Perspectives on Salesforce.com

Version 1.2.1 of Arrowpointe Maps was just released. You can read about all the improvements on the Change History page.

The changes most applicable to end users are:

• Search Nearby now includes the ability to start from an arbitrary address.  The Other Tools section of the front page now has a “Search Nearby” link.  This link will let you search for a Lead, Account or Contact or you can manually enter an address.  When in the midst of a Search Nearby process, clicking the Start Over button will also bring you to this page.
• You can now assign specific icons/colors to your Data Sets.  Edit your Data Set and select a Data Set Image.  You can see the image used for each Data Set by viewing your list of Data Sets in the Admin Area of the application.
• The Company/Account Name is automatically included for Lead/Contact Search Nearby searches.
• The first 3 fields configured for a Data Set will now appear in the table of results.  All configured fields still appear in the map marker bubble on the map.
• Search Nearby queries now allow you to use decimal amounts for a range (e.g. 0.25 miles)
• Number fields on Map Pages now accept decimal amounts.
• You can now see a list of the records that failed to map.  On a result set, you currently see something like “29 of 30 records successfully mapped”.  If there is an errored record, a link that says “Show Unmappable Records” will appear and you can click it to see a list of the records that did not map properly.
• The Color Markers By parameter now saves with each Map Report run and will be automatically set for users when that report is mapped the next time.
• The Language and Unit of Measure (miles vs. kilometers) on the Routing screen are now saved as a user preference.
• The last Data Set, Range and Unit of Measure (miles vs. kilometers) used in a Search Nearby query are now saved as a user preference.
• Improved performance on the initial load of the Routing screen.  This improvement also fixes the issue with IE6 and its sporadic inability to load routed records.

NOTE: This upgrade was automatically completed for all users.  It does not require any changes to the AppExchange installation.

About Arrowpointe Maps

Arrowpointe Maps is an on-demand mapping platform that facilitates a conversation between Salesforce.com & MapQuest allowing for easy deployment of mapping capabilities in your organization and providing end-users a simple means for mapping their data. Arrowpointe Maps is configurable and can be tailored to your organization, so that your users can work with their information in a meaningful way.

The official location for information on Arrowpointe Maps is its product page at http://www.arrowpointe.com/maps. There, you will find answers to the most frequently asked questions, screencasts and links to its AppExchange page.

About a year ago, I posted about the Sidebar Summary.  The Sidebar Summary exists in the Salesforce.com sidebar and displays the counts of some important queries.  The counts are also hyperlinks to a view or report representing that query.  It’s a very handy thing to have in your sidebar and I use it all the time for my own work.  However, because it’s an s-Control, it runs a little slow.  In fact, it ran slow enough to make me uncheck the user interface option “Show Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages”.

I changed it into a Visualforce page with a custom Apex controller and now it runs super fast and I am able to keep the “Show Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages” option turned on and see it on every page I go to.  There’s a bit of hardcoding in here, but it gets the job done pretty well.  Bye bye s-Control.

Visualforce

The Page is almost all raw HTML.  The only dynamic thing in there are the count values.  Each one retrieves the value from a specific “get” method in the controller.  If you like the queries I use, then the only thing you’ll need to confirm are the URLs that get linked to.  The first 2 go to Views in my Org and the last 2 go to Reports in my Org.  You’ll need to change those URLs.

I named the VF Page “SidebarSummary”.

<apex:page controller="VFController_Sidebar_Summary" sidebar="false" showHeader="false" standardStylesheets="true">
<style type="text/css" media="all">
body{margin: 0; padding: 0; color: #000000; background-color: #E8E8E8;}
#DIV_Container {background-color: #F3F3EC;}
</style>
<div id="DIV_Container">
<table>
<tr><td><em>Unread Leads</em>:  </td><td><a href="/00Q?fcf=00B30000005JhsT" target="_parent"><b>{!UnreadLeads}</b></a></td></tr>
<tr><td><em>Leads - Not Contacted</em>:  </td><td><a href="/00Q?fcf=00B30000005Jhru" target="_parent"><b>{!NotContactedLeads}</b></a></td></tr>
<tr><td><em>Oppty - Next 30 Days</em>:  </td><td><a href="/00O30000001aEHV" target="_parent"><b>{!Next30DayOppty}</b></a></td></tr>
<tr><td><em>Oppty - Past Due</em>:  </td><td><a href="/00O30000001aEHV" target="_parent"><b>{!PastDueOppty}</b></a></td></tr>
</table>
</div>
</apex:page>

