IT Solutionist

Salesforce Native vs App vs Connector

September 11, 2023September 24, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash

Fair warning: This is more about not having written anything in a while than the value of the topic…and the subject matter is more about drawing your own conclusions than relying on what is easily available, so…

App is one of the most over-used and ill-defined terms in the IT lexicon. This is greatly due to it being used by people outside the IT domain. The domain itself has had some whoppers, like the DHMTL that was a must-have at the turn of the century even though the only honest definitions of the term were that it had no real definition. Microservices runs a close second simply because there is an invisible grey line between SOA and Microservices that is a mile wide and an inch short. But I digress, as is often the case.

What I’m really thinking about today is apps in the world of Salesforce.com. Specifically, apps that run inside the Salesforce CRM platform. I started thinking about this because I was looking into CPQ vendors over the weekend to refresh myself on the market to support a project proposal to select the best option for a particular business. It’s a large space, so it always helps to find someone else’s list to start with and someone had given me a list from a major analyst group as that starting point.

Other than analysts, no one likes long lists with lots of details, so I first wanted to narrow it by those that integrated with Salesforce. It didn’t take me long to remember that Salesforce is the gold standard for CRM and there were only two that didn’t. I didn’t go through the whole list to get to that count because I’ve done these kind of evaluations before and figured out after the first half dozen that this was not how I was going to narrow the list. The two were just what was noticed while skinning this cat another way.

The first trimming of the list was by industry focus. The potential client is a tech service, sort of SaaSy, and “High-tech products” was one of the categories, which was much closer to what they did than “Financial services” (though they have customers in that domain) or “Industrial products” (which the analyst seemed to think usually included high-tech, though not sure why).

To spare you the tedium of the several hours of wading through 1000’s of lines of marketing prose that could have been delivered in a table (ahem, yes, I know, kettle, black, etc.), from just the perspective of Salesforce CRM integration, I found it useful to divide them into three basic styles:

Native: An application that is built entirely in Salesforce
App: An app that runs inside Salesforce that depends on data and/or functionality managed outside of Salesforce.
Connector: An application that runs independently of Salesforce and has a way to share data with Salesforce.

The terms for these distinctions change often over time and between sources. These definitions are for clarification of the table below and are purposely simplified as deeper distinctions are less relevant about integration than other aspects.

In this particular exercise, the ask was to provide some pros and cons to these different styles. My style being one of adapting general terms to technical solutions, I responded with a non-exhaustive list of Benefits and Concerns:

Integration Styles	Native	App	Connector
Benefits	Easily accessible in the sales process context. Seamless integration with other native apps. Has gone through Salesforce security review. No data latency.	Easily accessible in the sales process context. Access is managed within Salesforce. Has gone through Salesforce security review (only if installed through App Exchange).	Control over storage impacts. Broader range of vendors to choose from.
Concerns	May require additional Salesforce licensing. May have impacts on storage limitations.	Frequently limited functionality. Support may require coordinating the vendor and Salesforce.	High potential for latency. Difficult to trouble-shoot. Users must use multiple applications.

Of course, the next question is usually “which is best”, and I must respond with the architect/consultant/writer-needing-higher-word-count with “it depends”. And it depends on lots of things, such as who will be maintaining the solution; how are capex and opex prioritized and managed; how do different stake holders actually need to interact with the solution; and is it clearly understood that this only one aspect of a vendor selection process and all known aspects must be documented and weighted before giving a recommendation?

The real reminder for me when I finished this brief analysis was that context is everything when doing any type evaluation. The list that I started with included products that were questionable as to whether they really belonged in the report and many of the products were listed as serving domains that there was no mention of on the vendor’s site and no compelling reason why the unmentioned-domain would want to use it. If I had direct access to the author(s) I may learn something by asking, but the important thing is that I used their input only as a starting point and applied my own analysis because when the recommendations are provided to a client, those author’s name will not be on the agenda and they will not be there to answer the questions that hadn’t yet been thought of.

Numeric keypad numlock setting for Ubuntu

August 12, 2023Scott S Nelson

With the Num Lock key you can manually switch on or off the numeric keypad on your keyboard. Also, computers’ BIOS settings often include an option to decide if the computer should be started with the numeric keypad enabled. Otherwise, this is a way to configure it:

Install the numlockx package.

Open Startup Applications and add a startup program with the command: numlockx on

The second step may be redundant on your computer, so try without it first.

