Category: Post Page 6 of 27

API-led integration basics with Mulesoft

On December 28, 2021

This guest post has been delivered by Sachin Kumar, who works as a content writer in HKR Training and have a good experience in handling technical content writing and aspire to learn new things to grow professionally. He’s an expertise in delivering content on the market demanding technologies like ServiceNow, Mulesoft, cyber security, Robotic process automation and more.

This blog is intended to provide you with the basic API integration skills with MuleSoft. If you’re new to MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform or curious about the latest product developments, then learn how to connect cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments by connecting apps, data, and devices.

Get this MuleSoft Training course which aids you in mastering the skills of MuleSoft.

According to Forrester, for every $1 spent on MuleSoft today, you will receive $5.45 in return over the next three years.

You will be learning the below topics which are covered to understand the API integration with MuleSoft:

Designing and developing APIs and the integrations at the speed of light.
Using a single runtime for On-premises and any cloud deployment.
Managing and gaining visibility in real-time and fast troubleshooting with one interface.
Ensuring threat protection and automated security at every layer.

1) Designing and Developing APIs and the integrations at the speed of light

Anypoint Creation CenterTM provides you with the tools you require to create connectors, implement application and data flows, and make API designing, reusing, and testing much easier.

Specifications for API design

Employing a web-based interface, make and document APIs. With OAS/RAML, you can quickly create API specs. Testing and validating APIs using a mocking service.

Develop integration flows

Use a visual interface for moving, synchronizing, or modifying data. With an automapper of machine learning, using the auto-populated assets for transforming data.

Connecting the APIs and the integrations

APIs and the integrations should be built, tested, and debugged using graphs or XML. complex data is transformed and mapped, and custom connectors are developed.

What does the Design Center of Anypoint allow you to do?

Rapid APIs Designing

Simply define the appropriate reply for a resource in the web-based editor to produce API specs in RAML or OAS. Security schemas and Data models can be reused as API pieces, and documentation can be produced at the same time. With a simple click, you will be publishing your APIs to an Anypoint Exchange for others to explore and reuse.

Connecting any system

Use a desktop IDE or web interface to connect systems. Use pre-built connectors or use our SDK to create your own. When dealing with visual errors, you can find and repair issues while designing.

Real-time mapping of your data

With DataWeave, our expression language, you can be querying, normalizing, and transforming any type or data amount in real-time. Use machine learning-dependent suggestions to speed up data mapping.

Testing and deploying applications

Use MUnit for testing integrations, mule’s unit, and integration testing framework. In CI/CD environments or locally, automate the tests. Using a single click deploy the applications.

2) Using a single runtime for On-premises and any cloud deployment

The deployment of the Mule application is driven by two key factors:

An instance of the Mule runtime engine.
Deployment of Mule applications to that instance of a Mule.

When you deploy apps to Anypoint Runtime Fabric or CloudHub, the Mule runtime engine instances required to run the applications are handled by these services.

You are responsible for installing and configuring the Mule runtime engine instances that execute your Mule applications when you deploy them on-premises. Since you have complete control over the on-premises instance (unlike Runtime Fabric deployments or CloudHub), you must be aware of the features unique to on-premises deployments.

Using One Mule Instance To Run Multiple Applications

Mule runtime engine can execute several apps from a single instance, allowing you to use the same namespaces in different applications without colliding or sharing information, which has further benefits such as:

A complicated application can be broken down into numerous Mule applications, each with its logic, and then deployed in a single Mule instance.
Domains allow you to exchange configurations across several applications.
Applications can rely on different versions of a library.
The same instance of a Mule can run multiple application versions.

3) Managing and gaining visibility in real-time and fast troubleshooting with one interface.

Comprehend your application network health with full API management lifecycle and governance of enterprise integration. Use API gateways for access controlling and unlocking data using custom or pre-built policies.

Reduce mean resolution time with a single view of the management of application performance, logging, and metrics for business operations. Monitor business-critical initiatives with customized dashboards, API functional testing, and alerts.

Using one platform for Governing the full API lifecycle

From development to retirement, handle APIs with the ease of a product that is unified.

Automate the production of API proxies or the deployment of gateways.
Configure pre-built or custom policies, and change them at runtime without downtime
External Identity Providers and Tiered SLAs are used to customize access.

Most Efficient Monitoring And Troubleshooting Deployments

To achieve efficiency and uptime needs, get a holistic view of your APIs and integrations.

Using real-time alerts for detecting the issues proactively.
Correlate warning indications to determine the root cause.
To limit the impact of outages, disclose hidden dependencies inside deployments.

Analyzing The Metrics Across Every Deployment

Unveiling the deeper insights for supporting your business.

