Category: Sample codes

  • How to Implement CDC Event Filtering in High-Traffic Systems

    The “Event Storm” Problem

    We’ve all been there. You enable Change Data Capture (CDC) on a high-traffic object and suddenly your downstream systems—MuleSoft, Heroku, or AWS—are drowning.

    By default, CDC publishes an event for every field change. If a batch job updates 50,000 records to fix a typo, you just burned 50,000 events from your daily quota. If that change didn’t matter to your integration, you’ve wasted resources and hit limits for nothing.

    This is the “Event Storm.” It kills scalability.

    The Solution: Stream Filtering

    Architects must “shift left.” Don’t make subscribers filter the noise; prevent the noise from ever reaching the bus. Platform Event Channel Filtering turns a high-volume firehose into a high-signal notification service.

    How to Implement (4 Quick Steps)

    Filtering CDC events isn’t (yet) a “point-and-click” journey in the Setup menu. It requires a bit of Metadata/Tooling API work.

    • Create a Custom Channel: You cannot filter the standard ChangeEvents channel. Create a custom one via the PlatformEventChannel object.
    // Tooling API: PlatformEventChannel
    POST /services/data/v63.0/tooling/sobjects/PlatformEventChannel
    {
      "FullName": "HighValueAccount_Chn__chn",
      "Metadata": {
        "channelType": "Event",
        "label": "High Value Account Changes"
      }
    }
    • Add a Channel Member: Bind your object (e.g., AccountChangeEvent) to your new custom channel.
    • Define the Filter: This is where you define the logic. Using the PlatformEventChannelFilter object, you can filter by fields or even change types.
    Example Filter Expression: SELECT Id, AccountStatus__c FROM AccountChangeEvent WHERE Industry = 'Technology' AND AnnualRevenue > 1000000
    // Tooling API: PlatformEventChannelMember
    POST /services/data/v63.0/tooling/sobjects/PlatformEventChannelMember
    
    {
      "FullName": "AccountUpdates_Channel__chn",
      "Metadata": {
        "eventChannel": "HighValueAccount_Chn__chn",
        "selectedEntity": "AccountChangeEvent",
        "filterExpression": "Industry = 'Technology' AND AnnualRevenue > 1000000"
      }
    }
    • Deploy: Use your CI/CD pipeline or CLI to push the metadata.

    Trade-offs at a Glance

    AdvantageDisadvantage
    Protects Quotas: Stops draining your 24-hour delivery limits.Simple Logic Only: No cross-object formulas or complex logic allowed.
    Consumer Efficiency: Middleware stops processing “junk” events.No UI: Must be managed via API/CLI and Git.
    Lower Latency: Less traffic on the bus means faster delivery.Harder to Debug: You can’t easily “see” what was filtered.

    The Bottom Line

    Efficiency isn’t just about fast code; it’s about doing less unnecessary work. Filtering CDC streams is the best way to keep your event-driven architecture lean, cheap, and fast.

  • Beyond SOQL101: Mastering the Stateful Selector Pattern in Apex

    In high-scale Salesforce environments, resource conservation is the ultimate design goal. Without a dedicated data strategy, redundant queries within a single transaction don’t just waste CPU time. They also risk hitting the hard wall of Governor Limits.

    The Problem: Transactional Redundancy

    In complex transactions, the same record is often requested by multiple independent components:

    • Triggers checking record status.
    • Service Classes calculating SLA details.
    • Validation Handlers verifying ownership.

    Without a strategy, each call initiates a fresh database round-trip. This “fragmented querying” leads to System.LimitException: Too many SOQL queries: 101.

    The Solution: The Stateful Selector Pattern

    By centralizing data access and implementing Memoization (Static Caching), we ensure that once a record is fetched, it resides in memory for the duration of the execution context.

    The Core Implementation Steps:

    1. Encapsulate: Use inherited sharing to ensure the selector respects the caller’s security context.
    2. Define a Transaction Cache: Use a private static Map<Id, SObject> as an in-memory buffer.
    3. Apply “Delta” Logic: Identify only the IDs missing from the cache before querying.
    4. Enforce Security: Always use WITH USER_MODE for native FLS and CRUD enforcement.
    5. Serve & Hydrate: Bulk-fetch missing records, update the cache, and return the result set.

