cloudanswers

CloudAnswers

for-everyone

For Everyone


image: /uploads/image: /uploads/image: /uploads/You need it for agreements, reminders, sending files, meeting with colleagues, and so much more.  _**Email.**_

Even though more people than ever have some form of access to your salesforce database through platform licenses, communities, etc, people still depend on emailing data for a surprising number of processes/workflows. Unfortunately, you are usually stuck with creating an email forward rule. And still don't get the data in the format you need (attached as a file).

### **[Click here to learn more about the CloudAnswers Report Sender](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EJdlFUAT&utm_source=cloudanswers_website&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=accelerate_business_with_emailed_reports&utm_content=click_here_to_learn_more)**

It can be a challenge to keep processes working with outside partners or internal employees that don't work daily in salesforce.  Also, making them login to salesforce isn't always an option. To help make your admin life easier, we put together a new app that automatically emails your reports. On a schedule you decide, to any email address, not just those people with salesforce accounts (yes, inside and outside your company).

## Here are our top 5 recipes to accelerate business processes using CloudAnswers Report Sender:

### #1 Disseminate Product Updates to Partners

Partner selling is a reality of today's hyper-connected business world but most companies don't have the time and budget to build real integrations to synchronize their product catalogs.  A survey of our largest customers found that over 90% are distributing product catalogs using emailed spreadsheets that they must extract manually and send personally. That's a huge time commitment when you scale to large numbers of partners.

**Here's how to solve this problem for free:** 1. Create a report for products that are public to partners (this might require creating a custom field like "Partner Visible") 2. Create a report filtered to those products 3. Schedule the report using [Report Sender (free app)](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EJdlFUAT&utm_source=cloudanswers_website&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=accelerate_business_with_emailed_reports&utm_content=how_to_solve_the_problem_for_free)

As an added bonus, your partner might be able to automatically load your spreadsheet into their system, making the process totally automatic for everyone involved!  Just make sure to include your product code and/or salesforce id (case-safe id) of the product so they can detect updates reliably.

### #2 Connect Teams Without Salesforce Access

Here are some common scenarios where teams might not have full access to Salesforce but can benefit immensely from being pushed selective information. Implementation teams need to know about customer service issues for their projects, but they might be working in an ERP tool.  One customer service team might be using Jira self-hosted and can't easily integrate tickets. Finance teams might want to knows what upcoming deals are likely to close this quarter so they can prepare documentation folders for complex sales.

Currently, you might have one shared read-only account everyone uses to get information, but it still requires them to log in and get information on a pull-basis that requires your business users to login, remember where to go, and hopefully find the right information.

### #3 Get rid of those users that only log in once every 3 months

Give them a daily or weekly email subscription of the information that pertains to them.

Each scenario above can usually be solved by creating scheduled reports targeted to the right individuals or mailing lists. Schedule a report of cases for a project manager's client or related product tag for a support team using an outside customer support tool.  Schedule reports of upcoming deals (current CQ or next 90 days) with relevant fields included.

### #4 Provide Lead Lists to Lead Sales Partners

A popular trend over the last 5 years has been to outsource the BDR or cold calling roles.  Companies create 1 user account under a false name, assign all the leads they want to be called, and then let them rip.  It sounds great in practice, but it's sometimes hard to tell what kind of progress is being made over time since not everyone is familiar with how to build the reports, how to evaluate reports like "leads with converted lead information". Sometimes merging duplicates can really change statistics.

Solution:  Create a scheduled report to the partner and yourself that includes their assigned leads. This attached file will get sent every weekday or every week and will act as a poor man's snapshot that you can always refer back to.

However, some lower-cost cold-calling partners will want to call down a spreadsheet and won't log in to your CRM (or maybe it's just too time-consuming on your side to set that up).  It's up to you to give them that spreadsheet on a regular basis - which can be fully automated by using [CloudAnswers Report Sender](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EJdlFUAT&utm_source=cloudanswers_website&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=accelerate_business_with_emailed_reports&utm_content=provide_lead_lists) (free app).  Your flow then becomes: 1.  The partner gets an emailed report of all their open leads 2.  They call down the list, update the spreadsheet, and email it back to you

Now your whole process is automatic from your side and you don't waste time emailing reports anymore.

