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%
Preface: this post is part of the Advanced Apex Concepts series.
It’s surprisingly easy to send emails out using Apex!
Just don’t be tempted to become an email spammer, trust me, I used to work in that industry!
Here are a few things to keep in mind before sending emails with Apex:
Sending an email with Apex is easy because you always follow the same template:
// Send a business proposal to each new Contact trigger Proposal on Contact (before insert) { // Step 0: Create a master list to hold the emails we'll send List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage> mails = new List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage>(); for (Contact myContact : Trigger.new) { if (myContact.Email != null && myContact.FirstName != null) { // Step 1: Create a new Email Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage(); // Step 2: Set list of people who should get the email List<String> sendTo = new List<String>(); sendTo.add(myContact.Email);mail.setToAddresses(sendTo);// Step 3: Set who the email is sent frommail.setReplyTo('sirdavid@bankofnigeria.com'); mail.setSenderDisplayName('Official Bank of Nigeria');// (Optional) Set list of people who should be CC'ed List<String> ccTo = new List<String>(); ccTo.add('business@bankofnigeria.com');mail.setCcAddresses(ccTo);// Step 4. Set email contents - you can use variables!mail.setSubject('URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL');String body = 'Dear ' + myContact.FirstName + ', '; body += 'I confess this will come as a surprise to you.'; body += 'I am John Alliston CEO of the Bank of Nigeria.'; body += 'I write to request your cooperation in this '; body += 'urgent matter as I need a foreign partner '; body += 'in the assistance of transferring $47,110,000 '; body += 'to a US bank account. Please respond with '; body += 'your bank account # so I may deposit these funds.';mail.setHtmlBody(body);// Step 5. Add your email to the master list mails.add(mail); } } // Step 6: Send all emails in the master listMessaging.sendEmail(mails);}
Don’t be intimidated by the lines of code, most of it is just fluff!
If you’re getting lost in any of the code, make sure to revisit the Core Apex Tools chapter to refresh!
Next post: Change your trigger on the fly using Custom Settings!
Sorry in advanced if its a silly question.
How can we use .setReplyTo and setSenderDisplayName on Messaging.SingleEmailMessage object , as they are from email object.
This field is fine (setToAddresses) as it is from Messaging.SingleEmailMessage.
please clear my silly doubt.
I’ve created a button using Javascript to use the SingleEmailMessage and an email template and it works great! My question is, can the email be opened for editing and not just sent. I’ve found nothing on that so I presume not, but thought I’d ask.
Sorry wrong question , I got it . Just couldn’t find those fields at first in developer guide
I have written adderror method in trigger. Whenever I am creating a record if criteria was not met, error is displaying in the top of the page.,due to that addError method in trigger. And at the same time I am getting apex exception email to my mail Id whenever this error happened. How to stop emails, i want to display the error on the page only, i don’t want to get email.
Please suggest me how we can stop this apex exception emails.
Use try catch. In catch store the exception message into that varuble and display on vf page
sunny.xie@edgewell.com
Hi Sunny!
This sure looks like a Spam Email :D
Good work anyways!
David,
Sending email through apex worked fine, but trying to write a test class for it. But I Couldn’t make it.
Here is my test class and following error message getting during run test.
System.DmlException: Insert failed. First exception on row 0; first error: CANNOT_INSERT_UPDATE_ACTIVATE_ENTITY, Proposal_Email: execution of BeforeInsert
caused by: System.EmailException: SendEmail failed. First exception on row 3; first error: SINGLE_EMAIL_LIMIT_EXCEEDED, Email limit exceeded: []
Trigger.Proposal_Email: line 29, column 1: []
Test class:-
@IsTest
public class EmailMessage_Test {
public static testMethod void EmailMessage_Test() {
List totalcontacts = new List();
for (Integer i = 0; i < 200; i++) {
Contact newContact = new Contact();
newContact.FirstName = 'Hansika';
newContact.LastName = 'Motwani';
newContact.Email = 'prabhuselva.mech@gmail.com';
//insert newContact;
totalcontacts.add(newContact);
Messaging.singleEmailMessage newmail = new Messaging.singleEmailMessage();
List SendTo = new List();
SendTo.add(newContact.Email);
newmail.setToaddresses(SendTo);
newmail.setreplyTo(‘revprabu@gmail.com’);
newmail.setSenderDisplayName(‘Hansika’);
List CcTo = new List();
CcTo.add(‘revprabu@gmail.com’);
newmail.setCcaddresses(CcTo);
newmail.setSubject(‘Test class defined’);
String body = ‘Please execute ‘ + newContact.FirstName + newContact.LastName;
newmail.setHtmlbody(body);
}
insert totalcontacts;
List allmails = [SELECT Id, ToAddress FROM EmailMessage];
for (EmailMessage uniquemail : allmails) {
System.assertEquals(uniquemail.ToAddress, ‘prabhuselva.mech@gmail.com’);
}
}
}
I used the code in this post to send an email to contact.email when a Task is updated. The test run was successful and the code coverage is 100% . I am using one my email address but have still not received the email. How do I check if the email was sent?
