Basic Implementation

In the basic implementation, build a Visualforce page with a drop-down list at the top containing contact names and a table below it with the skills and ratings. The only skills shown are those that already contain ratings for the contact. The ratings can be edited and saved by any user.

Start by creating the page and controller in the Force.com IDE. Add a selectList component and a corresponding getter in the controller to return a list of SelectOption objects, constructed from the names and unique identifiers of records of the Contact object. Add a refresh commandButton to fetch the skills for the currently selected contact.

Build and test the drop-down list of contacts before moving on to the list of skills. Then flesh out the controller, querying the Type__c and Rating__c fields of the Skill__c records belonging to the selected contact. Iterate over that list in the page, displaying the ratings as drop-down lists. Add an action method to the controller to save changes to the skills list. Use the upsert database method, as later your skills list will contain both new and edited records. Add a commandButton on the page to invoke the action method.

Test your user interface frequently during development. Add your page to the native user interface with a Visualforce tab or override the Skills custom object tab. To override the tab, in the App Setup area, click Create, Objects and select Skill. Scroll to the Buttons, Links, and Actions section. Click the Edit link for the action Skills Tab. For the Override With, select the Visualforce Page radio button. Select your Skills Matrix page from the drop-down list and click the Save button.