Apex

The controller has a method for each query to be run.  Each query is a count() query and returns an Integer.  At the end is a really lame Test method, but it does get 100% of the code covered.  I am certain the code works, so I didn’t do too much with the Test method.  Salesforce just requires the code to be tested.

public class VFController_Sidebar_Summary {

public Integer getUnreadLeads() {
return [
select count() from Lead
where IsConverted = False
AND IsUnreadByOwner = TRUE
];
}

public Integer getNotContactedLeads() {
return [
select count() from Lead
where IsConverted = False
AND Status = 'Open - Not Contacted'
];
}

public Integer getNext30DayOppty() {
return [
select count() from Opportunity
where IsClosed = False
AND (CloseDate = Next_N_DAYS:30 OR CloseDate = TODAY)
];
}

public Integer getPastDueOppty() {
return [
select count() from Opportunity
where IsClosed = False
AND CloseDate < TODAY
&#93;;
}

static testMethod void testVFController_Sidebar_Summary() {
Test.setCurrentPageReference(new PageReference('Page.SidebarSummary'));
VFController_Sidebar_Summary controller = new VFController_Sidebar_Summary();
Integer i1 = controller.getUnreadLeads();
Integer i2 = controller.getNotContactedLeads();
Integer i3 = controller.getNext30DayOppty();
Integer i4 = controller.getPastDueOppty();
}

}

&#91;/sourcecode&#93;

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Homepage HTML Component</strong></span>

I created a component for the Narrow side and put the following HTML into the editor.  Essentially, you create an IFRAME and embed the VF page into it.  I found a (unsupported) trick on the forums to remove the developer bar from a page.  Just add <strong>?core.apexpages.devmode.url=1</strong> to the URL.  This will turn off development mode when that page is rendered.  This is important for this little iFrame page on the sidebar.  From what I've gathered, this hack is not supported and could change at any time.

The code below should work for you.  The only thing you might need to change is the Page URL if you didn't name your page SidebarSummary and the height of it.



<iframe src="/apex/SidebarSummary?core.apexpages.devmode.url=1" frameborder="0" height="100" width="100%"></iframe>

Let me know what you think.

Auto vCard usage continues to grow. The script received a high of 7425 hits in May 2008 only to drop off in June and July.  If history is an indication, it should pick up again this month.

The stats through July 2008 are below:

Auto vCard consists of 2 custom buttons (one each for Leads and Contacts) that allow you to create a vCard file for a specific record.  In other words, you click a button in Salesforce to save that contact/lead to Outlook or another PIM.

• Get Auto vCard from the AppExchange. It’s free.
• View the Auto vCard product page on arrowpointe.com
• Read the Auto vCard privacy policy to learn about how your information is handled in this application.

The Akismet PHP5 class I use for the Akismet Web-to-Lead Spam Check was updated.  The old version oftentimes hung as it established a session with Akismet.  No longer.  The new version is like butter.

I updated the Arrowpointe Google Code site and the latest version is in the download there.

The recent release of Arrowpointe Maps introduced functionality to perform proximity searching within Salesforce.com.  We call it “Search Nearby”.  With the click of a button from a record in Salesforce, you can search for Leads, Accounts and/or Contacts that are within a user-specified proximity.

Click the image below is see a demo of the functionality in action.

About Arrowpointe Maps

Arrowpointe Maps is an on-demand mapping platform that facilitates a conversation between Salesforce.com & MapQuest allowing for easy deployment of mapping capabilities in your organization and providing end-users a simple means for mapping their data. Arrowpointe Maps is configurable and can be tailored to your organization, so that your users can work with their information in a meaningful way.

The official location for information on Arrowpointe Maps is its product page at http://www.arrowpointe.com/maps. There, you will find answers to the most frequently asked questions, screencasts and links to its AppExchange page.