I have an Account object in Salesforce and I have an custom field called ExternalText. I have marked the field as and External Id and
"Set this field as the unique record identifier from an external system"
There are 2 accounts that have this field set to a value of E1 in Salesforce.
I want to do an upsert from a csv file using DataLoader and the csv looks something like this:
External Description
E1 Description 1
E1 Description 2
But when i do the upsert i get the error:
ExternalTest: more than one record found for external id field: [<id1>, <id2>]
I would have expected the Description field for both to be updated to Description 1 and then Description 2, so if i view the object in Salesforce the Description field would say Description 2
How can i do this ?
You can't do it like that. Upsert has to find 0 or exactly 1 record with that external id. On 0 it'll try to create, on 1 it'll try to update, anything else - error.
For most normal usages you'll want fields marked as ext id to also be marked unique. If this isn't unique at source - you need different value in your field or bite the bullet, learn SF record IDs and do plain old query + update for example.
There's 1 edge case why ext id doesn't automatically mark field unique but if you rely on that technicality I'd say you have bigger problems. Imagine system where both UK and Germany created customer ID 123 and they want to push it to Salesforce. They both claim they were first and absolutely won't change their unique ID. So the trick is you can pull it off with right sharing rules. Upsert done with user that only sees UK data will work and update only UK customer. As I said - it's a technicality, in a "you think you're clever but you just made admin's job trickier" area.
Related
I am new to SalesForce and SOQL so sorry in advance if the question has already been answered, if yes link it to me.
The aim of my SOQL query is to get all the contract information to generate PDF.
There are tables: Contract, Contact and Account
In the Contract table there are fields: Maitre_d_apprentissage__c, MaitreApprentissageNom1__c, MaitreApprentissagePrenom1__c, Apprenti__c, ApprentiNom__c, ApprentiPrenom__c
There are relationships:
Apprenti__r which link Apprenti__c to Contact table
Maitre_d_apprentissage__r which link Maitre_d_apprentissage__c to Contact table
When I looked at table, I saw that MaitreApprentissageNom1__c was equal to Maitre_d_apprentissage__r.LastName and ApprentiNom__c was equal to Apprenti__r.LastName. So I conclude I could get other information of Apprenti__c and Maitre_d_apprentissage__c from the Contact Table following the same principle. So I added to my query Apprenti__r.Date_de_naissance__c and Maitre_d_apprentissage__r.Date_de_naissance__c to get the Date_de_naissance__c field which is in my Contact table.
I see in the results that the query succeeds in getting the information but some values have changed column (lines 6 and 7), you can see the difference between query 1 and query 2. In the first query I only return the Apprenti__r.Date_de_naissance__c and in the second query I return Apprenti__r.Date_de_naissance__c and Maitre_d_apprentissage__r.Date_de_naissance__c
Query 1:
SELECT ApprentiNom__c, ApprentiPrenom__c, Apprenti__r.Date_de_naissance__c, MaitreApprentissageNom1__c, MaitreApprentissagePrenom1__c
FROM Contract
Result 1:
Query 2:
SELECT ApprentiNom__c, ApprentiPrenom__c, Apprenti__r.Date_de_naissance__c, MaitreApprentissageNom1__c, MaitreApprentissagePrenom1__c, Maitre_d_apprentissage__r.Date_de_naissance__c
FROM Contract
Result 2:
I would like to understand from where is coming the problem and how to correct it. Thank you in advance.
It's possible that it's just your query editor displaying stuff incorrectly. You can see it got confused with 2 lookups to Contact table, why there's even a column header "Contact.Date_de_naissance__c" (and why it's there twice). And they aren't shown in the order you requested...
What editor you're using? You could try built-in "Developer Console" or http://workbench.developerforce.com/
What do you need it for? In Apex order of fields won't matter, in REST API query the values fetched via lookup will come as JSON sub-objects so there will always be a way to figure out exactly which value is coming from which relation.
