API version 8 and fast vs. slow

Last Updated on Wednesday, 25 April 2007 08:10 Written by Steve Wednesday, 25 April 2007 08:10

I’ve been talking about Apex a lot lately, but I want to go back and sing the praises of the 8.0 API which was released in January. I know that’s old news, but it has made our daily work much more palatable.

I built an S-Control that is a weekly timesheet. It allows us to track our time against projects. The interface shows a lot of data–each time entry has basic info (hours, date, comments) and also is related to an Opprotunity, and Account, and one other custom object. In a typical week, each person would have 20-40 time entries.

With the 7.0 API, I would load all the time entries for the current week–one Query. Then, for each time entry, I had to Retrieve data from the Opportunity, Account, and custom object, so the names of each would be displayed. That’s 3 more calls. So a by the end of a typical week, loading the timesheet for a person would take 100+ calls to the API. It was slow.

With the 8.0 API, I do things a little differently. I make an initial Query call to get the time entries. Using a feature called Relationship Queries, that initial call also pulls in the related information from the Opportunity, Account, and custom object. So at the end of a typical week it takes 1 call to load the timesheet.

Because of the 8.0 API I got rid of 99% of my API hits. I think this is a fairly common use case, so I can imagine lots of application developers are feeling this kind of improvement. Not surprisingly, my users have noticed the performance improvements, and in their eyes the timesheet app has gone from a bit painful to painless.

Salesforce.com Developer conference May 21st in Santa Clara

Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:32 Written by Steve Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:32

I’ll be attending the one-day Salesforce.com Developer Conference in Santa Clara on May 21st.

If you’re in the bay area, or want to travel to this free event, it would be great to see you there!

Clicktools: getting outside feedback into Salesforce

Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 April 2007 07:20 Written by Steve Tuesday, 24 April 2007 07:20

Clicktools is a killer data gathering tool that integrates with Salesforce.com. It’s a great product, and the company is donating it to nonprofits. We’ve just started using it and we’re blown away by how powerful it is.

Check out this short screencast of how we’re using it.

Thanks again to Clicktools for donating their amazing product for our use!