How to Build an App on Force.com

If you're curious about what it's like to build an app on Force.com, I recommend watching the video from the Force.com in Action - Fast Application Development in the Cloud session that was presented at Cloudforce London. It's an outstanding introduction to many of the services that Force.com provides to business analysts and developers for free.


If you're inspired by the session and want to get your hands dirty, the exercises in the Force.com developer workbook are a great way to get started building apps on Force.com.

The other session videos from Cloudforce London can be found here: http://www.salesforce.com/eu/cloudforce/09-london/recorded-sessions.jsp

"Zero" Creates Brilliant New Business Models

If you understand where the zero fits into the business model, then there are plenty of business models that work great.
...
It makes plenty of economic sense for certain things to be free and then the scarce goods are what you charge for. The trick is enabling a business model where the infinite goods make the scarce goods you control more valuable. This is absolutely possible for any business -- and, in fact, failing to understand how you do this will most likely doom your overall business.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090304/0051483982.shtml


One simple example of this is to use that item that "costs" zero as a promotional good for something that does not have a zero marginal cost.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061025/014811.shtml


The band No Doubt, is giving away their entire catalog of music as a download, for folks who buy certain concert tickets.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090304/1644373993.shtml

SaaS vs. On-Premise: What Did You Do This Weekend?

Here's a tweet from salesforce.com customer Jeff Grosse:

I'm glad that Salesforce.com is performing an upgrade to my CRM system tonight so I don't have to.

Compare that with Dan Blake's description of upgrading Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0:

We’ll be installing the update to the update in the CourseMax data center this weekend. It’s a pretty involved process. Here is the process we’ll go through:

• Apply the update in the sandbox
  • Since our CRM server roles are split up, we’ll have to install it four times
• Run through the test plan on all four servers
• Apply the update on the production servers
  • Six different servers this time
• Run through the test plan again on Production

... This is also why I’m not really comfortable yet with the 2 month update cycle. I like to keep current with updates but it is a lot of work. Keep in mind that this is in addition to the testing and updating we do for our own software. If we would have installed the first version of Update Rollup 2 we would have had to go through this whole process twice within a month [emphasis added].

This might be the most compelling argument for SaaS I've heard - you get to keep your weekends!

He's the DJ, I'm the Wrapper Class

A common request on the Visualforce developer board is to be able to display a selection check box next to every record in a table. Check out these two posts on the developer.force.com wiki for details on how to use a "wrapper class" to accomplish this requirement.

http://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/Checkbox_in_DataTable
http://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/Wrapper_Class

Also, be sure to check out this classic:

Cloud Connect Recap

In case you weren't able to attend Cloud Connect in person, Ryan Marples put together a great recap video from Cloud Connect.

Cloud Connect

I'm going to be at the Cloud Connect Event Tuesday - Thursday of this week. Drop by the Force.com booth and say hello if you're there as well.

Why You Must Put Your Force.com App Under Version Control

Without a version control system, your software development process will not be efficient. And that's the best case scenario - I've seen software development projects fail because version control wasn't used. As a result, I became a version control disciple.

My first experience with CVS was at university during my first major collaborative development project. Throughout the project, my team was very diligent about checking code in to CVS after every significant code change. We regularly ran integration tests and this meant that we always had an accurate understanding of our progress to date. However, it wasn’t until the last day of the project that I really learned the value of version control.

On the due date, my team was feeling calm and confident about our work. We had completed development of all the required features ahead of schedule, and we had already added a number of bonus features. The experience of the team sitting next to us in the computer cluster was a stark contrast to ours.

This other team hadn’t bothered to set up a CVS repository for the project as had been suggested by our instructor. Instead, they had used email to exchange updated code over the course of project. To make matters worse, they had waited until the day before the due date to perform their first full code integration. It was painful to watch them flail against the bugs that they kept discovering. When my team left the computer cluster that evening, it was obvious that the other team wasn't going to be able to submit their project before the midnight deadline. Since then, I’ve used a version control system for every project that’s lasted longer than a day - including projects that I've worked on alone.

I feel a sense of accomplishment every time I check additional functionality in to a project. I also enjoy peace of mind, knowing that I can always revert to an older version of code if my current development direction doesn't work out. It’s so easy to put your entire Force.com application under version control and the benefits are so great, that I can’t think of any valid reasons for not doing so. To prove how simple it is, I recently recorded a video that demonstrates adding a Force.com project to a Subversion repository in less than 90 seconds:



http://blog.sforce.com/sforce/2008/12/put-your-forcecom-app-under-version-control.html

Success Tour - Washington D.C.

If you're going to be at the D.C. Success Tour this Thursday, be sure to say hello. I will be co-presenting the "Become a Force.com App Builder" session.

Glengarry Glen-Christmas

Always
Be
Cobbling

(PG-13)

Use Visualforce and Apex to Populate PDF Forms

Does your company's business process involve filling out PDF forms? If so, check out my recent post about using Visualforce and Apex to help automate the process of populating PDF forms: Use Visualforce and Apex to Populate PDF Forms.