    The Pattern in Practice

    Below is a refined implementation of a Stateful Account Selector:

    /**
     * @description Account Selector with Transactional Caching 
     * @author John Dove
     */
    public inherited sharing class AccountSelector {
        
        // Internal cache to store records retrieved during the transaction
        private static Map<Id, Account> accountCache = new Map<Id, Account>();
    
        /**
         * @description Returns a Map of Accounts for the provided IDs.
         * Only queries the database for IDs not already present in the cache.
         */
        public static Map<Id, Account> getAccountsById(Set<Id> accountIds) {
            if (accountIds == null || accountIds.isEmpty()) {
                return new Map<Id, Account>();
            }
    
            // 1. Identify IDs not yet cached
            Set<Id> idsToQuery = new Set<Id>();
            for (Id accId : accountIds) {
                if (!accountCache.containsKey(accId)) {
                    idsToQuery.add(accId);
                }
            }
    
            // 2. Perform bulkified, secured query for the "Delta"
            if (!idsToQuery.isEmpty()) {
                List<Account> queriedRecords = [
                    SELECT Id, Name, Industry, AnnualRevenue, (SELECT Id FROM Contacts)
                    FROM Account
                    WHERE Id IN :idsToQuery
                    WITH USER_MODE
                ];
                
                // 3. Hydrate the cache
                accountCache.putAll(queriedRecords);
            }
    
            // 4. Extract and return the requested subset from the cache
            Map<Id, Account> results = new Map<Id, Account>();
            for (Id accId : accountIds) {
                if (accountCache.containsKey(accId)) {
                    results.put(accId, accountCache.get(accId));
                }
            }
            return results;
        }
    
        /**
         * @description Invalidation method to be called after DML 
         * to ensure the cache doesn't serve stale data.
         */
        public static void invalidateCache(Set<Id> idsToRemove) {
            accountCache.keySet().removeAll(idsToRemove);
        }
    }

    Why This Scales

    • Reduced DB Contention: Minimizing SOQL round-trips frees up database resources for concurrent requests.
    • Idempotency: You can call the selector 50 times in a recursive trigger flow, and it will only hit the database once.
    • Clean Maintenance: Global filters (like IsActive = true) are updated in one method, not across dozens of classes.

    Trade-offs: Advantages & Disadvantages

    FeatureAdvantageDisadvantage
    Governor LimitsDrastically reduces SOQL query count.Can lead to Heap Limit exceptions if caching thousands of large records.
    PerformanceSub-millisecond retrieval for cached records.Increased complexity in handling cache invalidation after DML.
    MaintenanceSingle source of truth for query logic/security.Risk of “Stale Data” if the record is updated but the cache isn’t refreshed.

    Conclusion

    The Stateful Selector pattern is a fundamental building block for enterprise-grade Salesforce architecture. It transforms your data layer from a performance bottleneck into a high-speed, secure, and predictable asset.

  • Salesforce: Adding specific business days to a date using BusinessHours class

    Businesshours is a system class provided by Salesforce for performing various operations on the DateTime values. It provides methods for checking if a date falls during business hours, whats the diff between two dates in business.

    The in-built method does allow adding the specific days to the DateTime value but there is a catch, it needs to be in the Long format. More information could be found here.

    add(businessHoursId, startDate, intervalMilliseconds)

    What exactly this method does?

    The method has been specifically designed to add the number of hours in the millisecond format. And addition is done with respect to business hours. Let’s consider you want to add 1 day to the Date December 18th, 10 AM. And business hours are set for 8 AM to 8 PM for all days.

    Long interval = 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
                     h   m    s    ms
    Datetime dt = DateTime.newInstance(2017, 12, 18, 10,0,0);
    System.debug('Date :' + dt.format());
    Long interval = (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
    Datetime newdt = BusinessHours.add(bh.Id, dt, interval);
    System.debug('After adding 1 day :' + newdt.format());
    
    //OUTPUT
    22:12:52:003 USER_DEBUG [3]|DEBUG|Date :12/18/2017 10:00 AM
    22:12:52:004 USER_DEBUG [6]|DEBUG|After adding 1 day :12/20/2017 10:00 AM
    

    This calculation added complete 2 days as business hours are set 12 hours a day.

    Alternative for avoiding such hour based calculation could be going in an iterative way.

    public static Datetime addBusinessDays(Datetime startDate, Integer numberOfDays, id busniesshourId)
    {
    	Integer count = 0;
    	while (count < days) {
    		startDate = startDate.addDays(1);
    		if (BusinessHours.isWithin(businesshourId, startDate))
    			count++;
    	}
    	return startDate;
    }

    This will also ensure that the initial time is preserved.