Source: Numeric keypad

Salesforce Sharing and Visibility on path to Technical Architect

My Sharing and Visibility Architect Path

July 31, 2023November 11, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Full disclosure: This is a quick draft from notes made during my prep journey and quickly edited after passing. Based on comments received, I may revise and elaborate further (hint, hint)

Overview of the Sharing and Visibility Architect certification

After completing the Administrator and Developer certifications, the App Builder certification seemed easy, and I had an expectation they would continue to get easier. I was right and wrong.

I struggled a bit with this certification, for a variety of reasons. First, the earlier certifications are very popular as the best of the entry-level exams. Popularity in this century leads to quantity, and there was lots of high-quality study material available for free and at a reasonable cost. I used to find the Salesforce sharing and visibility topics a bit confusing. They are highly flexible, and flexibility can lead to complexity. The thing about complexity is that when it is well-managed it has a simple core. Getting to that core is the challenge with understanding the subject areas of sharing and visibility and preparing for the certification exam.

Study Guides

For most of my earlier certifications I started with digging deep into the material and the using practice exams to help identify my weaknesses. There are not a lot of courses for sharing and visibility, and many that are out there are out of date. I think part of this has to do with the diminishing number of test takers for this one, coupled with the complexity of the material. Higher effort to address a smaller market reduces those interested in completing. I did find a decent subject matter course on Udemy, my usual go-to for learning anything quick at reasonable price (so long as I can wait for one of the frequent sales). I also found a good, exam-focused series on YouTube that I highly recommend for those like me who want multiple sources and frequently treat YouTube videos as pod casts, using audio-only.

Of course, I also did all of the related modules and trails on Trailhead. There were fewer of these for sharing and visibility compared to my previous certification, too. I also found them less effective in making the content stick in my head.

Practice Exams

Where I struggled was finding practice exams. Most of the ones on Udemy for sharing and visibility are garbage (sorry, Udemy…and I’m a stock-holder, too). One is not too bad, though I think I give it some leniency because of the comparison to what else is available. I finally got frustrated and posted on Trailhead (where I am guilty of answering more questions than I ask, a poor learning strategy). The community did not let me down and came back with a solid recommendation for focusonforce. Their format is a bit different, in that they have practice exams, and they also have section-focused exams. I missed the section-focused being separate from the practice exams until the last minute. I would have felt much more prepared had I found them earlier. They also have a nice feature of 20 random questions that are mixed in proportion to the exam topic mix, which was great for when you don’t have a lot of time and still want to practice.

Oh, yeah, another cool feature from focusonforce is the ability to see the answer after each question instead of at the end. I know there are some free site on other topics that do this, but this is the first time I have seen it with a high-volume and high-quality set of practice exams. It made it easier to make notes on my weaker areas. With better notes, I then used Bionic Reading® forming to make it easier to read them over and over again.

No matter what exam you are preparing for or where you get the practice exams, I recommend taking the practice exams using multiple paces; fast, slow, checking each, checking at the end.

One of the reasons I was so dissatisfied with the Udemy practice exams is that the questions are so long and complex, yet it is still 60 questions each. Well, turns out most of the questions really are long and complex. Still, the Udemy ones missed the actual style of the real questions. Understandable, given the level of complexity, but still disappointing.

Take the practice exams using multiple paces; fast, slow, checking each, checking at the end. When doing the real thing, follow standard practice of speed through and mark for review, etc.. The value of practice exams is more than learning the answers to likely questions. The highest value is in adopting the mindset and thought processes in the context of how exam questions are stated and rated, which is more complex and more constrictive than a typical design session where one can review the problem repeatedly over time and adjust

Tips to taking the exam

When doing the real thing, follow the standard practice of speeding through answering the easy questions and marking any with any level of doubt for review.
Review first pass unchecking those you are totally confident you are right or totally confident you have no clue.
Third pass, commit to an answer.
If time remains, go through everything again.
On the second pass, read the questions thoroughly. It is the small details in the exam that are easy to trip over.
Remember that it’s the best solution given the parameters.
- If multiple options will solve it, which has an advantage over the others?
- Which addresses all of the variables in the question?
When there are multiple answers that could be right, think about which answer is declarative vs programmatic and which is the most secure

Resource links

Below is a list of resources I used. I hope they help you in your own pursuit.

