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Introduction to SalesForce

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Sujit Kumar
Sujit Kumar

Force.com is a platform as a service that provides the infrastructure needed to build business applications in the cloud. It offers a multi-tenant architecture with shared infrastructure and automatic upgrades. Force.com provides a database, business logic platform called Apex, user interfaces, and integration capabilities. Developers can build custom user interfaces using Visual Force pages and integrate applications using web services, email, and APIs.

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SalesForce.com Sujit Kumar Zenolocity LLC @ 2012-2024
Force.com • Different from other PaaS solutions in its focus on business apps. • Force.com is part of SalesForce.com. • It is NOT a CRM. Provides the infrastructure needed for any business app that wants to move to the cloud. • Infrastructure: security, user identity, logging, profiling, integration, data storage, transactions, workflow, collaboration and reporting.
Differentiating architectural features of Force.com • Multi-tenant architecture => Shared infrastructure, single version, continuous zero-cost upgrades. • RDBMS provided as a service => No Oracle licenses to purchase, no tablespaces to configure, no JDBC drivers to install, no ORM to wrangle, no DDL to write, no queries to optimize, and no replication and backup strategies to implement. • Common application services provided like logging, transaction processing, validation,workflow, email, integration, testing, reporting, and user interface.
Differentiating architectural features of Force.com (contd…) • Declarative meta-data • Own OO programming language called Apex which is similar to a combination of java and SQL.
4 Major Services of Force.com • Database • Business Logic • User Interface • Integration
Force.com Database • Built around an RDBMS. • Custom tables up to 800 columns each. • Standard DB types plus rich types like currency values, pick lists, formatted text and phone numbers. • Validation rules on data. • Formulas to derive certain field values. • Field History tracking.
Force.com Database (contd…) • Tables can be related to each other. • Security constraints on tables, rows and columns. • “Recycle bin” for data and meta-data deleted accidentally. • Query data via SOQL. • Text search via SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language).
Business Logic - Apex • Strongly Typed OO language like Java • Data binding part of language, database schema automatically imported as objects. • Has some features similar to P/L SQL like DML, trigger semantics, batch processing and transaction boundaries. • Follows philosophy of TDD. Tests can generate performance metrics as well.
User Interface • Two approaches - Page Layouts and Visual Force. • Page layouts – out of the box, inferred from data model, customized using a WYSIWYG editor. No development required. • Visual Force – build custom user interfaces.
Visual Force • Follows an MVC architectural pattern. • Consists of XML markup tags called components. • Components serve as containers to structured data returned by the Controller (written in Apex). • Developers can create their own components to reuse across applications. • Public, private (user login needed) or blended.
Integration with SalesForce • Web Services API – span 20 versions with backward compatibility. Allows control of data, metadata and process from any platform supporting SOAP over HTTP. • Force.com database accessible via REST calls. • Create web services using Apex business logic and publish a WSDL. • Consume external web services by converting WSDL to Apex bindings.
Integration with SalesForce (contd…) • Email – send and receive. Write code to process incoming email. • API for making HTTP requests including client-side certificates, SSL, proxies and HTTP authentication. Helps to integrate with web based resources like static web pages to REST services returning JSON. • S2S publish subscribe model for data sharing between multiple Force.com environments. Transport data from one tenant to another – no code only configuration required.

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Introduction to SalesForce

  • 1. SalesForce.com Sujit Kumar Zenolocity LLC @ 2012-2024
  • 2. Force.com • Different from other PaaS solutions in its focus on business apps. • Force.com is part of SalesForce.com. • It is NOT a CRM. Provides the infrastructure needed for any business app that wants to move to the cloud. • Infrastructure: security, user identity, logging, profiling, integration, data storage, transactions, workflow, collaboration and reporting.
  • 3. Differentiating architectural features of Force.com • Multi-tenant architecture => Shared infrastructure, single version, continuous zero-cost upgrades. • RDBMS provided as a service => No Oracle licenses to purchase, no tablespaces to configure, no JDBC drivers to install, no ORM to wrangle, no DDL to write, no queries to optimize, and no replication and backup strategies to implement. • Common application services provided like logging, transaction processing, validation,workflow, email, integration, testing, reporting, and user interface.
  • 4. Differentiating architectural features of Force.com (contd…) • Declarative meta-data • Own OO programming language called Apex which is similar to a combination of java and SQL.
  • 5. 4 Major Services of Force.com • Database • Business Logic • User Interface • Integration
  • 6. Force.com Database • Built around an RDBMS. • Custom tables up to 800 columns each. • Standard DB types plus rich types like currency values, pick lists, formatted text and phone numbers. • Validation rules on data. • Formulas to derive certain field values. • Field History tracking.
  • 7. Force.com Database (contd…) • Tables can be related to each other. • Security constraints on tables, rows and columns. • “Recycle bin” for data and meta-data deleted accidentally. • Query data via SOQL. • Text search via SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language).
  • 8. Business Logic - Apex • Strongly Typed OO language like Java • Data binding part of language, database schema automatically imported as objects. • Has some features similar to P/L SQL like DML, trigger semantics, batch processing and transaction boundaries. • Follows philosophy of TDD. Tests can generate performance metrics as well.
  • 9. User Interface • Two approaches - Page Layouts and Visual Force. • Page layouts – out of the box, inferred from data model, customized using a WYSIWYG editor. No development required. • Visual Force – build custom user interfaces.
  • 10. Visual Force • Follows an MVC architectural pattern. • Consists of XML markup tags called components. • Components serve as containers to structured data returned by the Controller (written in Apex). • Developers can create their own components to reuse across applications. • Public, private (user login needed) or blended.
  • 11. Integration with SalesForce • Web Services API – span 20 versions with backward compatibility. Allows control of data, metadata and process from any platform supporting SOAP over HTTP. • Force.com database accessible via REST calls. • Create web services using Apex business logic and publish a WSDL. • Consume external web services by converting WSDL to Apex bindings.
  • 12. Integration with SalesForce (contd…) • Email – send and receive. Write code to process incoming email. • API for making HTTP requests including client-side certificates, SSL, proxies and HTTP authentication. Helps to integrate with web based resources like static web pages to REST services returning JSON. • S2S publish subscribe model for data sharing between multiple Force.com environments. Transport data from one tenant to another – no code only configuration required.