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Unleashing the Power of Salesforce Flows: Introducing the Flow Visualiser Extension for VS Code

Salesforce Flow Visualiser VS Code Extension

In the ever-evolving landscape of Salesforce development, efficiency and clarity are key components of success. As developers, we often find ourselves navigating complex flows, seeking ways to enhance our understanding and streamline our workflow. Enter the Salesforce Flow Visualiser extension for Visual Studio Code, a game-changing tool designed to revolutionise the way we interact with and visualise flows right from the heart of our Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Salesforce Flow Visualiser VS Code Extension

Created by me, this extension provides an intuitive and immersive experience for visualising flows within the familiar environment of Visual Studio Code. Say goodbye to the days of staring blankly at flow XML files, or having to jump into an org, and let’s embark on a journey to discover how the Salesforce Flow Visualiser extension is set to transform your development experience.

A Seamless Integration

Imagine having the ability to gain a holistic view of your Salesforce flows right from your trusted VS Code workspace. The Salesforce Flow Visualiser extension seamlessly integrates into your development environment, providing you with a comprehensive visualisation of your flows without the need for constant context-switching.

With just a few clicks, developers can now unlock a visual representation of their flow logic, making it easier to comprehend complex structures and dependencies. The extension supports a range of flow types, ensuring that whether you are working on screen flows, autolaunched flows, or trigger flows, the Visualiser has you covered.

Understand with Ease

The extension not only offers a visual graphical representation of the Flow logic, but also offers up easy-to-read tabular views of other flow metadata including the defined resources (variable, constants, and formulas) and any start conditions that might have been defined.

The flow diagram can be zoomed in/out (for those rather large flows that we like to pretend we haven’t got) and can be even be saved out to a .png file for inclusion in documentation and even part of our git repository.

Get Started Today!

Ready to elevate your Salesforce development experience? Head over to the Salesforce Flow Visualiser extension on the VS Code Marketplace and embark on a journey of enhanced clarity, efficiency, and productivity. This creation is set to redefine the way we interact with and understand Salesforce flows – don’t miss out on this transformative tool for your development arsenal.

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Creating Salesforce Preview Release Scratch Orgs – Error VR-0003

For a couple of releases now we’ve seen that creating Salesforce Scratch Orgs

on a preview release has been throwing us errors. During this last release window though it now seems we at least no what the issue is.

But first a bit of background. Salesforce provide three major releases a year (Winter, Spring, and Summer), and they provide the ability to get preview access to these for customers and partners so they can test their organisations and implementations prior to the release being rolled out to production. This preview access includes Pre-release sandboxes, and once normal sandoxes rollover (usually ~ 1 month before production) then you can also create scratch orgs on the preview release also.

For our work at Caddify, where we have a no-code tool for building mobile Companion Apps, access to these pre-release and preview orgs is a key part of our process to ensure that our product and apps will work as expected on any upcoming Salesforce release. As I have said though for the last two releases the SFDX CLI commands used to create these preview scratch orgs have been failing, specifically with this error;

ERROR running force:org:create: The request to create a scratch org failed with error code: VR-0003.

I was getting this regardless of whether or not I used a CLI flag to request the org or if I used the config file to define the “Preview” state.

Following on from initial conversations with the folk behind the SFDX CLI it seems that the issue lay somewhere internal to Salesforce processes, and after a helpful dialog with Salesforce support the issue was resolved. It seems that some “internal Instance Mapping table” was missing entries. SF support have now added these and my Preview scratch instances are working.

We have added UMEA instances in Spring’23 to Scratch/Sign-Up routing internally our internal Instance Mapping table

I hope knowledge of this issue, and the cause and cure, will be helpful to others who might run into this.

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The Salesforce Feature Release Flow, and Developer Previews

I’ve been recently reading about implementing DataWeave in Apex on the Salesforce platform. At the time of writing the feature was in a stage called Developer Preview and I was interested where this fitted into the standard Salesforce Feature Release Flow, in terms of what the next stage would be after Developer Preview (e.g. Beta or GA).

After some conversations (in the Good Day Sir podcast slack community) it turns out that in the next Salesforce release (Spring 23) that DataWeave will be in Beta, so it seems the flow is as follows;

Pilot ➡️ (optional) Devloper Preview ➡️ Beta ➡️ GA

 

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First Contribution to the SFDX CLI

I’ve been pushing some of the non-technical folk within Caddify to adopt the Salesforce CLI for some time. I find the ability to manage logins to different orgs a huge win and know that others benefit from this greatly also. And it was during one of these conversations with our CEO that he said “now if it could open orgs in different browsers that would be amazing”… and that got me thinking.

