Salesforce coding lessons for the 99%Finally, Apex tutorials for point-and-click admins! Written by a self-taught Google engineer.
Salesforce coding lessons for the 99%
… Are you looking for practice completing a real-world Salesforce project?
… Do you wonder if you’re ready to apply for Salesforce developer jobs?
… Are you close to completing the 15 Week Salesforce Development curriculum?!
Well, this coding challenge is for you: FINAL PROJECT – Salesforce Development Curriculum!
I developed this coding project so you can see what a Salesforce development project in the real world is like. I’ve actually had to code similar projects multiple times in my career!
I like this project because:
I had so much fun coming up with it that I coded it myself right after – it’s tough!
More info here: FINAL PROJECT – Salesforce Development Curriculum
Good luck everyone!
I’ll be speaking to your wonderful user group next week!
I also hear your user group will be discussing the results of Seattle’s Salesforce salary survey!
Topic: Salesforce Career Path Strategies
Which Salesforce career path is right for you? In this session, we evaluate the pros and cons of the core Salesforce career paths: admin, developer, and architect. Every aspect is examined including pay, short and long term job prospects, end games, and more. Then, we’ll give you the best resources for starting down your chosen path!
I’ll be joining via webcam, but I’ll see you in person at the Seattle user group meeting next March!
Special thanks to Roz Burton-Torres, the Seattle Salesforce user group leader for inviting me!
Thank you everyone for participating in the SFDC99 Golden T-Shirt Giveaway!!!
My wife and I read every single career and parenting tip submitted and chose our favorites! If your tip was chosen, you’ve got a Golden T-Shirt coming your way soon!
We hope you enjoy these nuggets of advice as much as we do =)
| Top 10 Career Tips | Submitted By | |
| 1 | “Fear kills more dreams than failure. In other words, don’t be afraid to fail. The fear keeps you from potentially doing something great!” | Nicole Henry |
| 2 | “The key to happiness is resiliency, perseverance and being grateful for the people and opportunities that have come into your life. These qualities will help you to be confident in yourself every day and to push yourself to become more than you were yesterday.
Before you know it, you will look back at your life and see how far you have come. Then the impossible all the sudden doesn’t seem so impossible anymore. This is the place where dreams come true.” |
Liz Adams |
| 3 | “You don’t have to work 16 hours a day. To achieve great results it’s enough to do focused work for 5 to 6 hours a day.
Playing and enjoying life is as important for your professional development as the quality time spent on working and, ultimately, workaholism could be as bad as chronic procrastination.” |
Tsezarii |
| 4 | “Be humble. Use every experience as a learning opportunity. Don’t take things personally. Always strive to be the best version of yourself.” | Nicole Smith |
| 5 | “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. When everyone else is sleeping, I keep learning Salesforce everyday.” |
Joseph Thomas |
| 6 | “A little bit of consistent effort can result in bigger and better gains than a erratic massive push.” | Muneer Algazzali |
| 7 | “Without the right ATTITUDE ability and motivation won’t get you very far.” | Suzie Dusek |
| 8 | “Everyone makes mistakes, no one is infallible. Know that you can be wrong, accept it, learn from it, teach others the error in your ways.
This also helps in being less defensive when something does inevitably goes wrong. Treat those moments as learning experiences and try not to make the same mistake twice (that one is hard).” |
Gustavo |
| 9 | “My career tip would be this: work hard, be nice to people even when sometimes you don’t want to be, and use failures as a learning tool.” | Jeanette Jett |
| 10 | “Never underestimate yourself. It doesn’t make sense to talk yourself small (it’s a German proverb “kleinreden”), because if you do so, your surroundings will see you as the person you present yourself as and therefore you will see yourself as smaller than you really are.
Be confident in what you can do and also be confident in what you can not do, so don’t make yourself bigger than you are, because in the long run, people around will see through that as well and will think lesser of you.” |
Jörn |
My wife and I especially enjoyed these next tips, as we just welcomed our second baby to the family!
| Top 10 Parenting Tips | Submitted By | |
| 1 | “1. Every child is different. Pay attention.
