Products.salesforcepfgadapter 1.6b1

PloneFormGen adapter allowing for creation of arbitrary Salesforce.com records based on data collected from a web form

Salesforce PFG Adapter (PloneFormGen Add-On)

Product home is http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter. A documentation area and issue tracker are available at the linked locations.

A Google Group, called Plone Salesforce Integration exists with the sole aim of discussing and developing tools to make Plone integrate well with Salesforce.com. If you have a question, joining this group and posting to the mailing list is the likely best way to get support.

Failing that, please try using the Plone users’ mailing list or the #plone irc channel for support requests. If you are unable to get your questions answered there, or are interested in helping develop the product, see the credits below for individuals you might contact.

Overview

This product builds on top of the foundation for through the web form creation provided by PloneFormGen. If you are unfamiliar with PloneFormGen’s capabilities and the problem space it intends to serve, we encourage you to start by downloading that and reading the README.txt file in the root of the product. In particular, the “Overview” and “Rationale For This Product” sections are recommended.

Once you’ve setup a suitable PloneFormGen form folder (and correctly installed and configured the Salesforce PFG Adapter and its dependencies), you’ll have the option of adding a new action adapter called a “Salesforce Adapter”.

Once you’ve added a Salesforce PFG Adapter to your form, you’re presented with both “default” and “field mapping” (in addition to the standard “overrides”) management screens for editing the adapter. The default screen consists of a drop-down menu populated with all the sObject types (i.e. Salesforce Objects) found in the Salesforce.com instance that corresponds to the credentials entered when creating a Salesforce Base Connector in the ZMI. This should include both standard and custom sObjects.

Once you’ve chosen your sObject type, moving through to the “field mapping” management screen will display a two-column form for setting which Salesforce field will be populated by each field on your form. Each field on your form is represented by a single row, with the form field name in the left column, and a drop-down selection menu of all available Salesforce fields on the right. Select the desired Salesforce field for each form field and click “Save”.

NB: While it is not required to map every form field to a Salesforce field, you will want to make sure that all the sObject fields defined as required fields in your Salesforce configuration do have a mapping. Otherwise, the sObject will not be succesfully created on submission of the form. All required fields for your chosen sObject should be marked accordingly and appear at the top of the list of options.

Should you go back and switch to a different sObject type after having provided a mapping at any time, you’ll want to recreate your desired mapping. This is intended behavior, since the update would fail (or worse, produce very confusing results) if the previously selected sObject type’s mapping were maintained.

If you are using a version of Salesforce PFG Adapter that is >= version 1.5.x and you configure a form that contains multiple “Salesforce Adapters”, you also have the ability to relate the resulting Salesforce.com provided unique “Id” for each adapter to a field of your choosing on later executed adapters. This is how one can create related Salesforce.com (via a lookup field, which is conceptually similar to a foreign key) records from a single form. Take the following scenario as a visual example with to sObjects and their inherent schemas:

-----------                -------------
| Account |                | Contact   |
-----------                -------------
| Id      | -------------> | AccountId |
| Name    |                | LastName  |
-----------                -------------

In the above scenario, the “Account” adapter will be run before the “Contact” adapter regardless of ordering within the PloneFormGen form. In this sense, the “Contact” adapter is dependent upon the result from the “Account” adapter. Upon creation of the “Account” within Salesforce.com an Id like “01r600123009QiJ”, will be returned along with the API response. This will then be saved and can be configured to be inserted into the “AccountId” field for the “Contact” record that is next created. Care is taken via validation to ensure that “circularly dependent” adapters can not be accidentally configured.

Rationale For This Product

Using the wonderful foundation that is provided by PloneFormGen (and Plone for that matter), the task of creating a form that collects and validates some desired information is no longer a task that requires developer intervention, but can be done by the content editor with a decent grasp of the Plone user interface. Having this data inside the CMS or emailed is only of limited use however.

Salesforce.com provides an extensible, powerful platform from which to do Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tasks ranging from sales, marketing, nonprofit constituent organizing, and customer service. The Salesforce PFG Adapter symbolizes the pragmatic joining of a best of breed CMS and CRM so that each can focus on its own strengths in a way that is easy for non-developers to use.

