r.getKeyPrefix(),r.getLabel()));  
        //maintain a map of keyprefix to object name  
        prefixtoName.put(r.getKeyPrefix(), r.getLabel());   
       }  
     }  
   }   
  public void callServer()  
  {  
   //get label of selected object  
   objectName = prefixtoName.get(Selectedview);  
  }  
 }

ListViewManager

 <apex:page controller="ListviewController" >  
  <apex:Form >  
  <apex:SectionHeader title="ListView Manager"/>  
  <apex:pageblock id="ViewBlock" >  
   <apex:pageMessages ></apex:pageMessages>  
   <apex:pageblockSection title="List view Selector" >  
    <apex:pageblockSectionItem >  
    <apex:outputLabel value="Select Object"/>  
    <apex:SelectList value="{!Selectedview}" size="1">  
     <apex:SelectOptions value="{!Objectlist}"/>  
     <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" action="{!CallServer}" rerender="ViewBlock"/>  
    </apex:SelectList>  
    </apex:pageblockSectionItem>  
    <apex:outputLink value="/{!Selectedview}" target="_blank" rendered="{!objectName!= null && objectName!=''}">{!objectName}  List view </apex:outputLink>  
   </apex:pageblockSection>  
   </apex:pageblock>  
  </apex:Form>  
 </apex:page>

drop-down lists the all custom object names in your org

Select the name of the object you want to access the list view of.

Upon selection of the object ,page will provide you with a link to access the standard list view

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Salesforce History Tracking :Access Field History From Apex Code

In my last post Salesforce History Tracking - Step by Step Guide I discussed in detail about enabling history tracking on a custom object and viewing those logs using Salesforce reports and History tracking related list.In this post I am going to discuss how field tracking logs can be accessed from Apex code.

Salesforce maintains separate internal object to maintain history logs for each history tracking enabled object.The naming of these tables follows a simple convention so should be easy to find. For standard objects the name of the history table follows the format: '<ObjectName>History' so for the Account object the history table is AccountHistory.

For custom objects the name of the convention simply replaces the 'c' on the end of the API name with 'History'. So, for a custom object call My_Object__c the history table is called My_Object_History.

All history tracking tables has following fields.

ParentId : This is the Id of record this history tracking log is related to (id of record field modification happend)
Field : API name of the modified field.
OldValue : Field value prior to the modification.
NewValue : Field value after modification
CreatedById : Id of the User who made the modification.

History Tracking logs can be queried via SOQL as shown below

Query all field modification logs of a custom object called My_Object__c

 Select Id,Field,CreatedById ,OldValue,NewValue,EditedBy From My_Object__History

Query All field modification logs related to a field called My_Field__c of My_Object__c

 Select Id,Field,CreatedById ,OldValue,NewValue,EditedBy From Friend__History   
 Where Field ='My_Field__c'

Query All field modfication logs related to a particular record

 Select Id,Field,CreatedById ,OldValue,NewValue,EditedBy From Friend__History   
 Where ParentId=:RecordId

Using SOQL to query history logs you can build your own Visualforce pages to display field modification details to the end users.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Salesforce History Tracking - Step by Step Guide

One of the advantages of working on a cloud platform like Salesforce is some really cool and important functions comes inbuilt and only we have to do is setting up those according to your requirements.One such feature is Salesforce History Tracking.

History tracking is the Salesforce way of monitoring and auditing the changes done to data (object records) by the users. In any business monitoring and auditing data changes is important for security and administrative purposes.In this article I am going to discuss how to enable history tracking on a Custom object and how to monitor the changes done by the users to records of history tracking enabled object.

To learn more refer Salesforce History Tracking

1. Go to the object you want to track history - here my object is Friend.

2. Click on the Edit button and scroll down to Optional Features section and tick following options

Track Field History
Allow Reports

3. Now on top of your Custom Field List you can see a new button Set History Tracking. Click on it and Select the Fields on the object you want monitored. You are only allowed to track maximum of 20 fields so choose wisely :)

Now we are done with Setting up the object for history tracking. This point forward any changes made to the tracking enable fields of the object will be logged by Salesforce. Our next task is to create a report on those logs. so we can view those tracking details.