Using customized dashboards for translating IT metrics into business KPIs.
Using the detailed consumer metrics for enhancing the API engagement.
Capturing the trends via detailed, visual reports.

4) Ensuring Threat Protection And Automated Security At Every Layer

Anypoint SecurityTM protects your APIs and integrations with sophisticated defense. Protect and regulate your application network by protecting critical data, stopping threats at the edge, and automatically enforcing security best practices.

Establishing the smart and secure perimeters

Defining the Edge gateways with threat-blocking capabilities that harden overtime via feedback loops.

Protect sensitive data

Protect sensitive data in transit by automatically detecting and tokenizing it.

Embed security by default

Enforce global policies, use best practices throughout the API lifecycle, and keep an eye on compliance.

What can Anypoint Security do for you?

Edge security

Create layers of defense with enterprise-grade Edge gateways that can be quickly configured. Using policy-driven choke points that can be established in minutes, protect against denial of service (DoS), content, and OWASP Top 10 threats.

Automatic hardening

Integrate Edge and API gateways to automatically detect API threats, escalate them to a perimeter, and update protections to remove vulnerabilities. Improve security by implementing a learning system that adapts to new threats.

Detection of sensitive information (coming soon)

Receive notifications when API payloads contain sensitive data like PII, PHI, or credit card information. With prebuilt monitoring dashboards, you can streamline governance and auditing.

Automatic tokenization

With a simple, format-preserving tokenization solution that secures sensitive data while enabling downstream dependencies, you can meet compliance requirements faster.

Policy Automation

Ensure that policies are followed consistently across all environments, check for compliance with policies that have been deployed, and empower API owners to detect out-of-process changes and address violations, bridging the gap between DevOps and security teams.

Access Standardisation

Establish standard authorization and authentication API patterns and make them available as fragments to encourage reuse rather than building new, potentially insecure code.

Conclusion:

In this blog, we have learned features like how to design and develop APIs and integrations quickly, deployments of any cloud and on-premises with a single run-time, quick troubleshooting and real-time visibility management with one interface, and threat protection and automated security at each layer with Mulesoft.

Request Loop: there’s a new free app in (AppExchange) town

By Enrico Murru

On November 25, 2021

In Post

A new AppExchange app by WebResults (Engineering Group)

Question: What happens if you put a messy Salesforce MVP in charge of the Innovation Team of WebResults?

Answer: a lot of mess for sure, but also funny stuff!

TL;DR Request Loop is a new free AppExchange app delivered by the Innovation Team from WebResults to help in Salesforce callouts and callins development/debugging.

What is WebResults’ Innovation Team?

I work in WebResults since 2009, when I first moved my steps into the Salesforce world, starting from junior developer till my current position as “Salesforce Solutions” Unit Manager (soon to be called “Innovation Team”).

We are a team of passionate Salesforce professionals who struggle to keep up with the technological changes in the Salesforce ecosystem and try to move our company forward…we are a sort of R&D team.

As far as I’ve seen during the past years, this is not obvious for a big company, whose people are focused on the delivery, to keep a group of people focused on innovation and research…that’s why I’m really happy to do this job!

What do we do?

Professional services: sometimes we are called as firefighters by our colleagues when needed to help with difficult tasks or technical issues
Innovation tours: we plan meetings with our customers to show off new features or products
Knowledge Hub: we try to keep track of diverse Salesforce related knowledge docs and best practices for the benefit of all WebResults
Evangelization: we struggle to keep the company technologically engaged and updated
Creative app development: is there a problem we have solved in a creative way or that can “cross-project” benefit? let’s package it and create a new app for the whole company and Salesforce Ohana!

Awesome, huh?

What’s Request Loop?

Request Loop has been built to:

detect SOAP callouts request body (as you know, Salesforce doesn’t let you get the full body of an Apex SOAP request)
simulate REST/SOAP callouts from within Salesforce boundaries (i.e. coming from Salesforce IPs)
create a bin that can receive callins from an external system within Salesforce bounds in order to get what’s going on (again, it’s difficult to debug an Apex SOAP callin)
Keep everything within Salesforce boundaries (it shoulnd’t be done, but often sandboxes use real data and it’s not good to send business data in unsecure/untrusted clouds)

Request Loop is a free tool meant for developers who want to debug webservice communications both inbound and outbound. This tool has been imagined as a quick disposal package that anyone can install in a DE org or a sandbox (even production but it is unlikely and not suggested to debug directly in production), use until necessary and then uninstall to clean up everything.

This package is composed by 2 features:

Request Bin: an inbound Apex webservice that can receive any supported HTTP call (REST or SOAP) and log it for further analysis. This tool can also simulate the response of a valid service (just like the famous Requstb.in online service). Imagine you need to get the SOAP payload of an Apex webservice: no Salesforce tool is available for this porpoise and with Request Loop you can inspect the content message on the fly safely.
Request Client: a tool to send outbound callouts from Salesforce to outside systems. This tool can be used to simulate an external system call from within Salesforce to test a service without the need of a complete Apex implementation.

