Ruby and Salesforce Integration (Part 2)

Before we begin I have to bring up the fact that the Steelers did beat the Jets. I'm not on the same level of Nostradamus yet...but I'm getting close. When we left off at our last post we created four new Ruby files in our Salesforce directory. And as I previously mentioned we will be using code from Andrew (Super-Size) Interwebdiary to generate an easy login in function.

The following is the code for the extra file we will be using for the simple login:

client_auth_header_handler.rb

 1 require 'soap/header/simplehandler'

 2

 3 class ClientAuthHeaderHandler < SOAP::Header::SimpleHandler

 4   SessionHeader = XSD::QName.new("rn:enterprise.soap.sforce.com", "SessionHeader")

 5

 6   attr_accessor :sessionid

 7   def initialize

 8     super(SessionHeader)

 9     @sessionid = nil

10   end

11

12   def on_simple_outbound

13     if @sessionid

14       {"sessionId" => @sessionid}

15     end

16   end

17

18   def on_simple_inbound(my_header, mustunderstand)

19     @sessionid = my_header["sessionid"]

20   end

21 end

22

For the final portion of code used in the login you will need to change the username, password, and security token to fit your specifications (changes needed are highlighted in red). This code will fetch records from the Account object and post raw output on the screen.

test.rb

 1 require 'rubygems'

 2 gem 'soap4r'

 3 require 'soap/soap'

 4 require 'defaultDriver'

 5 require 'client_auth_header_handler'

 6 require 'soap/wsdlDriver'

 7

 8

 9 d = Soap.new

10 d.wiredump_dev = STDOUT

11

12 h = ClientAuthHeaderHandler.new         

# Create a new handler

13

14 l = d.login(:username => "USERNAME", :password => "PASSWORD" + "SECURITY_TOKEN")

15

16 d.endpoint_url = l.result.serverUrl       

# Change the endpoint to what login tells us it should be

17 h.sessionid = l.result.sessionId            

# Tell the header handler what the session id is

18 d.headerhandler << h                         

# Add the header handler to the Array of headerhandlers

19

20 d.getUserInfo("")  

21 d.query(:queryString=> "select id,name from account")

defaultDriver and client_auth_header_handler (the code from above) are assumed to be in the current directory.

As always you are going to want to test the code. Do this by going to the Ruby console, then the 'sfdc' folder and input the following command:

ruby test.rb

If you run into errors you are going to have look at more API calls in the API docs....which kind of drives me crazy. But sometimes that what it takes when learning new languages.

Next post we will start exploring Ruby and RoR.

Ruby and Salesforce Integration

With the announcement that Salesforce acquired the cloud platform Heroku I had to take a more vested interest in Ruby. Though I was aware of the capabilities of Ruby I would definitely consider myself a newbie with this type of programming. In order to jump on the bandwagon I started an extensive Ruby programming class which will allow me to build my skill set over the next couple of months.

That being said learning Ruby is great and all but the key is using it within the Salesforce platform. The next couple of posts will describe how we will use SOAP to integrate Ruby and Salesforce.

-First you need to install Ruby.  InstantRails 2.0 is radical.

-Access your developer account. Go to Setup->Develop->API then choose "enterprise.wsdl" and save it. Here is an example:

D:\RubyRails\rails_apps\sfdc\enterprise.xml

-Open the Ruby console and then install ‘SOAP4R’ by using this command:

gem install soap4r

You may get an error after running this command that reads "Errno::EADDRNOTAVAIL". This will happen if your Ruby gems are outdated. This is a simple problem to fix by going to the following site:

http://rubygems.org/pages/download  

-After downloading the gems send them to a directory. You can then access that directory from the command line.

-Install the gems with the following command:

ruby setup.rb

At this point everything should be properly installed and you should not run into any errors. Go to the directory where you saved the ‘enterprise.xml’ and use the following command:

ruby wsdl2ruby.rb --wsdl D:\RubyRails\rails_apps\sfdc\enterprise.xml --type client –force

If everything goes well there should be four new files in your Salesforce directory. First step is complete! Next post we will use a code generated from Andrew’s (Super-size) Interwebdiary to generate an easy login function.

Till then fingers crossed the Jets get smashed by the Steelers this weekend.

