API Series: Metadata API October 02, 2013

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Speakers

Raj Chowhan Sr. Technical Solution Architect @rajanchowhan

Srinivasan Thirumalai Technical Solution Architect

@srinithirumalai 

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Agenda

§  What is the API?

§  How can I access it?

§  ANT: The what, where and how?

§  Version Control

§  Continuous Integration

§  Build Pipelines

§  New Features

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Change: Needed but Often Feared

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20408885@N03/3570184759

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The Metadata Home

Accounts Contacts Products

Custom Object Custom Code

Custom Fields Custom Workflows

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What is the API?

§  Text-based (XML) version of an org

§  ALL Most tools use the metadata API –  See last slide on the Tooling API!

§  SOAP based and Asynchronous (poll for updates)

§  File and CRUD calls –  File-based = Deploy(), Retrieve()

–  CRUD based = more granular

§  Not complete but getting closer on every release!

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Metadata API Nouns

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What is Metadata?

Create your database

tables

Define schema

attributes

Create new database

fields

<CustomObject xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata"> <label>PTORequest</label> <pluralLabel>PTORequests</pluralLabel> <nameField> <label>PTORequest Name</label> <type>Text</type> </nameField> <sharingModel>ReadWrite</sharingModel> <fields> <fullName>StartDate__c</fullName> <label>Start Date</label> <type>Date</type> </fields> <fields> <fullName>Duration__c</fullName> <label>Duration</label> <type>Number</type> <precision>2</precision> </fields> <deploymentStatus>Deployed</deploymentStatus> </CustomObject>

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Deploy() "ow

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Demo 1: Deploy using ANT

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Deployment Tools

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Change Sets Upload, Deploy

Packaging Upload, Install

Metadata API Retrieve, Deploy

Force Migration Tool C:\

ISV Friendly

IT Friendly

Tools built on top of tools

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Force.com IDE (Eclipse) 1. Choose file(s) and deploy

2. Credentials

3. Backup destination incase you need to rollback!

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Force.com IDE (Eclipse)

3. IDE works out the differences (new additions versus overwrite)

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Pros

§  Single place for developers

§  Can easily traverse metadata #les

§  Automatic package.xml generation

Cons

§  No automation

§  Hard to govern when/what changes

§  Can become tedious for repeated deployment retries

§  Does not run tests between sandboxes

§  Must migrate whole objects versus individual #elds, rules etc

Force.com IDE (Eclipse)

Summary Good for smaller teams where the developer and release manager role are the same person. Useful for small changes between sandboxes.

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Change Sets

§  When you want to send customizations from your current organization to another organization, you create an outbound change set. Once you send the change set, the receiving organization sees it as an inbound change set.

§  Sending a change set between two organizations requires a deployment connection.

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Pros

§  Non-developer skillset

§  Simple, declarative interface

§  Handles dependencies

§  History of migration maintained in org itself

Cons

§  No automation

§  Does not run tests between sandboxes

§  Cannot modify change sets, must create new

§  Does not scale well.

Change Sets

Summary Smaller orgs with non-developer skillset. More configuration than code in the org. Migrating single items (fields) is easier.

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ANT Migration Tool

§  Java/Ant-based command-line utility

§  ANT “tasks” wrap the metadata API calls for ease of use. Also has pre-built tasks for source control systems

§  Build automation tools can call ANT scripts

§  Three #les the are important –  package.xml

–  build.xml

–  build.properties

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ANT Migration Tool: What?, How?, Where?,

§  package.xml = What to deploy

§  build.xml = How to deploy. Called by ANT to orchestrate e.g. checkout, deploy

§  build.properties = Where. best practice to use properties #le for variables like username, password, instance

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Files build.xml

package.xml build.properties

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Pros §  Can be integrated into

automated test/build systems

§  Integration to source control

§  Run tests between sandboxes

Cons §  Overhead to setup initially

§  Requires developer skillset

§  Still limited my metadata API, so still some manual tasks

ANT Migration Tool

Summary Enterprises with existing build/release management infrastructure. Overlap with .net/java/ruby best practices around automation and continuous integration

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Source Control

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Source Control

§  AKA version control system, revision control §  Track changes to SFDC metadata §  SFDC has no native source control integration (org ->

source control) §  Most systems allow multiple developers opening the

same #le (merge later vs #le locks) §  2 main "avors

–  Centralized (client/server): Subversion, perforce –  Distributed (peer-to-peer): Git, Mecurial

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Demo 2: Connect a subversion repository

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Continuous Integration

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Continuous Integration

§  Continuous Integration (CI) is a technique used to quickly identify the many issues that arise when integrating code. Code repositories and build servers are core components.

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Jenkins

§  Open Source continuous integration tool

§  Easy installation using java .war #le

§  Pre-built connectors to source control systems

§  Test framework support (UI tests, Coding Standards etc)

§  300+ plugins! Incluing Jenkins2Chatter! https://github.com/superfell/HudsonChatterPlugin

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Demo 3: Continuous Integration Demo

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Build Pipelines

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Build Pipelines

§  An automated implementation of your system’s build, deploy, test, release process

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Build Pipeline

Production Instance

Full (E-Releases)

QA

legend

Training Dev QA Fix

Innovation

Rollup

Major Release Path

Integrate changes Emergency Releases

Pulls

Sprint 1

Sprint 1

Sprint 2 Fix 1 Fix 1

Fix 1 Sprint 1 Sprint 2

Sprint 3

Innovation

Innovation Sprint 2 Sprint3 +

Innovation

Sprint 4

live

full copy

Developer PRO, test data

Developer PRO, training data

developer

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Demo 4: Deployment between environments

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New Features

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Faster Deploys to Production (Pilot)

Only Run Specified Tests Must Cover Code Changes 75% Coverage Per Class Force.com Migration Tool

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Smart User Matching on Deploy

AFTER me@myco.com = me@myco.com.dev = me@myco.com.full

BEFORE me@myco.com != me@myco.com.dev != me@myco.com.full

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Tooling API §  The Tooling API is designed for developing user interface

tools to interact with the development artifacts in orgs.

§  It can be accessed via SOAP and ReST

§  Developer Console is largely built on the tooling API

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Summary

§  The API and its characteristics

§  The tools to access it

Crawl Walk Run Fly!

ANT Source Control

Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery

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Resources

§  Metadata API Developer's Guide §  http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta

§  Force.com Migration Tool Guide §  http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/daas/index.htm

§  Jenkins §  http://jenkins-ci.org/

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Q&A

Raj Chowhan Sr. Technical Solution Architect @rajanchowhan

Srinivasan Thirumalai Technical Solution Architect

@srinithirumalai