### #5 Poor-man's EDI (integration)

The largest companies will negotiate API based connections, so each company's system will communicate in real-time with each other.  Companies on Salesforce have an average user count of only 25, so the chances are that you aren't having your IT department program integrations with partners at the moment!

Here's a way some of our middle size customers have actually integrated with partners with minimal IT involvement and without having to open firewall rules, involve security people, etc: a.  Identify the data you want to send to your partner using a report with filters b.  Schedule your report using [CloudAnswers Report Sender (free app)](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000EJdlFUAT&utm_source=cloudanswers_website&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=accelerate_business_with_emailed_reports&utm_content=poor_mans_edi) to your partner's email address c.  If your partner is using salesforce, they can paste in code freely found online [here](https://developer.salesforce.com/forums?id=906F00000008vvmIAA), [here](https://www.forcetalks.com/blog/email-service-inserting-data-in-salesforce-using-email-attachment/), or [here](https://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N30000001ssrYEAQ). Or if they use another system, they can often write a script to process the file from an inbox automatically. (we also do consulting so let us know if you [need help](https://cloudanswers.com/services/))image: /uploads/image: /uploads/


The top 5 tricks to accelerate business with emailed reports using Report Sender. #1 Disseminate Product Updates to Partners...

accelerate-business-with-emailed-reports-using-report-sender

5 tricks to accelerate business with emailed reports using Report Sender

for-developers

For Developers


## **What are the Big Objects?**

Big objects allow you to store and manage a massive amount (billions of rows) of data on the Salesforce platform. It provides a consistent performance with massive data for searching and returning results quickly.

Big objects are accessible with a standard set of APIs to your org or external system.

## **Types of Big Objects**:

- **Standard big objects** are defined by Salesforce and are included in Salesforce products. For example, FieldHistoryArchive stores the history of field changes on your Salesforce objects
- **Custom big objects** are defined and deployed by you through the Metadata API.

## **Custom Big Objects**

**Considerations**:

- You must use the Metadata API to define a big object or add a field to a custom big object.
- Big objects support custom Lightning and Visualforce components rather than standard UI elements.
- You can create up to 100 big objects per org.
- Features like triggers, flows, processes, and the Salesforce app are not available.
- You can't use Salesforce Connect external objects to access big objects in another org.

## **How to Create a Big Object:**

Salesforce doesn't provide the ability to define a custom big object from the Salesforce UI. The only way we have to build it is through the Metadata API. To create a big object, you need three files:

- **An object file**:  This file is required to create a big object. In this file, we define the custom big object's fields and indexes.
- **A permission set or profile file**: This file is not required, but we use this file to define user access for a custom big object. Here we define field permissions for a custom big object.
- **A package.xml file**: This file is also required. This is the same file that we use for salesforce component deployment and retrieval. Here we describe our custom object.

**Sample big object file** (Rider_History\_\_b.object):

```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CustomObject xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
   <deploymentStatus>Deployed</deploymentStatus>
       <fields>
          <fullName>Start\_Location\_Lat\_\_c</fullName>
          <label>Start Location Latitude</label>
          <required>false</required>
          <type>Number</type>
          <scale>4</scale>
          <precision>7</precision>
          <unique>false</unique>
       </fields>
       <fields>
          <fullName>Start\_Location\_Long\_\_c</fullName>
          <label>Start Location Longitude</label>
          <required>false</required>
          <type>Number</type>
          <scale>4</scale>
          <precision>7</precision>
          <unique>false</unique>
      </fields>
      <fields>
          <fullName>Start\_Time\_\_c</fullName>
          <label>Start Time</label>
          <required>true</required>
          <type>DateTime</type>
          <unique>false</unique>
      </fields>
      <fields>
         <fullName>End\_Time\_\_c</fullName>
         <label>End Time</label>
         <required>false</required>
         <type>DateTime</type>
         <unique>false</unique>
      </fields>
      <fields>
         <fullName>Service\_Type\_\_c</fullName>
         <label>Service Type</label>
         <length>16</length>
         <required>false</required>
         <type>Text</type>
         <unique>false</unique>
      </fields>
      <fields>
         <fullName>Rider\_Account\_\_c</fullName>
         <label>Rider Account</label>
         <length>16</length>
         <required>true</required>
         <type>Text</type>
         <unique>false</unique>
      </fields>
      <fields>
         <fullName>Rider\_Rating\_\_c</fullName>
         <label>Rider Rating</label>
         <required>false</required>
         <type>Number</type>
         <scale>1</scale>
         <precision>2</precision>
         <unique>false</unique>
      </fields>
      <indexes>
         <fullName>Rider\_History\_Index</fullName>
         <label>Rider History Index</label>
      <fields>
         <name>Rider\_Account\_\_c</name>
         <sortDirection>DESC</sortDirection>
      </fields>
      <fields>
         <name>Start\_Time\_\_c</name>
         <sortDirection>DESC</sortDirection>
      </fields>
 </indexes>
     <label>Rider History</label>
     <pluralLabel>Rider Histories</pluralLabel>
</CustomObject>
```