For a detailed configuration guide, have a look at the user manual on the AppExchange listing page.

Request Bin

A Request Bin is simply a record on the Request Bin object definition which handles:

Request bin’s name (which identifies the service URL to point your external system to)
A valid HTTP response code
Optional response headers
Optional response body

Once you have exposed your bin to the world (by calling the Apex webservice with a valid session token or publishing it inside a public community/site) you can call it from an external system and analyze/debug the requests stored on Request records (request bodies are stored on Files attached to the Request record).

Easy as 1-2-3 or a.b.c…you tell me!

Request Client

Now that we have a configured Request Bin that can take any incoming request, we’ll have a look at the Request Client too that can generate a callout by hand. Click on the Home tab of the Request Loop app:

You can configure:

Supported HTTP method (Salesforce supports a sub-set of HTTP methods, GET / PATCH / PUT / POST / DELETE)
Request URL, which helps you with an autocomplete behavior for Named Credentials, otherwise you can set your own custom URL (remember to add the Remote Site configuration to enable that specific endpoint)
Request headers, with an autocomplete features for the main standard headers (the “Content-Type” header has an autocomplete behavior for the value as well, showing the main standard content types)
the Request body

Click the Send button and you’ll get response’s body and headers:

Use the Download Body link to download a file with the response body on it.

Finally using the Recent Requests tab you can get a list of the last requests done and send them again (info are stored on the local storage):

List of recent requests made through the Request Client

What are you waiting?

It’s free, useful, safe and easy to install, take a tour and tell us what you think and drop a quick review on the AppExchange!

From WebResults
for the Salesforce Ohana with 💙

Empower Salesforce Path with Welkin’s Customizable Path

By Vladimir Gubanovich

On November 17, 2021

In Post

Vladimir Gubanovich is the Head of Product at The Welkin Suite and Head of Salesforce Development Department at Polytech Software. He’s been working with the Salesforce platform and The Welkin Suite for many years already and knows their strengths and bottlenecks first hand.

Nowadays, Salesforce is probably the most sought-after platform providing CRM service. The products it offers help companies make their performance more productive, increasing customer satisfaction and bringing value to their business. Salesforce allows customizing the already existing applications according to user needs and this is a big plus. But on the other hand, customizing can take a lot of effort, not to mention time. What is more, it can cause mix-ups if you have to create dozens of validation rules, for example.

These inconveniences are possible to avoid using Welkin’s Customizable Path as it provides the user with out-of-the-box features standard Salesforce Path doesn’t have.

To make more developers or Salesforce users aware of this I have decided to share this information with you.

Real-life case study

Not long ago, we were contacted by a customer who was using the Salesforce platform for their sales processes. These processes involved six different teams that changed each other’s status from time to time, although they were not supposed to. This made it necessary to restrict each transition to certain profiles and/or roles. Unfortunately, Salesforce doesn’t provide a built-in feature that can limit access to status changes. After fruitless attempts to enforce the limitations with numerous validation rules, the customer gave up and asked us for help.

To solve this problem, we offered him to try Welkin’s Customizable Path that has this feature out of the box. The only thing he should have done was to open Path configuration, switch to the Transitions tab, and click on the “Configuration” for transition permissions. It took him significantly less time and effort to fully configure Welkin’s Customizable Path and grant proper permissions than to customize everything from scratch.

As you can see no coding skills are needed. Everything can be done in a well-understandable standard Salesforce UI.

Some more advantages of using Welkin’s Customizable Path

Creating conditionally required fields without any validation rules

Status change restriction isn’t the only feature of Welkin’s Customizable Path that can make your life much easier. Another area where Welkin IDE can be pretty useful is conditionally required fields. In Salesforce, you can’t create conditionally required fields without writing validation rules. There is no need to mention all the inconveniences connected with that.

Welkin’s Customizable Path solves this problem simply and easily. With its help, you can configure transition screens with as many relevant fields as you need. Besides, Welkin’s Customizable Path also provides a simple way to create screens for each transition, including lists of optional and mandatory fields to be filled; guidance; building a 2-step status change with the 2nd screen that has fields that are shown or hidden depending on the values in the fields from the 1st screen.

Creating an unlimited number of fields

Salesforce Path provides only 5 key fields. It may seem not enough for users, no matter how hard they try to focus on the truly key fields.

In Welkin’s Customizable Path you can create as many fields as you need. This feature is available out of the box.