4. Click on the plus (+) on your tab list .

5. Scroll to Reports link and click on it.

6. Click New Report

7. Then Select the Report Type .This should be "< your object name> History". Since my object is Friend , reporting Type is "Friend History".

If reporting type is not available please check you have enabled Allow Reports option on your object
Reporting Type is not created for Detail objects of Master - Detail relationship so please make sure your object (History Tracking enabled) is not a detail object of a master -Detail relationship.

8. Click on Create

Parent ID field appearing in the history records is the Salesforce ID of the actual record to which that history record is related.

9. Customize the report according to your requirements and click on Save

Give a name to your report
Select the Folder you want to save the report based on who you want to allow to access the report

Now we are done.

10. Then you can run the report to see the details

11. Optionally you can add History tracking related list to your page layout (just click related lists and drag and drop <object Name> History list to your layout and Save the layout).Since it will show the field tracking details to the all the users who has read access to the records it is not the best idea but it depends on your Application's requirement and data sensitivity.

important points to note

History tracking starts from point you enable history tracking. No changes prior to enabling history tracking won't be available..
Changes to Fields with more than 255 characters are tracked as Edited. Their old and new values are not recorded.
Cannot create History report on Custom objects which has master-Detail relationships.
If you disable history tracking for custom object, you cannot report on its field history.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Salesforce Transaction Control

A transaction is a unit of work that you want to treat as "a whole". It has to either happen in full, or not at all.When it comes to maintain consistency and integrity of data ,Transaction Control is of paramount importance. Transaction control ensures the data changes done in failed operations do not modify the state of your database while changes done by successfully completed operations are reflected in the database.

Salesforce Transaction control is means of enforcing the above concept to your apex code which executes on Salesforce servers.In Salesforce you can do this with two simple methods.

Savepoint sp = Database.setSavepoint(); - marks the beginning of your transaction and also the point to database should revert in case the operation fails.
Database.rollback(sp); - undo any changes you have done to the database after the passed save point. This methods takes a save point as a parameter and roll back all the database changes done after the passed save point.

example of using above methods in code

 // variable initialization   
  // your custom validation logic   
  Savepoint sp = Database.setSavepoint(); // should be before any dml statements that you intend to be undone if the operation fails   
  try   
  {   
  // your dml statements and other logic   
  }   
  catch(Exception e )   
  {   
   //oops something bad happen before opertion completed   
  Database.rollback(sp); //undo any dml change done after setting the save point.   
  }

you can find more about Salesforce Transaction Control Here

One important point to note is Id values of Sobject records save after save point are not cleared on rollback.Attempting to insert the sObject using the variable created before the rollback fails because the sObject variable has an ID. Updating or upserting the sObject using the same variable also fails because the sObject is not in the database and, thus, cannot be updated.So it is important you reinitialize your sobjects after rollback else it will generate DML exceptions on subsequent operations such as

Record ID: cannot specify Id in an insert call
Record does not exist

Friday, October 17, 2014

Salesforce Record Deletion

In this post I am going to discuss Salesforce record deletion process.In Salesforce once record are deleted those records are moved to the recycle bin and they are no longer accessible through the SOQL queries or Salesforce standard views.Deleted records are maintained in the recycle bin of 15 days (earlier it was 45 but seems Salesfore has reduced the duration)
refer below link for more details

Salesforce Deleting Records

for more details about recycle bin refer

Salesforce Recycle Bin

All though normal SOQL queries do not return deleted records you can make SOQL queries include deleted records in results by adding "ALL ROWS" keyword at the end of your query.But it is important that you be careful when performing DML operations with such results because the results include deleted records.

example - using ALL ROWS in SOQL

[SELECT COUNT() FROM Contact WHERE AccountId = a.Id ALL ROWS];

In addition to above approach if you want to explicitly query deleted records only ,you can use "IsDeleted" Standard attribute.

example - using IsDeleted in SOQL

[SELECT Id, Name FROM Account WHERE IsDeleted=true];

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Scheduling Your Apex Classes Via Script

One of the most tedious tasks I face during deployment of my code to QA and Production orgs is the removing the scheduled classes and rescheduling them after the release is completed.As the number of scheduled classes grows this becomes more and more difficult and prone to error as the possibility of forgetting to reschedule some classes grows.