2. Advice is great, but always consider your feelings and the feelings of your child(ren) / spouse. 3. Establish a relationship with your child(ren) from birth. They will remember the littlest way that you have made them smile. 4. Date nights aren’t only for you and your spouse. As the mother of 3 (15, 12, 2), I have a date night with my children together and separately. 5. Be intentional. Just as you should have a personal mission statement, you should consider writing one for your marriage and for parenting with your spouse; and share it with your children.” |
Ianthe Hernandez |
| 2 | “We always motivate children to push themselves, compete and win when they start playing various games. Child learns from us that winning is a happy moment and losing is sad moment. Rather we should convince them 2 things: Losing is not a sad moment but an opportunity to be happy in winners happy moments And also to stand up again positively, understand mistakes and win the next time. |
Namita Pai |
| 3 | “Treat your kid like a human who can make choices, but when they are young make those choices have insular options, not infinite options.
Example: When my kid doesn’t want to eat what I’ve given them I offer them choices about what is possible with what is already there to work with, not ask them open-ended questions about what would prefer other than what has been presented. Doing this helps them be in line with the idea that they do not dictate the terms of their needs, but instead helps them collaborate on the terms already presented. This idea has been really helpful in my parenting in many areas, not just food. – Dad of two super controlling alpha boys under 5” |
Dan Walker |
| 4 | “Our children are mirror reflections of ourselves. When you find yourself frustrated or overwhelmed by their behavior, take a pause and reflect on whether you may exhibit that same behavior in another form.
For example: Does your child constantly interrupt you while you are speaking to them? Hmmmm… take pause and be honest with yourself. can you think back to conversations earlier that day or in the week and recall if you interrupted others. Taking a minute to be thoughtful about their actions and be a manifestation of your own will lead you to offer them more grace and less frustration. It may also offer you an opportunity to giggle at yourself and offload some stress.” |
Shae Walker |
| 5 | “PUT THE PHONE DOWN!
I know it’s a very difficult thing to do, especially when you’re a techie and work in the industry, but I cannot stress enough how much this takes away from your relationship with your child(ren). I have 4 fantastic kids (ages 10 months – 6 years old). I was once glued to my iPhone 24/7 without noticing how little attention I was giving them. About a year and a half ago, I was on my phone and my 5 year old (at the time) said ‘Dad, get off your phone. Geez!’. Fortunately, it kind of slapped me in the face and gave me a wake up. Since then, when I get home from work, my phone is put on silent on my nightstand and I don’t read articles or check emails until I lay down for bed. I’ve seen a real positive impact to our relationship and couldn’t be happier for making this change.” |
Justin Tortorich |
| 6 | “I’ve been taught throughout my life and will also teach my children not to grow or indulge in the following activities or do something like that:
Wealth without work. |
Samir Sayyad |
| 7 | “My parenting tip is that it is okay to apologize to your children.
We can get caught up with always needing to be right as the parent. We may not want to admit that we made a mistake because we think it will compromise our parental authority. It won’t. Your children will respect that you have the integrity to admit it when you are wrong. And most importantly, you will be teaching them an invaluable lesson about humility and accountability.” |
David Nava |
| 8 | “Take a moment to stop and listen to your kids. When they are talking, remove all distractions, kneel down to their level and genuinely engage in a thoughtful conversation. Your time together is precious and they long for your attention and to be heard.” | Ben Robertson |
| 9 | “You cannot steer your kids right all the time or they will never learn for themselves. They can only learn by getting their fingers burnt, your job is to stand by with the Elastoplast and antiseptic and a kiss to make it better.” | Jeremiah Kofi |
| 10 | trigger goodParent on child (after insert){
for (child raiseChild : trigger.new) {
child happyChild = new child(id=raiseChild.id);
happyChild.owie = ‘Hugs and kisses’; update happychild; // with a limit of 100 I think it’s unlikely you’ll need this outside the loop } } |
Roan |
Congratulations to all the winners and Happy Holidays to all!