In Dev Console try to run this and check if it solves your fears:
System.debug(JSON.serializePretty([SELECT
ApprentiNom__c, ApprentiPrenom__c,
Apprenti__r.Date_de_naissance__c,
MaitreApprentissageNom1__c, MaitreApprentissagePrenom1__c,
Maitre_d_apprentissage__r.Date_de_naissance__c
FROM Contract]));
Then add Maitre_d_apprentissage__r.LastName to query and see what changed, what stayed as is.
I need to do 1 of two things (I believe):
1- Get a Custom Object ID so I can query it directly
2- Get a list of values of a specific field within the Object entries.
Ultimate End goal:
Add and modify rows in my custom object via external API. However to do this I need to check and make sure my new entry/row does not already exist.
What I have:
I have a custom object (called Customer_Arrays__c). It is a table that I can add new rows to (I will call entrys). Each entry has 6 or 7 fields. 1 of these fields is called (external_ID__c). This is the field I utilize to match to new incoming data to see if the entry already exists, or if it needs to add a new row to my table. This Customer_Arrays__c is a child to my opportunity I believe – it is part of every opportunity and each line item I add has a field defaulted to the opportunity.
Help I need:
1- How do I query the value of my Cutomer_Arrays__c based upon an opportunity ID?
2- How do I query a list of values in my (external_ID__c) based upon an opportunity ID?
Thanks for your help! I have read half a dozen+ posts on similar topics and am missing something. Examples of some Past try's that failed:
Select external_ID__c,FROM Custom_Arrays__c WHERE Opportunity='00...'
Select Id (Select ID, Custom_Arrays__c from Custom_Arrays__c) from Opportunity where id ='00...'
List FROM Custom_Arrays__c WHERE Opportunity='00...'
Select Id, external_ID__c, (Select external_ID__c FROM Custom_Arrays__c) WHERE Opportunity__c='00...'
Thanks again!
Only you know how did you name the lookup field (foreign key) from arrays to Opportunity. You'll need to check in setup, next to where external_ID__c is. Since it's a custom field (gets __c at the end), my guess is you went with default.
Try
SELECT Id, Name, External_Id__c
FROM Customer_Arrays__c
WHERE Opportunity__c = '006...'
Thank you eyescream, that got me almost all the way there. Turns out I also needed a __r for the parent child relationship.
Here is a snip out of my final code that works - I think it covers everything:
SELECT Field1__c, Opportunity__r.Id, Opportunity__r.Opportunity__c,
FROM Customer_Arrays__c
WHERE Opportunity__r.Id = '006...'.
Thank you so very much!!!
I am using salesforce rest api to pull meeting data.There is a field "WhoId" in the reponse which according to the documentation is the related lead or contact id .How do i find whether it is a lead or contact?
You can always tell what sort of object an ID corresponds to by looking at the first 3 letters. In your case, you'd look for a prefix of 00Q (Lead) or 003 (Contact).
See: https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/q/1653
Backup copy of the full table gisted (just in case!) and rendered for your future convenience.
To all salesforce experts i need some assistance. I have my contacts and a custom object named programs. I created a junction object using to master detail relationships with contacts and programs. I want to avoid relating the same contact to the same program. I tried triggers but I couldn't create the testing part to use it outside sandbox.
I went back to the basics and created a Unique text field. I tried to use default value but EVERYTHING i write in that crap is wrong -_-. I tried Contact__r.Email & "-" & Program__r.Name but to no avail.
I tried workflow rules with a field update but my field update NEVER runs.(Yes I did activate the workflow rule) and I didn't know what to write in my rule's code.
The workflow firing condition could be simply a formula that says true. Alternatively use "every time record is inserted". It also depends whether your master-details are set once and that's it or they will be "reparentable" (option introduced in Summer '12 I think). Maybe post a screenshot / text description of your firing condition? Also - is your unique field set to "case sensitive"?
As for the formula to populate the unique field - something like Contact__c + ' ' + Program__c (or whatever the API names of your fields are) should be OK. Don't use Contact__r.Email etc as these don't have to be unique...
You'll have to somehow fill in the uniqueness criteria for all existing records (maybe that's why you claimed it doesn't work?). If you can use Apex for data fixes - something like this should get you started.