As I was on the look out for a solution I found that classes can be scheduled via apex and I tried writing a script to schedule my classes and to my luck It worked as i expected.As I thought there may be at least few of you who has faced the same issue I thought of sharing my code. Please note that this code may not be directly serve your purpose and will need some tweaking. But it will give you the basic idea of how classes can be scheduled via apex.

list<ApexClass> listClasses;
//create a string list and add the Names of classes you want to schedule
//please note that all of these classes must implement schedulable Interface
List<String> ClassesToBeScheduled = new List<String>(); ClassesToBeScheduled.add('FirstSchedule'); ClassesToBeScheduled.add('SecondSchedule'); ClassesToBeScheduled.add('ThirdSchedule'); ClassesToBeScheduled.add('FouthSchedule');

//query the salesforce apexclass object to get the records of classes you want to //schedule

for(ApexClass ac:[Select Id Name From ApexClass where Name IN:ClassesToBeScheduled]) { String className = ac.Name; String sch ='0 0 4 ? * * 2014'; // expersion specify how class is scheduled

//here the class is scheudled to run at 4.00 AM every day till the end of 2014

// you can learn all about schedule expressions here

Type t = Type.forName(className);

//schedule the class by passing

//1.jobName - any string (here I use class name)

//2.schedule frequncy - string experssion specify when and hoe often each class //is run

//3.Instance of the class to be scheduled System.schedule(className, sch, (Schedulable)t.newInstance()); }

You can then run your script using developer console.

Monday, October 13, 2014

My Salesforce Credentials

If you are a professional Salesforce developer on of the best ways to get the deserved recognition is to obtain and maintain Salesforce certification .It is the best way to prove that you are well qualified Salesforce Developer who is up to date with latest platform related knowledge.

I have obtained both Salesforce Developer certifications which are

Salesforce Certified Developer
Salesforce Certified Advanced Developer

Salesforce recently provided the option of verifying certification credentials of individuals .Here is screen capture I have taken from certification verification option related to my qualifications.

my Salesforce credentials

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Salesforce Work Flow Field Updates make Triggers Run Twice

Salesforce Workflow Rule Field Updates are one of the most useful features provided by the platform for making updating record field values.They are simple and easy to use but among all positives there is one major downside..That is Workflows make your trigger run twice for a single update

First time for the actual record update
Second time for the Workflow field update

To find more details please refer Apex Triggers Order Of Execution . Now you may be wondering Is this bad? . Well it depends on whether you have apex trigger(s) on the object workflow is defined and what that trigger(s) does.If you don't have any triggers on workflow related object there is nothing to worry but if you have they may have some negative side effects such as

make your code reach governor limits -for an example if your field update cause your trigger to run 20 Queries with workflow updates it may consume 40.
Logic Errors - if your trigger send mails or do DML operations , those operations will get duplicated which results in sending duplicate mails and duplicate record inserts or updates.
Performance : running same logic twice may hardly do any favors to the application performance.

To avoid trigger code's duplicate execution you can use Class Level Static Variable

 global Class SingleExecution

 {  
    public Static boolean HasTriggerAlreadyRun = false;  
    public static boolean HasAlreadyExecuted()  
    {  
      return HasTriggerAlreadyRun ;  
    }  
    public static void SetHasAlreadyExectued()  
    {  
     HasTriggerAlreadyRun = true;   
    }  
 }

  
 Trigger MyobjectTrigger on MyObject__c (before update )  
 {  
   if(SingleExecution.HasAlreadyExecuted())  
   {  
    return;  
   }   
   else  
   {  
    //execute your logic  
   SingleExecution.SetHasAlreadyExectued()  
   }  
 }

Note :- Checking Old and new values on record fields will not prevent workflow field update related second trigger excection as Salesforce States "Trigger.old contains a version of the objects before the specific update that fired the trigger. However, there is an exception. When a record is updated and subsequently triggers a workflow rule field update, Trigger.old in the last update trigger won’t contain the version of the object immediately prior to the workflow update, but the object before the initial update was made. For example, suppose an existing record has a number field with an initial value of 1. A user updates this field to 10, and a workflow rule field update fires and increments it to 11. In the update trigger that fires after the workflow field update, the field value of the object obtained from Trigger.old is the original value of 1, rather than 10, as would typically be the case."