P.S. Please forgive us in advance for delays as I’m spending extra time with baby =)
Welcome to the SFDC99 Golden T-Shirt giveaway!
This is that magical event where I give out limited edition free t-shirts, because, ohana!
How to win a t-shirt:
Method #1: Tell me your #1 career or parenting tip! Leave it as a comment on this post!
Method #2: Email me your success story!
Important information:
Good luck to everyone who participates and I hope you have as much fun with this as I do!
David
This year’s Dreamforce was really the best Dreamforce ever!
Marc Benioff said in the keynote that this year’s Dreamforce is about celebrating us, the Ohana. He was spot on. I’ve never really been a touchy feely kind of person, but, the Salesforce Ohana is real.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t MASSIVE feature announcements. In fact, this year we saw the best new features announced since the Lightning release – in 2015!
Here were my takeaways from the most important Salesforce week of the year:
Marc Benioff is a humble genius
What words come to mind when you think about Marc Benioff?
“Humble” probably isn’t one of them. I certainly never thought so too – until this year’s Dreamforce.
I had the opportunity, along with a few other Salesforce customers, to preview Marc’s keynote and provide him feedback… live and in person! YIKES!
I was shocked that Marc actually gathered customers to critique his keynote. I was doubly shocked that he insisted on brutally honest feedback, even prodding for it. I was triply shocked that the entire executive team was present the entire time.
And the most shocking thing of all?
…He listened. He listened to everything. Most of our suggestions were implemented.
Einstein Voice is the best feature since Lightning
Einstein Voice is stupid easy: control Salesforce with your voice.
I love stupid easy. And Einstein Voice is simple in so many other ways:
The best part? It’s totally free!
The second best part? You can customize it with triggers.
I can’t wait to build my own dumb use case!
The Salesforce ecosystem is MASSIVE
Remember when all the different Salesforce products fit into a single cloud picture?
Those days are long gone. Now there are at least 12 different “clouds”. And if I’m to be truly honest with myself, I might have some knowledge in three of them.
Nowadays, each of those clouds represent entire industries by themselves. You can spend an entire, fulfilling career exploring just one of them.
How are we, as Salesforce system administrators, supposed to keep up with the entire ecosystem?
Really, we can’t. Choose the portions of Salesforce that interest you most. Accept that you cannot do everything, and give everything to your particular areas of choice.
The feeling of overwhelmingness is real. You are not alone.
Find your Salesforce Ohana
I know there are a lot of introverts out there who shy away from this Salesforce social media and community gatherings stuff. Believe me, you are doing yourself a disservice.
Try for once, attending a Salesforce community gathering. I’m talking about an Amplify, or a Vetforce, Salesforce Saturday, PepUp Tech, or Women in Tech event – there are lots of others!
Witness as these groups literally change their member’s lives and bring people to tears. I personally watched Rachel Park, Salesforce admin and cancer survivor, tell her heartwarming Salesforce comeback story to hundreds of people at an Amplify event. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
You aren’t supposed to be able to find a family for yourself in your career world. But we are so lucky to be in the Salesforce industry, with the most giving community members ever.
Things won’t always be this good. So remember to enjoy it while it’s here!
What the heck is Customer 360?
I feel obligated to mention the Customer 360 feature since it was in the keynote. Honestly, I don’t know why it’s so hot.
Salesforce says that Customer 360 assigns a special ID to every record that makes integration with all other products easier. Isn’t that just the record ID?!
Salesforce also says that Customer 360 automatically dedupes and cleans your data. That’s actually pretty neat. I hope it works.
The real benefit of Customer 360 comes when you use multiple Salesforce products together. Think Sales, Commerce, and Marketing clouds at once. Customer 360 keeps them in sync without duplicating data. That’s great but I guess most orgs are gonna have to buy more products to use it!
Dreamforce is STILL the Saleforce event of the year
If you have to choose one Salesforce event to go to each year, Dreamforce is the one.
Local Dreamin’ events and TrailheaDX are events you should absolutely attend, but nothing inspires your soul like Dreamforce does.
