SControls for Dummies

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S-Controls for Dummies
Track Enterprise Edition Administrators

• Chris Sommers, Salesforce.com
• Senior Sales Engineer, Global Enterprise Accounts

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Agenda

• What are S-Controls?
• When to use S-Controls
• S-Controls Techniques Examples
• AJAX Introduction
• Examples and Resources
• Take Home Exercises

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What are Custom S-Controls?

• Light-weight web applications/tools hosted by
  salesforce.com and executed on the client browser
• An s-control can contain any type of content that
  can be displayed or run in a browser
• Java Applet
• ActiveX Control
• HTML / JavaScript / AJAX
• S-Controls are activated via Custom Links, Web
  Tabs, Web Apps or HYPERLINK custom formulae
  fields in salesforce.com (after 4th Quarter
  release, executable in Detail Pages of records,
  and Custom Buttons)

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S-Control Options
AJAX
JSP / ASP
Java Applet
ActiveX

• Rich UI
• Can be trusted
• Tricky deployment
• eg. Salesforce.com Mail Merge

• Rich UI
• Can be trusted
• Cross-browser

• Rich UI
• Good access to internal systems
• Familiar dev environment

• Pretty rich UI
• Simple API access
• Asynchronous
• Familiar html environment
• Javascript / cross-browser
• Quick and easy cycle
• Easy to package and share

• No back-office access
• State persistence

• Versioning issues
• IE Specific
• COM calling COM

• JVM versioning
• SOAP stack deployment
• Large footprint
• Java developer

• Need a hosting stack
• Expensive development
• Packaging and sharing is difficult

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When to Use Custom S-controls (Value!)

• Consider using Custom S-controls if you
• Want to enhance the Salesforce UI
• streamline a process
• reduce number of clicks
• Know that your process flow is closed loop, i.e.,
  no outside databases or data sources
• Have less than 500 records to create or update
  per session
• Have few means to host a custom web application
  yourself

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When to Use Custom S-controls

• User Interface Enhancement
• Add your own UI
• Advanced Capabilities (trees, graphs etc)
• Build Custom Logic
• Client-side Workflow (wizard)
• Mass Change to records

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When NOT to Use Custom S-controls

• Do NOT use Custom S-controls if you
• Are looking to build heavy-weight,
  computationally intensive extensions to
  Salesforce
• Are seeking a complex integrate with a system
  external to Salesforce.com (simple web-service
  and HTTP post/get will work!)
• Have more than 500 records to create or update
  per session

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Example Pre-populate / create records in One
Click

• What One-click creation of a record
• Why Efficiency, user adoption
• Value Simplicity, adoption, data quality
• Example One click to log a case (eg. Password
  Reset)
• Create a Custom Link on a Contact page to create
  a Case and prepopulate the fields (and save)
• How In the app, from a Contact, click on New
  Case. Copy the URL this is your web link
  BASE.
• https//na1.salesforce.com/500/e?retURL2F0033000
  000M1lutdef_contact_id0033000000M1lut

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Log Password Reset Case
Tip After Winter 07 Launch, use a Custom Button
Instead
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Example Pre-populate / create records

• Remove everything up to and including the .com
• Need to make it server agnostic
• /500/e?retURL2F!Contact_IDdef_contact_id
• !Contact_IDcas14Password20Resetcas11Phones
  ave1
• retURL is the page to which user should return
  after completing action
• 003 is the Contact ID. Replace this with
  merge field !Contact_ID
• Replace the second Contact ID with the same
  !Contact_ID
• Continue building out parameters
• View the page source, or use Form View in Firefox
  Web Developer to get the name of the fields you
  wish to pre-populate
• eg. Case Subject is cas14, Case Origin is
  cas11

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Preventing Double-Tabbing
ltscript language"Javascript"gt function
redirect() parent.frames.location.replace('/500/
e?retURL2F!Contact_ID def_contact_id!Contac
t_IDcas14Password20Reset cas11Phonesave1')
redirect() lt/scriptgt
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Example Parameterize Reports

• What One-click dynamic generation of a report
• Why Efficiency, scalability
• Value Simplicity
• Example Generate a report dynamically passing
  filters

Tip After Winter 07 Launch, use a Custom Button
Instead
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Example Parameterize Reports

• How
• Create a report, filter by desired field
• Copy the report URL
• Create a Custom Link on the entity
• In the custom link URL box, paste in the report
  URL
• At the end of this URL string add the following
  text?pv0MERGE_FIELD
• Eg. /00O30000001D5tZ?pv0!Account_Name
• Use pv0 if your criteria filter is in position 1
  in your report, pv1 if it is in the 2nd position,
  and so on

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AJAX

• What Asynchronous Javascript And XML
• Why Rapid Software, Component Development
• Value Adoption, low cost
• Example Mass Update Contact Addresses
• Before AJAX
• With AJAX

