Big Object field types workarounds

If you have taken a look at Big Objects, you will have noticed that we can only create fields of the following types (information valid for Winter 18 release):

  • Text
  • Number
  • Datetime
  • Lookup to Standard or Custom objects

Big Objects can be used for multiple purposes, but typically, archiving old records is one of the use cases. What can you do if you need to archive a custom object which has field types that are not supported, as for example picklist or master-detail? What if you want to create lookups to Big Objects? Read this post and you will find a solution.

Continue reading “Big Object field types workarounds” →

10 thoughts about Big Objects

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure to give a talk about how to use Big Objects & Async SOQL to build your Big Data solution in Salesforce, with my super colleague Agustina García, at Dreamforce. You can check the video of the talk here.

In this post I want to highlight the 10 key things to remember about Big Objects, one of the features we talked about in the presentation.

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Classic Apps vs Lightning Apps

Since Lightning Experience was released, the concept of Classic App and Lightning Apps came up.

  • Classic App: an application that has been built in the Classic UI. You can make it visible in Lightning Experience, but that does not convert it into a Lightning App.
  • Lightning App: an application that has been built in the Lightning Experience UI.

In this post I want to talk about the benefits that Lightning Apps introduce, with an extra bonus of things to take into account if you are an ISV who builds managed packages.

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Property ‘picklist’ not valid in version …

Have you recently faced this error while trying to deploy using API 39.0 or later? This is happening to you because <picklist> tag was deprecated in API 39.0.

Here you have how to fix it:

Object definition before API 39.0:

<fields>
        <fullName>Status__c</fullName>
        <externalId>false</externalId>
        <label>Status</label>
        <picklist>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>No Started</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>In Progress</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <picklistValues>
                <fullName>Completed</fullName>
                <default>false</default>
            </picklistValues>
            <restrictedPicklist>true</restrictedPicklist>
            <sorted>false</sorted>
        </picklist>
        <required>false</required>
        <trackTrending>false</trackTrending>
        <type>Picklist</type>
    </fields>

Object definition after API 39.0:

<fields>
        <fullName>Status__c</fullName>
        <externalId>false</externalId>
        <label>Status</label>
        <required>false</required>
        <trackTrending>false</trackTrending>
        <type>Picklist</type>
        <valueSet>
            <restricted>true</restricted>
            <valueSetDefinition>
                <sorted>false</sorted>
                <value>
                    <fullName>No Started</fullName>
                    <default>false</default>
                    <label>No Started</label>
                </value>
                <value>
                    <fullName>In Progress</fullName>
                    <default>false</default>
                    <label>In Progress</label>
                </value>
                <value>
                    <fullName>Completed</fullName>
                    <default>false</default>
                    <label>Completed</label>
                </value>
            </valueSetDefinition>
        </valueSet>
    </fields>

Become a Force.com Security Superman

Screen Shot 2017-09-24 at 20.35.30.png

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at French Touch Dreamin event. I gave a talk about Security, in which I explained some of the main things a developer has to take into account in order that our Salesforce applications are secure. I explained how to take care of CRUD, FLS and sharing, and also of known important vulnerabilities as XSS (cross site scripting), CSRF (cross site request forgery), open redirect or SOQL injection.

Continue reading “Become a Force.com Security Superman” →

Global Picklists and managed packages

Today I want to talk about Global Picklists, a feature that was made GA in Winter 17. Global Picklists allows you to share picklist values among different objects. They can be very useful in certain use cases. For example, imagine that your company gives support to several countries. You can create a global picklist that holds the supported countries, and use it in many objects in your application. Then, if you need to add a new country, you will need to do it only once.

Additionally, in this post, I will give some information about Global Picklists behaviour in managed packages. Continue reading “Global Picklists and managed packages” →