See the plugin’s changes in action in this video.

I have created several SFDX CLI plugins that we use internally (mostly managing scratch org creation and setup) and am very familiar with node and TypeScript so saw this as a great opportunity to see if I could implement a change that meant the DX org:open commands could target specific browsers on the user’s computer.

I had read – fairly recently – about the new modularisation of the SFDX CLI project, and was excited by this as I remember hearing from the Salesforce folk years ago when SFDX was initially released, and I asked about whether or not they’d planned to open source it all, and was told that it would be indeed be one of the end goals. Anyway, off I went to find the repository that supported the org namespace. After forking the project and pulling it down to my local development environment I was able to see that made use of the open node package, so in turn I made my way to their npm page to see if anything existed already to support “browser targeting”… and there it was, the project supported optional parameters to achieve just what I was after.

Within less than half an hour I had a working proof of concept on my local machine. I then turned to the Contributing section on the DX repo to see how I could get involved, and from there I created a new issue against the repo, mentioning that I’d love to create a PR to implement the new functionality. Only a short while later I had a response from the team, welcoming my input.

I proceeded to more properly implement the change (you know, with tests and that) and submitted my PR. I was honestly bowled-over by the welcoming, supportive, and helpful responses to my PR from the whole team. I was given guidance on naming, implementation, help messages, and all sorts… and I guarantee that the end code that was merged into the plugin’s repo was many times better than my first iteration. Huge thanks to Shane McLaughlin and the whole team for their support and patience.

This new feature is available in the v1.9.0 release of the plugin-org plugin.

In short, the new functionality is really useful, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, and also, if you think that the DX CLI could do with new features or improvements then dive on in and get involved.

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Lightning Web Components Specialist – Trouble getting the boatMap Component?

During the completion (as if writing I’m on step 8) of the new ​Lightning Web Components Specialist Trailhead superbadge I had some troubles with step 6 as I couldn’t get access to the source of the boatMap component.

It’s installed from an unlocked package, and being a LWC it’s not viewable in the Salesforce developer console. I was also unable to see it in the Org Browser VS Code plugin… but then I went back to my old friend the CLI.

Using this command I was able to bring the source down into my repo.

sfdx force:source:retrieve -m LightningComponentBundle:boatMap

 

I hope this saves folk some time as they work through this badge.

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TCG App visits the LAUG

Oh my, that was a blast! Last night I was allowed to run a data model design session at the London Admins’ Trailblazer Community group, and I for one think it was a great success. The idea of the session was to give a brief introduction to the TCG (Trailblazer Community Group) App and then chair a group discussion on how a data model might evolve from the requirements (and assumptions), and I can just say it far exceeded my expectations.

We walked through the various factors that go into making decisions around forming a data model, and how in some instances there isn’t one-clear right answer. We spoke about lookup vs master-detail relationships, chatted through reporting restrictions, mulled over standard vs custom objects, and spent quite some time going over the use of junction objects.

I do hope the session brought some value to the attendees, as I for one made many notes on things to read-up on, and not only in terms of the objects, but also regarding some requirements, and the next steps.

Here, in all their rough glory, are the notes I’ve made.

  • Support for Virtual venue
  • Master -> Detail – restrictions on types/number of relationships based upon object (types)
  • Standard Event – has auto archive rules and other things to be aware of
  • Event types
    • Meetup style
    • Conference
  • Look into campaign standard object – where would/could we use this?
  • Look into OppContactRoles
  • Use of Opportunity instead of EventSponsor
  • Use OppContactRoles to assign Sponsor contact / Venue Contact etc
  • Use of parent accounts; Don’t have a venue, use accounts
  • ACRs – know which contact to need for venue/sponsor (could be same or different)
  • Would let us have a Sponsor (Account) contact also related to a Venue Account
  • Log who (people in the ecosystem) knows about about specific stuff, who CGLs have asked to speak, and about X?
  • What replaces tags? (Gemma: in the Architects Club they have an object for skills) – Poss use NPSP, as they have this – or now topics?
  • Assets library (recordings, decks, etc)
  • Communities access – talk submissions/feedback
  • Think about a single instance for all CGLs to use – would mean one org, but more licenses, can we approach SF about this. Would mean a super-admin, some folk running this
    Would mean sharing available of talks / sponsors / contacts
  • What about the Events mngmt app from Salesforce Labs – more aimed towards conferences?
  • Also been approached about Open Commons from .org… very exciting
  • Next Steps
    • Look into NPSP, feedback from other CGLs on chatter / twitter
    • Rework ERD
    • Perhaps an open vid call to have input from other CGLs
    • Prob should write a V2MOM – perhaps use github wiki for this?
    • Think about KPIs, metrics, and designs

As you can see, I have quite a few next steps… and I’ve also been approached by a few folk in the success community to chat too.