Here is my test class
*******
@isTest (SeeAllData=true)
private class TestSendWinEmail
{
static testMethod void TestSendWinEmail ()
{
//Create some test data
//Owner -00540000003D4JK
//Case – 50029000004HKde
Task b = new Task (Subject =’Testing 123′,
Prefer_to_respond_via_Email__c = False,
OwnerId = ‘00540000003D4JK’,
WhatId=’50029000004HKde’
,WhoId=’00329000005ZiTB’
);
insert b;
Task b1=[select id, Subject from task where id=:b.id];
b1.Prefer_to_respond_via_Email__c = True;
update b1;
//Time to check that the Task was inserted
System.assertEquals(‘Testing 123’, b1.Subject);
}
}
*****
Here is the trigger….
trigger SendWinEmail on Task (after update) {
List mails =
new List();
for (Task t : Trigger.new) {
Contact myContact =[SELECT Id,Email,FirstName FROM Contact WHERE Id = :t.WhoId];
System.assertEquals(‘00329000005ZiTB’,myContact.Id);
Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail =
new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
// Step 2: Set list of people who should get the email
List sendTo = new List();
sendTo.add(myContact.Email);
mail.setToAddresses(sendTo);
// Step 3: Set who the email is sent from
mail.setReplyTo(‘sirdavid@bankofnigeria.com’);
mail.setSenderDisplayName(‘Official Bank of Nigeria’);
// (Optional) Set list of people who should be CC’ed
List ccTo = new List();
ccTo.add(‘business@bankofnigeria.com’);
mail.setCcAddresses(ccTo);
// Step 4. Set email contents – you can use variables!
mail.setSubject(‘URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL’);
String body = ‘Dear ‘ + myContact.FirstName + ‘, ‘;
body += ‘I confess this will come as a surprise to you.’;
body += ‘I am John Alliston CEO of the Bank of Nigeria.’;
body += ‘your bank account # so I may deposit these funds.’;
mail.setHtmlBody(body);
// Step 5. Add your email to the master list
mails.add(mail);
}
Messaging.sendEmail(mails);
}
****
Thank you all for your help.
Parse Url in apex Class
for(Lead ld : leadlist){
String fullRecordURL = URL.getSalesforceBaseUrl().toExternalForm() + ‘/’ + ld.Id;
ldlist = ldlist + ”+ld.CreatedBy.Name+”+
‘‘+ld.Name+’‘+
How to send more than 10 emails using batch apex .Plz help.
