Salesforce Developer

Salesforce Developer is a community skill for building on the Salesforce platform, covering Apex development, Lightning Web Components, SOQL queries, trigger patterns, and integration strategies for Salesforce customization.

What Is This?

Overview

Salesforce Developer provides guidance for building custom functionality on the Salesforce platform. It covers Apex development that writes server-side logic using Salesforce's proprietary language with governor limit awareness, Lightning Web Components that builds modern UI components using web standards with the Lightning data service, SOQL queries that constructs efficient queries with relationship traversal and aggregate functions, trigger patterns that implements bulkified trigger handlers following the one-trigger-per-object pattern, and integration strategies that connects Salesforce with external systems through REST, SOAP, and platform events. The skill helps developers build on Salesforce effectively.

Who Should Use This

This skill serves Salesforce developers building custom business logic and UI components, administrators extending platform capabilities with code, and integration engineers connecting Salesforce to external systems.

Why Use It?

Problems It Solves

Salesforce governor limits restrict SOQL queries, DML operations, and CPU time requiring careful code optimization. Trigger execution order and recursion create unexpected behavior without proper handler patterns. Lightning Web Components require understanding the component lifecycle and data binding patterns specific to the platform. Integrating external systems with Salesforce requires handling callout limits and asynchronous processing.

Core Highlights

Apex builder writes bulkified server-side logic within governor limits. LWC creator builds reactive UI components with Lightning data service. Query optimizer constructs efficient SOQL with relationship patterns. Trigger handler implements the one-trigger-per-object best practice.

How to Use It?

Basic Usage

// Apex trigger handler
public class AccountHandler {
  public static void
    beforeInsert(
      List<Account> accts
  ) {
    Set<String> domains =
      new Set<String>();
    for (Account a : accts)
    {
      if (a.Website != null)
        domains.add(
          a.Website);
    }

    Map<String, Account>
      existing = new Map<
        String, Account>();
    for (Account a : [
      SELECT Id, Website
      FROM Account
      WHERE Website
        IN :domains
    ]) {
      existing.put(
        a.Website, a);
    }

    for (Account a : accts)
    {
      if (existing
        .containsKey(
          a.Website)) {
        a.addError(
          'Duplicate '
          + 'website');
      }
    }
  }
}

// Trigger
trigger AccountTrigger
  on Account (
    before insert
) {
  AccountHandler
    .beforeInsert(
      Trigger.new);
}

Real-World Examples

// Lightning Web Component
import { LightningElement,
  wire } from 'lwc';
import getAccounts
  from '@salesforce/apex/'
  + 'AccountCtrl.getAccounts';

export default class
  AccountList extends
    LightningElement {
  searchKey = '';
  accounts;
  error;

  @wire(getAccounts, {
    searchKey:
      '$searchKey'
  })
  wiredAccounts({
    error, data
  }) {
    if (data) {
      this.accounts = data;
      this.error =
        undefined;
    } else if (error) {
      this.error = error;
      this.accounts =
        undefined;
    }
  }

  handleSearch(event) {
    this.searchKey =
      event.target.value;
  }
}

Advanced Tips

Bulkify all Apex code by processing collections rather than individual records to stay within governor limits. Use platform events for asynchronous communication between Salesforce and external systems. Cache SOQL results when the same query runs multiple times within a transaction.

When to Use It?

Use Cases

Build a bulkified trigger handler that validates accounts against duplicate website domains. Create a Lightning Web Component that searches and displays account records reactively. Integrate Salesforce with an external ERP system using REST callouts.

Related Topics

Salesforce, Apex, Lightning Web Components, SOQL, triggers, platform development, and CRM customization.

Important Notes

Requirements

Salesforce developer org or sandbox environment for development and testing. Salesforce CLI installed and configured for deployment, metadata management, and source tracking. Knowledge of Apex language syntax, Salesforce object model, and platform governor limits for effective development.

Usage Recommendations

Do: write bulkified code that handles 200 records per trigger execution to respect governor limits. Use the one-trigger-per-object pattern with handler classes for maintainable trigger logic. Test with bulk data loads to verify governor limit compliance.

Don't: write SOQL queries inside loops since this quickly hits the 100-query governor limit. Perform DML operations on individual records when batch processing is available. Deploy triggers without adequate test coverage since Salesforce requires minimum code coverage for production deployments.

Limitations

Governor limits restrict the resources available per transaction requiring careful code optimization patterns unique to the Salesforce platform. Platform-specific languages and frameworks like Apex and Lightning limit code portability outside the Salesforce ecosystem. Some advanced customizations require managed packages or AppExchange solutions that are not achievable through custom code alone.