February 2020 Salesforce API Review
- 1. Nashville Salesforce Developer User Group February 27, 2020
- 2. Tour of Salesforce APIs lydon.bergin@cgi.com @lydonbergin Lydon Bergin Director Consulting Expert
- 3. This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.com products, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. Forward-Looking Statement Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
- 6. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) API Create, retrieve, update, or delete records – and basically anything else you want to do on the platform. The original Salesforce API but has been replaced by the REST API. Supports only XML Format. Provided WSDL (Web Services Description Language) provides object/field definitions to any language that supports web services. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api.meta/api/sforce_api_quickstart_intro.htm
- 7. SOAP API – Example (Java)
- 8. REST (REpresentational State Transfer) API Create, retrieve, update, or delete records – and basically anything else you want to do on the platform. Basis for most Lightning Platform functionality. Supports JSON and XML Formats. REST has become de-facto standard for modern web services. Basically the only (Real) API you need in 2020. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/intro_what_is_rest_api.htm
- 9. ForceApi api = new ForceApi(new ApiConfig() .setUsername("user@domain.com") .setPassword("password") .setClientId("longclientidalphanumstring") .setClientSecret("notsolongnumeric")); a = new Account(); a.setName("Perhaps existing account"); a.setAnnualRevenue(3141592.65); api.createOrUpdateSObject("account", "externalId__c", "1234", a); Rest API – Example (Java) Using Force.com REST API Connector: https://github.com/jesperfj/force-rest-api/
- 10. Rest API – Example (Java)
- 11. SOQL – Salesforce Object Query Language Search your organization’s Salesforce data for specific information. Similar to the SELECT statement in the widely used Structured Query Language (SQL) but is designed specifically for Salesforce data. Use SOQL when you know which objects your data resides in, and you want to: • Retrieve data from a single object or from multiple objects that are related to one another. • Count/Aggregate the number of records that meet specified criteria. • Sort the results as part of the query. Limitations: • 100 queries • 50,000 records • 55 child-to-parent relationships (Contact.Account) • 5 Levels (Contact.Account.Owner.FirstName = 3 Levels) • 20 parent-to-child relationships (Account.Contacts) https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.soql_sosl.meta/soql_sosl/sforce_api_calls_soql.htm
- 12. INCLUDES and EXCLUDES Operators SELECT Name, Country__c, Student_Skills__c FROM Student__c WHERE Student_Skills__c INCLUDES (‘Salesforce’) GROUP BY ROLLUP SOQL – Off the Beaten Path
- 13. SOSL – Salesforce Object Search Language Construct text-based search queries to search Text, Email, and Phone fields. Use SOSL when you don’t know which objects/fields your data resides in, and you want to: • Retrieve data for a specific term. • Retrieve multiple objects/fields that my not be related. • Retrieve data for particular division using the divisions feature. Limitations: • 20 queries • 2,000 records/query https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.soql_sosl.meta/soql_sosl/sforce_api_calls_sosl.htm
- 14. FIND {John Smith} IN Name Fields RETURNING Lead (Name, Phone WHERE CreatedDate = THIS_FISCAL_QUARTER) FIND {Jo* Sm?th*} IN Name Fields RETURNING Lead(Name, Phone), Contact(Name, Phone) SOSL – Examples
- 15. Bulk API Quickly manage large amounts of data in your Salesforce Org. Supported Operations • query • queryAll • insert • update • upsert • delete https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_asynch.meta/api_asynch/asynch_api_intro.htm REST-based Service Executes Asynchronously. Can include binary attachments. API used by Data Loader. Bulk 2.0 API supported in API v41.0 and later. • Support OAuth • Automatically batches data • Limits changed to 100 Million records / 24-hour period
- 16. Bulk API - Steps Create your data in CSV format. Use the REST API (/services/data/vXX.X/jobs/*) to: • Create a Job • Upload your CSV Data • Close the Job • Check the job status (until “state” = “JobComplete”) • Retrieve response CSV The response CSV will have a row for each submitted record, with information on whether that record was successfully processed or not.
- 18. Metadata API Retrieve, deploy, create, update, or delete customization information in your Salesforce Org. SOAP-based API Used By: • Salesforce Extensions for Visual Studio Code • Ant Migration Tool Generally no need to use this API directly given these tools. Allows users to migration changes from a sandbox/scratch org to higher environments. This can be tricky to learn, but you’ll never go back to creating change sets again. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_meta.meta/api_meta/meta_intro.htm
- 19. Tooling API Build custom development tools or apps for Lightning Platform applications. Provides both SOAP and REST interfaces. Provides fine-grained access to an org’s metadata. Provides metadata information via SOQL interface. https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en- us.api_tooling.meta/api_tooling/reference_objects_list.htm https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_tooling.meta/api_tooling/intro_api_tooling.htm
- 20. Streaming API Enables streaming of events using push technology and provides a subscription mechanism for receiving events in near real time. Subscribers can receive notifications using CometD, some types of events support Apex triggers, Process Builder, and Flow Builder. Supported Events: • PushTopic Event – Changes to records based on user-defined SOQL Query • Change Data Capture Event – Changes to records, event includes all changed fields. • Supports more standard objects than PushTopic and provides more features • Platform Events – Custom payloads with pre-defined schema • Generic Events – Arbitrary payloads without defined schema https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_streaming.meta/api_streaming/intro_stream.htm
- 21. Streaming API – Examples
- 23. User Interface API Build Salesforce UI for native mobile apps and custom web apps using the same API that Salesforce uses to build Lightning Experience and Salesforce for Android, iOS, and mobile web. Allows developers to leverage the Salesforce platform for external applications. Calls to UI API automatically: • Check FLS, Sharing Settings, Permissions • Makes SOQL queries to get record data • Gets object metadata and theme information • Gets layout information These calls return an easy-to-consume JSON response with all metadata necessary to display the record. Also supports Actions, Favorites, and List Views! https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.uiapi.meta/uiapi/ui_api_get_started.htm https://nashsfuiapi.herokuapp.com/
- 24. MetadataComponentDependency (Part of Tooling API) Represents dependency relationships between the metadata components in your org. Available in API version 43.0 and later. Currently in Beta. Allows developers back-end access to the “Where is this used?” feature. Use SOQL to query for dependencies between basically any components, i.e.: • Apex Classes • Page Layouts • Objects • Fields • Reports • Everything else https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_tooling.meta/api_tooling/tooling_api_objects_metadatacomponentdependency.htm
- 25. SELECT Id FROM ApexClass SELECT Id, MetadataComponentName, MetadataComponentType, MetadataComponentId, RefMetadataComponentName, RefMetadataComponentType, RefMetadataComponentId FROM MetadataComponentDependency WHERE MetadataComponentId = <ID FROM ABOVE> NOTE: Make sure to check the “Use Tooling API” checkbox! MetadataComponentDependency – Example/Demo
- 26. What we didn’t cover… Yes, there’s more (and more) • External Objects • Canvas • Data.com API • Federated Search API • Industries API • IoT REST API • Reports & Dashboards REST API • Push Notification API • Social Studio API