Creating Custom Apex SOAP based Web Service in Salesforce.com's Force.com platform

This blog describes how to create a Custom web service in Salesforce using Apex.

Steps:

• Navigate to Setup>Develop>Apex Classes  and create new class by clicking new button.
• Write a class with "global" access modifier with methods (to be exposed) with "webService" keyword

        eg.

global class KartikService
{
    webService static String hello(String Name) 
    {
        return 'Hello '+Name+' ! :D';
    }
}

• Then save this class. After saving the class you will view a button "Generate WSDL". Click on that to get WSDL for web service you just created. Save the WSDL file. Let say file name is "KartikService.wsdl"
• Now we will consider how we generate clients to call this service in Java and in .Net.

 For Java:

• We will create new project in Eclipse with name "ApexCustomWS"
• You need Enterprise/Partner WSDL to access your Salesforce org. by getting a valid sessionId.
• Import Enterprise or Partner WSDL file into the project and generate the web service client for that.
• Import the "KartikService.wsdl" into project and  generate web service client by right clicking on the WSDL file.
• Image below shows code generated for Partner WSDL in Blue box and code for Custom Web service in Red Box

Above step will generate few Java files. Now add a class "Test.java" and write following code:

package com.sforce.soap.schemas._class.KartikService;
 
import java.net.URL;
import org.apache.axis.AxisFault;
import com.sforce.soap.partner.LoginResult;
import com.sforce.soap.partner.SessionHeader;
import com.sforce.soap.partner.SforceServiceLocator;
import com.sforce.soap.partner.SoapBindingStub;
 
public class Test 
{
   public static void main(String[] args) 
   {
       try 
       {
         //Get a stub for calling partner WSDL's login method in order to get SessionID
         SoapBindingStub bind= (SoapBindingStub)new SforceServiceLocator().getSoap();
         LoginResult lr=bind.login("your_username_here", "your_Password+SecurityToken");
 
         //Create a sessionHeader object and set its sessioId property to sessionId 
         //received in loginResult object                        
         SessionHeader sh=new SessionHeader();
         sh.setSessionId(lr.getSessionId());
 
         //Create a service locator object for your custom web service
         KartikServiceServiceLocator locator=new KartikServiceServiceLocator();
 
         //Get URL for your custom web service
         URL url=new URL(locator.getKartikServiceAddress());
 
         //Create a stub for your custom web service with URL for your service and locator as parameters
         KartikServiceBindingStub stub=new KartikServiceBindingStub(url, locator);
 
         //Set the header property of stub with name "SessionHeader" and value as sh-sessionHeader 
         //object created above 
         stub.setHeader(locator.getKartikServiceAddress(), "SessionHeader", sh);
 
         //now make call to custom service-in our case its "Hello(String name)"
         System.out.println(stub.hello("KARTIK"));
        }
        catch (Exception e) 
        {e.printStackTrace(); }  
   } 
}

Its output:

Hello KARTIK !

For VB.NET:

• Create a new Winows project or ASP.net project with name "ApexCustomWS"
• Add Web Service Reference using Partner.wsdl with namespace name as "sForceService"
• Add Web Service Reference using KartikService.wsdl with namespace name as "MyCustomApexWS"

               

• Now the project in solution explorer with these references will look like :

               

• Now we write a procedure "callCustomApexService" that first calls login service and get a sessionID and then make call to custom web service.
• Code:

• Imports ApexCustomWS.sForceService
  Imports ApexCustomWS.MyCustomApexWS
   
  Public Class Form1
      Public Sub callCustomApexService()
          Dim stub As New ApexCustomWS.sForceService.SforceService
          Dim lr As LoginResult
          Dim sh As New ApexCustomWS.sForceService.SessionHeader
   
          'make call to login service to get sessionId
          lr = stub.login("your_username_here", "your_Password+SecurityToken")        sh.sessionId = lr.sessionId
          stub.Url = lr.serverUrl
          stub.SessionHeaderValue = sh
   
          'Create stub to call custom web service
          Dim myserviceStub As New MyCustomApexWS.KartikServiceService
          myserviceStub.SessionHeaderValue = New MyCustomApexWS.SessionHeader
          myserviceStub.SessionHeaderValue.sessionId = sh.sessionId
   
          MsgBox(myserviceStub.hello("KARTIK"))
   
      End Sub
      Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
          callCustomApexService()
      End Sub
  End Class

Output of above code will be a MessageBox when the Winform will load in memory.

Upgrading Assembly for new .Net Framework/ Target to a specific .Net Framework

This post describes the process to upgrade an assembly from older .Net versions to newer versions.

Steps:

1. Open the Class Library project in Visual Studio based on newer .Net framework. This will automatically ask for upgrading the project to target it for newer framework. Continue with upgrading it.
2.  This will upgrade the project to newer framework version. Now rebuild entire solution by going to "Build>Rebuild Solution".
3.  Check GlobalAssemblyInfo.<.cs or .vb( language extension)>. Ensure that the assembly version number is correctly targeted to newer version:eg. Upgrading assembly to .Net4.0, GlobalAssemblyInfo must have something like:

                  [assembly: AssemblyVersion("4.0.0.0")]

1. Now open project properties for project in which you will include this assembly. Goto "Compile" tab.
2. Click on "Advanced Compile Options". Now check the target framework. If it is .Net Framework 4 Client Profile, when you run your project by including that assembly it will throw an exception like: Warning 1 The referenced assembly "" could not be resolved because it has a dependency on "System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" which is not in the currently targeted framework ".NETFramework,Version=v4.0,Profile=Client". Please remove references to assemblies not in the targeted framework or consider retargeting your project. test
3. Reason behind that your project is target to Framework's client profile. Change the target framework to "All framework" or " .Net Framework 4.0
4. Now run the project, it will work fine! 

Creating Custom Help for Salesforce.com's Force.com platform Cloud applications

This post describes how we can create our custom help for our salesforce apps

We can change the URL on "Help for this page" link with our URL by setting the value at:

Now when the user clicks on that link on any custom tab he will be redirected to our custom help URL:

And we can also make our help pages show help content based on context selected.i.e context sensitive help. We can see here that when user clicks "Help for this page" link few parameters are automatically appended by salesforce: (http://kartikunplugged.blogspot.com/?loc=help&target=co_overview.htm&section=CustomObjects ) so that our pages can parse those and can show the help content accordingly.

So if we write logic in our help pages to extract those parameters and show content accordingly, we can develop custom help more effectively.

**Note: We cannot change the URL on "Help" link that appears on each page(Highlighted in green box in above image). That shows only salesforce help and training section.