SUMMER OF APIs Force.com Streaming API · Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report

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Force.com Streaming API SUMMER OF APIs

Pat Patterson Principal Developer Evangelist @metadaddy

Alex Toussaint Senior Product Manager @alextoussaint


Force.com Streaming API SUMMER OF APIs

Pat Patterson Principal Developer Evangelist @metadaddy

Alex Toussaint Senior Product Manager @alextoussaint


July 19th Apex REST API

Register at http://developer.force.com See Upcoming Events

Summer of APIs Webinar Series


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Safe harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services.

The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K filed on February 24, 2011 and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

Safe Harbor


Agenda

  What is the Streaming API?

  When would I use it?

  How do I use it?

  How do I get started?

  What’s the future?

  Resources

  Q & A


What is streaming?

  Streaming is the ability for a client to issue a single request and receive in response a continuous stream of updates from a server –  Publish/subscribe model –  Related to push technology

  Examples –  “New Account record created”

–  “Opportunities with a deal size greater than $1M”


When would I use streaming?

  To receive near real-time notification of new or updated data –  Taking action on change in state – e.g. send alert

–  Synchronize state – e.g. update page in browser

  If you are currently polling an API! –  Much more efficient consumption of API calls


Common Use Cases

  Call Center and Support Apps –  Salesforce Service Cloud –  Tech Call Centers working on Cases

  Financial Apps –  Keep brokers and financial consultants up to date

  Social Apps –  Live Chatter (in future release)

  Light Data Sync –  Keep in-house data in sync

–  Update other cloud systems


Polling vs Streaming

  Streaming –  Client connects and

receives near real-time updates

–  Bayeux protocol

–  Consumes one API call per client (only when data is available)

  Polling –  Client must repeatedly

call API –  SOAP/REST APIs

–  Each poll consumes at least one API call per client (even if data is not available)


Triggers vs Streaming

  Streaming –  Client connects and

receives near real-time updates

–  Client can be any app that can talk HTTP – server process, JavaScript in browser etc.

–  One to 1000 clients

–  Bayeux protocol

  Trigger + future –  Trigger is executed on

data modification; may call web service via ‘future’ method

–  Server must expose endpoint to receive messages

–  (Typically) single server

–  SOAP/REST APIs


The Force.com Streaming API

  Administrator creates a topic based on a SOQL query –  PushTopic standard object

‘UX People’ by Peter Morville and Jeff Callender (‘Search Patterns’)



  Client applications subscribe via the Bayeux protocol –  http://svn.cometd.com/trunk/bayeux/bayeux.html




  Client applications receive notifications on creates and updates that match WHERE clause of query



Create a topic

  Apex or API

  Create PushTopic standard object –  ApiVersion, Name, Query are required fields; Description is optional

PushTopic pushTopic = new PushTopic();

pushTopic.ApiVersion = 22.0;

pushTopic.Name = ’AllAccounts';

pushTopic.Description = 'All of our accounts';

pushtopic.Query = 'SELECT Id, Name FROM Account';

insert pushTopic;

What!? No LIMIT???


Valid Streaming Queries

  Query MUST include Id in the root of the SELECT statement, may include any other fields to be included in notifications –  SELECT Id, Name, Email FROM Contact;

  Object can be –  a custom object –  one of Account, Campaign, Case, Contact, Lead, Opportunity


Valid Streaming Queries – WHERE Clause

  Query may include a WHERE clause –  SELECT Id FROM Account WHERE NumberOfEmployees > 1000

–  Notification is generated when field specified in WHERE clause changes

–  If no WHERE clause is specified, then notifications are generated for ALL changes and updates

–  Special case – use record id in WHERE clause to receive updates on ANY change to the record


Demo 1

  Create topic in Workbench

  Create topic in Java

  (There will also be a simple Visualforce page to create a PushTopic in the documentation)


Is Streaming ON for my Org?

  You can check under –  Setup > Customize > User Interface > Enable Streaming API

  From SOQL –  SELECT Name FROM PushTopic

  From Workbench –  Queries > PushTopics


Streaming API - Logical Flow

Account Contacts

Leads Opportunities

Custom Objects

Manage Subscriptions Send Updates

1.  Relevance Checks 2.  Push Notification Processor 3.  Event Dispatch 4.  Query, CRUD, FLS, Sharing

Data Changes Processing Updates Notifications


Subscribe via Bayeux protocol

  Endpoint https://hostname/cometd –  Hostname is Force.com instance URL or Visualforce server

hostname

  MUST set sid (session ID) cookie on request –  Cookie is set by default in JavaScript loaded from Visualforce

$.cometd.init(window.location.protocol+'//'+ window.location.hostname+'/cometd');

$.cometd.subscribe('/Contacts', function(message) {

$('#content').append('<p>New record: ' +

JSON.stringify(message.data.Name) + '</p>');

});


Demo 2

  Receive updates in Visualforce page –  JavaScript, using CometD with jQuery bindings –  Cookie handling is done for us


Bayeux Implementations

  Official CometD client libraries exist for JavaScript and Java – cometd.org

  Implementations also exist for –  Ruby –  Node.js

–  ActionScript/Adobe Flex MXML

–  PHP

–  Perl


Demo 3

  Authenticate via OAuth username/password flow

  Create topic in Java app (via REST API)

  Receive updates in Java app –  Set cookie in default Java Bayeux client


Limits Description Limit Maximum number of topics 20 Maximum number of clients (subscribers) per topic 1,000

Maximum number of concurrent clients (subscribers) across all topics

1,000

Timeout for inactivity during connection (server session) 110 sec

Timeout for inactivity after successful connection (keepalive) 40 sec

Timeout for session, regardless of activity (maximum session) 3600 sec

Maximum length of the SOQL query in the Query field of a PushTopic record

1300 chars


How Do I Get Started?

  Sign up for a Developer Edition (if you have not already done so) –  http://developer.force.com/join

  We will be seeding the developer community with a number of invites

  You can get on the waiting list for an invite at http://developer.force.com/streaming-api-activate


Best Practices

  Run the Quick Start in the docs

  Download Workbench –  Latest version (22.0.0) includes Streaming API support

  Leverage debugging tools: –  Proxy such as Burp/Fiddler/Charles

–  Firebug in the browser


Safe Harbor: Streaming API Possible Areas of Exploration

  Several areas under consideration – send feedback –  Streaming Buffers (last 100 messages) –  Dial Tone Test

–  Add HTTP Authorization/OAuth header

–  Notify on deletes

–  Increased limits

–  Reduce Relevance interval –  More Salesforce native objects


Sessions at Dreamforce 2011

  Getting Started with the Force.com Streaming API

  Event-Driven Programming with Node.js and the Force.com Streaming API

Register at http://developer.force.com/DF11offer


July 19th Apex REST API

Register at http://developer.force.com See Upcoming Events

Summer of APIs Webinar Series


Resources

  Streaming API Resource Page –  http://developer.force.com/streaming-api

  Streaming API Developer Preview Waiting List –  http://developer.force.com/streaming-api-activate


Feedback: http://bit.ly/StreamingAPI7am

Questions?

Documents

SUMMER OF APIs Force.com Streaming API · Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report