Salesforce.com offers functionality called web-to-lead, but aside from PloneFormGen’s many strengths over the web-to-lead form builder this software offers the following additional features:

• Configurable validation of individual form fields

• Ability to create as many different records as you’d like from the results of one form

• Ability to create custom sObject records with your form

• Ability to create whichever type of sObject records, whereas web-to-lead creates a Lead record, which can only be converted to a Contact, Account, or Opportunity record. Want to directly create a Campaign record from a form? That’s fine.

• Ability to create multiple records that are related to each other (i.e. create an Account record, then create a Contact record with the previously created Account’s Id filling the Contact’s AccountId field.)

Dependencies

Depends upon the beatbox library >= 16.0b1, which is a Python wrapper to the Salesforce.com API (version 7.0). You must have a Salesforce.com account that provides API access.

To download and install beatbox, please visit:

http://code.google.com/p/salesforce-beatbox/

Tested with all versions of Plone in the 3.x series and their relevant dependencies. For use of SalesforcePFGAdapter with the 2.5.x series of Plone, please try SalesforcePFGAdapter version 1.5.

See dependencies for PloneFormGen 1.5.x+. As a pre-requisite, all of these must be met in order to use the Salesforce PFG Adapter.

SalesforceBaseConnector >= 1.2b1. See http://plone.org/products/salesforcebaseconnector

DataGridField >= 1.6.x. Earlier versions didn’t properly disable DataGridField’s add row feature, which is important in our case because the user can’t add new possible form fields for mapping from within the Salesforce Adapter. Those need to be added to the form itself.

Installation

Typical for a Zope/Plone product:

• Install and configure dependencies (includes beatbox setup and creation of Salesforce Base Connector with credentials in the root of the Plone site.)

• Unpack the product package into the Products folder of the Zope/Plone instance. Check your ownership and permissions.

• Restart Zope.

• Go to the Site Setup page in the Plone interface and click on the Add/Remove Products link. Choose salesforcepfgadapter (check its checkbox) and click the Install button. If not done already, this will install PloneFormGen in addition to the salesforcepfgadapter. If PloneFormGen is not available on the Add/Remove Products list, it usually means that the product did not load due to missing prerequisites.

Permissions

See Permissions section of README.txt within PloneFormGen.

Security

See Security section of README.txt within PloneFormGen.

Known Problems

See Known Problems section of README.txt within PloneFormGen. In addition:

• Beatbox, the underlying Python wrapper library to the Salesforce.com API does not raise a custom exception in the scenario of the API being unavailable due to scheduled maintenance as is evident within the following response: SoapFaultError: ‘UNKNOWN_EXCEPTION’ ‘UNKNOWN_EXCEPTION: Server unavailable due to scheduled maintenance’

This is left unfixed in all branches <=1.6.x of the Salesforce PFG Adapter, due to the modifications that would be required to adequately handle the case with technologies lower in the stack, such as Salesforce Base Connector and beatbox. This will be addressed in a future release.

Another known problem arises when using versions of DataGridField (DGF), a dependency to this product, < 1.6 final. DGF shipped with two versions of a css stylesheet called datagridwidget.css (one a .dtml file and the other a .css file). If the incorrect version was active, the PloneFormGen to Salesforce “field mapping” user interface appeared as though additional fields were addable directly from the Salesforce Adapter editing screen. In addition, the hidden column containing the relative path to the field appeared to the user. This is easily resolved by upgrading to DGF versions >= 1.6.

Credits

The Plone & Salesforce crew in Seattle and Portland:

• Jon Baldivieso <jonb –AT– onenw –DOT– org>

• Andrew Burkhalter <andrewb –AT– onenw –DOT– org>

• Brian Gershon <briang –AT– webcollective –DOT– coop>

• David Glick <davidglick –AT– onenw –DOT– org>

• Jesse Snyder <jesses –AT– npowerseattle –DOT– org>

With special PloneFormGen guest star:

• Steve McMahon <[e-mail]>

Jesse Snyder and NPower Seattle for the foundation of code that has become Salesforce Base Connector

Simon Fell for providing the beatbox Python wrapper to the Salesforce.com API

Salesforce.com Foundation and Enfold Systems for their gift and work on beatbox (see: http://gokubi.com/archives/onenorthwest-gets-grant-from-salesforcecom-to-integrate-with-plone)

See the CHANGES.txt file for the growing list of people who helped with particular features or bugs.