global class Batch_to_SentEmailNotify implements Database.Batchable
{
global Database.QueryLocator start(Database.BatchableContext BC)
{
string s=’Blocked’;
String query = ‘Select Id,Resort_Master__r.Name,Executive_Name__r.Email__c,Name_of_the_Guest__c,Company_Name__c,Block_Release_Date__c,Check_In__c,Check_Out__c,Total_Number_of_Rooms_Booked__c,Booking_Status__c,Source__c,Market_Segment__c,Executive_Name__r.Name FROM Non_Member_Booking_Request__c where Booking_Status__c=: s AND Email_Sent_Test__c != TRUE’;
return Database.getQueryLocator(query);
}
global void execute(Database.BatchableContext BC, List scope)
{
ListlstNMBReq = new list();
for(Non_Member_Booking_Request__c c : scope)
{
system.debug(‘++++++++++++++system.today+2 ++++++++++++++’+system.today()+2);
string email = c.Executive_Name__r.Email__c;
if(email !=null &&(system.today()+2 == c.Check_In__c))
{
Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
mail.setUseSignature(false);
mail.setToAddresses(new String[] { email});
mail.setSubject(‘Block Alert ‘);
mail.setReplyTo(‘harishk968@gmail.com’);
mail.setCcAddresses(new String[] { ‘harishk968@gmail.com’ });
mail.setHtmlBody(‘Dear ‘+c.Executive_Name__r.Name+ ‘,’+’Your current tentative blocks are as under with the respective block release dates.’+’ Name of Resort First Name Company /Travel Agent Block Release Date Check In Check Out Rooms Booking Status Source Market Segment Executive Name ‘ +”+”+ c.Resort_Master__r.Name +”+”+ c.Name_of_the_Guest__c +”+”+ c.Company_Name__c +”+”+ c.Block_Release_Date__c+”+”+ c.Check_In__c +”+”+ c.Check_Out__c +”+”+ c.Total_Number_of_Rooms_Booked__c +”+”+ c.Booking_Status__c+”+”+ c.Source__c +”+”+ c.Market_Segment__c +”+”+ c.Executive_Name__r.Name+”+’ ‘+’Please let us know of the payment and contract details in order to regularize & confirm the same on the system. In the event of the same not being regularized, the block will be automatically released from the system and further rooms will be subject to availability.’+’Thank You. ‘+’Regards’+’SanjeeviKumar G’);
Messaging.sendEmail(new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage[] {mail});
system.debug(‘@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@mail@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@’+mail);
c.Email_Sent_Test__c = TRUE;
lstNMBReq.add(c);
}
if(lstNMBReq.size() > 0){
update lstNMBReq;
}
}
}
global void finish(Database.BatchableContext BC)
{
}
}
David,
Nice post.
Can you provide test class for sendemail
This should be re-factored. It’s just messy and not scalable to do this directly in a trigger.
Thanks for the comment! How would you refactor it?
Hi.I want to write a batch class code for updating a field if it has same value for more than 50 days.Please help.
Hi
I am getting error like System.NoAccessException: The organization is not permitted to send email
how can i resolve this issue.
You probably have to change your org’s settings somewhere, Google it =)
I tried to convert the above code to send email email to a specific email address if the subject was troubleshooting, but nothing happens when i create the task. Can anyone help? The code is below. i have changed the email content yet until i get this to work.
trigger Trigger_SendPartsTechEmail on Task (before insert) {
// Step 0: Create a master list to hold the emails we’ll send
List mails =
new List();
for (Task tsk : Trigger.new) {
if (tsk.Subject==’Troubleshooting’ && tsk.CreatedBy.Username == ‘bpoliquin@cybexintl.com.cybextest’) {
// Step 1: Create a new Email
Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail =
new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
// Step 2: Set list of people who should get the email
List sendTo = new List();
sendTo.add(‘bpoliquin@cybexintl.com’);
mail.setToAddresses(sendTo);
// Step 3: Set who the email is sent from
mail.setReplyTo(‘pcallery@cybexintl.com’);
mail.setSenderDisplayName(‘Cybex Parts’);
// (Optional) Set list of people who should be CC’ed
List ccTo = new List();
ccTo.add(‘bpoliqui@aol.com’);
mail.setCcAddresses(ccTo);
// Step 4. Set email contents – you can use variables!
mail.setSubject(‘URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL’);
String body = ‘Dear ‘ + ‘Bob’ + ‘, ‘;
body += ‘I confess this will come as a surprise to you.’;
body += ‘I am John Alliston CEO of the Bank of Nigeria.’;
body += ‘I write to request your cooperation in this ‘;
body += ‘urgent matter as I need a foreign partner ‘;
body += ‘in the assistance of transferring $47,110,000 ‘;
body += ‘to a US bank account. Please respond with ‘;
body += ‘your bank account # so I may deposit these funds.’;
mail.setHtmlBody(body);
// Step 5. Add your email to the master list
mails.add(mail);
}
}
// Step 6: Send all emails in the master list
Messaging.sendEmail(mails);
}
List mails =
new List();
Hello Bob, Did you figure out the issue with this trigger?
Police.. we found him.. this is the guy who took 1000$ from me!!!!
Nice David, thanks for making this site so interesting. It is fun to learn..I spend at least an hour a day here. Kudos!!
Interestingly…. I did not find ‘setReplyto’ listed in the Apex documentation under singleEmailMessage methods… Since there are plenty of use-cases where those programming these emails might not want to reference a default email (i.e. in the case of the user commenting in the StackExchange link…..”email of the internal user… editing record…triggering email…
http://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/1243/setting-a-from-address-in-singleemailmessage
Good BG info for those writing email messages and handlers…. Perhaps if you have some time, you might comment on the comments:)
Thanks David for taking time and doing this for helping us. Appreciate the same very much.
