Bristol DUG Report - Spring '16 Preparation Quiz (With TEST SLAYER!)

On Wednesday 10th February, the Bristol Developer User Group met at the Desynit offices. In the city you could go outside at 5pm without it being pitch black, and no more ice patches were waiting to greet you outside your door, which meant only one thing, spring was just around the corner. How appropriate then, that this edition of the DUG covered the Spring '16 release, focusing on some of the new cool features coming to all Salesforce orgs.

Local Salesforce MVP Simon Lawrence kicked things off with a presentation on some of the new cool Apex code features arriving in Spring '16. The presentation included the awesome ability to set the created dates on test methods (my favourite portion of the release), and also create test suites of re-runnable tests. The presentation also mentioned how developers also now have the ability to stop test runs that already have failing tests registered, making the rerun cycle cover much less time. This ability to halt tests doesn't have an official name, so Simon created the name TEST SLAYER, which I really hope Salesforce adopt!

Simon also covered some additional enhancements, including global picklists and API enhancements. An important concept with the Spring '16 is that from this release forward, all results returned from SOQL queries will be formatted in the locale of the executing user. This could be very significant for multi-national orgs who have to present information to users in different formats, not only from a functionality standpoint, but also from a testing perspective. So be aware that you may have to make some changes!

Here are Simon's presentation slides:

After the presentation, it was time to check if the attendees were ready for the release exam, with a quick fire 10 question quiz. The quiz focused on the features contained in the slides.

While Simon busily marked all the attendees scores, I provided a presentation with live demos of some of the great new features coming to Lightning Experience as part of Spring '16. A new feature that will interest developers is the introduction of new user level global variables for the intended and actual theme displayed to users. Prior to this release, the process of distinguishing which UI theme (LEX, Classic or other) users were viewing content with through code was a tricky business involving interrogating the existence of the sforce.one javascript global. Now with the new UITheme and UIThemeDisplayed variables, available through both the $User global variable and the Userinfo Apex class, this process has been made much more simple and reliable.

Here are my presentation slides:

As soon as my presentation and accompanying demos were completed, Simon read out the answers to the quiz questions and announced the winner. Congratulations to Käbi from Desynit, who scooped the top prize of a Starbucks voucher. The award was presented by Salesforce MVP Simon Goodyear, fresh and buzzing from co-running the massive Londons Calling SF community event!

Thanks to all those who attended, great to see you all, we hope to see you again next month. If you are an existing or aspiring Salesforce developer, why not come along to our next meetup, details here: http://www.meetup.com/Bristol-Salesforce-Platform-Developer-User-Group/events/227339685/

For those who fancy testing their knowledge for the Spring release before the release are available exams, here are the questions and answers from the quiz (no cheating using the slides haha):

Questions:
1. The last/end date of the Spring '16 production roll out?

2. When using a global picklist on a custom field, can you use Profile settings to exclude some values from displaying to certain users?

3. How many test classes can you include in a test suite?

4. For two points: What is the exact, and correct syntax to set the created date of a contact, called “c” to the second of July 1984, in a United Kingdom locale org?

5. What would you enter to make a test exit as soon as the first test fails?

6. Can you delete a Global Picklist definition once it’s created?

7. What API number is Spring’16?

8. Can you set the CreatedDate on a record to be “in the future”?

9. What setup menu item is “Picklists” under?

10. Bonus Question (used as a tie breaker) : How many points does the original “provide universal picklists” ideas exchange post have?

Answers:
1) Sat. Feb 13th 2016
2) No
3) 200
4) Test.setCreatedDate(c.Id, DateTime.newInstance(1984,07,02));
5) 0
6) Yes
7) 36
8) Yes
9) Create
10) 44340

Bristol DUG Report: January Trailhead Smash!

The Bristol Salesforce Developer User Group had its first meetup of 2016 on Thursday 7th January at the BE offices building in central Bristol. In this meetup, we took part in a "Trailhead Smash". The premise was simple, log into Trailhead, the Salesforce learning platform, and complete as many badges and gather as many points as possible as a group within 2 hours. 

The points started flying in think and fast, with the newest trails proving the most popular (If battle stations were built this quickly in Star Wars, the films would have been over in 5 minutes!!). For some developers, it was the chance to try out something completely new, while for others it was the opportunity to go back and complete some of the existing modules and earn those precious badges.

A few hours, drinks and pizza slices later, our members had managed to rack up a fantastic 8 new badges, scoring over 11,000 points on challenges. A superb effort in such a short amount of time. After a brief wrap up and prize giving for most points achieved, everyone left full of enthusiasm and Trailhead badge fever. I must admit, as soon as I got home, straight away I fired up my laptop and finished the module I had started during the DUG. Hooked!!

I'm a massive fan of Trailhead and really enjoy going through the modules, particularly the practical exercises. However, I had never tried using it in a group context. Throughout the meetup I found it really fascinating to see the different approaches that developers had to completing the challenges. This became especially visible during the advanced formulas module, I saw functions used in ways I never thought possible!