License

Distributed under the GPL.

See LICENSE.txt and LICENSE.GPL for details.

Changelog

1.6b1 (2009-09-08)

• Adjust calls to the salesforcebaseconnector query method to use a single full SOQL statement. beatbox >= 16.0dev is now required. [davisagli]

• Use the field id instead of title as the key column for the field mapping, so that it’s possible to set the mapping programmatically without worrying about the titles. [davisagli]

• Cut out duplicate setup code and unnecessary API calls throughout testing with use of onsetup decorator. [andrewb]

• Move substantial portions of package installation to GenericSetup. [andrewb]

• No longer supporting Plone 2.5, pull out all the complex workarounds associated with support older version. [andrewb]

• Added metadata.xml to GenericSetup profile. [andrewb]

1.5.2 - released August 13, 2009

• Fix broken release. [davisagli]

1.5.1 - released August 12, 2009

• Fix for issue #13, whereby hitting the next button while editing a Salesforce Adapter with PloneFormGen 1.5b2 redirected off to the Form Folder’s Quick Edit UI, rather than the field mapping UI as expected. [andrewb]

1.5 - released February 18, 2009

• Clean-up of overly long lines (e.g. > 80 chars) in README.txt [andrewb]

1.5rc1

• Added information about known issue #30 within dependency DataGridField. http://plone.org/products/datagridfield/issues/30 [andrewb]

• Added read_permission protection to how Salesforce Adapters have been configured. The title is viewable by all, but the SFObjectType, fieldMap, and dependencyMap fields are now only visible to those with the ModifyPortalContent permission. Now ‘base_view’ respects this when regurgitating the values on any give adapter object [andrewb]

• Stop using trademarked Salesforce.com icon [davisagli]

1.5a3

• Better handling of empty FormIntegerField values, which when left blank were filled by an empty string that was being passed along within the created object. In the case of a string-like field, this was fine, but integer fields (i.e. documented as xsd:double and xsd:int format in the SF WSDL) were another story. This resolves: http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/8 Note: If a FormIntegerField was a required field and therefore came through as expected in the request, this was handled properly [andrewb, thanks greenstork for bug report]

1.5a2

• The mutator for our SFObjectType field now takes into account the fact that there could exist invalid field mappings and/or dependency mappings for the ultimately chosen sObject type, which could lead to an Invalid Field exception, should the mappings not be reconfigured. This is primarily useful in the case where the user sets up an adapter to create one field type, but later switches to another. This fixes the following issue: http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/7 [andrewb]

• Appropriate cleanup of renamed and/or removed adapters with the Parent Adapter mapping interface. Similar approach to what exists for field mapping cleanup. [andrewb]

• Better handling of empty FormDateField values, which were plagued by errors casting to DateTime format and if successful an invalid xsd:dateTime format. This resolves: http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/6 http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/5 Note: If a FormDateField was a required field and therefore came through as expected in the request, this was handled properly [andrewb, thanks greenstork for bug report]

• Adding support for PloneFormGen’s FormFileField type to be populated with a binary file and uploaded directly to Salesforce.com upon proper base64 encoding. There may be other use cases, but the Attachment type in Salesforce can be associated with any other type, as related by the ParentId, field and is where binary data, stored on the Body field, is typically associated with a record. [andrewb]

• In order to reduce the configuration burden upon the user (i.e. placing Salesforce Adapters in the order they will need to operate), we build and run adapters from the final adapter within the folder. This adapter in turn manages the needed order and creates the Salesforce records appropriately. The 1.5a1 release, however, does not account for disabled adapters. I.E. those that are checked off in the form folder’s adapter field. This is now fixed. See: http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/3 [andrewb]

• In the same category as the following issue: http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/3, we need to account for those adapters with an “execCondition” that fails. This is now fixed. See: http://plone.org/products/salesforcepfgadapter/issues/4 [andrewb]