Building stage transition diagram

To be as productive as possible, businesses split their processes into stages. To make them clear, they use stage transition diagrams that can be quite complicated and hard to remember. Welkin’s Customizable Path facilitates this process significantly. Users should locate their “source” status in the first column and click on the “Add Transition” button nearby, adding all allowed transitions between statuses one by one. No other tool is needed for that. After transitions are configured, the allowed transitions will become highlighted and clickable, while transitions that are not available will be disabled. As a result, users will know in advance what they’re supposed to do next.

Improving Salesforce Approvals

Salesforce Approvals is a great tool that can be used, for example, to approve or reject financial requests as well as to forward them to the appropriate manager within a company. There is only one drawback: users have to check by themselves if a record is locked as a part of an Approval process.

In Welkin’s Customizable Path, the Path component automatically detects if a record is locked and places it in the most important part of a record page – in the Path. It allows users to notice it at once.

So what is Welkin’s Customizable Path? It’s a powerful tool that can be used instead of standard Salesforce Path, providing the user with out-of-the-box features standard Salesforce Path doesn’t have.

The 5 listed above solutions are just a few of the many Welkin’s Customizable Path can offer his customers. To find out more click https://insights.welkinsuite.com/customizable-path-for-salesforce.

Integrating Salesforce and Accounting Software

By Enrico Murru

On October 18, 2021

In Post

This guest post is powered by Breadwinner Integrations, Inc. the leading integration software between Salesforce and accounting systems, including NetSuite, QuickBooks, andXero, as well as major payment processors such as Stripe, Braintree, and Square.

Users of Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) software who are looking to integrate that program with accounting software, like NetSuite, have several options in the marketplace. Some are dedicated integration software for this purpose, while others are cloud computing or automation platforms.

Integration platforms

Boomi – Operates in integration platforms as a service (iPaaS) format, and also offers data management and preparation services. Boomi has solutions geared to specific applications of NetSuite and Salesforce.
Celigo – Operates in iPaaS format. Connects finance applications with enterprise resource planning to lower operating costs and reduce outstanding sales receipts.
DBSync – Integrates QuickBooks with sales and accounting departments. Connects with CRM systems and databases to load and extract data for integration with accounting.

Automation and cloud platforms

FinancialForce – Offers a cloud accounting solution native to Salesforce. Can cash process, manage revenue, and produce real-time financial analysis and audit trails.
Workato – Focuses on integrating Salesforce products with several other applications, including NetSuite, Workday, ServiceNow, and SAP.

Aside from the platforms mentioned above, Breadwinner, an integration software provider, offers a solution for linking the NetSuite corporate inventory, financials, and enterprise planning software suite with Salesforce.

Breadwinner also has other integrations to connect Salesforce with accounting programs such as QuickBooks and payment processors such as Stripe, Square, and Braintree.

How does Breadwinner integrate software?

Breadwinner’s solutions focus on integrating Salesforce with finance software and are experts in this field. Breadwinner for NetSuite has a guided invoice creation feature that can generate a NetSuite invoice out of an opportunity with just a few clicks. This is emblematic of its simplicity.

Other hallmarks of Breadwinner’s ease of use are:

Configuration wizard – Displays of NetSuite objects and Salesforce fields are intuitively mapped, making Breadwinner easy to navigate for its users.
Rapid installation – Breadwinner is built on the Salesforce platform, so a user can see NetSuite records in Salesforce within an hour of installation.
Two-way data transfer – Breadwinner can transfer enriched data from Salesforce into NetSuite for processing, then back into Salesforce immediately.

Breadwinner is efficient and fast at aligning internal teams. It syncs with Salesforce on a per-subsidiary basis when a company has multiple subsidiaries. It also works great with existing integration (iPaaS) tools in Read-Only or Read-Write modes, putting enriched data next to data and systems already in place.

Record Creation Wizard

Integrating Salesforce with your finance software using Breadwinner allows users to quickly generate records such as invoices, estimates, and sales orders from within Salesforce, speeding up payment operations. Breadwinner has a Record Creation Wizard to guide users through this. The new NetSuite records the solution creates are immediately integrated into Salesforce. Your company’s sales and support teams can track NetSuite invoices in Salesforce, including overdue status, to collect payments faster.

Data Accessibility

Breadwinner aligns corporate teams so that they may all access the same common records, including sales and finance data. It does this regardless of the location of the data or the device being used to access that data. This prevents organizational silos and makes live, accurate data available to the right users.

Global API

No matter who creates new NetSuite customer records in Salesforce, these are instantly updated in both systems. Breadwinner’s Global API makes creating and editing NetSuite records easy and with flexibility. It allows users to create and update NetSuite customers and records, such as estimates and sales orders, from within Salesforce, saving staff time and increasing data accuracy.