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The AJAX Toolkit Object Model
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SforceClient Method Summary
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AJAX - Key Components

• SforceClient
• https//www.salesforce.com/services/lib/ajax/beta3
  .3/sforceclient.js
• Dynamic SObject - DynaBean
• S-Control Context and Merge Fields
• Common Functions
• Query Call
• Retrieve
• Create Call
• Update Call
• Delete Call
• Save Call

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sForceClient

• Within the ltheadgt section
• ltscript src"https//www.salesforce.com/services/l
  ib/ajax/beta3.3/sforceclient.js"
  type"text/javascript"gtlt/scriptgt
• Instantiated on script inclusion
• sforceClient.init("!API_Session_ID",
  "!API_Partner_Server_URL_70")
• Call sforceClient.init or sforceClient.Login
• sforceClient.init("!API_Session_ID",
  "!API_Partner_Server_URL_70")

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Dynamic SObject - Dynabean

• Uses a single object - a Dynabean - to represent
  every available table in the database
• Dynabean is a dynamic object that contains both
  data and metadata that determines its character
• Example
• var myLead new Sforce.Dynabean(Lead")
  
• myLead.set(FirstName, Stan)
• myLead.set(LastName, Lee)
• myLead.set(Company, ABC Company)
• var saveResult sforceClient.Create(myLead)0

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Query Call

• Example
• var queryResult sforceClient.Query("Select
  BillingCity, BillingCountry, from Account Where
  Id '" accId "'")
• var address queryResult.records0
• var BillingCity address.BillingCity
• var BillingCountry address.get(BillingCountry)
  

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Example Close Opportunity, Create Order and
Order Items

• What In one click from an Opportunity, need to
• Close Opportunity
• Create Contract
• Create Order with Contract Reference
• Copy Opportunity Products to Order Items
• Why Too many clicks without, poor
  user-experience
• Value Minimizes user error, improves data
  quality and user satisfaction

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Example Search First, Create

• What Enforce that users search for existing data
  before creating new records
• Custom Web Tab (today)
• Override Standard New button after Winter 07
• Use search parameters to populate new records if
  desired
• Why Cleaner data NO DUPLICATES
• Value Minimizes duplicates/improves data quality
  and user satisfaction

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Create Call

• var accounts new Array()
• accounts0 new Sforce.Dynabean ("Account")
• accounts0.set("Name", "test1")
• accounts1 new Sforce.Dynabean ("Account")
• accounts1.set("Name", "test2")
• var rc sforceClient.Create(accounts)
• if (dltypeof(rc) "array")
• // do something with the returned created ids
• else
• alert( rc.toString() )

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Update Call

• accs0 new Sforce.Dynabean ("Account")
• accs0.set("Id", !Account_ID")
• accs0.set("Name", "test Updated")
• var sr sforceClient.Update(accs)
• var qr sforceClient.Query("Select Id,
  MailingCountry from Contact Where AccountId '"
  accId "'")
• var updateObjects new Array()
• for (var i0iltqr.records.lengthi)
• var contact qr.recordsi
• contact.set("MailingCountry, United Kingdom)
• // push updated record into new array for update
  process
• updateObjects.push(contact)
• var saveResults sforceClient.Update(updateObject
  s)

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Delete Call

• var accounts new Array()
• accounts0 new DynaBean("Account")
• accounts0.set("Name", "test")
• var sr sforceClient.Create(accounts)0
• var dr sforceClient.Delete(sr0.id)
• if (dltypeof(dr) "array")
• for (var i0iltdr.lengthi)
• alert( dri.toString())
• else
• alert( dri.toString())

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Calling an S-Control using HYPERLINK field

• For HYPERLINK custom formulae fields or for
  calling an scontrol from another scontrol
• Create a Custom Link as usual
• Add to page layout
• View record and right click on link-properties
  and copy the url section
• /servlet/servlet.Integration?lid00b30000000hXeLe
  id00130000005YmJ5
• lid s-control id and eid context entity
  record
• Replace the hard coded eid with the id of the
  current record

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Tools and Techniques

• Development Environment
• Text editor (Wordpad, 1st Page 2000, Ultraedit)
• Eclipse (javascript specific plugins)
• Visual Studio .NET
• Other standard IDEs
• Debugging
• MS Script Debugger (ok)
• Visual Studio .NET (best)
• Mozilla/Venkman Debugger (ok)
• Mozilla Javascript Console

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Tools and Techniques

• Recommend installing Firefox and then adding the
  following extensions
• Web Developer 0.9.3
• JavaScript Debugger 0.9.84
• View Rendered Source 1.0.01
• Test with IE and Firefox.
• Handle cross browser exceptions
• Firefox doesnt allow cross site scripting
• Firefox is stricter on language semantics
• Firefox better for debugging

