Bristol DUG (FxFW) - New Year? New Salesforce Certificate!

On Wednesday 8th January, Bristol held it's first developer user group event of the year. The theme of the event was certification. As we start the new year, many developers are looking for ways to improve their skills over the coming year, and what better way than taking the challenge of gaining some official Salesforce certifciation.

There were two presentations during the night. Fellow Desynit developers Simon Lawrence and
Julio Fernandez (both certified Force.com developers) provided a guide to the Force.com Developer Certifcation. The talk included an explanation of the certifcation format and process, alongside their own personal experiences. Copies of the slides for this presentation and more information about the Force.com Developer Certifcation are available on Simon's Blog, and also Julio's Blog .

Following this, I took to the mic and presented my section of the "I passed the advanced developer certifcation" panel session I co-presented at Dreamforce 2013 . Again this presentation was a combination of background information about the certification process, with some practical advice and insights from my own experiences. A video of the full presentation from Dreamforce can be found on my Dreamforce Diary post.

After the presentations, group discussions began, at first focusing on the certifcation processes and aims for this year, but topics eventually spread and evolved into change sets, single sign-on, the metadata API and preferred development environments amongst others. 

I really enjoyed the event, it was a great chance to catch up with the local Force.com development community. There is a real feeling of enthusiasm for the coming year ahead.

I'm really looking forward to the next Bristol DUG, scheduled for Wednesday 5th March. Richard Donkin, CTO of Cloudfind, is going to providing a session on Salesforce Canvas. So if you fancy learning about integrated external apps or talking Force.com development over a free beer, please sign up to our Meetup group.

Bristol DUG - FxFW - Mobile Week Meetup

Force by Force West (FxFW) is a Force.com developer user group for Bristol and the south west. Last night, at the Llandoger trow, the group met as part of the Salesforce Mobile developer week.

Peter Chittum, Developer Evangelist/Trainer from Salesforce.com, was on hand to present the new mobile functionality and libraries. The demonstration contained lots of actual code examples (much to the delight of the audience) as well as exploring some of the design choices involved in creating mobile apps and integrating with the Force.com platform.

But it didn't just stop there, discussions branched into security (particularly the value of OAuth best practices and suggestions), certifications and training (who knew there was a 502 Force.com integration class??), and the best ways to introduce developers from other platforms to the world of cloud development.

As part of the evening, we announced that the FxFW group is holding a mobile hack challenge for developers keen to test their skills and learn about the new mobile offering, with the top prize being a new shiny iPod nano (ooooooh!). For more information on the group and upcoming events and hack challenges, visit our Meetup group page. hope to see you at our next event!

FxFW - Force By Force West, A new Force.com developer group for the South West

Building on the highly successful "Force West" Salesforce networking community for the South West, a developer spin off community, "Force by Force West" (FxFW) is starting.

The aim of this new group is to share experiences and thoughts on all things Force.com over a pint or two, from Apex and Visualforce to mobile applications and alternative cloud platforms.

The first event will take place on the 31st May at the Elephant pub in Central Bristol, next to St. Nicholas Market.



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More information about the event and group can be found through the FxFW Facebook Page, or by following the FxFW Barman on Twitter.

If you are interested, let us know by registering on our Eventbrite entry, purely so we can get an idea of how many are coming down.

Hope to see you there!