This year I went to Dreamforce and it changed the course of my life. My life priorities shifted and I’d be going in a different direction had I not attended. This is how I know that Dreamforce is the best Salesforce event of them all.
Looking back, many of my key life events happened at Dreamforce. Meeting Jason Venable. Meeting Dan Appleman. Emailing Marc Benioff. I am a better person because of Dreamforce.
And hell, if it could happen to me, it could happen to you too.
See you next year!
David
This was the best Dreamforce ever =)
In the Developer Keynote, I was awarded the first ever Developer Golden Hoodie!
It was the proudest moment of my career and there is nothing more I will ever ask for.
When everything finally sank in, I cried. Never in a million years did I imagine myself ever wearing this hoodie. If you had told me just a few years ago that I’d create SFDC99 and win awards from Salesforce, I would have laughed. That can’t be me – I’m just an ordinary guy.
I’ve always been an ordinary guy and I still am. Somehow, this ordinary guy achieved a dream by chasing it with childlike belief. And if I could do it, I believe that you can too.
Thank you my heroes, Dan Appleman and Jason Venable – I’m only here because they inspired me. None of this would have happened without them. And now, I’m just passing it on.
And also, thank you to the Salesforce Developers team for making it so special. I had no idea!
To everyone who has ever read SFDC99, thank you for your support and thank you for dreaming. Dreaming is the first step of an incredible journey. I hope you achieve your dreams and pass it on too.
With love,
David Liu
P.S. I’m going to have a special, limited edition giveaway to celebrate =) Stay tuned!
Can you really learn Apex in just 14 weeks?!
…and be on your way towards a $150,000 salary?!
…even if you’ve never coded a single line of code in your life?!
…even if you don’t have a technical background?!
…even if <insert a reason here> ???
Heck yea you can do it! I’ll do my best to help!
I created a 14 week Apex learning curriculum to help get you off your bum!
More information: 14 week Apex learning curriculum.
I’ll be test driving this program with a live (online!) group of students and continue to make it better and better. Registration is closed, but who knows, maybe we’ll open it up to the general public! Until then, here’s the curriculum so you can at least try it yoursef!
Finally, some of the tutorials are from the Apex Academy and thus require a paid subscription. I care more that you learn Apex than I do making extra money, so I’ve included alternate free tutorials. You can also email me with a flattering message to request a scholarship. I do my best to help =)
Good luck and check out these success stories for some inspiration!
David
P.S. See you at Dreamforce next week!
Something special is happening!
In our lifetimes, some of us will be lucky enough to stumble on one, maybe two great opportunities. Opportunities that give us the power to support our families, not worry about having a job, and also, the privilege to work on compelling things.
If you’re reading this post and you’re not yet in the Salesforce industry, this is your great opportunity.
I spoke about this phenomenon during Pluralsight LIVE. Here are the slides and key points:
How to learn Salesforce and make $150,000 per year
UPDATE: the full recording is now available! (Pluralsight subscription required!)
Key points:
My recommend learning path can be found in the final slides at the end.
I hope you find success and I wish you the best in your life journey!
David
I can’t believe there are people of working age who were born after this movie came out.If you haven’t watched Mulan yet, stop reading now and watch the trailer or rent the movie.
I watched Mulan for the first time in 20 years and there was one scene that hit me right in the feels.
It struck me that many people in the Salesforce world, including me, went through similar struggles as Mulan did. I thought I’d share this scene with you to remind you that sometimes you need to struggle before you can succeed.
Let’s get down to business…
Mulan didn’t belong in her world
Unbeknownst to her ailing father, Mulan disguises herself as a man to go to war in her father’s place.
Like many others, I never belonged in the Salesforce world. I had a marketing degree from a non-prestigious college, I was a professional email spammer working at a no name company, and I had never even heard of CRM.
And coding? Forget about it! I didn’t know how to write a single line of it!
Mulan hit rock bottom
Mulan is sent home from the war for failing to keep up physically. She brings dishonor to her family.
One day after sending a massive email spam to tens of thousands of customers and accidentally using their incorrect names, I received a reply back with seven pages of the word “F@#$ YOU!!”
