Concept of Tabs in Salesforce.com

Few important things one must know about the TABS are:

• Tabs can help you in making the views which help user to see the information at a glance. Example: List of all contacts whose birthday is in this month, list of all opportunities which are in negotiation stage.

• There is a limitation on the number of tabs one can have in their organization, Maximum of 25 tabs are allowed in the enterprise edition.

• For a profile you can set the status of tabs as "Default On", "Default Off" and "Tab Hidden"

• Default On: User with this Tab setting will be able to see the Tab for custom object every time he enters in to the SFDC.
• Default Off: User with this Tab setting will NOT be able to see the Tab for a custom object when he enters in to SFDC but has the ability to add this tab to his view by customizing the tab view.
• Tab Hidden: User with this Tab setting will be NOT be able to see the Tab for a custom object and even will NOT be able to bring the tab by customizing the tab view settings.

• Search is enabled only for those custom objects which have a Tab. So if you are unable to search on a custom object then the reason could be that the Tab for that custom object is not enabled in profiles or you have not created the Tab for that object. DEV 401 certification Question

• Web Tabs are the tabs from which  user goes to the external websites. So use them when you want to divert the user from SFDC to External Systems.

Concept of Roles and Profiles in SFDC

Roles and Profiles are the two pillars in SFDC on which the entire access hierarchy is based.

For a user in SFDC It is mandatory to have a profile but not a role.

Profile is used for multiple things in SFDC and some of the key one's are:

• To analyze the type of SFDC license used by the user.
• To give the access to an object. If the object level permission is missing in the profile then the user will not be able to see the records of that object in salesforce.com.
• To give access to Tabs, fields via FLS, General and Administrator settings.

A role is used to maintain the role hierarchy. Role hierarchy allows the mangers to see the data of the user reporting to them.

Remember:- Role hierarchy is a tool given to developer to meet the data roll up requirements. It need not be the organization role hierarchy.

Role hierarchy can be enabled or disabled for the custom objects. This will decide that data of managers will be seen by CEO or not.

In nutshell profile give access to Object where as role give access to the Records Standartd SFDC Certification Question

Junction Object or Many to Many Relationship in SFDC

There is no out of box relationship present in SFDC i.e. Many to Many in nature, So to have a many to many relationship in SFDC a JUNCTION OBJECT is required.

A junction object joins the two objects with two master detail relationship. Junction object is always on the detail side of the object.

                                   Obj1  M : 1  Junction  1 : M  Obj2

This way junction object creates Many to Many relationship between Obj1 and Obj2. (DEV 401 Question)

One example of many to many relationship among standard objects is Case and Solution. One case can have many solution attached to it and one solution can be used in resolving many cases.

Concept behind Validation Rules in SFDC

Purpose: Validation rules are written to maintain the integrity of the data.

Mandatory fields while writing a validation rule are Name, Formula and Error Message.

Name: Unique name of validation rule

Formula: The formula is written in a way that it evaluates to true for the condition in which you do not want your record to be saved.

Business Case: If opportunity stage is negotiation then discount is mandatory.
          
Formula for Business Case:       Ispickval(stage,'negotiation') && Isblank(discount)

Error Message: This is the message which will be displayed to the business users. The thumb rule is that it should be Short and Crisp.

Location of error message:
Error message can be placed at two places:
Top of the page: Displays error message  at the top of the page
@ field: Displays error message at the field

HTML Tags in SFDC Field Labels

The SFDC allows you to use the HTML tags in the SFDC field label. This way you can now make a field label Red in color or underline a field label or do anything as per your business requirements.

Some of the limitations are:

• The 80 character limit on the SFDC field label still applies. So HTML tag needs to be less then 80 characters.

• In reports instead of HTML name you see the HTML Tag which means you can not see these fields in the reports. The workaround is to create one more formula field in report and display that field with HTML field value.

VLookup Function in SFDC

There are some of the functions which can not be used with formula fields and one such function is vlookup.

This function is only used in the validation rules.

Vlookup works exactly the same way the Lookup function works in excel and helps in maintaining the integrity of your data.

Business Use Case: We want to make sure, the discount entered is as per the master table shared by the organization based on n variables.

Difference between LookUp relationship and Master - Detail relationship in SFDC

Lookup relationship is an example of loosely coupled relationship whereas Master-Detail is an example of Tightly coupled relationship.

• In tightly coupled (M-D relation) when we delete the parent record, all child records are also deleted but nothing of this sort happens in loosely coupled (Lookup relation). Sure shot ADM 201,CON 201, DEV 401 question.

• In M-D relation, a person who can view the master can see all the detail records of that master as the their is no owner on the detail side records and detail side gets its access properties from the master. Nothing of this sort happens in the Lookup relation as both objects have owners.

• Roll up summary field can be made on Master Detail relation but not on the Lookup relationship.

• One detail side record can have maximum 2 masters but no limit on the Lookup fields. DEV 401 certification question.

• Standard objects can never be on the detail side of the master detail relationship but no such thing in a Lookup relation. (ADM 201)