For those of you who regularly find themselves writing Apex code, you may find the salesforce debug log output cluttered and difficult to read. At the very least it can be time consuming trying to find the output you're after (unless you've been putting keywords before the output in System.debug) but even then it can take a while.
Well, the good news is that there is a handy free app for parsing the output which has been written in .NET by a guy called Kyle Peterson and amazingly enough it's called the Force.com Debug Log Parser - you can download this tool from here.
You can also see a video of it in action here. Thanks Kyle!
Friday, 10 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Synchronise your salesforce data
Something that many organisations get nervous about when adopting SaaS (Software as a Service) CRM solutions that they no longer have a local copy of their data. This is quite understandable as for many organisations or admins they feel a sense of loosing control, their data is out there in the cloud and no longer sitting on a server in their data centre (or cupboard!)The good news with salesforce.com is that its quite possible to synchronise all of your salesforce data with a local database using the salesforce API.
This can be done by either writing your own integration or by purchasing a 'off the shelf' solution from the Appexchange, of which there are many. I would recommend purchasing a solution and saving yourself the trouble as there are a number of reasonably priced packages out there.
My favourite is listed on the Appexchange and is called DBAmp Pro. This tool will synchronise your data with a local MS SQL Server database for an annual fee of US $1295 for unlimited users. It also gets a 5 star rating! You can find it on the Appexchange or by visiting ForceAmp.com
For those of you who want to sync with Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, DB2, or Sybase databases another tool I've used is called Relational Junction by Seasame Software which is also on the Appexchange. I don't have pricing information for this product unfortunately, however I suspect it will be more costly than DBAmp.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Salesforce Pilots for Winter ‘10
Criteria-based Sharing Rules
Have you ever wanted to share records based on the criteria of a record and not just on the ownership of the record? Have you ever needed to dynamically change sharing based on a change of a record rather than the change of ownership of a record?
If so, then check out Jeffs blog here http://blog.jeffdouglas.com/2009/06/29/two-new-pilot-programs-for-winter-09/ for more details.
Have you ever wanted to share records based on the criteria of a record and not just on the ownership of the record? Have you ever needed to dynamically change sharing based on a change of a record rather than the change of ownership of a record?
If so, then check out Jeffs blog here http://blog.jeffdouglas.com/2009/06/29/two-new-pilot-programs-for-winter-09/ for more details.
Show me more records please!
Many of you may be familiar with the Show me fewer / more records per list page functionality (image below):
This was a more prominent feature before the 'Advanced List Views' functionality got released, although it still exists on certain pages such as the users page. By clicking on show fewer / more records this will decrease / increase respectively the number of records by 10 per click. Therefore it would take a fair amount of clicking to show lets say, an additional 200 records.
A simple workaround is to manually edit the URL, specifically the 'rowsperpage' parameter. When you click one of the buttons, this passes the rowsperpage parameter in the URL; allowing you to manually edit the number and therefore decrease / increase the number to whatever you like:
Example
https://na4.salesforce.com/005?retURL=%2Fui%2Fsetup%2FSetup%3Fsetupid%3DUsers&setupid=ManageUsers&rowsperpage=210
You can see that in the example above, the rowsperpage parameter value is set to 210 - so thats 210 records to be displayed on the page (or rows from the database for all you geeks).
By manually editing the URL you can change the number of records that are show far quicker than by using the fewer / more buttons. So if I were to display 500 records on the page, the URL would look like this:
https://na4.salesforce.com/005?retURL=%2Fui%2Fsetup%2FSetup%3Fsetupid%3DUsers&setupid=ManageUsers&rowsperpage=500
This is a very simple & effective way to increasing the number of records on the page and I hope that it comes in useful for others.
This was a more prominent feature before the 'Advanced List Views' functionality got released, although it still exists on certain pages such as the users page. By clicking on show fewer / more records this will decrease / increase respectively the number of records by 10 per click. Therefore it would take a fair amount of clicking to show lets say, an additional 200 records.
A simple workaround is to manually edit the URL, specifically the 'rowsperpage' parameter. When you click one of the buttons, this passes the rowsperpage parameter in the URL; allowing you to manually edit the number and therefore decrease / increase the number to whatever you like:
Example
https://na4.salesforce.com/005?retURL=%2Fui%2Fsetup%2FSetup%3Fsetupid%3DUsers&setupid=ManageUsers&rowsperpage=210
You can see that in the example above, the rowsperpage parameter value is set to 210 - so thats 210 records to be displayed on the page (or rows from the database for all you geeks).
By manually editing the URL you can change the number of records that are show far quicker than by using the fewer / more buttons. So if I were to display 500 records on the page, the URL would look like this:
https://na4.salesforce.com/005?retURL=%2Fui%2Fsetup%2FSetup%3Fsetupid%3DUsers&setupid=ManageUsers&rowsperpage=500
This is a very simple & effective way to increasing the number of records on the page and I hope that it comes in useful for others.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Who's logged into salesforce?
We all know we can report on users to see the date/time when someone last logged in, IP address etc.. in salesforce which can often be useful, but wouldn't it be great if we could see who was actually logged in at any given time?
This would not only help with support but also fall in line with the 'real-time' approach salesforce generally take (or at least sell).
Luckily someone has already raised this on the idea-exchange, so if this is something that you'd like to see in the future then please vote using the link below:
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/10096298/Allow_Salesforce_Administrators_to_see_the_online_status_of_users
This would not only help with support but also fall in line with the 'real-time' approach salesforce generally take (or at least sell).
Luckily someone has already raised this on the idea-exchange, so if this is something that you'd like to see in the future then please vote using the link below:
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/10096298/Allow_Salesforce_Administrators_to_see_the_online_status_of_users
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