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Best Practice

Salesforce Application Types

In a typical development process requirements are captured and the information synthesised to form a solution design. The constituent components of the solution design are ultimately translated into physical concepts such as a class, page or sub-page view. This analysis, design, build cycle could be iterative in nature or fixed and may have different degrees […]

Salesforce Release Methodology – Simple Case

A very common challenge addressed by architects working with Salesforce is the definition of an appropriate release methodology. By this I mean the identification of the Salesforce orgs required to support the project delivery whether serial or concurrent in nature, the role and purpose of each org and critically, the means by which change is […]

Apex Trigger Exceptions

Custom Apex Triggers execute on standard CRM objects (Account, Contact, Lead etc.) and custom objects in response to all data modifications applied via the Salesforce web application, API transactions and custom Apex script. As such it is imperative that trigger code adheres to patterns that promote performance and maintainability, guards against recursive behaviour and most […]

Visualforce Controller Class Convention

A quick post to outline an informal convention for the definition of a Visualforce controller class, key maintainability characteristics being predictable structure, readability and prominent revision history. All developers have a subjective preference in this regard, however consistency is key, particularly in the Salesforce context where multiple developers/consultancies contribute to a codebase over its lifetime. […]

Salesforce Implementation Audit

This post provides an outline approach to consider when performing an internal audit of an existing (or emerging) Salesforce implementation. As an individual who specialises in the provision of such quality assurance services from an external perspective, I’m convinced that most projects would benefit from a periodic internal review, perhaps augmented by some occasional external […]

Salesforce Naming Conventions – Declarative

Updated – 2014-11-18 This post follows on from my last post on Custom Settings and provides coverage of the wider set of naming conventions I apply across the various component types of the declarative build environment. The list isn’t exhaustive or necessarily better than any other set of standards. Having a set of conventions applied […]

Custom Settings Naming Conventions

A quick post to share some thoughts on the standardisation of naming conventions applied to Custom Settings. With Custom Objects it is an obvious best practice to mirror exactly the conventions applied by the Standard Objects, there are no reasons not to adhere to this approach, none. With Custom Settings however there is no comparable […]

Salesforce Implementation Game Plan

Whether you’re managing a commercial software development, leading a consultancy project or building an IKEA table a game plan is absolutely key to successful delivery. In the latter example IKEA recognises the importance of prescriptive guidance and supplies an instruction leaflet in the box. This however covers only one dimension of successful delivery, the ‘What’ […]

Salesforce Platform Limits – Designing for Scale

A Salesforce instance is a constrained environment where limits exist in respect to capacity and execution. Examples of capacity limits being data storage, number of active users, number of custom objects/custom fields/picklists etc. examples of execution limits being API calls per 24-hour period, SOQL queries executed within an Apex transaction, Viewstate size in Visualforce pages […]

Any-org Design Considerations

The concept of any-org development is an interesting one. The strict definition, to my mind, being the development of a set of components (perhaps packaged) that are designed and coded specifically to install and function in any Salesforce org. This is typically an ISV concern, where testing and maintaining a single-code base can be highly […]