Visualforce Controllers

The holidays are officially over and now that I have had a few days to recuperate it’s time to get back to work. The application we have been creating is pretty much ready to go… Go back to the Scheduled Invoices tab, and create a new invoice with an effective date two months in the past. Set the Duration to six months; fill out the remaining fields, and click "Save." Mark one of your pending payments as paid and you should now see three lists of payments: Past Due, Pending, and Paid. Granted this application is quite simple…but it was completed in a fraction of time and cost it would take for a traditional application.

So now that the first series of posts have been completed I wanted to jump into Visualforce Controllers. If you remember from previous entries a major component of how our application was rendered was through the use of Visualforce pages. Well a Controller is just Apex Code that analyzes and writes data in the force.com database. Also I need to make sure my blog is longer than a paragraph.

When working with Salesforce it is often required that you will need to display data from the force.com database or even insert data in database variables. Controllers can do these sorts of tasks much more quickly. There are two methods of the Controller that interact with the database variables. The ‘Getter’ method takes the value of the variables and displays it on the Visualforce page. The “Setter” method allows the developer to change the value of the variable using different Visualforce components. These methods operate similarly to the Getter and Setter methods in Java and C++.

A nice thing about the force.com platform is that it provides Standard Controllers, which are basic default controller that have already been implemented.  Though somewhat limited in functionality, you can perform certain changes to the native interface like editing records. Also you can use Apex classes to customize the controller.

My preferred method to the aforementioned Controllers is to create a Custom Controller that is completely user defined. The following is an example of a basic Custom Controller:

Page Code:

<apex:page controller="MyController">
   <apex:form>
         Name: <apex:inputText value="{!name}"/>
        <apex: outputText value="{!mssg}"/>
        <apex:commandLink action="{!Display}" value="Show Message" />
   </apex:form>
</apex:page>

MyController Code:

public class MyController{

      public String name {get ; set;}
      public String mssg {get ; set;}
      public PageReference Display() {
           mssg=’Time To Be Awesome’ + name;
           return null;
      }
}

Awesome!

Workflow Actions

Let me apologize now for the extended duration between this post and my last, Dreamforce took over my life the last two weeks. That being said it was great to meet all my clients face-to-face and I even signed on to do a few non-profit projects in my free time. I correlate this success to finally having some nice K2 Partnering business cards.

Our last course of action for the object is to add Workflow Actions, which is a fairly simple process. Click ‘Add Workflow Action’ and select ‘New Field Update’. We want to make the name ‘Mark Payment Past Due’ and change the field from update to ‘Status’. Finally we need to change the Picklist Options to ‘Past Due’ and hit ‘Save’.

There is one last important thing we need to cover before we can finally say we are done. An immediate action needs to take place that marks a payment as past due if an employee creates an invoice with the effective date in the past. Begin by again clicking ‘Add Workflow Action’ and then ‘Select Existing Action’. Finally change the choose action type drop-down to ‘Field Update’; then go to the Selected Actions list an add the ‘Mark Payment Past Due’ action. Click ‘Save’ and then ‘Done’.  

Finally it is very important that you click the ‘Activate’ link next to the newly created workflow rule, or it will remain dormant and all this work would have gone to waste. Pat yourself on the back…the application is complete. This is just like winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

We will wrap everything up in the next post.

Workflow Rules

When we left off last week our next step was to add functionality to the object that would automatically mark overdue payments. This is done by using the SFDC workflow engine, and more specifically workflow rules. Workflow rules allow the end user to initiate actions based on new records entered, field updates, or even the passage of time. When one of these rules is triggered it can create tasks on Salesforce and assign them to the end user or automatically update field values, send email alerts, and send outbound XML messages.

For our particular object we are going to create a workflow rule that will mark a payment as past due once it has exceeded its due date and has a status of pending. An important thing to remember if you are using a new system is that you will have to set-up a default workflow user. You can set yourself up as the default workflow user by going to

‘Set-Up’, then ‘Customize’, then ‘Workflows & Approvals’, and finally ‘Settings’. Utilize the lookup button next to the ‘Default Workflow User’ field and set yourself up and click ‘Save’.

