Perspectives on Salesforce.com

I have been delving into some new areas lately and I keep coming up with more and more functionality wishes. Some bigger than others, but I want to keep documenting them as I collect bunches of them. These are more configuration and development related.

Sorting QueryResultSets

When querying data using SOQL, you cannot perform an ORDER BY. I assume this is to protect system performance, but it’d be great if there was some way to perform sorts on your data in the API. Maybe this is having ORDER BY as a parameter in SOQL. Alternatively, there could be a sort() method that can be called once you actually have your QueryResult in memory. This method should allow you to provide a multi-column sort order.

I have seen some sorting functions on the message boards, but they are a bit over my head. It would be nice to have this built right into the product.

Configuring Partners

I echo Gokubi’s recommendation for the ability to configure the Partners object. It would be great to be able to add additional information regarding the relationship between 2 accounts.

More Description fields when configuring

It would be nice to have more areas to input a description when you are configuring. Also, when there is a description field, it’d be nice to be able to see that when viewing the data in a list. For example,

• Display the Description when listing the Fields for an object
• Include a description on the Sharing Rule page and display it when viewing Sharing Rules. Some organizations have 100s of Sharing rules and it’s hard to keep them straight sometimes. Display this field on the Sharing Rule list
• Display the Description field when listing the Profiles
• etc.

Utilize Views in more places in the Setup area

Setup Views on pages like Fields, Profiles, Sharing Rules, etc. so you could include any fields you want on there. You might have a view for Formula Fields that shows you all the formulas right there in one page. Or a Profile view that displays the profiles and all of their Tab permissions. Views exist today when Managing Users. Apply the same concept in other areas of the application so we do not have to drill into each record to see details all the time.

Where is this Public Group Used?

Publis Groups can be very useful for administering access to Reports, Dashboards, Documents, etc. However, it is difficult to know where a Public Group is being used unless you click into every folder. It’d be nice to have a view from the Public Group page to see where it is being used.

Picklists in Formula Fields

Right now, you cannot simply grab the value of a picklist field in a formula. You have to know the value you are looking for and use the ISPICKVAL function. Alternatively, you need to create a formula field for the picklist and go through every possible picklist value and output its corresponding text. This can be burdensome. There should be a way to simply reference the picklist field in a formula and use its value.

Formula Field Length

The workaround to the issue with picklist fields is to create a formula field that does an ISPICKVAL function on every possible picklist value and then outputs the equivalent text. The max formula size is 1000 characters, so sometimes you need to create multiple formula fields to accomplish this. If the Picklists in Formula Fields wish isn’t fulfilled, then the max length of a formula field should be increased.

If you build a number of s-controls that provide custom web UIs to the users, you are probably using styles for formatting the page. This is usually done within a < style > tag inside the s-control. If you have a number of s-controls that produce a similar look and feel, then you are probably copying the styles to each s-control. To change the design, you end up making changes in each s-control.

I was doing some s-control development recently and I got to thinking whether I could maintain my styles in a separate s-control and then reference that s-control like I would a CSS file. It worked! This is synonymous with maintaining a separate CSS file on your web server rather than embedding the styles within a < style > tag. This will allow you to change the styles of all of your s-controls from a single location.

An example of referencing an s-control as a CSS file is below. To reference an s-control containing your styles, simply use the the following code.

< link href="/servlet/servlet.Integration?lid={ID_OF_YOUR_CSS_S-CONTROL}” type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” >

Depending upon the amount of s-control development you do, this may or may not be necesary. But it’s a cool trick to know if you need it.

If you are developing something to upload to AppExchange for others to use, be careful going this route because the ID of the s-control you reference will be different in each Org your package gets downloaded to.

Steve at GoKubi.com has posted his wish list items that append to my own.

Last night, I mentioned that NA2 was being setup. As of this morning, all of my accounts are being routed back to NA1. I spoke a little too soon that it was actually being setup last night. It must have been a temporary thing Salesforce was working on in the evening hours.

As was announced on the forums on 4/30, Salesforce is setting up additional logical servers (NA1 will be split out into NA1, NA2, NA3 and NA4).

There seems to be work being done at this moment. All of my Developer Edition accounts now route to NA2. NA2 is not up and running yet, but my Developer Edition logins are being routed that way. I am sure there will be an announcement from Salesforce soon as to what’s taken place.

My client’s accounts still route to their original servers (NA1, EMEA, etc.), so Salesforce seems to be taking it safe on who they move to that server today.

It would have been nice to have had some warning that these accounts would be routed to NA2 today. It’s been somewhat of a disruption this evening. Not a big deal, but it’s nice to know if an account is going down. Even if it’s only a free Developer Edition account.