Salesforce Developer Podcast

Today, we sit down and talk with Aaron Crosman, a Specialist Leader at Attain, about a variety of topics including his experience with PHP and some projects they’re working on in Open Source Commons. We take a deep dive into how Snowfakery fits into the Data Generation Toolkit and some challenges in integrating Drupal and Salesforce. 

Aaron initially got into Drupal as part of his first job out of college working at a nonprofit. Drupal is a content management platform built on PHP, which is one of the older and more established platforms. But as the web has gotten more powerful and more sophisticated over the years, so has Drupal. 

Show Highlights:

• How he became a web developer and got involved in Drupal
• Working with PHP as a modern language
• Challenges in integrating Drupal and Salesforce
• How they wrap the API from Drupal to Salesforce
• How he got involved with the Open Source Commons
• His first impression of the Open Source Sprints
• How much time and work it would take to do data generation
• Some projects they’re working on with the Sprint
• How Snowfakery fits into the Data Generation Toolkit

 

Links:

• Aaron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/acrosman 
• Aaron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-crosman/ 
• Aaron on Github: https://github.com/acrosman 
• Aaron's Personal Blog: https://spinningcode.org/ 

This is the second half of our conversation with Cori O' Brien, senior manager of Open Source Commons at Salesforce.org. Picking up where we left off, we’re going to talk about what their process was like to move to virtual during the pandemic and how they're translating that into a Zoom experience. 

Cori also talks about the many benefits of moving to virtual space, including how they went global and how it helped diversify the community. Not just a bunch of developers in a room building something cool, it takes a team to create a framework for sustainability and spark a new idea that will help you bring your ideas forward. 

 

Show Highlights:

• The benefits of moving to virtual
• What the transition looks like from virtual to in-person
• Moving from virtual sprint to hybrid (in-person + virtuals)
• Examples of Sprint projects for people to join
• About the animal shelter starter pack

 

Links:

• Cori on Twitter
• Cori on Linkedin
• Cori on Github
• Snowfakery Webinar
• May Open Source Sprint Registration

This is a two-part episode as we go over the Open Source Commons and the Open Source Community Sprint, including the amazing projects that have come out from them. Joining us today is Cori O' Brien, Senior Manager of Open Source Commons at Salesforce.org. 

While Sprint events provide an opportunity for people to come together and improve or build on software, Open Source Commons is the program that encompasses the Sprint events. That includes the training opportunities, mentor-mentorship opportunities, access to tooling and review, and AppExchange. At the heart of Open Source Commons are Community Sprint events where people get to engage directly and work side by side.

Cori’s role is to make sure the Salesforce community has what they need to contribute in whatever way they want to contribute. What started out as “just events” providing space for people to contribute has ultimately become a powerhouse for training and tools to ensure they’re building trust and sustainability.

Show Highlights:

• Cori’s introduction to Salesforce
• Partnering with the Salesforce Labs program
• Sprint vs. Open Source Commons
• Open Source Commons package is free and managed
• Breaking the silos between nonprofit success pack and the education community 
• Types of roles for people to participate
• Why running sprint events is a profitable use of time
• The move to virtual

Links:

• www.salesforce.org 
• Cori on Twitter
• Cori on LinkedIn
• Cori on Github
• Snowfakery Webinar

Today, we sit down and talk with Abhi Samantapudi, Associate Product Manager here at Salesforce, about Bulk API 2.0 – what it means for developers, what's in pilot, and what's on the roadmap. 

Bulk API 2.0 is not just an iteration on an old friend, the original Bulk API. Abhi discusses the advantages of moving to the 2.0 version being the optimal way to perform asynchronous, large-scale CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations with Salesforce. 

We also talk about the Associate Product Manager (APM) program at Salesforce, which allows new graduates in fields related to STEM and business to join Salesforce as Associate Product Managers.

Show Highlights:

• The benefits of the Associate Product Manager program
• New features of the Bulk API 2.0
• What is PK Chunking?
• Developing with Bulk API vs. Bulk API 2.0
• Tips for developing queries that go against large datasets
• How to figure out the right tool for the job
• Other things on the Bulk API 2.0 roadmap
• How the composite graph payload works (now in pilot)
• Examples of where you might run into locks and how to minimize them
• How to handle auto-handling of locks

 

Links:

Abhi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhilash-samantapudi/ 

In this episode, we sit down and talk with Tyson Read, the Director of Product Management at Salesforce, about Event Relays, and specifically, how they can help your integration between Salesforce and Amazon. 

Tyson previously worked as a conservation biologist and in biomechanics until he transitioned into computers and coding. Tyson's first project with Salesforce was building a mobile app with a mobile SDK to help biologists go out into the field and record different kinds of observations.

In his current role at Salesforce, Tyson works on different eventing technologies using platform events and change data capture, working on the runtime for those products and figuring out how to use events, not only to empower customers but also to actually build Salesforce products.

Show Highlights:

• Learning Python as his first language
• His introduction to Salesforce
• Different products using events right now
• Salesforce’s current partnership with Amazon in terms of eventing
• Using the AWS EventBridge for directing events to your services
• The working parts of an Event Relay
• Grouping function for channels and authentication
• How Event Relays are integrated into a flow
• Possible use cases

 

Links:

Connect with Tyson Read on these platforms:

• Tyson on Twitter - https://twitter.com/tysonreads 
• Tyson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tysonread/

Today, we sit down and talk with Ross Belmont, the Director of Product Management at Salesforce, about his products – Salesforce Connect and the new DynamoDB Connector.

Salesforce Connect provides data virtualization, surfacing structured data inside the Salesforce UI and declarative tools experiences, even though data resides outside the four walls of Salesforce. Their vision is to get to a point where it no longer matters that external objects are external.