1.5a1

• Adding new DataGridField FixedColumn with visibility set to false for the the ‘fieldMap’ schema field on the Salesforce Adapter, which stores the relative path from the parent form to the field in question. Previously, we were ‘building’ the data structure for the soon to be created Salesforce object based on mappings keyed off of each field’s title. Since titles aren’t necessarily unique, this was fragile and with the introduction of support for mapping fieldset-based fields, the code was getting ridiculous. NOTE: If jumping to this version of salesforcepfgadpater from previous versions, you’ll need to reinstall the product from the ZMI or the Add/Remove Products control panel. This will trigger the migration of all existing Salesforce Adapter objects, to include this essential new column for the field map. [andrewb]

• Reworking overly fragile ‘do we need to migrate’ infrastructure for versions prior to 1.0rc1 which assumed that we’d be listing all known versions to the end of time and also that running a profiles steps wouldn’t bump the installedversion attribute on an installed product, as it now appears to do in CMFQIT version 2.1.4. This should allow for a simultaneous Plone 3.1.x migration and Salesforce PFG Adapter upgrade. [andrewb]

• Added support for form fields within a folderish “fieldset” both from a mapping and creation within Salesforce.com objects perspective. [andrewb]

• Adding test/code coverage protecting against a maximum recursion depth exceeded error via a direct call to getSortedSFAdapters. This is feasible in the case where Salesforce Adapters are configured outside the context of the existing Archetype validation code. [andrewb]

• Added support for “chained adapters” (that is, forms that create separate, but linked SF objects) including: schema extensions for adapters, validation against circular chains, and execution of chains in the correct order. [jbaldivieso, andrewb]

1.0 - released April 4, 2008

• Added test coverage of onSuccess, the critical piece in ensuring that our form values make their way into Salesforce.com as the appropriate SFObject type with configured mapping. I suppose test coverage of the main functionality is okay during an rc cycle :) [andrewb]

1.0rc2

• Using proper Generic Setup API “runAllImportStepsFromProfile”, rather than deprecated “setImportContext”. For more information, see the very helpful: http://www.nabble.com/Product-install-regression–td14165955.html#a14165955 [andrewb]

• Cleaning up naughty “import *” statement within Install.py [andrewb]

1.0rc1

• Providing test and migration for legacy adapters that didn’t have the capability to mark required fields in the UI [andrewb, jessesnyder]

• Renaming the Salesforce PFG Adapter’s archetype_name to Salesforce Adapter, in attempt to increase non-technical accessibility. Provided migration for the same [andrewb, jessesnyder]

• Add zope security checks to methods in the SalesforcePFGAdapter class [jessesnyder]

• Tweaked i18n infrastructure and added German translation. [davisagli]

• Don’t show extraneous schemata in Plone3 [jessesnyder]

• Ran Zope’s test coverage feature against our code base and extended test coverage to key parts of the public aspects of our code base [andrewb]

• Implement IMultiPageSchema so that schemata can be processed separately and in order, since the field mapping schemata depends on the default schemata being submitted first. [jessesnyder]

• Re-ordered the adapter’s schemata to put ‘field mapping’ before ‘overrides’. [davisagli]

• Worked around FGDateField issue to format submitted dates properly for Salesforce.com input. Used DateTime.HTML4() method on field value [ghnatiuk, davisagli]

• Adding labeling to the field mapping ui to show those fields for the chosen SFObject, which are non-nillable (i.e required) and don’t have a computed value (i.e. as in a unique id, which is required but you have no control over) [jessesnyder, andrewb]

• Sorting of fields that are required first, then those that are optional second in the field mapping ui [jessesnyder, andrewb]

1.0-alpha2

• Worked around issue where the DataGridField strips proceeding/trailing spaces for its FixedRow values, but our generateFormFieldRows method did not, thus each save of the adapter produced duplicate mappings in the DataGridField UI [jessesnyder, andrewb]

• Providing custom mutator for the field map user interface, which now auto-cleans up those fields that have been removed or re-titled [jessesnyder, andrewb]

1.0-alpha1

• Initial import and creation of standalone product originally created at the following branch:

  • http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/PloneFormGen/branches/salesforce_adapter_branch/