Compare and contrast

Knowing how Breadwinner works and performs its integration functions for NetSuite and Salesforce lets you see the solution in the context of what is available in the marketplace.

As discussed, there are many benefits of integrating Salesforce with accounting software, particularly NetSuite. Choosing one that is seamless and user-friendly will undoubtedly making your company’s financial operations much easier.

📢 #ORGanizer for #Salesforce announcement 👂

By Enrico Murru

On October 8, 2021

In Post

Few days ago ORGanizer for Salesforce turned 5. 🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂

It’s been an amazing journey through the Salesforce Ohana, inspiring both professionaly and personally 💙🌈

In these 5 years I was the “one man company” behind ORGanizer, doing design, development, support, marketing, sales, PR… 🤯🤯🤯

This is not my primary job, it wass meant to be my hobby occupation, so you can understand that it’s become really stressfull to keep the pace 😓

The time has come to move on a brand new project and contribute on the Salesforce Ohana in a brand-new way. 🎁

Recently I published a new adv. on the ORGanizer that states:

📣📣 ORGanizer for Salesforce is looking for a new Trailblazer home 🏡💙

Yes guys, I’m looking for a virtuous #trailblazer company that wants to take ORGanizer by hand and make it do the next step with a more structured vision and business power! 💪💪💪

With tears in my eyes, I believe that my little child needs to spread its wings and fly away 🦅

In the past 5 years I reached many goals that I thought unreachable:

48000 weekly users 👨‍👩‍👨‍👨‍ (and new thousands counting month after month)
200+ downloads a day 💻 (and counting day after day)
Published in 3 stores (Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons and Microsoft Edge Add-ons) 🏪🏪🏪
Published on the #AppExchange with 50+ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reviews
200+ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reviews on the Chrome Web Store
100+ releases 🚛
8M+ logins executed in the last 12 months 🛩
1.2M+ query executed in the last 12 months 🔭
12M+ popup openings 📃
Tens of spontaneous online reviews 🤙

👉 Contact me if you re interested in the acquisition: https://organizer.solutions/newowner.html or simply help me spread the word! 🌍🤗

⚠ No scam companies please (and I assure you I’m being contacted by several of them…)

The big burnout – How COVID-19 is accelerating the Salesforce skills gap

By Nabila Salem

On September 15, 2021

In Post

Nabila Salem is on the Board of Tenth Revolution Group, and as President of Revolent Group is responsible for leading on the creation of talent, specialising in Salesforce and AWS. With over 15 years of experience in professional services, tech recruitment and marketing in the UK and USA, Nabila was the first and youngest female to be appointed to VP at the FTSE 250 company she used to work for. She is passionate about creating talent and plays an active role in encouraging, supporting and promoting diversity in the workplace. Nabila was recognised in Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35 List 2019, and most recently in Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK Tech.

Recent research from the 2021 Mason Frank Salesforce Salary Survey shows that the acceleration of digital transformation triggered by COVID-19 is putting increased pressure on workers, creating the perfect conditions for employee burnout and mass exodus from the workforce. So what should organisations be doing to address this alarming trend, head on?

The data shows that, prior to the pandemic, only 27% of professionals regularly worked outside of their contracted hours. Post-pandemic, this number has rapidly grown to 42%.

It also shows how the number of employees who had never worked outside of their contracted hours is shrinking quickly, going from 10.5% prior to the pandemic, to just 7.28% post-pandemic.

The boom in demand for tech has seen many companies prosper (41% of companies were hiring new IT staff during the pandemic, with a further 62% planning to add more before 2022). But, without intervention, the added pressure on existing employees may result in increased burnout and growing attrition rates.

Why the Salesforce skills gap matters

These new statistics should be of great concern for our sector, particularly for Salesforce stakeholders. As far back as 2018 tech already had the highest turnover rates of any industry, at a staggering 13.2%, so anything that looks to grow that number is a real problem.

As the tech skills gap grows, and experienced but overworked employees leave the sector, the war for talent will get much worse. Businesses of all sizes, not just the small ones, will struggle to afford the people they need to help them thrive.

Of course, the consequences of the skills gap going unfilled are already well documented. The Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute’s Skills Gap Study cautioned of economic output losses in the US of up to $454 billion by 2028 if the skills gap is not closed. And, according to Airswift, the US talent crunch is currently at a 10 year high, which could cost up to $162 billion if unresolved.

How to close the Salesforce skills gap

As a talent creation organization that specializes in creating net new Salesforce and AWS talent, we believe there are measures that can be taken to help prevent the impact of the growing skills gap, and even start to close it.

The first thing you have to realize is no one company or organization can do this alone. It will take a concerted effort from individual organizations, software providers such Salesforce, and talent creation companies such as ourselves.