Ross also shares the current status of DynamoDB coming in pilot. Their team is currently working with Amazon Web Services, extending Salesforce Connect ideas over to Amazon's DynamoDB, a super high-volume, NoSQL datastore. 

Show Highlights:

• Ross’s first-ever computer
• His entry into programming and product design
• What enables Salesforce Connect?
• The role of OData
• Other examples of entities Salesforce Connect is attached to
• Our current relationship with Amazon: why and how are we working with them?
• Challenges around DynamoDB 
• Authentication and decomposing credentials for more flexibility
• The evolution of world identity and access management
• Examples of standard use cases for SQL

 

Links:

Connect with Ross Belmont on these platforms:

• Twitter
• Linkedin

 

Kiril Seksenov is the Senior Director of Product Management here at Salesforce. In this episode, Kiril discusses Lightning Web Security (LWS), our next-generation security architecture, which will eventually replace the current Lightning Locker service. Find out what that means for you as developers and how we're keeping JavaScript secure using standards. 

Kiril previously worked at Microsoft. Wanting to move up the stack and start building on the platform he had been helping develop over the past seven years, Kiril started exploring roles and found an amazing opportunity at Salesforce. Tune in to hear how Salesforce is leveraging web standards to create a faster and more secure web experience.

Show Highlights:

 

• The elevator pitch for Lightning Web Security
• How the Locker service pushed this evolution
• Challenges in the Lightning component framework
• Ensuring components are isolated in sandbox
• The notion of distortions on top of existing APIs
• Isolating code execution through JavaScript sandboxes
• Considerations for enabling Lightning Web Security
• How enabling LWS makes components run faster

 

Links:

• Kiril on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiril-seksenov-61047854/
• Kiril on Twitter: https://twitter.com/k_seks
• Kiril on Github: https://github.com/seksenov

In this episode, we continue our conversation with Don Robins, a technical educator with a long history of training people on Salesforce. Don specifically explains the difference between just presenting to people versus teaching. He believes that what helps make great instructors is empathy since you're watching for the light to come on over someone's head and it’s a joyous feeling. 

Don also talks about how specialization is becoming more and more important in the industry, a natural trend when something begins to grow exponentially the way Salesforce has. Ultimately, at the core of Salesforce is a knowledge-sharing community and the technology that they have built to support it. 

Show Highlights:

 

• The difference between presenting and teaching
• The importance of specialization in the industry
• The motivation behind his PluralSight courses
• The impact of a knowledge-sharing community built around Salesforce
• Why it's not just translation, but localization when speaking to an audience with a different language 
• Don’s formula for success
• The nature and dimensions of engagement
• Don’s favorite non-technical hobbies

 

Links:

Connect with Don Robins on these platforms:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/donrobins
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/donaldrobins
• Github: https://github.com/forcementor

Pluralsight course on "Salesforce Platform for Developers, the Big Picture": https://pluralsight.pxf.io/C0150

LinkedIn course on "The Serious Stack behind Salesforce": https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/serious-stack-behind-salesforce-developers-don-robins/

Punta Dreamin' 2018 Closing Keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2kZmlAfTRY&t=1611s

Play by Play catalog: http://www.sfplaybyplay.com

Forcementor Training Partnership: www.forcementor.com

Don Robins is a Salesforce MVP, technical educator and instructor, author, and speaker. With over 35 years of experience in the software development space, Don has an extensive background in custom business applications. Having zero CRM background, Don navigated his way through Salesforce, fell in love with it, and has been with Salesforce ever since. 

An award-winning Salesforce Instructor, Don has presented at annual Dreamforce conferences since 2010 and has been facilitating Salesforce developer classes and workshops.

This is a two-part conversation where Don shares how he got into Salesforce, his long career educating people, some of his thoughts on the platform, and finally, an interesting formula.

Show Highlights:

 

• Don’s early years and his career doing voice-overs 
• Building business applications and creating a relational database
• His first Salesforce experience having zero CRM background 
• What he loves about Salesforce
• Productivity tools in the early days
• Mastering the complexities and the interdependencies in the metadata
• Why we need to put our focus on DevOps

 

Links:

 

Connect with Robin on these platforms:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/donrobins
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/donaldrobins
• Github: https://github.com/forcementor

Pluralsight course on "Salesforce Platform for Developers, the Big Picture": https://pluralsight.pxf.io/C0150

LinkedIn course on "The Serious Stack behind Salesforce": https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/serious-stack-behind-salesforce-developers-don-robins/

Punta Dreamin' 2018 Closing Keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2kZmlAfTRY&t=1611s

Play by Play catalog: http://www.sfplaybyplay.com

Forcementor Training Partnership: www.forcementor.com

Daniel Ballinger is the Director of Product Management for Apex. In his role, he spends the majority of his time balancing options and making decisions about what problems his team should pursue and which they can afford to wait on.

 

There are plenty of exciting things on the Apex roadmap for Daniel and his team right now. In this episode, we discuss some of these updates, including Data Wave and user mode database operations. Tune in to learn all about these new features and when you can expect to see them rolled out.

 

Show Highlights:

 

• Daniel’s earliest experiences modding maps.
• His earliest opinions on Apex.
• What it takes to break something at Salesforce.
• How Daniel and his team promote scalability, growth, and performance with transparency.
• How Apex users can make Daniel’s job easier.
• What Data Wave is and how to use it.
• How big of a difference Data Wave makes in doing CSV to JSON operations.
• What user mode database operations are and their benefits.
• How to switch between safe mode and system mode.
• The timeline for these Apex updates.

 

Links:

• Daniel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FishOfPrey
• Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielballinger/
• Daniel on Github: https://github.com/FishOfPrey
• Daniel's Blog: https://www.fishofprey.com/
• Information on the pilot programs: https://sforce.co/df21-dev-apex