Hey David,
Thanks for putting this together, I have used it many times already. I am running into one issue that I am hoping you can help with. I have a trigger (before insert,before update) that is sending an email to a Lead. When the email is received it displays the Owners name but the email displayed is mine. If we click Reply to reply to the message it shows the correct email address for the owner as the reply to, but I am concerned about my email address showing with the name of the owner when the customer looks at the initial email.
Some additional notes:
1. The owners of the Lead are Partner Community users that are being assigned a Lead and we want to send this email to the Lead containing the partners information.
2. I am running this in my Sandbox org.
3. I have a working trigger in production, but it is an after update trigger that fires with the action of the partner accepting the Lead. We are changing that process to this new one.
Here are the set lines for the owner information:
mail.setReplyTo(ownerEmail); – ownerEmail address is: jonezie127@email.com
mail.setSenderDisplayName(owner); – owner name is Elizabeth Jones
Displays in email:
Elizabeth Jones
Really appreciate any insight.
Keep up the GREAT work!!!
Chris
Too much for me to process honestly although I’m sure you’ll find your answer either on SFDC99 forums or the official ones!
You’ll need to register the owner email as an org-wide email address for it to be used.
This is beautiful code, David! It’s so beautiful that my fingers are now itching to implement it in my org =)
On a side note, it would be nice and helpful to have 2-3 sample scenarios at the end of each chapter (whenever you introduce a new concept) to get a better idea about how a certain feature can be put to good use in Salesforce. For example: Chapter 6 ( Sub chapters 3. & 4.)
Just my 2 cents!
Great suggestion Mayank (as always)!
My backlog is getting pretty long now!!
Hi David,
How to write test class for above Messaging?
Thanks in advance,
Tushar
Hi David,
I’ve used your tutorials to build out a trigger, which includes an email send.
Everything seems to be running OK on he Sandbox, but I’m not receiving the emails.
Any thoughts on what might be tripping this up? I’ve been going in circles for a couple of days now and got to the point where I’m tempted to just deploy it live and see if it works but I know I shouldn’t :)
Some notes on the troubleshooting I’ve tried:
– The Sandbox’s Deliverability Access level is set to “All email”.
– I have used “Test Deliverability” from the Sandbox to verify that it is able to send to these particular emails. One is a work email, one’s a personal Gmail, one’s a personal email on another domain – so I’d be really surprised if all 3 had spam or similar issues (and in a way where I still can’t find any trace of the message).
– None of these emails are users, or appear on Accounts/Contacts anywhere in the Sandbox org.
– I’m using SystemAsset to check sendEmailResult, and it looks OK. If I tweak the email content (e.g. deliberately set a malformed email address with no @), then it fails as expected. If I tweak the Assert conditions, then it fails as expected.
Messaging.sendEmailResult[] sendEmailResults = Messaging.sendEmail(new Messaging.Email[] {email});
System.assertEquals(1, sendEmailResults.size()); // the trigger should send exactly 1 email
System.assertEquals(true, sendEmailResults[0].success);
– I can see the email details in the debug log, and it seems OK (I’ve altered the toAddresses when posting here, in the code they are real working emails).
12:04:16:061 EMAIL_QUEUE [87]|subject: test trigger email, bccSender: false, saveAsActivity: false, useSignature: false, toAddresses: [email@workemail.com, email@gmail.com, email@iinet.net.au], plainTextBody: The trigger has done stuff,
12:04:16:061 TOTAL_EMAIL_RECIPIENTS_QUEUED 3
Other David, ha ha ha, you are experiencing one of the most frustrating problems!
You sound extremely thorough (sign of a good coder) so I’m guessing you already checked all your spam folders.
Other things to check:
– The “Email Log Files” link in Setup
– “Test Deliverability” in Setup and make sure you get exactly the 52 or so emails
Or you can always try sending the mail to me =) Wait a minute, no, don’t do that!!! =P
David
Thanks for the quick reply :)
– Yes I’ve had a good look through the spam folders, no sign of the emails or even of a rejection/warning notification.
– With Test Deliverability I do get exactly 52 emails each time.