To do this, you have to work the problem from both ends. First and foremost, we need to shrink our attrition rates as a sector, which means reducing things like employee dissatisfaction, burnout, and start placing a high value on employee wellbeing.

At the same time, organizations need to rely less on traditional hiring methods and accept more candidates from non-traditional career paths. Not every employee needs to be an Ivy League grad!

Finally, we need to improve diversity within our sector, and allow more people from different backgrounds to enter, progress, and stay within tech, if we have any hope of bringing in new talent at the scale we need to solve the skills gap.

Closing the skills gap with strategic diversity initiatives

Historically as a sector, we have employed a very narrow approach to our hiring. We’ve over-relied on traditional hiring positives like grades expected or universities attended. And it shows – our sector has the worst diversity stats of almost any industry.

Not every Salesforce candidate has to be a STEM graduate and, if we only look for these people, we’ll never close the gap. People who have self-taught, upskilled, or gained experience but not qualifications are just as valuable, professionally speaking, as the ‘more traditional’ applicant.

Especially when you consider how Salesforce in particular is highly accessible through non-traditional pathways (with Trailhead, anyone can learn Salesforce), only taking on STEM grads seems unnecessarily reductive.

Beyond this, we also need to look at our processes for acquisition. In particular, we need to examine the things that stop us bringing on a more diverse range of candidates. To do this, businesses need to rethink their workforce planning strategies. While traditional recruitment channels are great for some hires, they should not be relied on exclusively. Instead, look to work with suppliers who have a focus on diversity and inclusion and broaden the range of places you source talent from, be it returners programmes, apprenticeships, or talent creation companies like Revolent.

Ultimately, we cannot let burnout deplete our sector of the valuable employees that we already have. As a collective, we need to support our existing talent and focus on closing the skills gap, in order to relieve pressure and guarantee a healthy, future-proofed pipeline of skilled workers.

ABOUT REVOLENT GROUP

Revolent Group, a division of Tenth Revolution Group, specializes in creating talent that can thrive within niche technology markets, including Salesforce and AWS. We recruit, cross-train, place and develop talent for those ecosystems, fuelling the market with the next generation of certified professionals in cloud technology. With hubs in Australia, the US, UK, and Canada, Revolent offers a truly global solution to the lack of talent in the industry.

For more information, visit: www.revolentgroup.com

Forceea 2021 User Meeting (it’s free!)

By Enrico Murru

On June 9, 2021

In Post

Forceea (https://github.com/Forceea/Forceea-data-factory) is the most powerful and sophisticated native data factory for Salesforce, and it’s open-source!

What

📣 This is the 1st Forceea User Meeting (free online event).

When

🕓 Saturday, July 10, 4 PM (UTC).

Agenda

▶️ Meet other Forceea users.

▶️ See new features of the next release (v2.5).

▶️ Learn advanced techniques.

▶️ Showcase your own code.

Data Integration between two Salesforce Orgs using Talend

By Akashdeep Arora

On March 12, 2021

In Post

This post has been baked by Akashdeep Arora, founder of Founder of #BeASalesforceChamp and #MakingChampion, 8X Salesforce Certified, #LightningChampion, 6X Trailhead Ranger, 5X Trailhead Academy Certified, #SalesforcePartyAnimal #SalesforceTravellerGeek

Greetings Trailblazers! Many developers asked this question: how to integrate two Salesforce orgs without any custom code.

Here is the quick way you can use Talend Open Studio for Data Integration which will just use drag and drop functionality to transfer your records from one Salesforce org to another.

Talend is an open source data integration platform where you can integrate between different platforms and it offers 800+ connectors and components to perform several options.

Let’s just walk you through quickly to make you familiar to it.

Steps for Talend Integration

Launch Talend Studio.
Select the Create a new project option and enter a project name in the field.

Click finish to create the project and open it in the Studio.

Create a job

In the Repository tree view of the Integration perspective, right-click the Job Designs node and select Create job from the contextual menu.

An empty design workspace opens up showing the name of the Job as a tab label.

The Job you created is now listed under the Job Designs node in the Repository tree view. You can open one or more of the created Jobs by simply double-clicking the Job label in the Repository tree view.

Centralizing Salesforce metadata

The Salesforce metadata wizard provided by Talend Studio to set up quickly a connection to a Salesforce system so that you can reuse Salesforce metadata across Jobs.

In the Repository tree view, expand the Metadata node, right-click the Salesforce tree node, and select Create Salesforce from the contextual menu to open the Salesforce wizard.

Enter a name for your connection in the Name field, select Basic or OAuth from the Connection type list, and provide the connection details according to the connection type you selected.

With the Basic option selected, you need to specify the following details:

User Id: the ID of the user in Salesforce.

Password: the password associated with the user ID.

