26-10-2011

DEV 401:
Building Applications with Force.com and Visualforce

Data Management

Instructor: Parikshith
Email: madepally@gmail.com

Data Management
Exporting Data
Get insert IDs for inserts /updates
Download records for backup
Inserting Data
Load users
Load records
Updating Data
De-duplicate existing data
Introduce record types
Deleting Data
Free up space used by too much legacy data
Fix mistakes

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Record IDs
Unique identifier of a record
Analogous to a primary or foreign key field in a database table.
Salesforce creates an ID value when a new record is created
i.e a00D000005itiz
Two Formats
- 15 digits
- 18 digits
Always, ID is generated by database
Analogous to a primary or foreign key field in a database table.

Where to get Salesforce IDs

IDs may be obtained in 3 ways
URL
Report
Data loader

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Format for record IDs

Salesforce.com object IDs come in 2 forms
15 digit case sensitive form
18 digit case insensitive form
Reports & Object IDs
Reports return 15 digit IDs
Report framework does not expose IDs for all objects
Api and Object IDs
Api always returns 18-digit ID
Api will accept 15 digit or 18 digit format.

Object relationships
Relationships exist between objects, for example
All positions have an owner
Candidates are related to positions through a job application
Reviews are associated to a job application
Relationships are expressed through:
Related lists and lookups in the application
IDs (foreign keys) in the database.

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Determine the order to load data

Object relationships introduce data dependencies
Dependencies dictate the order of data load
To load Review Data, you must
-- Load users
-- Load Positions
-- Load Candidates
-- Load Job Applications
-- Load Reviews

Modifiable System fields: (Optional Feature)

What does it do ?
Allows you to set Created Date, Created By, Last modified date,
Last modified by
Useful during data migration from external systems and preserving
history
Generally these fields are read only
How do you get them ?
Contact salesforce.com

Customer support will enable

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Modifiable System fields:

Only accessible through Api
Backward compatible with all SOAP based Apis
Best Practice:
Enable for only initial data migration

Questions?