Prologue Salesforce developers are tasked with the requirements in designing and developing custom-built applications on the platform using the APEX programming language. Not just developers though, administrators are also tasked to create custom applications with hardcoded data on the platform. Hard coding data is considered an anti-pattern, this is mainly because hard coding requires the application source code to be changed any time the input data or desired format changes.

What is it? The Salesforce platform as a wide range of different relationship types available to use such as Lookup, Master Detail, Self relationships. However, the aforementioned relationship types are mainly used with internal data stored in the system. It is a different story when data is pulled and integrated with external data sources of interest. External objects support standard lookup relationships, which use the 18-character Salesforce record IDs to associate related records with each other.

Geolocation is a technology that uses data acquired from an individual’s computer or mobile device to identify or describe the user’s actual physical location using longitude and latitude values. Salesforce allows its users to accomplish this feat by giving the ability to create geolocation fields, Geolocation field includes latitude and longitude values. Latitude and longitude Refresher Are coordinate systems employing the position or location of any place on Earth’s surface, which can be determined and described.

In Apex, all variables and expressions have a data type, such as sObject, primitive, or enum. Compound fields group together multiple elements of primitive data types, such as numbers or strings, to represent complex data types, such as a location or an address. Compound fields are an abstraction that can simplify application code that handles the values, leading to more a concise, understandable code. In laymen terms Compound data types are primitives grouped to form a new type.

Internationalization is a design process that ensures a product (usually a software application) can be adapted to various languages and regions without requiring engineering changes to the source code. Think of internationalization as readiness for localization. Internationalization can save significant expense, time, and headaches for everyone involved. Sometimes written as “i18n”, internationalization evolved from a growing demand for multilingual products and applications. Today we will be diving into the design considerations for APEX code that accommodates multi-language, multi-currency and multi-locale considerations.