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Techniques - Debugging

• Debugging support in the toolkit
• setDebugContainer(element)
• sforceClient.setDebugContainer(document.getElement
  ById(mydiv)
• sforeceClient.setDebugContainer(document.getElemen
  tById(myTextArea)
• sforceClient.debugMessage(This is a point in the
  script.)
• setMessageLog(textArea)
• Displays the SOAP requests and responses
• setTimingDebugger(textArea)
• displays the elapsed time to execute a method.
• Javascript alert statement
• alert(Error message error)
• Debugger / output to the Javascript console

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Passing parameters to an S-Control

• Yes if the scontrol is called via HYPERLINK in a
  custom formulae field, YES, this is possible
• No if the scontrol is called via a Custom Link
  or Web Tab
• Yes within an scontrol additional parameters can
  be added to the URI for a call to a second
  scontrol
• HYPERLINK("/servlet/servlet.Integration?lid01N300
  0000009KEeid" !Id "addressbilling",
  "Test Link")
• eid parameter can be accessed in the s-control to
  get the current entity context record if needed

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Other (Non AJAX) S-Controls Techniques

• Parameterise Reports
• Pre-populate / create records
• Preventing double tabbing on salesforce.com web
  links
• Manipulating return urls and page chaining
• Calling an S-Control
• Passing parameters to an S-Control
• Style Sheets Replicating salesforce.com look
  and feel
• Standalone AJAX application
• Calling s-controls on home page HTML components

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Style Sheets Replicating salesforce.com look
and feel

• Different style sheets per language and for
  Salesforce Classic and the new interface
• Need to pickup the right style sheet to maintain
  look and feel within the scontrol
• userUiSkin returns a value indicating the CSS
  path that should be specified
• Salesforce1 /dCSS/Theme1/en/common.css
• Salesforce2 /dCSS/Theme2/en/common.css
• common.css should be the only file you need to
  use to replicate the salesforce.com's look and
  feel.
• For full details see tech note http//www.sforce.c
  om/resources/tn-16.jsp

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Standalone AJAX application

• Use divs to present / hide a login screen
• Call sforceClient.Login(username_at_somedomain.com,
  secret) instead of sforceClient.init(sessionid
  , endpoint) to initialise sforceClient
• If running as a standalone application use the
  frontdoor urls when calling back into
  salesforce.com to prevent the user being prompted
  to login to salesforce.com through the web
  interface
• https//ltinstancegt.salesforce.com/secur/frontdoor.
  jsp?sid!API_Session_IDretURL/ltURI to
  required pagegt

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Calling s-controls on home page HTML components

• Can be used to display dynamic content on the
  home page
• S-controls and merge fields are not supported
  directly within the HTML component so uses an
  embedded iframe calling an scontrol web link
• Create an scontrol
• Create a home page custom link and temporarily
  add it to a home page layout (to capture the URI)
• Create an HTML component My Salesforce.com (name
  not important)

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Calling s-controls on home page HTML components

• Check the Show HTML check box
• Add the following text to the HTML component
• ltIFRAME src"/servlet/servlet.Integration?lid00b2
  0000000i5QOampeid00520000000hTCf"
  frameBorder0 width"100" height"100"gtlt/IFRAMEgt
  
• (Replace the lid and eid parameter values with
  those captured in the step above)
• Note as no record has context from the home page
  you cannot use merge fields in the scontrol
  (other than !API_Enterprise_Server_URL_60 and
  !API_Session_ID)

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Additional Examples

• AJAX Account create New Opp and Task.htm
• - this is a pure s-control that is designed to
  work from a web link on an account.  It creates
  an opportunity, amends the opp return url and
  opens the opp in edit mode.
• AJAX update address of all contacts on an
  account.htm
• - this one is another pure s-control again driven
  from the account which updates all the addresses
  of linked contacts to the account to have the
  account address.  This one shows a small popup
  window 'Updating Contact Addresses' as it does
  the processing and then self closes in this case
  as nothing has changed on the account it doesn't
  bother to refresh the underlying record.
• AJAX List of all cases and associated
  solutions.htm
• - this one can be used either as an s-control or
  as a standalone browser app.  It loops through
  all the cases and sees what solutions are
  associated with it and displays the results with
  clickable links to the cases and solutions
  referenced.  It is specific to na1 and when used
  standalone needs another login when the urls are
  clicked (urls do not use the 'frontdoor'
  notation).

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Resources

• AJAX Toolkit
• http//blog.sforce.com/sforce/2006/04/ajax_toolkit
  _be.html
• Can host locally
• Can include in document repository
• /servlet/servlet.FileDownload?fileDocument_ID
• www.salesforce.com/developer
• Tech Notes
• Community forums search on AJAX