Force.com SOAP API and exposing Apex methods as SOAP Web Services

Before going further, please make sure that the user being used has permission to call API. "API Enabled" must be true for the user's profile.

For SOAP web services API testing, I will be using Postman. This is available as a Chrome extension.

As a first step, you issue a login request where you provide the password and token, as a response to which, you get the session ID and the target URL. To authenticate SOAP API users, you need to acquire session ID.

Enter the below SOAP envelope in your postman's request. Take a note of the POST URL, and the Content-Type that has been set to text/xml. We have also added SOAPAction key in headers whose value is ''.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<env:Envelope xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <env:Body>
    <n1:login xmlns:n1="urn:enterprise.soap.sforce.com">
      <n1:username>USERNAME</n1:username>
      <n1:password>PASSWORD</n1:password>
    </n1:login>
  </env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

Click on Send button.

We receive a response with status 200 OK. We also get the server URL and the unique session ID.

Now lets query the Account object. Enter the below SOAP envelope in your postman's request. Take a note of the POST URL that we received in our response before.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>   
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
   xmlns:urn="urn:enterprise.soap.sforce.com">
  <soapenv:Header>
     <urn:SessionHeader>
        <urn:sessionId>00D1I000001VVPg!ARQAQG3Y4rBp.E79acFggyFeSd8EgnlnhSRB0B4r1UidUhvUr43ulP9MxwX6aKmhQhrnH_fDwEQaB51twKme7tPGn4kFo5Xr</urn:sessionId>
     </urn:SessionHeader>
  </soapenv:Header>
  <soapenv:Body>
     <urn:query>
        <urn:queryString>SELECT Id, Name FROM Account</urn:queryString>
     </urn:query>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Lets retrieve server timestamp. Note that I am just changing the SOAP payload.

Lets create an account. Enter the below SOAP envelope in your postman's request.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>   
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:urn="urn:enterprise.soap.sforce.com"
  xmlns:urn1="urn:sobject.enterprise.soap.sforce.com"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <soapenv:Header>
     <urn:SessionHeader>
        <urn:sessionId>00D1I000001VVPg!ARQAQG3Y4rBp.E79acFggyFeSd8EgnlnhSRB0B4r1UidUhvUr43ulP9MxwX6aKmhQhrnH_fDwEQaB51twKme7tPGn4kFo5Xr</urn:sessionId>
     </urn:SessionHeader>
  </soapenv:Header>
  <soapenv:Body>
     <urn:create>
        <urn:sObjects xsi:type="urn1:Account"> <!--Zero or more repetitions:-->
           <!--You may enter ANY elements at this point-->
           <Name>Test Account</Name>
        </urn:sObjects>
     </urn:create>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Exposing Apex Methods as SOAP Web Services

Apex class methods can be exposed as custom SOAP Web service calls. Use the webservice keyword to define these methods.

global class MathOperations {
    webservice static Integer getSum (Integer a, Integer b) {
        return a + b;
    }
}

Enter the below SOAP envelope in your postman's request. Take a note of the POST URL

Salesforce Lightning: Google Places Autocomplete Predictions Search

I have created a lookup component which on entering few characters of a location will display location predictions.

There are 3 methods that has been defined in client-side controller:

• keyPressController: executed when the user enters a search key. I have taken into consideration that the user need to enter at least 3 characters to fetch the location predictions.
• selectOption: executed when the user selects a value from the list box
• clear: executed on click of cross icon to remove the selected value from the lookup

To fetch the results, I am calling Place Autocomplete service, a part of the Google Places API Web Service, using the below Apex method, which returns location predictions in response to this HTTP request. For more details about this web service, please check the link in the references section of this post.