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Introducing the Trailblazer Community Group Salesforce App

As a long time leader of the London Developers’ Trailblazer group, and co-organiser of London’s Calling – the annual Salesforce Community Conference held in London – I’m only two aware of the features and benefits of the Salesforce platform (and ecosystem), and it therefore leaves a bitter taste in my mouth every time I open up a spreadsheet or other non-Salesforce tool to perform some management task for these events.

On speaking to other CGLs (community group leaders) I know that the London Developer group isn’t the only one to use a plethora of spreadsheets to help organise themselves, and I also know that a few folk/groups have built their own solutions on the Salesforce platform too. This bespoke and non-Salesforce tool-set only strengthens the bitter taste, especially when a platform like Salesforce is an obvious choice if you wanted to answer the requirements that are put forward CGLs.

And it’s the bitter taste that’s started me on the drive to create a Salesforce app targeted at helping community group leaders and community conference organisers alike in running their events.

I’m really looking forward to getting rid of this bitter taste, hopefully by drinking our own champagne

Tell me more

The vision I have for the app is based upon a few fundamental principles, which I hope promote and facilitate an inclusive and valuable project;

  1. Fully Open – Not just in terms of the finished project (code + declarative) but also in terms of how the project moves forward with regards to decision making, features, discussions etc
  2. Embrace the Platform – The project shall look to highlight the OOTB features and functions of the Salesforce platform (and keep up with it, as much as possible)
  3. Ease of Consumption – Distributed via a managed package(s) so as to reduce barriers of installation and support a known upgrade mechanism along with adhering to a strict backwards compatibility methodology
  4. Best Practices – This means testing all the things and following industry and platform specific best practices.

Where’s the project currently at?

Two answers to this… firstly the project has a github repo and the current thinking is that this can be used to also house documentation, issues etc, and maybe even use github’s discussion feature too.

Secondly, in terms of where the project is regards design/development, the answer is very young. As part of the desire to make this a community project I haven’t really started working on it until I get this post out, and get input from the wider community. As you can see there is a brief requirements listing on the git repo that comes from just my own thoughts, and I welcome github issues or PRs to add/edit this. I’m also wondering about creating a quip doc for this, to reduce any friction for folk who aren’t so familiar with github.

I’m absolutely sure that other CGLs have put together apps on dev orgs and the like, so it’d be great to get some input from them too.

How do I get involved?

If you have thoughts on the project please reach out to me on twitter (@toddhalfpenny) or raise an issue on the git repo.

What’s next?

I’m actually presenting the project as a data-model discussion case study at tonight’s London Admin’s Trailblazer group, where I’ll chat through some of the base requirements I’ve already put together and hopefully provoke some thoughtful conversations about how, and why, a data model in Salesforce might be designed in a particular way. RSVPs for this event are still open.

I’m also in the process of sharing the project within the CGL community to gather thoughts and hopefully expand and refine the project’s v0.0.1 requirements and a road-map going forward.

So yeah… I’m really looking forward to getting rid of this bitter taste, hopefully by drinking our own champagne.

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SFignore: Visual Studio Code Extension for .forceignore files

Screenshot of the vscode SFignore extension in action

Last week I published another SFDX plugin, sfignore. This plugin is designed to help Salesforce developers with the (ever so slightly pedantic) .forceignore file. And now, to make developers workflow even more seamless I’ve published the SFignore Visual Studio Code extension.

The extension is essentially just a wrapper to the SFDX plugin, and as such installation of SFDX plugin is a pre-requisite.

Screenshot of the vscode SFignore extension in action
vscode SFignore extension

The extension exposes the “Add to forceignore” command to the command palette.

This is my first vscode extension, and I hope you find it useful. It is available in the Visual Studio Code marketplace.

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SFignore: The .forceignore Salesforce SFDX Plugin

Salesforce SFDX projects are a great way to build both declaratively and through code for the Salesforce platform. It’s very common to want to ignore particular files from being pushed or pulled between Orgs and your local project, and this is achieved through .forceignore file. The file has some odd (and undocumented) syntax however, and the process is also known to have a few bugs, and getting the right entries in the file can be hard… and that’s where the SFignore SFDX plugin comes in.