Security Key: the security token.

The newly created Salesforce connection is displayed under the Salesforce node in the Repository tree view, along with the schemas of the selected modules.

You can now drag and drop the Salesforce connection or any schema of it from the Repository onto the design workspace, and from the dialog box that opens choose a Salesforce component to use in Job.

Mapping data flows

Mapping components are advanced components which require a more detailed explanation than other Talend Open Studio Components. The Map Editor is an “all-in-one” tool allowing you to define all parameters needed to map, transform and route data flows via a convenient graphical interface.

You can minimize and restore the Map Editor and all tables in the Map Editor using the window icons.

tMap operation

All these operations of transformation and/or routing are carried out by tMap, this component cannot be a start or end component in the Job design.

tMap uses incoming connections to pre-fill input schemas with data in the Map Editor. Therefore, you cannot create new input schemas directly in the Map Editor. Instead, you need to implement as many Row connections incoming to tMap component as required, in order to create as many input schemas as needed. The same way, create as many output row connections as required. However, you can fill in the output with content directly in the Map Editor through a convenient graphical editor.

The Map Editor requires the connections to be implemented in Job in order to be able to define the input and output flows in the Map Editor. You also need to create the actual mapping in Job in order to display the Map Editor in the Preview area of the Basic settings view of the tMap component.

How to run a Job in normal mode

Click the Run view to access it.

Click the Basic Run tab to access the normal execution mode.

In the Context area to the right of the view, select in the list the proper context for the Job to be executed in. You can also check the variable values.

If for any reason, you want to stop the Job in progress, simply click the Kill button. You will need to click the Run button again, to start again the Job.

Step to Schedule Job

Open up Talend Open Studio.

Select the job you wish to automatically run based on a schedule.

Right-click its name in the Repository tab.

Select Build Job option.

In the pop-up window select where you would like to save the archive.

Select the version of the job, if you have multiple versions.

Make sure that the build type is set to Standalone Job.

Tick Extract the zip file (You will need to extract the archive anyway).

Click Finish.

Once this job is extracted, you can schedule it to run on the server in order to automate the job on timely manner.

You can play around with different operations like tMap or tlogRow or tSendEmail as per your need.

To just summarize in a quick way, you just need tInput, tMap and tOutput. Just play around on these operations with insert, update or upsert and your data would be transferred from one org to another in just a game of minutes.

If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!
#BeASalesforceChamp

Automatic export tool for Salesforce Data Export backups

By Enrico Murru

On January 19, 2021

In Post

TL;DR
Jump to GitHub for the complete repository: https://github.com/enreeco/sf-automatic-data-export-script/

Have you ever had a close relation with the Salesforce Data Export feature?

It’s a way to periodically export all Salesforce data set in zipped CSV files, including files and attachments.

You can do a one-shot export or schedule it on monthly (available on Developer Edition orgs) or weekly (available on Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions only).

The one-shot and periodic export configuration is straightforward:

Select the file encoding
Select which data you want to export (including files and content can increase export size)
Select a schedule (for monthyl or weekly export schedule only)
Select all or a subset of the available Salesforce objects

Monthly Data Export configuration schedule

What’s the outcome?

You’ll come up with a set of zipped files with a size up to 512 MB, containing Salesforce extracted files (if checked in configuration) or CSVs grouped by Salesforce objects, as shown below:

The struggle of downloading

What if you have plenty of files and want to automatically download them one-shot without having to click link by link?

Unfortunately there are no Salesforce standard APIs that you can use to automate the export and the only way was to go by script by getting all download links and triggering each download on a local folder (or remote storage if you are brave enough).

I thought there was already a solution out there but as far as I know there wasn’t anything.

The script

I decided to implement a script in NodeJS that:

logs in to Salesforce with a full powered user
opens the Data Export page
looks for the download links (if any)
triggers downloads one by one, putting them on a local folder

This way you can continue doing other tasks while the scripts runs.

DISCLAIMER: the script has been written in a quick & dirty style, so please don’t tell me it’s ugly, it gets you to the point!

Download it from GitHub: https://github.com/enreeco/sf-automatic-data-export-script

These are the simple steps:

Install NodeJS and NPM if haven’t already (you just have do donwload the installers, follow this guide but you’ll find tons online)
Open a console and install Foreman with:
npm install -g foreman
An alternative is to use the Heroku command line with:
npm install -g heroku
Install all required packages with command line npm install
Rename the .env-local into .env and replace the environmental variables with a local path (where the files will be stored), the login URL, your username and the password+token
Run your script with alternatively:
nf start
or
heroku local

You’ll see the script running and the files magically will drop on the selected folder:

Have a nice Salesforce day!