Trailhead Trailmixes

Udemy

The course I took was Salesforce Certified Sharing and Visibility Architect Course by Walid El Horr

The practice exam that was OK on Udemy is Salesforce Sharing and Visibility Practise Tests – 100% PASS (that is the title, not an endorsement by me).

runAs() is only for test classes
runAs() does not enforce user and system permissions
runAs() does not enforce FLS

Tagging rules have only three options:
1. Restrict users to pre-defined tags
2. Allow any tag
3. Suggest tags

There is no View Content permission

The Salesforce CRM Content User is a Feature License enabled at the User Level (not Profile)

Granular locking is default

Granular locking processes multiple operations simultaneously

Parallel recalculation runs asynchronously and in parallel thus speeding up the process. Creating sharing rules or updating OWD must wait until the recalculation is complete

Initialize test data and variables before the startTest method in a test class

There is NO Account Team Access

Team Member Access is how to view access.

While the permission is Edit, the Apex method is isUpdateble()

While the FLS column is View, the API method is isAccessible()

If want to see group access, look in group maintenance table, not sharing setting for object.

User above a role in the hierarchy can edit opportunity teams of users in subordinate roles

File types cannot be restricted by the library

Opportunities have a Transfer Record permission

Experience Cloud uses Sharing Sets

Sharing rules cannot set base object access

PK chunking to split bulk api queries for large data sets

Rapid access usually means a custom list view

A library with more than 5k files cannot have a folder added

Sharing set in Experience Cloud allows access only to account and contact records.

Share groups are only for HVP users

Schema.Describe.SObject/Field result for permissions

Session based permission set group is more efficient than multiple session based permission sets

There is no Partner Community Plus

Sharing sets can be assigned to profiles

Criteria based sharing rules are only for field value criterion. If no field value criteria, use ownership based sharing rules

Max file size for UI upload is 2GB

EPIM = Enhanced Personal Information Management

Delegated external administrators can’t see custom fields on user detail records

Sharing Hierarchy button is a thing that shows the hierarchy

Share Groups are not available for Partner Community Users

If the default OWD access is changed for an object, it is no longer controlled by parent

There is no Permission Object

Sharing Rules share to groups and profiles, not individuals

Enhance Transaction Security Policy can be triggered by request time length

If only one custom record type is assigned to a user that is the default type for that user.

Territories can belong to public groups

Activities are child objects of any of the following parents: Account, Opportunity, Case, Campaign, Asset and custom objects with Allow Activities.

the ‘with sharing’ and ‘without sharing’ keywords can be declared at the class level, but not at the method level.

The Group Maintenance tables store Inherited and Implicit grants, i.e., the extrapolated grants, which makes sense as extrapolation is more compute-intense than a query.

Partner Community can use Sharing Rules

External OWD must be equal or more restrictive than the Internal OWD

How to make a boomer feel young on Urban Dictionary

July 2, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

I’m convinced the etymology of “Sweet!” is a modernization of the “That’s the bee’s knees!”. Think about it…

(Photo by Dick Scholten: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-green-and-black-hummingbird-perched-on-red-branch-1096750/)

Written Instructions image by https://www.pexels.com/@markus-winkler-1430818/

Document Like You Don’t Know the Subject

June 30, 2023July 7, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

(Feature image credit: Markus Winkler)

“All books are just the same letters in a different order”. -Unknown

I know I originally heard this (paraphrased) quote from a comedian. I thought it was Stephen Wright, though I was unable to find this attributed to any comedian on Google. The closest attribution I could find is to the author Cornelia Funke: https://quotefancy.com/quote/1197597/Cornelia-Funke-Weren-t-all-books-ultimately-related-After-all-the-same-letters-filled.

Point being (my regular reader knows I wander off point often, and hopefully entertainingly so), I think that many people tasked with writing documentation think that all the information is right where they found it, and that anyone else can do the same research and come up with the same understanding. To counter that view, I point you to the news and whatever thing people are doing or saying in large enough numbers to be noticed while the vast majority realize that nothing could be further from the truth.

The thing about documentation, the numbers are generally the opposite, in that only a few understand the need to be specific, explicit, and concise.

The trick that has always worked for me is to write the content, then follow the content as if I had no previous understanding of the topic.

When possible, I prefer to go one better and find someone who really does have no understanding and ask them to follow the content. My greatest success with that method is when I created a 20-page document (with lots of screenshots) that walked developers through the sequence of steps to become productive in working with an enterprise J2EE application with authentication and external system integration. The goal was for new developers to complete the process in under 30 minutes with no assistance. My final test of the documentation was when I gave it to our visual designer who completed the process in 40 minutes with no help other than the document.

At the least, I always try to get at least one consumer of the documentation to go through it and provide feedback. When possible, publish the documentation to a platform that encourages feedback. Even better if peers are allowed to edit and revise on their own.

Finally, when comments are edits are made, it is best if the platform provides an alert mechanism so that the content owner can review the changes or comments.