Learn more about WorkFlow Rule Field Updates Here

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Salesforce User Record Permission

When it comes to Salesforce what user can or can't do to a record depends on the sharing rights that particular user has on the record.For an example if user want to view a record , that record must be read shared with the user, if he want to edit a record that record must be edit shared.One important point to note is object permission defines is what Operations are allowed for the user on a particular object on what record(s) that operation is allowed depend on the user record sharing..for a example if a user's profile has edit rights on a object doesn't mean he can edit all the records of that object but only the records edit shared to him.

So it is much ideal to check what rights users has on a record rather than handling "Insufficient Access" exceptions.The access rights particular user has on a record can be obtained by UserRecordAccess standard object.

Please note : UserId and RecordId on where clause are required

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

eg: check logged users permission on a record with Id "a1100000000000a"

SELECT RecordId, HasReadAccess, HasTransferAccess, MaxAccessLevel
FROM UserRecordAccess
WHERE UserId =:UserInfo.getUserId()
AND RecordId='a1100000000000a'

if your record view page is overridden with Visualforce Page and it uses custom controller or extension you can use UserRecordAccess object to show/hide buttons based on user permission.

More Details about UserRecordAccess from here

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Salesforce SOQL Query All fields of an Object

Salesforce database query language is SOQL.When writing queries one of the tedious tasks developers face is specifying each and every field you want in queries.Unlike SQL ,SOQL doesnt allow you to query all the fields by using "*" .Salesfroce . Salesforce may have their own reasons for not allowing "*" such as querying all the fields always may affect the performance as well as it may cause you run into view state limits in visualforce pages.

All though SOQL doesn't allow you the "*" operator you can archive the same using Dynamic SOQL and the Salesforce meta data api.

Lets assume your object Name is MyObject__c

 Map <String, Schema.SObjectType> schemaMap = Schema.getGlobalDescribe();  
 Map <String, Schema.SObjectField> fieldMap = schemaMap.get('MyObject__c').getDescribe().fields.getMap();  
 List<MyObject__c> results;  
 String Query = 'Select';  
 //loop through all object fields and add them to select clause  
 for(Schema.SObjectField sfield : fieldMap.Values())  
  {  
       schema.describefieldresult dfield = sfield.getDescribe();  
       String fieldApexName = dfield.getname();  
       if(Query.equals('Select'))  
       {  
         Query+=' '+fieldApexName;  
       }  
       else  
       {  
         Query+=' ,'+fieldApexName;  
       }  
   }  
 //optionally if you want parent object fields you have to mention each of them the explicitly   
 Query += ',PerentObject__r.FieldName__c ';  
 Query+= ' From MyObject__c '  
 //Optionally if you have a condition they can be added as   
 Query+= ' where Name = myfirstRecord '   
 //return results  
 results = Database.query(Query);

Learn more about Dynamic SOQL .
Learn more about SOQL

Friday, October 3, 2014

Customizing Salesforce Approval History Related List

All though Salesforce Approval History related list is very helpful in displaying records Approval changes in a Visualforce it has one tiny flow which can make your life difficult as a developer.That is the standard Submit and Recall buttons that always display irrespective of approval status of the record.

<apex:pageblockSection title="Approval Histroy" columns="1">
<apex:relatedList list="ProcessSteps" ></apex:relatedList>
</apex:pageblockSection>

Approval History with submit button

But this can be fixed by using a simple Jquery function to catch and hide the submit button using its style class as shown below.

Add below line to top of the page to import the Jquery library.

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7/jquery.min.js"></script>

Add below script to the page

<script>

$(document).ready(function() {

$("input[name='piSubmit']").hide();

});

</script>

Approval History without submit button

this function may break if style class of the button is changed by salesforce.