The .forceignore file and the process behind it is sprinkled with black magic – Todd Halfpenny, 2020

I’ve created the SFignore plugin initially through an internal need for the work I’ve been doing with the Caddify project at MobileCaddy. A lot of this work has been around using Salesforce 2GP (second generation packaging) tools to create packages for our new product. Our workflow includes pushing, pulling, deploying to many different shape orgs and includes a fair bit of code and metadata that is used solely for non-production scenarios (test setup, demo data, org cleaning, etc) and we want to make sure that nothing accidentally gets put into our managed package releases. The .forceignore file that is used by the SFDX CLI tooling and tracking allows us to do this – or most of it at least… but it’s syntax is nuanced and is lacking in documentation.

The SFignore plugin gives me an easier way to add entries to the .forceignore file, by taking away the guessing of syntax and the need to remember the correct suffixes for the different metadata types. This is useful, as would you know (or remember) if the correct suffix for a SiteDotCom entry should be SiteDotCom, siteDotCom, or site? And what about AppMenu? Would you know whether to use appMenu, AppMenu, Menu, menu? Only one of these is right, and the syntax differs further depending on whether the change is local or remote. Oh you also need to encode (some) special characters too… if you didn’t know that then this could be why your entry for “Custom: Sales Profile.profile” isn’t working as you expected.

The initial release only supports entries for remote changes, and only a subset of metadata types that I’ve had to use so far… but the roadmap for it includes;

  • Support for local syntax
  • Wildcarding – currently only supports specific entries
  • An extension for vscode.

Here’s an example of using the plugin, where we’re wanting to add an entry to ignore pulls for the profile Custom: Sales Profile.

sfdx sfignore:add -n "Custom: Sales Profile" -m Profile

This results in the following entry being added;

Custom%3A Sales Profile.profile

The -m flag specifies the metadata type, and the valid values should match those as seen on Salesforce’s metadata coverage report and the output of a sfdx force:source:status command.

It should also be noted that something’s appear to be impossible to achieve with the .forceignore file, including;

  • Adding some tests – yeah, sorry
  • Specifying specific custom fields
  • Specifying specific custom metadata
  • Specifying specific record types

If you know how to achieve the above I’d be very happy to hear about it.

You can find the source for SFignore SFDX plugin on github, and you can download it from the npm registry too

sfdx plugins:install sfignore

If you use the plugin and need more metadata types added then please raise an issue on github, or even better fork the repo and create a PR.

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sf-package-version-checker – SFDX Plugin to notify on completion of Salesforce Package Builds

If you’ve ever built Salesforce packages with the SFDX commands (in fact long before this) you’ll know that the creation of a package can take some time, especially if your package has dependencies.

At MobileCaddy we’ve been adopting the SFDX CLI as much as we can – and in fact embracing the SFDX ethos as a whole – and recently we’ve been working with the Salesforce second-generation packaging (2GP). During this I’ve found that the standard SFDX command to create a package version would continue to give me status updates every 30 seconds for 10 minutes by default, and even though I could set the overall timeout to a longer value (using the –wait flag, and specifying a number of minutes) I often forgot that the task was running and found myself forgetting to watch the terminal window. What I really wanted was something that would notify once the build had completed successfully (or erroneously).

So, during one of the package builds (~25 minutes in this case, if I remember correctly) I put together the basis for a new SFDX plugin that I could run to monitor the latest package build request, and then ping up a desktop notification when it had completed.

I was actually on the line-up for the (now postponed) CzechDreamin’ 2020, with a talk titled “Take your SFDX Plugins to the Next Level”. The talk covers many ways to interact with SFDX plugins other than via the CLI, and one of the topics included was the use of the node-notifier npm module to create native desktop notifications, and so I put this to good use.

You can very easily support basic (and more advanced) notifications with node-notifier for Mac, Linux and Windows environments; here’s some sample code (similar to that used in my plugin);

First import node-notifier (after installing it with npm/yarn)

import * as notifier from 'node-notifier'

Then to use it have code similar to this;

notifier.notify({
 'title': 'Latest Packaging Version Creation Complete',
 'subtitle': ‘Success’,
 'message': SubscriberPackageVersionId: ' + res.SubscriberPackageVersionId
 'icon': iconPath,
 'sound': true,
 'timeout': 30
 });

This results in this type of experience;

The source code (with little over 100 lines of actual logic) can be found in the github repo, and the plugin can be installed as an SFDX CLI plugin and run with the following commands;

$ sfdx plugins:install sf-package-version-checker
$ 
$ sfdx pkgvsn:monitor