Once the user is established go to ‘Workflow Rules’ under the ‘Workflows & Approvals’ tab and click ‘New Rule’. Select our Scheduled Payment object and hit ‘Next’. Make the rule name “Schedule Payment – Process Past Due”. Leave the evaluation criteria as the default but add the following new ‘Rules Criteria’:

-         Scheduled Payment: Status Equals Pending

-         Scheduled Payment: Due Date less than TODAY

Click ‘Save’ and hit ‘Next’. Following all of this the workflow actions screen should appear. Basically this screen allows you to set up an action, most likely a field update, to our particular trigger. Initiate this by clicking ‘Add time trigger’, set the time to zero hours after Scheduled Payment: Due Date and click ‘Save’. The following is an example of what the screen should look like:

We will add Workflow Actions in the next post. Until then everyone should go run off all the food you ate this weekend…or at least try. I need to lose the 10 pounds I gained on Thanksgiving.

Creating the Default View

I might attempt to write two posts in the next three days primarily due to the fact that Thanksgiving is coming up. I’m sure that I will be living in the local bars over the long weekend. If you spot me at First & Main, Old Pro, Blue Chalk, or Nola’s I’ll be sure to buy you a beer…or five.

When we left off we wanted to assign the page we created as the default view for the Scheduled Invoice object. Begin by going to the custom object definition for the Scheduled Invoice object and click ‘Setup’, then ‘Build’, then ‘Objects’ and scroll down to the ‘Standard Buttons and Links’ section. We can change the default view by clicking the ‘Override’ link next to ‘View’. The last step is to change the Content Type to ‘Page’ and the Content Name to ‘Scheduled Invoice View’. After hitting ‘Save’ we should have the following Visualforce page:

We need to go the Scheduled Invoice tab to open to invoice we created. Below the detail header there will be a ‘Paid Payments’ section that outlines the list of paid payments, their due dates, and their amounts. Test this page by creating a new invoice and marking a few of the payments as paid.

In the next post we will add a remarkable functionality to the object that will automatically mark overdue payments.

Utilizing Visualforce Pages

Ok let’s just get into this….we have completed testing our Apex Triggers and now we are going to use Visualforce pages to fix the display and usability issues we have encountered by creating the presentation page for the Scheduled Invoice object. In case you forgot, in my previous posts I mentioned that Visualforce follows the MVC (Model View Controller) paradigm. Hence the VF pages provide tight integration with the Salesforce database. Visualforce pages are made up of components (custom or already available). These components basically render HTML tags when called from the browser. Once the VF pages are constructed and saved in the Salesforce servers the users can access those pages using URL links in the browser.  When a call is made to the Salesforce servers for those pages, the VF tags are rendered as HTML tags instead and an HTML page is displayed at the browser.

The new page we are creating will display the scheduled payments from the Scheduled Invoice object in three separate lists: ‘Pending’, ‘Past Due’, and ‘Paid’. Payment lists that have no entries (i.e. no past due payments) will be hidden on the page. This will allow us to mark the payment as ‘Paid’ straight from the invoice screen. 

The step we are going over in this post is creating the controller class. We are building this class for the Visualforce page to override the standard view of the Scheduled Invoice object. This will the end users to mark payments as paid with a single click and separate payments into groups by status (Pending, Past Due, and Paid). Begin by going to ‘Setup’, then ‘Build’, and finally ‘Code’. This controller class uses the standard Apex Code with methods that are captured from our Visualforce page. Click the ‘New’ button to create the new class and then insert the following code into the body of the class:

public class ScheduledInvoiceControllerExtension
{
    // Store a constant reference to the page's underlying
    // Scheduled_Invoice__c object. The reference is set in
    // the constructor.
    private final Scheduled_Invoice__c cInvoice;
    // Categorized lists of the scheduled payments.
    private List<Scheduled_Payment__c> pastDuePayments =
        new List<Scheduled_Payment__c>();
    private List<Scheduled_Payment__c> pendingPayments =
        new List<Scheduled_Payment__c>();
    private List<Scheduled_Payment__c> paidPayments =
        new List<Scheduled_Payment__c>();
    // This controller is being written as an extension to the
    // standard system controller for the custom object so
    // you can utilize all the standard functionality without
    // having to re-write it. The parameter being passed in
    // is a reference to the standard controller, which you'll
    // use to get a reference to underlying invoice being
    // displayed by the page.
    public ScheduledInvoiceControllerExtension(
        ApexPages.StandardController controller )
    {
        // Get the reference to the current invoice.
        cInvoice = (Scheduled_Invoice__c)controller.getSubject();
        // Load the list of scheduled payments for this invoice.
        loadScheduledPayments();
    }
    // Load the scheduled payments from Salesforce.com and then
    // break them out into categorized lists for use in the page.
    private void loadScheduledPayments()
    {
        List<Scheduled_Payment__c> payments;
        // Load all payments for the current invoice from Salesforce.com.
        // SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) statements are wrapped
        // in brackets and can return either an array/list of objects or
        // a single object and variables can be passed into the query by
        // prepending them with a colon.
        payments = [SELECT Id, Name, Status__c, Amount_Due__c,
            Due_Date__c FROM Scheduled_Payment__c
            WHERE Invoice__c = :cInvoice.Id
            ORDER BY Due_Date__c ASC];
        // Split the payment list into categorized list by status.
        for ( Scheduled_Payment__c payment : payments )
        {
            if ( payment.Status__c == 'Pending' )
            {
                pendingPayments.add( payment );
            }
            else if ( payment.Status__c == 'Paid' )
            {
                paidPayments.add( payment );
            }
            else if ( payment.Status__c == 'Past Due' )
            {
                pastDuePayments.add( payment );
            }
        }
    }
    // This method is used by the page to retrieve the pending payments.
    public List<Scheduled_Payment__c> getPendingPayments()
    {
        return pendingPayments;
    }
    // This method is used by the page to retrieve the paid payments.
    public List<Scheduled_Payment__c> getPaidPayments()
    {
        return paidPayments;
    }
    // This method is used by the page to retrieve the past due payments.
    public List<Scheduled_Payment__c> getPastDuePayments()
    {
        return pastDuePayments;
    }
    // This method pulls the parameter paymentId from the
    // the current page and then marks that payment as paid
    // and causes the page to be reloaded.
    // The paymentId parameter is set by the apex:param element
    // of the apex:commandLink element and represents the ID
    // of the payment associated with the row of the commandLink
    // that was clicked to call this method.
    public PageReference markPaymentPaid()
    {
        // Get a reference to the current page.
        PageReference curPage = System.currentPageReference();
        Id paymentId = curPage.getParameters().get( 'paymentId' );
        Scheduled_Payment__c payment;
        // You're creating a new payment object in code, but since
        // you provide it with an ID and then use a database update
        // call it's only updating the existing payment in the
        // database, not creating a new one.
        payment = new Scheduled_Payment__c( Id = paymentId,
            Status__c = 'Paid' );
        Database.update( payment );
        // This creates a new page reference to the invoice you're
        // currently looking at, causing the page to be reloaded
        // when this method returns.
        return new PageReference( '/' + cInvoice.Id );
    }
}


With our controller in place our next course of action is to actually build the page. Once again start by going to ‘Setup’, then ‘Build’, then ‘Page’ and hit ‘New’. Set the label to "Scheduled Invoice View" and the name to "Scheduled_Invoice_View". Finish by replacing the default code with the following:

<!-- When defining the page you can either reference the    -->
<!-- standardController for an object (such as the invoice  -->
<!-- object) or a completely custom controller. If you      -->
<!-- reference the standard controller you can also specify -->
<!-- extensions to that controller, such as the extension   -->
<!-- class.                                                -->
<apex:page standardController="Scheduled_Invoice__c"
  extensions="ScheduledInvoiceControllerExtension" cache="false">
<!-- Here you include the detail section of the object, also      -->
<!-- referred to as the header, without including the related      -->
<!-- lists. This allows you to include insert code between the    -->
<!-- object's header and it's related list sections. That's      -->
<!-- where you'll place the payment lists. The detail section     -->
<!-- of the object will display the object as you have configured -->
<!-- its page layout. Including it in this manner allows this    -->
<!-- page to be maintained primarily from the page layout screen  -->
<!-- rather than having to modify code here.                     -->
  <apex:detail relatedList="false"/>
<!-- The payments form will include three lists of payments -->
<!-- grouped by status.                                   -->
  <apex:form id="paymentsForm">
<!-- This pageBlock section creates a section on the screen that -->
<!-- utilizes Salesforce.com's standard page block look and feel -->
<!-- and uses the custom style you've chosen for your tab.      -->
<!-- Each payment list group is in it's own page block.         -->
    <apex:pageBlock id="pastDueBlock" title="Past Due Payments">
  