– “Email Log Files” are NOT showing the emails from my Trigger. All I’m seeing in the Log Files are the batches of 52 Deliverability test emails, plus the notification emails telling me that my log request has finished.
So the issue seems to lie somewhere with the email entering the email queue, but the queue not actually being processed/sent?
Not 100% ready to put it on that yet but it very well could be! Are you positive it’s set to “All email” in deliverability?!
Whenever and whatever solution you find please let us know!
Sooooo, I figured out what the problem was.
Everything in my trigger is working fine, it’s just that a test class cannot send an email!
This is documented in the info about creating unit tests (e.g. https://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/Content/apex_testing_unit_tests.htm says “You can’t send email messages from a test method.”), but it doesn’t seem to be documented on any of the the pages related to email methods like Messaging.sendEmail or SendEmailResult.
I’ve suggested Salesforce update the pages relating to email methods to make it clearer that a unit test can’t send emails.
So in this particular case, deploying to live in frustration turned out to be the right thing to do :)
Ha ha ha of course!
Great job debugging – you’ll never get stuck on this error again, guarantee it! =)
Hi David,
I am attempting my first email trigger but need some guidance.
I have tested Workflow and created Sales Orders/Sales Order Lines in my Dev account.
I am not quite sure what I need to change and to what. I have tried watching the vids and reading your tips/comments!
I want to send an Email to Email in the TransmissionEmail (custom) field in Accounts when a Sales Order (custom) is status 8.
I have had mixed luck with Workflow sending emails to myself (sometimes the suggested code in the template creator doesn’t result in text, see my comments below.)
I guess you can call this a sad start? :) Any help would be appreciated!
// Send shipping update to Transmission email
trigger ShippingAlert on Sales_Order__C (after insert, after OrderStatus__c = 8) {
// Step 0: Create a master list to hold the emails we’ll send
List mails =
new List();
for (Contact myContact : Trigger.new) {
if (Transmission_Email__c != null && myContact.FirstName != null) {
// Step 1: Create a new Email
Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail =
new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
// Step 2: Set list of people who should get the email-I switched myContact.Email to be Transmission_Email__c
List sendTo = new List();
sendTo.add(Transmission_Email__c); mail.setToAddresses(sendTo);
// Step 3: Set who the email is sent from – This should be fine
mail.setReplyTo(info@—.com);
mail.setSenderDisplayName(‘Pac-Kit Customer Service’);
// Step 4. Set email contents – The subject and second line works. Lines after “Your order includes” doesn’t work in Workflow. I am guessing the issue is there could be numbers I have to use, as there could be multiple Sales Order lines?
mail.setSubject(‘{!Sales_Order__c.Name} is shipping today’);
String body = ‘Hi’
body += Your purchase order {!Sales_Order__c.Name} (our Sales Order {!Sales_Order__c.SalesOrderNumber__c}) is now status 8, so it will ship today.
body += Your order includes the following item (possibly more.)
body += ‘Product {!Sales_Order_Line__c.ProductName__c}’;
body += ‘Name {!Sales_Order_Line__c.Name}’;
body += ‘Any questions feel free to reply!’;
// Step 5. Add your email to the master list (as is)
mails.add(mail);
}
}
// Step 6: Send all emails in the master list (as is)
Messaging.sendEmail(mails);}
}
This one’s a job for System.debug!
https://www.sfdc99.com/2014/02/22/debug-your-code-with-system-debug/
Hi David, I got help from the forums regarding this trigger and now I am reading the Development with the Force.com Platform book (retaining what I can, some parts are a bit advanced.)
Question (which can apply to others Objects)
I created a custom object called Timecard.
It’s related to Contact (Master-Detail(Contact))
When I created the relationship and set the API name, should I have called it Contact like the standard field? I created a unique name (ContactTimecardlookup__c) but its causing problems when I use the examples in my book. I assumed naming it the same thing might cause problems.
You can name it anything you like as long as it’s easy for you =)
Not too late to change it!
How can i move to new line in body of the email.
i need my output as given below :
Dear Name,
Please find the attachment.
Regards,
Sys Admin
but i’m getting like this
Dear Name, Please find the attachment. Regards, Sys Admin.
what can i do to get in different lines.???
Use this for each line break =)
<br />I was wondering the same thing. Thank you.
body += ‘I confess this will come as a surprise to you.’ + ”;
Hi Liu,
the code works very well, but i was wondering if there is a way to invoke the email to be set from the inbuilt templates with the org. with the code the formatting of the email sent is quite basic.
any help with that ?