**File location** (src->objects): ![Rider file.jpg](/uploads/Rider-file.jpg)

**Sample permission set file** (rider_history.permissionset)

```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <PermissionSet xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
      <fieldPermissions>
         <editable>true</editable>
         <field>rider\_history\_\_b.Start\_Location\_Lat\_\_c</field>
         <readable>true</readable>
      </fieldPermissions>
      <fieldPermissions>
         <editable>true</editable>
         <field>rider\_history\_\_b.Start\_Location\_Long\_\_c</field>
         <readable>true</readable>
      </fieldPermissions>
      <fieldPermissions>
         <editable>true</editable>
         <field>rider\_history\_\_b.End\_Time\_\_c</field>
         <readable>true</readable>
      </fieldPermissions>
      <fieldPermissions>
         <editable>true</editable>
         <field>rider\_history\_\_b.Service\_Type\_\_c</field>
         <readable>true</readable>
      </fieldPermissions>
      <fieldPermissions>
         <editable>true</editable>
         <field>rider\_history\_\_b.Rider\_Rating\_\_c</field>
         <readable>true</readable>
      </fieldPermissions>
      <label>Rider History Permission Set</label>
</PermissionSet>
```

**File location** (src->permissionsets)![permissionsets.jpg](/uploads/permissionsets.jpg)

**Sample package.xml file:**

```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
   <types>
      <members>\*</members>
      <name>CustomObject</name>
   </types>
   <types>
      <members>\*</members>
      <name>PermissionSet</name>
   </types>
   <version>41.0</version>
</Package>
```

**File location** (src)![src.jpg](/uploads/src.jpg)

## **Deployment of metadata files created above**

We can use any metadata deployment tool like ant or [workbench](https://workbench.developerforce.com/) for the deployment of our components.

I'll demonstrate here using workbench:

**Step 1**) Zip src folder.

**Step 2**) Login to the [workbench](https://workbench.developerforce.com/).

**Step 3**) Go to migration -> Deploy

**Step 4**) Upload your zip folder by clicking "choose file".

**Step 5**) Check options as shown below and click next.

![Workbench__Deploy.jpg](/uploads/Workbench__Deploy-1.jpg)

This is what your Rider History big object looks like after deployment:

![Rider History.jpg](/uploads/Rider-History.jpg)

You can see your big object under the setup option "create -> big objects"

### **Apex CRUD operations to custom big objects**

- **Create**
  - public static List\<Database.SaveResult\> insertImmediate(List\<SObject\> sobjects)
  - public static Database.SaveResult insertImmediate(SObject sobject)
- **Read**
  - SOQL/ Async SOQL
- **Update**
  - Re-inserting a record with the same index.
- **Delete**
  - public static List\<Database.DeleteResult\> deleteImmediate(List\<SObject\> sobjects)
  - public static Database.DeleteResult deleteImmediate(SObject sobject)

To query data, we have two options:

1. Async SOQL
2. SOQL

Use standard SOQL when:

- You want to display the results in the UI without having the user wait for results.
- You want results returned immediately for manipulation within a block of Apex code.
- You know that the query will return a small amount of data.

Use Async SOQL when:

- You are querying against millions of records.
- You want to ensure that your query completes.
- You do not need to do aggregate queries or filtering outside of the index.