Key Findings from the Mason Frank’s Salesforce Salary Survey 2020/21

By Enrico Murru

On December 28, 2020

In Post

2020 has been a year of change. The pandemic has had a devastating effect on many, and its side-effects have re-shaped the way we live, communicate, learn and ultimately, the way we work. The Salesforce ecosystem hasn’t been an exception. It’s hard to imagine what the future will look like, but it’s worth having a look at the trends that have shaped the Salesforce universe during these past months if we want to be as prepared as possible. This is why it’s a good time to have a look at Mason Frank’s Salary Survey – the largest independent Salesforce market report worldwide. Mason Frank International is a global leader in Salesforce Recruitment, and their yearly study gives us independent insights into the latest market trends and salaries across the ecosystem. The report delves into topics such as how professionals feel about their jobs and employers, work perks, certifications and diversity, and also looks at salaries in different roles globally. Here are some key findings from the report.

Experience vs education

Let’s start off with something of an eternal dilemma – when it comes to employability, which is more valuable, experience or education? If you’re looking to increase your earning potential as a Salesforce professional, experience seems to be deemed essential, with 90% of survey respondents naming it as the most important factor. That, together with exposure to large projects and Salesforce certifications, seem to be the top-ranked aspects that increase your earning potential.

In contrast, having a university degree is considered important by just half of the survey’s participants. Formal education can lay the groundwork for a range of skills—communication and problem-solving just to name a couple—but with Salesforce being such a broad, evolving industry, experience and product knowledge seem to be better indicators of whether or not a candidate is suited to a particular post.

Which Salesforce certifications will increase your pay?

We’ve mentioned certifications being an important factor for career progression, but the real question is: which certifications are most likely to help with development and earning potential? The Technical Architect certification tops the Mason Frank Salary Survey list, with Salesforce professionals considering it to be the certification most likely to boost your pay for the second year in a row.

This qualification is still very much a rare one within the ecosystem, making it highly sought-after by employers across the globe. This certification shows the depth and breadth of a candidate’s Salesforce knowledge and demonstrates the ability to deliver optimized solutions across the entire platform. The qualification is intense, and requires some serious commitment and investment, but as with any challenge, it’ll yield rewards if you put the work in.

Let’s talk perks

We usually think of salary as one of the most significant factors affecting a candidate’s decision at that all-important offer stage. However, employers and job seekers alike should not underestimate the value of employee benefits.

Many of the benefits enjoyed by Salesforce professionals, according to Mason Frank, are either the ones supporting employees outside of the workplace, such as health and medical insurance, and retirement savings plans, or perks aimed at improving that coveted work-life balance, such as homeworking or flexible working. Other perks topping the lists are training and development opportunities, and naturally, bonuses. The value associated to each of these perks depends on many factors—but making sure your employer offers a robust benefits package as well as competitive salary will truly pay off.

Working from home

What was previously considered a more of a perk has become more or less the default following the coronavirus pandemic. Pre-pandemic, 21% of permanent professionals who took part in the Mason Frank Salary Survey worked from home on a full-time basis, while 62% worked from home at least once a week. These both increased during the pandemic, with 84% working remotely full-time, and 97% working from home at least one day a week.

Remote working definitely comes with its own set of pros and cons, and anyone currently experiencing it may have their own thoughts and concerns. However, what the remote working boom has surely done is open up roles to new, more diverse hiring pools, which is good news for anyone looking for a job and great news for employers looking to hire Salesforce talent in such a competitive market.

Salesforce Salaries

We’ve spoken about how to maximize your earning potential, but how much are Salesforce professionals actually earning? Compensation benchmarking is beneficial to job seekers as it helps them gauge whether or not their salary is on par with their qualifications, skills, and experience, allowing them to make an informed decision when looking for fresh opportunities.

It’s also interesting to look at salary benchmarking when considering re-location. Evaluating job proposals abroad can be quite tricky when you’re not sure if the salary on offer matches up to the standard of living, or whether it really is competitive in that country. For instance, a junior functional permanent consultant’s salary starts at an average of €23,000 in Italy, while that same role starts off at €48,000 in Germany, €35,000 in France and €47,000 in Ireland. It’s also worth looking at salary benchmarking if you feel like you haven’t seen a salary increase over some years, or if you’re not sure that increase matches up with your years of experience, qualifications, and ultimately, the current standard of living. For instance, the same junior functional permanent consultant salary started at €20,000 last year – an increase of €3,000 in the Italian market over just one year.

The Mason Frank Salary Survey 2020/21 is an excellent resource to learn all about the salary and benefits Salesforce professionals expect and receive today. It’s also packed with useful tips on how to maximize your earning potential as a Trailblazer, bringing you that one step closer to your dream job. Download the full report and get the most current snapshot of the Salesforce Ecosystem.