Make sure to check out Trailhead if you haven't already. Also, take a look at my previous blog post for a deeper exploration of some of the more recent badges, particularly focusing on the Apex integration module, one of my favourites, a must for aspiring and expert developers alike.

Finally, while on the subject of User Groups, if you are UK based (or fancy a well worth it trip from elsewhere), then check out the LONDON'S CALLING full day event on 5th February in London. It's a unique Salesforce event, completely organised by the Salesforce community for the Salesforce community. It will be a day full of great content; Erica Kuhl and Peter Coffee are the Keynote speakers at the event, alongside experts from throughout the community ready to share their real life experiences and tips. Not to be missed (unless you booked a stag do in Bulgaria on the same date D'OH!).

If you use twitter, you can follow the event through @LDNsCall

See you at our next meetup, details on the Bristol Salesforce Developers group page

Thanks to everyone who came along, Happy Trailing!!! 

PS. Photography and pizza ordering credit to Simon Lawrence, thanks! :D

Bristol DUG Report: Salesforce Christmas Pub Quiz!

On Thursday 3rd December, the Bristol Salesforce Developer User Group met together in the Stag & Hounds Pub. After a year of intense lightning quick app development and trail badge collecting, the last DUG of the year was a special reward, a Force.com themed Christmas pub team quiz.

The quiz consisted of 5 rounds. The first 3 rounds included questions relating to general Force.com development and platform enhancements of 2015, starting easy and getting gradually more testing! The fourth round was a music round, where developers had to identify the artist and title of 5 songs, then for a bonus point, identify the Salesforce related connection between them all.

The final round was titled "Trailhead 2 head". Each team was allocated a device and a developer account logged into trailhead, and given the challenge of earning the Lightning Experience Basics trail badge in the fastest time possible. All teams finished the trial within 5 minutes, a superb effort by all.

BUT WAIT, THERES MORE! After the main quiz was over, all contestants were invited to answer quick fire questions in a special LIGHTNING ROUND! All developers took the hot seat in turn and had 60 seconds to answer as many questions on Force.com development as possible!

Congratulations to the team of Alex Tennant and Fabrice Cathala for the top scores on the night, but there were other winners too!

Even bigger congratulations to Simon and his amazing IoT Christmas Jumper, complete with flashing lights and bluetooth speaker!

Below are the questions from the quiz, feel free to test out your own knowledge, or use them in your own groups!

Happy Holidays to (Salesforce) 1 and all !!!

QUIZ QUESTIONS:
Round 1 (easy)

1: What is the full name (2 words) of the new user interface introduced by salesforce this year?

A: Lightning Experience

2: What is the new name for the previous salesforce interface, which used to be known as aloha?

A: Salesforce Classic

3: 2015 has arguably been the year of trailhead. What is the name of the trailhead adopted mascot, (wears a raccoon outfit)?

A: astro

4: what's the api number of winter '16?

A: 35.0

5: In the previous Salesforce setup menu, does the custom settings option appear under "create or develop"?

A: Develop

Round 2 (medium)

6: True or false, you can add Lightning Components to Visualforce pages?

A: true

7: Text, Number and Date are examples of output types from formula fields, name 3 of the other 4 (bonus point for all four).

A: Date/Time, Percentage, Currency, Checkbox

8: This year, the available developer certifications have been overhauled. Force.com developer and force.com advanced developer have been replaced. Name any of the new developer certifications, or the name of the new certification for individuals who want to demonstrate their skills of implementing custom applications using the declarative customisation capabilities.

A: Salesforce platform app builder, Salesforce platform developer 1, platform developer 2

9: what does SOSL stand for?

A: Salesforce object search language

10: with regards to the order of execution, which of the following occurs first; execution of criteria based sharing, executing escalation rules, or sending emails.

A: executing escalation rules

Round 3 (hard)

11: solve the following anagram to find a Salesforce feature: “HENS GULPING BRISTOL CIDER”

A: Lightning Process Builder

12: When creating test methods for classes that make external web service calls, what interface should you use to imitate responses from the external call.

A: WebServiceMock

13: what annotation can you add to a method in a test class to create test records accessible to all other test methods in that test class

A: @testsetup

14: true or false, you can add bucketed fields to joined reports

A: false, this is not possible.

15: AVG (stands for average) is an aggregate function supported by SOQL. Name 4 of the other 5.

A: 4 from Count(), count(fieldname), count_distinct, min, max, sum

Music round

Listen to the following music tracks - name the artist and the full song title for 1 point

16: Huey Lewis and the News - Power of Love

17: Will.I.AM (ft britney spears) - scream and shout

18: Stevie Wonder - Superstition

19: MC Hammer - 2 legit 2 quit

20: The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations

21: how are all the songs connected? The artists have all appeared in Dreamforce keynotes

Trailhead 2 head - I need to prepare 3 existing dev orgs with trailhead logins, then identify a badge that could be won. Teams will then nominate someone to go head to head with other developers.

Finish the badge within 5 mins - 2 pts

Finish with No mistakes - 2pts

Finish first - 1 pt

Lightning round questions (Asked in random order):

Q: What does DML stand for?