**References**:

- [Big Object Basic trailhead](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/modules/big_objects)
- [Big Object Implementation Guide](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/modules/big_objects)
- [Deploy unmanaged package using workbench](http://www.simplysfdc.com/2016/12/salesforce-deployment-with-unmanaged.html)

**Happy coding**!

Read also [Effective data storage in Salesforce](https://cloudanswers.com/effective-data-storage-in-salesforce-for-every-business-size/)


Salesforce big objects allow you to store and manage a massive amount of data on the Salesforce platform.It provides a consistent performance

salesforce-big-objects

Salesforce Big Objects


When working with Cases in Salesforce, a common question is "How much time does it take our team to respond to incoming customer cases?" Often, customers have specific SLAs on required response times, and team managers want to understand how efficient their team is at addressing new issues. In this blog post, we are going to cover how we can use Entitlement Management with Cases to track this metric.

Here's a step-by-step walk through of how to set this up in Salesforce:

#### Enable Entitlement management

Go to Setup -> Entitlement Management -> Entitlement Settings

On this page, you will see a checkbox called Enable Entitlement Management. Check this and click Save. Once Entitlement Management is enabled, you will see other options on this page like Entitlement-Related Lookup Filters on Case Fields, Milestone Feed Items, Milestone Tracker Time Settings and Milestone Time Settings. These options aren't relevant to this setup, but you can learn more about them from [Salesforce's Help Docs](https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=entitlements_about.htm&type=5).

#### Setup milestones and entitlement process

Now we need to create the first response Milestone, create the Entitlement process and add the milestone to the Entitlement process.

Go to Setup -> Entitlement Management -> Milestones -> Click New Milestone button

![Screen Shot 2018-05-21 at 12.51.45 pm.png](/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-05-21-at-12.51.45-pm.png)

Set Name = First Response, Recurrence Type = No Recurrence and click Save to create the new milestone.

Go to Setup -> Entitlement Management -> Entitlement Processes, create a new Entitlement process for Case. We are going to use a basic Entitlement process to demonstrate here:

![Screen Shot 2018-05-21 at 12.58.20 pm.png](/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-05-21-at-12.58.20-pm.png)

Next, add the Milestone to an Entitlement process.

In this example, we are assuming that the first response should be sent within 4 hours of the arrival of the case. So, we have added a Milestone to our Entitlement process with the number of Minutes to Complete Milestone value.

![Screen Shot 2018-05-21 at 1.01.53 pm.png](/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-05-21-at-1.01.53-pm.png)

#### **Setup trigger to assign entitlement process to incoming cases**

If you are using Email-to-Case functionality, the Entitlement from Account won’t be automatically assigned to the incoming cases. Therefore, we need to add a trigger to associate an active Entitlement from an Account to the incoming Case.

Here is the sample code for this:

// trigger on Case object

trigger CaseTrigger on Case (before insert, before update) {
if(Trigger.isBefore){
if(Trigger.isInsert || Trigger.isUpdate){
CaseEntitlementHelper.applyEntitlements(Trigger.new);
}
}
}

// helper class

public with sharing class CaseEntitlementHelper {

/\*\* \* Apply entitlements from contact or account.
\*/
public static void applyEntitlements(List cases){
List contactIds = new List();
List acctIds = new List();
for (Case c : cases){
if (c.EntitlementId == null && c.ContactId != null && c.AccountId != null){
contactIds.add(c.ContactId);
acctIds.add(c.AccountId);
}
}
if(!contactIds.isEmpty() || !acctIds.isEmpty()){
List entitlementContacts = \[
select e.EntitlementId, e.ContactId, e.Entitlement.AssetId from EntitlementContact e
where e.ContactId in :contactIds
and e.Entitlement.EndDate >= TODAY and e.Entitlement.StartDate <= TODAY
\];
if(!entitlementContacts.isEmpty()){
for(Case c : cases){
if(c.EntitlementId == null && c.ContactId != null){
for(EntitlementContact ec : entitlementContacts){
if(ec.ContactId==c.ContactId){
c.EntitlementId = ec.EntitlementId;
if(c.AssetId==null && ec.Entitlement.AssetId!=null)
c.AssetId = ec.Entitlement.AssetId;
break;
}
}
}
}
} else {
List entitlements = \[
select e.StartDate, e.Id, e.EndDate, e.AccountId, e.AssetId
from Entitlement e
where e.AccountId in :acctIds and e.EndDate >= TODAY and e.StartDate <= TODAY
\];
if(!entitlements.isEmpty()){
for(Case c : cases){
if(c.EntitlementId == null && c.AccountId != null){
for(Entitlement e : entitlements){
if(e.AccountId == c.AccountId){
c.EntitlementId = e.Id;
if(c.AssetId==null && e.AssetId!=null)
c.AssetId=e.AssetId;
break;
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}

#### **Setup apex triggers to mark milestones as completed**

We are going to use triggers on EmailMessage and CaseComment to mark the Milestone when it is completed.

