What will your application do?
,You will be building this application in a very condensed span of time, but that does not mean that the application will not include a full and complete set of functionality.
You will start your development process by creating an application and the data objects used by that application. Once you define a data object, the Force Platform automatically generates a user interface for the object, as shown in the figure below.
This interface provides complete access to the underlying data object, for inserting new data, viewing the details of a particular position record, and modifying or deleting the record. The Force Platform automatically integrates an automatically generated detailed view of a record in other user interface pages, so whenever a user sees a reference to a record, such as the location shown above, they can simply click the link to go to a detailed view of the record.
You can also easily modify the design of the default user interface, or create different user interfaces for different views of the same record. You will use this capability, known as a record type, in the application you develop.
The linkage between two records mentioned earlier is implemented through a relationship between the two records. You define relationships between objects, and the Force Platform automatically provides the appropriate user interface to both sides of the lookup, whether the user wants to identify the parent in a relationship or add a child to a parent record – shown in the list of job applications in the figure above.
The following diagram shows the basic objects and fields used in the recruiting application, along with their relationship to each other.
Your recruiting application will focus on more than just the data fields defined for the underlying objects. You will also expose data that is created from other data fields, through methods ranging from concatenation to calculation. The Force Platform even includes the ability to define summary fields, where values from child records are automatically rolled up into their parent record. This capability is yet another way that your Force Platform application leverages the power defined for related records.
The Force Platform also includes a complete system for creating reports and dashboards, based on aggregations of data. The figure below displays an example of a Force Platform dashboard that you will create without a single line of code.
Reports and analytic displays, like the one shown above, maximize the value users can extract through established collections of data. The Force Platform also includes the ability to perform flexible searches across your stored data for ad hoc access to collections of information. You can even give your users the ability to tag records to identify groups of information, even records from different objects. You will use some of this functionality in your recruiting application.
But there is more to the application you will build than just a user interface. You will add a series of automatic workflows actions, triggered by changes in your data. Workflow simultaneously reduces the burden on users to perform related actions and increases the reliability of those supplemental actions by spawning them automatically, with no possibility of user error.
The Force Platform allows you to define approval processes, business processes that involve human interaction. A Force Platform approval process not only automates the routing of the process, but tracks the process, providing real-time status and a history of the process, as shown in the figure below.
You will create an approval process with a series of clicks and declarations, and learn how flexible these processes can be.
As a developer, you no doubt are already experienced in creating applications based on user requirements. As an experienced developer, you may be a bit skeptical of the ability of a completely declarative environment to be able to handle the intricacies that some customer needs present. In the later chapters of this book, you will learn how to use Apex code to extend the logical functionality of your application, and Visualforce to extend your user interfaces and the way they interact with the underlying Force Platform data objects. You will happily discover that Visualforce lets you take advantage of the dynamic Web 2.0 AJAX features, such as dynamically refreshing an existing page, with simple attribute declarations for HTML-like tags.
Finally, your recruiting application will open up the world of your Force Platform application to the outside world through email, for standardized access, and by exposing some of your application to users outside of the Force Platform environment.
Through it all, the recruiting application will benefit from the enterprise features that come standard with the Force Platform, including easy access to your organization from any browser, rapid and consistent responsiveness, and multiple levels of security to protect your data and to limit access based on user identity.
Within the remainder of this book, you will also learn how to use development environments, including the Eclipse-based Force Platform IDE, to create your applications, and a variety of techniques to deploy your applications.
It sounds like a lot to cover in a single book, but do not fear—the power of the Force Platform makes it all possible.