List<Junction__c> junctions = [SELECT Contact__c, Program__c
FROM Junction__c
WHERE Unique_Text_Field__c = null
LIMIT 10000];
for(Junction__c j : junctions){
String key = String.valueOf(j.Contact__c).left(15) + ' ' + String.valueOf(j.Program__c).left(15);
j.Unique_Text_Field__c = key;
}
update junctions;
Keep rerunning it until it starts to show 0 rows processed. The Ids are cut down to 15 chars because in Apex you'd usually see full 18-char Id but workflows use 15-char versions.
Consider an e-commerce application with multiple stores. Each store owner can edit the item catalog of his store.
My current database schema is as follows:
item_names: id | name | description | picture | common(BOOL)
items: id | item_name_id | picture | price | description | picture
item_synonyms: id | item_name_id | name | error(BOOL)
Notes: error indicates a wrong spelling (eg. "Ericson"). description and picture of the item_names table are "globals" that can optionally be overridden by "local" description and picture fields of the items table (in case the store owner wants to supply a different picture for an item). common helps separate unique item names ("Jimmy Joe's Cheese Pizza" from "Cheese Pizza")
I think the bright side of this schema is:
Optimized searching & Handling Synonyms: I can query the item_names & item_synonyms tables using name LIKE %QUERY% and obtain the list of item_name_ids that need to be joined with the items table. (Examples of synonyms: "Sony Ericsson", "Sony Ericson", "X10", "X 10")
Autocompletion: Again, a simple query to the item_names table. I can avoid the usage of DISTINCT and it minimizes number of variations ("Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10", "Sony Ericsson - Xperia X10", "Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson")
The down side would be:
Overhead: When inserting an item, I query item_names to see if this name already exists. If not, I create a new entry. When deleting an item, I count the number of entries with the same name. If this is the only item with that name, I delete the entry from the item_names table (just to keep things clean; accounts for possible erroneous submissions). And updating is the combination of both.
Weird Item Names: Store owners sometimes use sentences like "Harry Potter 1, 2 Books + CDs + Magic Hat". There's something off about having so much overhead to accommodate cases like this. This would perhaps be the prime reason I'm tempted to go for a schema like this:
items: id | name | picture | price | description | picture
(... with item_names and item_synonyms as utility tables that I could query)
Is there a better schema you would suggested?
Should item names be normalized for autocomplete? Is this probably what Facebook does for "School", "City" entries?
Is the first schema or the second better/optimal for search?
Thanks in advance!
References: (1) Is normalizing a person's name going too far?, (2) Avoiding DISTINCT
EDIT: In the event of 2 items being entered with similar names, an Admin who sees this simply clicks "Make Synonym" which will convert one of the names into the synonym of the other. I don't require a way to automatically detect if an entered name is the synonym of the other. I'm hoping the autocomplete will take care of 95% of such cases. As the table set increases in size, the need to "Make Synonym" will decrease. Hope that clears the confusion.
UPDATE: To those who would like to know what I went ahead with... I've gone with the second schema but removed the item_names and item_synonyms tables in hopes that Solr will provide me with the ability to perform all the remaining tasks I need:
items: id | name | picture | price | description | picture
Thanks everyone for the help!
The requirements you state in your comment ("Optimized searching", "Handling Synonyms" and "Autocomplete") are not things that are generally associated with an RDBMS. It sounds like what you're trying to solve is a searching problem, not a data storage and normalization problem. You might want to start looking at some search architectures like Solr
Excerpted from the solr feature list:
Faceted Searching based on unique field values, explicit queries, or date ranges
Spelling suggestions for user queries
More Like This suggestions for given document
Auto-suggest functionality
Performance Optimizations
If there were more attributes exposed for mapping, I would suggest using a fast search index system. No need to set aliases up as the records are added, the attributes simply get indexed and each search issued returns matches with a relevance score. Take the top X% as valid matches and display those.
Creating and storing aliases seems like a brute-force, labor intensive approach that probably won't be able to adjust to the needs of your users.
Just an idea.
One thing that comes to my mind is sorting the characters in the name and synonym throwing away all white space. This is similar to the solution of finding all anagrams for a word. The end result is ability to quickly find similar entries. As you pointed out, all synonyms should converge into one single term, or name. The search is performed against synonyms using again sorted input string.