@AuraEnabled
public static string getAddressAutoComplete(String input, String types) {
    String url = 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?input='
            + EncodingUtil.urlEncode(input, 'UTF-8')
            + '&types=' + types
            + '&key=' + GoogleMapsController.getGoogleMapsAPIKey();
    return GoogleMapsController.getHttp(url);
}

The response which is in JSON format is parsed in Javascript in the helper method of the component as below:

displayOptionsLocation: function (component, searchKey) {
    var action = component.get("c.getAddressAutoComplete");
    action.setParams({
        "input": searchKey,
        "types": '(regions)'
    });

    action.setCallback(this, function (response) {
        var state = response.getState();
        if (state === "SUCCESS") {
            var options = JSON.parse(response.getReturnValue());
            var predictions = options.predictions;
            var addresses = [];
            if (predictions.length > 0) {
                for (var i = 0; i < predictions.length; i++) {
                    addresses.push(
                        {
                            value: predictions[i].types[0],
                            label: predictions[i].description
                        });
                }
                component.set("v.filteredOptions", addresses);
            }
        }
    });
    $A.enqueueAction(action);
}

The look and feel of this component is controlled by $A.util.addClass and $A.util.removeClass methods.

Please check the github link for the component code below:
https://github.com/iamsonal/GoogleMapsAutocomplete

References:
https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/autocomplete

Salesforce Lightning: Lookup Component

I created a simple lookup component in Lightning. Its fully based on Lightning Design Systems. You can check the Github link in the reference section. During initialization, the component query for the list of strings (using apex code) to be displayed and store in an attribute. So when the user enters a search keyword, the request won't go to Salesforce again and will query the Javascript string array for the filtered results.

How to use?

From your Lightning component, add a lookup component using the following markup:

<c:DemoLookup placeholder="Enter partner Name" actionMethod="c.getAccountOptions"/>

You need to pass a list of strings which will get displayed in the lookup options when the user enters an input. A sample method is as below:

@AuraEnabled
public static List<String> getAccountOptions() {
    List<String> options = new List<String>();
    for (Account a : [
            SELECT Name
            FROM Account
            LIMIT 100
    ]) {
        options.add(a.Name);
    }
    return options;
}

Reference:
https://github.com/iamsonal/DemoLookup

Lightning: Fetch current location details using Google Maps API

Using Google Maps, I was trying to fetch the current city and other details in a Lightning component using Javascript, but I was getting some error in browser console. I believe that is because of Locker service as described in the reference link. So I had to take a different approach.

But first, we need the latitude and longitude of the user who is accessing the Lightning page. The HTML Geolocation API is used to get the geographical position of a user. Since this can compromise privacy, the position is not available unless the user approves it. The getCurrentPosition() method is used to return the user's position. The example below returns the latitude and longitude of the user's position.

checkGeoLocation : function(component, event, helper) {
    if (navigator.geolocation) {
        navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) {
            var lat = position.coords.latitude;
            var lon = position.coords.longitude;
            var action = component.get("c.getCityName");
            action.setParams({
                "latitude": lat,
                "longitude": lon
            });
            action.setCallback(this, function(response) {
                var state = response.getState();
                if (state === "SUCCESS") {
                    var location = response.getReturnValue();
                }
            });
            $A.enqueueAction(action);
        });
    } else {
        console.log('Your browser does not support GeoLocation');
    }
}

To fetch the city details, we need to invoke the Google maps API. We need to send the location details as parameters. The results element in the response needs to be parsed in Apex to extract the desired values. In my case, JsonReader class did the work for me.

Please go through the documentation of Google maps, the link of which has been provided in the reference section. The following fields of the results element are of significance:
1. address_components[]
2. types[]

@AuraEnabled
public static String getCityName (Decimal latitude, Decimal longitude) {
    String url = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?latlng=' + latitude + ',' + longitude + '&sensor=true';
    JsonReader jsonobj = new JsonReader(getHttp(url));
    String status = jsonObj.getString('status');
    System.debug(status);
    
    JsonReader addressComponentObj = null;
    String locality= null;
    String adminAreaLevel2= null;
    List<Object> types = null;
    
    for(Object obj : jsonObj.getList('results[0].address_components')) {
        addressComponentObj = new JsonReader(obj);
        types = addressComponentObj.getList('types');
        for(Object typeObj : types) {
            String type = (String) typeObj;
            if (type.equalsIgnoreCase('locality')) {
                locality = addressComponentObj.getString('long_name');
            }
            if (type.equalsIgnoreCase('administrative_area_level_2')) {
                adminAreaLevel2 = addressComponentObj.getString('short_name');
            }
        }
    }
    return (locality + ', ' + adminAreaLevel2);
}

And that's it.

Reference: http://www.rattanpal.com/2017/03/19/salesforce-implement-google-maps-lightning-components/
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/intro