I remember printing that email out and keeping it by my desk. When I was growing up, I used to dream that I would have a great career that could support my family. At this point, I couldn’t have been further from that dream.
At night I’d stay awake and wonder how I messed up my career so badly.
Mulan doesn’t give up. She works while everyone else is sleeping
Unwilling to go home, Mulan decides to prove herself by taking on the impossible task: climbing to the top of the pole while wearing the heavily weighted straps.
In my heart I knew that learning to code was the way to turn around my career.
I knew I’d be far behind everyone else since I didn’t know any code and they had formally learned it in college, but, I hoped that if I worked harder than them that over time I would catch up and maybe even surpass them.
It would be painfully hard work, but not as painful as if I continued my career as an email spammer.
Mulan takes her weaknesses and turns them into her strengths
Mulan takes the weighted straps, wraps them together, and uses them to help her climb the pole.
My job application was just rejected by Google for the 10th time in a row. On try number 11, I decided to do things differently.
Borrowing on my previous knowledge from the email spamming world, I decided to purchase the contact information of Salesforce professionals at Google and email spam them my credentials until they brought me in for an interview.
It worked.
One success changes Mulan’s trajectory forever
Mulan reaches the top of the pole and earns the respect of her comrades. She goes from being the worst member of her unit to one of its best.
This is the story of the first piece of code I ever deployed to a production org.
While in my email spamming job and learning to code on the side, I was sitting in a meeting with the company’s executives (it was a small company). They needed to automate a key accounting calculation in Salesforce and were discussing their options. There seemed to be no path forward other than hiring a Salesforce consultant and spending tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
This was my moment. My heart was beating and my hands were shaking. I put my hands on the table, stood up, and told the executives that I could do it myself. I had no idea how to code it, but I knew I’d work nights and weekends until it was done.
I told them to give me a month, and if I failed, it would cost them nothing and they could move forward with hiring a Salesforce consultant.
I ended up successfully building the accounting code. As a reward, the company transferred me to the engineering team and paid for my coding courses. The rest is history.
I hope you enjoyed this post!
Check out the full Mulan – I’ll Make a Man Out of You music video to see the full scene!
David’s note: Atul – I have the utmost respect for those who achieve success from the humblest backgrounds!! Your journey was far tougher than mine and I am in awe at your perseverance! If I’m Superman then you gotta be Batman! =)
Hey David!!
I was thinking to share my story from many days and today finally I dare to do that.
I belong to such an area where “Internet” is a big thing and there is not such word called “Internet” that you can actually hear. When I completed my schooling I didn’t even know “How to start a Computer” and even how to refresh things on it. Sounds funny! Right?
After that I decided to pursue my graduation in Information Technology. For that I shifted to big city Delhi and on a serious note that city was going very fast to me.
I completed my grad but didn’t get how to code. If somebody used to talk about coding in front of me, I used to think “How do these guys do coding?” So, I started memorizing theory of Java and started giving interviews. I gave around 30-40 interviews but eventually failed.
At that point of time, one of my friends suggested to start fresh and
talked about Salesforce. It sounded interesting to me and I searched the same on the internet. Guess what I found at top: SFDC99.com.
I went through that site and for the very first time in my life I understood little bit of code and that made me interested in code. Then after I started learning from Apex Academy. I watched all the videos many a times and practiced a lot.
Doing this made my life great, I got selected in one Salesforce firm as a Developer and I was consistently following your advice and cracked 2 Salesforce certifications and recently I was awarded as a “Star Performer”.
All credit goes to you David. I’m huge fan of yours and my colleagues called me “Indian David Liu”. =)
And one of my greatest moment was when you came to India for the India Dreamin event and I personally met you. You were the simplest person that I ever met, you are amazing David..
Last but not the least “You are SUPERMAN to me!!”
From
Atul..
Looking sharp, buddy!
Inspired by this story?
Read more success stories from other SFDC99 students!
Want to tell the world your story too?
Email it to sfdc99.mailbag@gmail.com and your story could be heard around the world!
