March 23, 2013

Salesforce.com / Data Migration Strategy


Most of Enterprise Companies have been moving their application to Cloud for various benefits and cut down running cost etc. With this said, Data Migration aspects bring lot more attention as it is very key aspect of application migration. 

Here to discuss some key aspects to consider on data migration projects. 

1) Analyze the Source as DB:  
What is the source DB, and it’s Age and Size?
How it is normalized?
Understand the Data Model and Keep the ERD handy 

2) Analyze Source as Data 
Identify Master and Transactional data
Identify various sources of Master data 
Select Master of master data source
Decide whether or not to have integration between all master data source
Decide to whether or not to have references across master data sources

3) Prepare Destination Platform and Application
Generally application migration from on premise to cloud may not be decided over the night, Over the period of time from Vision, Decision and when it finally become a project – all enhancements in source system might have stopped, along with the migration so many new functionalities and projects get added to the migration project or to the roadmap. 
Choose wisely your destination platform (Salesforce.com) 

4) Prepare Destination DB
Architect the Data Model very carefully to fit your Source data and functionality, New Enhancements / Projects and mainly to your business need.

5) Prepare Destination Data 
Identify / Implement Custom Unique Keys for all Entity.
Make some Setup to prevent Dupes
Establish process, decide any intermediate DB to process data if needed. 
Identify Default ownership for the record if decided owner is not anymore in new platform
Streamline the data for new platform data types. 
Start migrate with Master data
More Importantly keep a log, timeline and check point !!


March 18, 2013

Visualforce Pie (donut) Charting

Visualforce charting of type Pie and it has parameter donut (integer) :)

It helps to create highly controlled way of picturing the dashboard you need and query the data exactly you need to display than standard Salesforce.com Dashboards. It is recommended to use when standard Salesforce.com charting is not fulfilling your need and your page needs more details like some details record information, table and a chart.
It is just a simple quick play with reference of example provided in Force.com blogs.
Number of cases closed this year. Let have very simple example of Pie Chart.
This can be placed in Account page layout and queried only for that account level as well.
To include visual force page in page layout, simply specify Standard Controller = “Account” or that object name.  Then Visual force option will be available in page layout edit section to drag and drop!
I wanted to give some label for each donut slice to know what is what, without mouse hover over but I didn’t find any option for it!!

Page

    
        
        
    

Controller 
public class PieChartController {
public ListgetPieData2(){
return
[SELECT COUNT(CaseNumber) numCaseClosed,
CALENDAR_MONTH(Custom_Closed__c) theMonth
FROM Case
WHERE isClosed = True AND CALENDAR_YEAR(Custom_Closed__c) = 2012
GROUP BY CALENDAR_MONTH(Custom_Closed__c)
ORDER BY CALENDAR_MONTH(Custom_Closed__c)];
}
}