A: data manipulation language

Q: How do you control page layout allocation, roles or profiles?

A: Profiles

Q: What does SOQL stand for?

A: Salesforce object query language

Q: True or false, You can use a * character in SOSL queries to select all fields?

A: False

Q: True or false, trailhead is aimed at developers, and only contains trails for developers?

A: False

Q: Name the annotation that can be used to make private variables and methods readable from test methods?

A: @TestVisible

Q: What is the default single batch size used by the bulk api for manipulating records

A: 200

Q: What is the maximum number of master detail relationships a custom object can have?

A: 2

Q: What is the name of the dashboard report type that displays data in a circular chart with a hollow middle section

A: Donut chart

Q: What is the maximum number of calls to the sendEmail method that you can make during a single code execution?

A: 10

Q: What is the maximum number of DML calls that can be made during a single execution of code?

A: 150

Q: What is the maximum number of SOSL queries that can be made during a single execution of code?

A: 20

Q: Name the method annotation you should use if you want that method to execute asynchronously.

A: @future

Q: What executes first in the order of execution, triggers or workflow?

A: Triggers

Q: If an organization's customers are individuals rather than businesses, they can opt to merge contacts and accounts into a single object. What is the name of that object?

A: Person accounts

Q: The four base types of report are tabular, summary, joined and what?

A: Matrix

Q: In the Salesforce community, What does mvp stand for?

A: Most valued professional

Q: If all users in an organisation should be able to view and modify all records for a particular object, what should the organization wide default sharing settings be for that object?

A: Public Read / Write.

Q: If all users in an organisation should be able to view all records for a particular object, but only some users should be able to edit the records, what should the organization wide default sharing settings be for that object?

A: Public Read

Q: What can be allocated to users to provide them with extra permissions and features that they do not have as part of their profile?

A: Permission sets

Q:What attribute, available for the majority of Visualforce components, controls if the component markup is generated on the page?

A: Rendered

Q: What 4 letter word are core visualforce tags prefixed with?

A: Apex

Q: What 4 letter word are core lightning component tags prefixed with?

A: Aura

Q: True or False, you can create roll up summary fields on both lookup and master detail relationships?

A: False, it is just master detail.

Q: What is the maximum number of lookup filters that can be active on an object at any one time?

A: 5

Q: What name is commonly given to a custom object that links together two other objects through a many-to-many relationship?

A: Junction Object

Q: In a Developer edition of Salesforce, what is the maximum number of custom fields you can define per object?

A: 500

Q: What is the maximum length of a standard text field?

A: 255

Q: What is the maximum number of relationship fields you can have on a custom object?

A: 40

Q: According to Salesforce Governor limits, what is the total number of records you can retrieve using SOQL in a single execution of code.

A: 50,000

Q: What is the maximum number of roll up summaries that an object can have?

A: 25

Q: What attribute of an <apex:page> tag is most commonly used to render the contents of a page in a PDF Format

A: RenderAs

Q: What standard Apex method can be called to transform a lead into account, contact and optionally, an opportunity.

A: ConvertLead()

Q: Name the trigger context variable, only available in insert and update triggers, which contains a list of all of the new records.

A: new

Q: What is the maximum number of characters that can be in an Apex Class

A: 1 million

Q: What website can users access to check the current status of Salesforce servers?

A: trust.salesforce.com

Q: What annotation can be used to mark a method as a test method?

A: @isTest (also accept test method).

Q: There are two types of custom settings, one is list, what is the other?

A: Hierarchy

Q: Which city hosted Dreamforce 2015?

A: San Francisco

Q: Which band headlined the Dreamforce gala this year?

A: Foo Fighters

Bristol DUG Report - Lightning Developer Week!

On 11th March, the latest installment of the Bristol Salesforce Developer User Group was held at Desynit HQ in Bristol. The meetup formed part of Lightning Developer Week, 9th - 15th March, a series of worldwide events offering developers to opportunity to get hands on with Salesforce1 Lightning.

Lightning is a component framework and set of tools specifically designed to rapidally speed up the app development process for developers, admins and analysts. After a brief introduction, Force.com MVP and DUG co-organsier Simon Goodyear provided a great overview presentation of the different key aspects of Lightning, and the business problems they solve.

Following on from Simons presentation, I jumped in to provide a live demo of each of the core features and how they can be used in conjunction to make powerful app functionality quickly. This was followed up by a slightly deeper exploration of Lightning component code structure (we devs do love a bit of code after all).

After the tour, developers were then given the opportunity to get hands on with some tutorials. If you are interested in getting hands on yourself, here are the links for the different exercises:

• Lightning Connect
• Lightning Components
• Lightning Process Builder
• Lightning App Builder

 

 

A really great meetup, plenty of good questions, successful tutorial completions, swag, and ideas about the future of SF development. I'm looking forward to the next meetup already! Make sure to join our meetup group for announcements of future meetings.

PS. I just hit the 100,000 pageviews mark! Thanks to all who have viewed my blog, here's to the next 100,000!

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!