Showing posts filed under:
The Salesforce metadata API is an extremely powerful tool, when combined with Ant, Jenkins etc. for build automation. There is however a number of configuration items that simply can’t be retrieved and deployed using this API (Account Teams, Support Settings, Lead Settings, Case Assignment and Escalation Rules etc.). The unsupported list can be found here, […]
If your deployment process involves manual modification of the metadata files between retrieve and deploy steps, it’s time to consider extending your knowledge of Ant. This is critical for Continuous Integration where manual processes are an anathema. With a small amount of Ant knowledge you can delete metadata files, edit and replace/remove content via regex, […]
With the upcoming Spring 13 release (release window dates below) the new Tooling API goes GA. 11th Jan, sandbox instances 18th Jan – 9th Feb, production instances (EU0 8th Feb, EU1/2 9th Feb) What is the Tooling API? The full details can be found in the API guide here, in short the API is intended […]
I’m a big advocate of setting out the key elements of the development process succinctly but unambiguously at the start of a software development project, particularly in cases where I have no prior history of working with the development team. Such process elements typically cover environments, coding standards, technical design and review requirements, source-code control […]
A robust and intelligent data model provides the foundation upon which a custom Salesforce implementation can be built. Mistakes made in the functional or technical build are typically inexpensive to rectify (if caught quick enough), however a flawed data model can be incredibly time and cost expensive to mitigate. At the start of all projects […]
For this post I started pulling together my own set of links to the whitepapers and documents I consider essential reading for any architect working in the Salesforce space. In doing so I came across the link below, where salesforce.com have already done a great job of this – bookmark this page now! Salesforce Architect […]
There are typically two interpretations of the term “development process” – one being the tools, practices and methods applied in software development (i.e. methodology, plus build automation, standards etc.) the other being the process applied to get from requirements to working software (i.e. iterative or waterfall, plus how the analysis-design-build-test-release disciplines are executed). This post […]
The newly released Salesforce Touch Platform Guide provides a very useful consolidation of both technical information and design guidance pertinent to mobile development on the Force.com platform. Topics covered include Identity, Connected Apps, Mobile Components for Visualforce etc. All in all an essential read for anyone considering mobile app development. Of particular interest is the […]
This brief post illustrates how Ant scripts can be used in a continuous integration scenario, i.e. where metadata is held in a source code control (SCC) repository such as Subversion. In a CI scenario developers would typically be working in isolated developer orgs with periodic commits of unit tested code to SCC following peer-review (hopefully). […]
The Winter 13 release (v26.0 in API terms) will be with us shortly, yes the summer is officially over. Sandboxes updates start on the 7th September. For architects and developers this release brings some great new features, the Top 10 below is in order of my own personal interest. 1. Canvas Framework – Pilot. The […]
