DEV Community: Abdelhakim Mouttaqui

Salesforce spring'21 Release - ISV Features

Abdelhakim Mouttaqui — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 08:49:45 +0000

In the spring'21 release, salesforce is providing some new features for their ISV partners, let's check some of them 😃

📌 Target a Specific Release

While creating a new package version you can specify preview or previous, which means you can test upcoming features, run regression tests, and support customers regardless of which release their org is on.

To create a package version based on the previous Salesforce release version, create a scratch definition file that contains:

{
   "release": "previous"
}

Next, specify the definition file when you create your package version.

sfdx force:package:version:create -f config/project-scratch-def.json

📌 Remove Metadata Components (Pilot)

In Spring'21 salesforce is piloting the functionality that will allow you to remove metadata components from the Second-Generation Managed package. This gives you the ISV partner the possibility to delete the metadata that is not needed anymore and creates confusion for the end-user.

This change applies to second-generation managed packages.

To join the pilot, log a case at https://partners.salesforce.com/partnerSupport.

📌 Monitor Packaging Operations with New API Fields

Three new fields in SOAP and Tooling API objects allow you to monitor and troubleshoot issues with push upgrades and package creation.
The PackagePushRequest and the PackagePushJob objects in SOAP API have new fields that indicate the start time, end time, and how long the push upgrade took to complete. The Package2Version object in Tooling API has a new field that indicates how long it took to create a package version.

You can also use --verbose on package:version:list or package:version:report to view BuildDurationInSeconds for a package version.

📌 Specify Unpackaged Metadata

It's possible to have metadata in your project which you can use to test the app functionality without having them included in the package.

You need to add the test metadata in a different folder and specify the path to the unpackaged metadata in your sfdx-project.json file.

"packageDirectories": [{
    "path": "force-app",
    "package": "TV_unl",
    "versionName": "ver 0.1",
    "versionNumber": "0.1.0.NEXT",
    "default": true,
    "unpackagedMetadata": {
      "path": "my-unpackaged-directory"
    }
  },
  {
    "path": "my-unpackaged-directory",
    "default": false
  }
]

📌 AppExchange App Analytics

Curious about how your subscribers interact with your solution? AppExchange App Analytics package usage logs and package usage summaries can help you getting and monitoring the data.

You can download 20 GB of AppExchange App Analytics data within a 24-hour period.

In order to get access to AppExchange App Analytics, you will have to log a case in the Salesforce Partner Community.

Package usage summaries provide high-level metrics by calendar month. Discover how many users access your package and which operations they perform.

https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.230.0.packagingGuide.meta/packagingGuide/app_analytics_intro.htm.

I hope this helps, You can find me on Twitter @abdel_force.

Salesforce spring'21 Release - Dev Features

Abdelhakim Mouttaqui — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:54:06 +0000

Salesforce's new release is fast approaching, some of you have already had a chance to experience the new features.

Let's take a few minutes to take a look at the good part of the release.

📌 Being able to select all fields using SOQL

In previous versions of SOQL, retrieving fields meant specifying all the names of all the fields you wanted to retrieve.

Well, Not Anymore 🎉🎉

📣 Now you are able to include pre-defined groupings of fields within a query statement using the new FIELDS() function.

SELECT FIELDS(ALL) FROM Account LIMIT 200
SELECT FIELDS(CUSTOM) FROM Account LIMIT 200
SELECT FIELDS(STANDARD) FROM Account

You can also mix FIELDS() with other field names in the field list. For example:

SELECT Name, Id, FIELDS(CUSTOM) FROM Account LIMIT 200
SELECT someCustomField__c, FIELDS(STANDARD) FROM Account

However, if you already know which fields you want to retrieve, you will get better performance by specifying them explicitly rather than using FIELDS() and retrieving more fields than you need.

As some of you know already, SOQL automatically pages the results if a SELECT statement returns a large amount of data that is expensive to retrieve. This can occur, for example, if the object contains many fields or contains CLOB or BLOB fields. It can also occur if FIELDS() returns a large amount of data.

And the last thing that you should know about this feature is that you should limit the result rows to be less than or equal to 200 records.

📌 Access Custom Metadata Type Records Using Static Methods

Use the Apex getAll(), getInstance(recordId), getInstance(qualifiedApiName), and getInstance(developerName) methods to retrieve information from custom metadata type records faster.

List<Games__mdt> mcs = Games__mdt.getall().values();
boolean textField = null;
if (mcs[0].GameType__c == 'PC') {
   textField = true;
}
system.assertEquals(textField, true);

📌 Flag Invocable Apex Methods That Make Callouts

I always used a future method to make a callout inside an invocable method, today I am so excited to share with you this feature.

@InvocableMethod(callout=true, label="My Action Label")

📌 Customize Markers and Control Map Behavior

You customize your map the way you want and make it look as designed, by defining the markers and controlling the behavior in the lightning-map Base Component.

<template>
   <lightning-map
       map-markers={mapMarkers}
       options={mapOptions}
   ></lightning-map>
</template>

In mapOptions, set the disableDefaultUI property, which disables zooming and removes the Map or Satellite buttons. To disable panning the map, set the draggable property.

import { LightningElement } from 'lwc';
export default class LightningExampleMapCustomMarker extends LightningElement {
   mapOptions = {
                   'disableDefaultUI': true // when true disables Map|Satellite, +|- zoom buttons
                   'draggable': false, // when false prevents panning by dragging on the map
   };
   mapMarkers = [
      {
         location: {
                      City: 'San Francisco',
                      Country: 'USA',
                      PostalCode: '94105',
                      State: 'CA',
                      Street: '425 Mission St',
                   },
          mapIcon : {
                      path: 'M 125,5 155,90 245,90 175,145 200,230 125,180 50,230 75,145 5,90 95,90 z',
                      fillColor: '#CF3476',
                      fillOpacity: .5,
                      strokeWeight: 1,
                      scale: .10,
                    }
      }
   ];
}

📌 Aura Components in the ui Namespace Are Being Deprecated

📣 Salesforce will not support the ui Namespace starting from May 1, 2021. Be sure you plan a migration as soon as possible.

some examples:

Instead of

ui:actionMenuItem

Use

 lightning:menuItem

📌 Create a Lightning Web Component Action (Pilot)

Creating quick action required us to use the Aura component for it, today Salesforce made it possible by using LWC, however, be aware that this is still a Pilot and you can not use it in production yet.

🚨🚨🚨 Advance Notice of Upcoming Retirement of Platform API Legacy Versions 🚨🚨🚨

With the Summer ’21 release, legacy versions of the Salesforce Platform API will be retired and will no longer be supported by Salesforce

SOAP API
7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 11.1, 12.0, 13.0, 14.0, 15.0, 16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0, 20.0

REST API
20.0

Bulk API
16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0, 20.0

Learn more

I highlighted the features in this blog that i think will have a big impact on the way we are developing today, if you want to see more features, please follow this link

I hope this helps, You can find me on Twitter @abdel_force.