Here is the sample code:

// email message trigger
trigger EmailMessageTrigger on EmailMessage (before insert) {
if(Trigger.isInsert || Trigger.isAfter){
if (UserInfo.getUserType() == 'Standard'){
// complete milestone on valid first response
EmailMessageHelper.handleFirstResponse(Trigger.new);
}
}
}

// email message trigger helper class
public with sharing class EmailMessageHelper {
public static void handleFirstResponse(List emailMessages){
DateTime completionDate = System.now();
Map<Id, String> emIds = new Map<Id, String>(); for (EmailMessage em : emailMessages){ if(em.Incoming == false) emIds.put(em.ParentId, em.ToAddress);
}
if(emIds.isEmpty() == false){
Set emCaseIds = new Set(); emCaseIds = emIds.keySet(); List caseList = \[
select Id, ContactId, Contact.Email, OwnerId,
Status, EntitlementId, SlaStartDate, SlaExitDate
from Case
where Id IN :emCaseIds
\];
if(!caseList.isEmpty()){
List casesToUpdate = new List(); for (Case caseObj : caseList) { // consider an outbound email to the contact on the case a valid first response if (emIds.get(caseObj.Id) == caseObj.Contact.Email && caseObj.EntitlementId != null && caseObj.SlaStartDate <= completionDate && caseObj.SlaStartDate != null && caseObj.SlaExitDate == null) { casesToUpdate.add(caseObj.Id); }
}
if(!casesToUpdate.isEmpty()) {
MilestoneHelper.completeMilestone(casesToUpdate, 'First Response', completionDate);
}
}
}
}
}

// case comment trigger
trigger CaseCommentTrigger on CaseComment (after insert) {
if(UserInfo.getUserType() == 'Standard'){
CaseCommentHelper.handleFirstResponse(Trigger.new);
}
}

// case comment trigger helper class
public with sharing class CaseCommentHelper {
public static void handleFirstResponse(List comments){
DateTime completionDate = System.now();
List caseIds = new List();
for (CaseComment cc : comments){
// Only public comments qualify
if(cc.IsPublished == true) caseIds.add(cc.ParentId);
}
if(caseIds.isEmpty() == false){
List caseList = \[
select Id, ContactId, Contact.Email, OwnerId, Status,
EntitlementId, SlaStartDate, SlaExitDate
from Case
where Id IN :caseIds
\];
if(caseList.isEmpty() == false){
List updateCases = new List();
for (Case caseObj : caseList) {
if (caseObj.EntitlementId != null && caseObj.SlaStartDate <= completionDate &&
caseObj.SlaStartDate != null && caseObj.SlaExitDate == null) {
updateCases.add(caseObj.Id);
}
}
if(updateCases.isEmpty() == false) {
MilestoneHelper.completeMilestone(updateCases, First Response', completionDate);
}
}
}
}
}

// milestone helper class
public with sharing class MilestoneHelper {

public static void completeMilestone(List caseIds, String milestoneName, DateTime completionDate) {
List toUpdate = \[
select Id, CompletionDate
from CaseMilestone cm
where CaseId IN :caseIds
and cm.MilestoneType.Name = :milestoneName
and CompletionDate = null limit 1
\];
if(!toUpdate.isEmpty()){
for (CaseMilestone cm : toUpdate){
cm.CompletionDate = completionDate;
}
update toUpdate;
}
}
}

**Create a report to view milestone violations**

The last step is to create a report on Cases with Case Milestones to view a list of cases which didn’t meet the first response milestone. Now you can see the cases that are overdue and flag them for followup easily.

Questions? Ask us in the comments!

**Happy coding!**


When working with Cases in Salesforce, a comm...

track-first-response-on-cases-using-entitlements

Track first response time on Cases using Entitlements

Salesforce apps, powerful components, development and consulting. Our experienced team helps you to create and modify workflow processes in salesforce.

How To

5 tricks to accelerate business with emailed reports using Report Sender

Salesforce Big Objects

Track first response time on Cases using Entitlements

Partners

Company

Get in touch