Yes!
You can select a template using one of the methods here:
https://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/Content/apex_classes_email_outbound_single.htm#apex_Messaging_SingleEmailMessage_methods
List mails =
new List();
..david can u plz elaborate the above code…i m nt geting it….
Creating a list of a special object in Salesforce. It’ll be more clear once you learn about objects in Chapter 8! For now, simply copy and paste in this scenario =)
I’m not really sure how to explain because I don’t understand :-)
When you make a list, sometimes it’s
List
List
So my question is how do I know how to “setup” the list
Hello Rachel,
I think I got your question. There are two steps to get a List with records:
1. You create (declare a List)
2. You star adding data or records to the List
So, going back to the post example:
// Step 2: Set list of people who should get the email
List sendTo = new List();
sendTo.add(myContact.Email);
mail.setToAddresses(sendTo);
Does this answer you question?
What do you mean by “setup”?
Hey David, I’m a little confused about the list as in howhich do I know what to put in?
Also, would you happen to have sample data I can upload to my dev or so I can practice everything?
No sample data sorry! But you might be able to create a bunch quickly in a spreadsheet and upload to your org.
You can log into my org too if you’re lazy:
https://www.sfdc99.com/login-to-sfdc99/
A little confused on your question about lists, let me know!
hi david,
can u give me testclass for this trigger
Try writing one and I’ll let you know how you did!
I wrote it with 100% Code coverage.
Well done!!! You’re good to go then!
Don’t forget to make sure you followed these principles (100% does not necessarily mean you tested something perfectly!)
https://www.sfdc99.com/2013/11/02/principles-of-a-good-test-class/
Hi David,
What if we want to send any attachment with the email?
Thanks,
Yamini
Best to put a link to the attachment in the email =)
David
1. Could you please explain me Step 2 please.
2. Is Email a field in contact in “mycontacts.Email that you have mentioned in the above code.
Thanks
No problem!
The mail.setToAddresses() method only accepts a List as an argument. However we only want to send to one person. Since we can’t use a single email address as the argument (must be a list), we simply create a list with only our record as a workaround!
And yes, Email is a field on the Contact!
Hi David,
I am using Professional edition, I am looking to set automatic emails to all my fellow workers when a value in a field matches the pre defined value in the apex code. for example if I set value of a field “A” is changed to “0” then it should trigger a template-E-mail to the user of that salesforce account. Is it possible?
Could you please help me? I’ve read that I will have to create a package and then install it for this to function.
Thanks in advance
Hahaha no way! It’s actually pretty easy!
This post will tell you everything you need to know!
https://www.sfdc99.com/2014/02/25/comparing-old-and-new-values-in-a-trigger/
David
Hi David,
Momin is using Professional Edition.. And you can’t write Apex in PE..
Pranav
Ouch! Sorry I don’t have much experience with PE! Have you tried workflow rules and email alerts?
Yes. Workflow Rules, API, Profiles & Page Layouts can be bought as an add-on in PE but you will never get the flexibility of Apex classes & Triggers. However, there are some built in features like Lead/Case assignment Rules, Big Deal Alerts can come handy which are similar to a Workflow & trigger.
PE ready Managed AppExchange Apps can be installed easily and it is the only way Apex code can be deployed on a PE edition. (E.g. Roll-up Helper)
Thank you for your insight Pranav!!
Hi David – I’m trying to send an email each time a record is inserted in a custom object to the CreatedBy person.
Is there a way to traverse to the users object and retrieve the email address or do I need to utilize SOQL for that task?
Actually, it seems like that’s possible via CreatedBy.Email.
However, it doesn’t seem to be sending the email for me (I made it an after insert trigger). Are there certain settings you need to enable for this to work?
Thanks!
You’ll need to query that field! A workaround will be to create a formula field to pull that into your object. Every base object field is auto-queried in your trigger!
David,
This is incredibly helpful. Thanks for making it all so straightforward. You should be writing the documentation for SFDC. I’ve read the Apex Workbook and done all the tutorials in it but having read your guide, it all makes so much more sense. I understood what I was doing before, but now I feel like I really get it.
I’m really excited to try setting up my own trigger to send emails. I’m even more excited to see the rest of the chapters come out! Please keep up the steady pace you’ve been on.
Thanks!
Ian
Thanks Ian!
Maybe Salesforce should give me a ring!!
David