I know what you’re thinking. What is “dynamic bulkification”? Is it some new terms that I’ve just made up to represent some wild new Apex design pattern? Yep, that’s about right. I discuss this in my April appearance in Salesforce Apex hours – you can watch the full video here: Or, you can read about it in this article below. Let’s Talk About Integrations As an ISV partner, I see a lot of orgs. Many of them have integrations with outside services that use APIs to insert and update Salesforce records. Historically, integrations have used the SOAP API, though recently more of them are using the ..read more

I’m pleased to announce the immediate availability of the fourth edition of Advanced Apex Programming! I know what you’re thinking – what has changed? Do I really need a new edition? Well, the first thing you should know, is that this book is over 60 pages longer than the previous edition – but that alone does not convey the scope of the changes. Here’s a brief summary of the major changes for this edition: Chapter 3: New coverage of the Salesforce platform cache and query selectivity limits. Chapter 4: Extended to include additional bulk design patterns in the context of enforcing data integr ..read more

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my Pluralsight course “Salesforce and Apex Fundamentals for Developers” – the third update to my original Force.com and Apex Fundamentals for Developers course. I know what you’re thinking – what has changed (aside from the obvious name change due to the diminishing use of Force.com)? Most of changes relate to the part of the course that discusses development processes and methodologies. Which is a fancy way of saying: goodbye Force.com IDE – Hello SFDX. Aside from SFDX, there is some new content – basically covering Apex and platform changes over the ..read more

I recently published a new course on Pluralsight: “Salesforce Development: Getting Started” which is designed to be one’s very first introduction to Salesforce for developers and admins. It starts out in a way that most would find familiar: how to sign up for a developer org, an introduction to orgs and metadata – you know, the way everyone learns Salesforce. But then I do something different. I talk about metadata, the source of truth, and Salesforce DX (SFDX). In fact, most of the course is about SFDX and how to use it. Not only that, but I’m very intentional about not focusing entirely on ..read more

Photo by Mila Sviderskaya I had great fun writing my recent article “Objects, Relationships, and the Cat” in which I shared one of the things I enjoyed most about working on the Salesforce platform using a rather unconventional story-telling style. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, and based on the positive feedback from readers, I thought I’d do it again. As before, this is a work of fiction with the exception of the technical aspects. I didn’t really notice that the conversation between my housemate and Angie had gotten louder. I was accustomed to their heated technical discussions. After all ..read more

People who know of my work in the Windows world sometimes ask me how I, a “real” programmer and former Microsoft MVP, could become so involved with Salesforce development. I thought I’d write a different kind of article highlighting one of the Salesforce platform features that I find compelling—and that makes Salesforce, for me, a serious platform for software development. Instead of the usual “dry” technical article, I present to you a story – a work of fiction (except for the technology, which is all true). My housemate’s voice just barely infringed on my attention.  “They deleted a fie ..read more

Though it’s still April, I’ve already begun to hear people ask the question that is on many minds – will Dreamforce happen this year? Personally, it’s hard to see how it can, at least in it’s usual form – it’s hard to imagine that in November it will make sense to bring in 170,000 people from all over the world and place them in close proximity (and you know how close people crowd together during Dreamforce). Given the values of Salesforce and our Ohana to not put people’s lives at risk, and the science driven decision making by our state and local governments that is perhaps less susceptible ..read more

Yesterday I was honored to be once again awarded the tile of Salesforce MVP. Today, the COVID-19 virus was declared to be a pandemic. I don’t think there’s a connection… That said, I wanted to take a step back and say a few words about what it means to me today and going forward. As an MVP I have a responsibility – to share what I know, to contribute to the community, and to strengthen our Ohana. Usually for me this means sharing what I discover about technology, through writing and through presenting. But today there are priorities – we, our entire Ohana – is facing a crisis. Salesf ..read more

As process builder has grown more capable, it has also grown in its ability to consume CPU time. Most of the time, this won’t matter – however, if you aren’t careful, your carefully built process that works just fine with individual records, will blow up spectacularly when you start doing bulk operations. Using the Evaluate Next Criteria option can be a major contributor. The reason is simple – at this time, one of the greatest consumer of CPU time in processes is the criteria – the rule. Let’s look at a simple example: This process has four criteria nodes that divide up states by the ..read more

Patterns are more important than frameworks. There. I said it. Blasphemy right? When it comes to Salesforce triggers, it’s common to think about frameworks. What’s the best framework to use? Should I find one or create my own? A framework can offer efficiency – code reuse and code you don’t have to write yourself. It can provide discipline – everybody has to use the framework. It can improve reliability and maintainability, and make problems easier to debug. And in a brand new org with a single development team, you can make it work – 100% enthusiastic adoption. But we live in the real world ..read more