<!-- DataTable tags create an HTML table based on data from your   -->
<!-- controller class. The value tag specifies the data that is   -->
<!-- to be retrieved from the controller. The value specified     -->
<!-- below {!PastDuePayments} instructs the page to call the       -->
<!-- getPastDuePayments() method in your controller (or extension) -->
<!-- class. It expects a List or Array as a return value and then -->
<!-- loops through the list creating a row for each entry. The    -->
<!-- var tag is the name to be used for the object containing the  -->
<!-- current row's data and is used by the column elements within  -->
<!-- the table.
<!-- -->
<!-- The CSS styles classes utilized below are predefined          -->
<!-- and more information can be located on the Apex Developer     -->
<!-- network.                                                     -->
      <apex:dataTable width="80%" value="{!PastDuePayments}"
        var="payment" id="pastDueTable" headerClass="headerRow"
        rowClasses="dataRow" styleClass="list">
<!-- This column contains both a facet and a commandLink. The      -->
<!-- facet determines how the column is displayed depending on       -->
<!-- which portion of the table is being rendered. In this case    -->
<!-- the facet provides the display value for the column's header. -->
<!-- -->
<!-- The commandLink in this column displays a link with the label   -->
<!-- "Mark Paid" and executes the markPaymentPaid() method in the    -->
<!-- controller extension. It also contains an apex:param child     -->
<!-- element that sets the page parameter "paymentId" to the Id      -->
<!-- of the scheduled payment object used when rendering the current -->
<!-- row.                                                           -->
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Action</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:commandLink style="font-weight: bold"
            action="{!markPaymentPaid}" value="Mark Paid">
            <apex:param name="paymentId" value="{!payment.Id}"/>
          </apex:commandLink>
        </apex:column>
<!-- The next two columns use an apex:outputField tag to output -->
<!-- properties of the current object for the row when looping  -->
<!-- through the list the table is based on. It also takes     -->
<!-- the display properties of the underlying object's field    -->
<!-- into account when generating the output, using             -->
<!-- localization where necessary.                             -->
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Due Date</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:outputField value="{!payment.Due_Date__c}"/>
        </apex:column>
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Amount Due</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:outputField value="{!payment.Amount_Due__c}"/>
        </apex:column>
      </apex:dataTable>
    </apex:pageBlock>
<!-- This section is the same as the above section, but displays -->
<!-- pending payments only.                                     -->
    <apex:pageBlock id="pendingBlock" title="Pending Payments">
      <apex:dataTable width="80%" value="{!PendingPayments}"
        var="payment" id="pendingTable" headerClass="headerRow"
        rowClasses="dataRow" styleClass="list">
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Action</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:commandLink style="font-weight: bold"
            action="{!markPaymentPaid}" value="Mark Paid">
            <apex:param name="paymentId" value="{!payment.Id}"/>
          </apex:commandLink>
        </apex:column>
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Due Date</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:outputField value="{!payment.Due_Date__c}"/>
        </apex:column>
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Amount Due</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:outputField value="{!payment.Amount_Due__c}"/>
        </apex:column>
      </apex:dataTable>
    </apex:pageBlock>
    
<!-- This section is the same as the above two sections, but -->
<!-- only displays Paid payments and does not have an Action -->
<!-- column since there's no need for it.                   -->
    <apex:pageBlock id="paidBlock" title="Paid Payments">
      <apex:dataTable width="80%" value="{!PaidPayments}"
        var="payment" id="paidTable" headerClass="headerRow"
        rowClasses="dataRow" styleClass="list">
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Due Date</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:outputField value="{!payment.Due_Date__c}"/>
        </apex:column>
        <apex:column>
          <apex:facet name="header"><b>Amount Due</b></apex:facet>
          <apex:outputField value="{!payment.Amount_Due__c}"/>
        </apex:column>
      </apex:dataTable>
    </apex:pageBlock>
  </apex:form>


We will begin the last step of making the page the default display for the  Scheduled Invoice object in the next post.