function readOnly(count){ }
Sign Up ›
Starting November 20, the site will be set to read-only. On December 4, 2023,
forum discussions will move to the Trailblazer Community.
Learn More

Browse by Topic
ShowAll Questionssorted byDate Posted
+ Start a Discussion
John PropperJohn Propper 

Invoking another system from SalesForce

Hello -

I'm trying to figure out a way to invoke activity to another system from the completion of SalesForce Case process. I'd like to gather some data and through a URL be able to hit a system on our end.

I read in an earlier post that there isn't a way to hook into a UI event such as a Save button click. The best I can figure out is that I'd have to use a WIL to do this. The only thing I don't like about this is that the completion of the Case process wouldn't be seamless - the user would then have to click on a link.

Can anyone suggest any techniques to do something like this?

Thanks,

John

adamgadamg

Unfortunately, you can't add an event or WIL to the "save" button.

It MAY be possible to:

1. Create a workflow rule that on the completion (close) of the case (or other criteria), you generate an email that contains the values you need for the external app.

2. Use a procmail script to pipe that email to the application/script of your choice.

or

1. Create a script that polls the app for closed cases and performs the appropriate operations.

The former has the benefit of being real time, where as the other is batch.  (Of course, both are EAI style solutions that don't involve additonal user input, which your use case may require.)
CovenantCovenant
Adam,
 
I've prototyped something similar using an earlier version of the API (2.0) and Python. 
 
Here's a summary of what I've implemented:
 
* "cron"ed shell wrapper around a Python script which checks e-mail to a particular user account via IMAP.  IMAP allows me to filter only those messages I really want to see.
* I take the text body of this message, compile it into a Python "code object" and then "eval" the code object.
 
Surprisingly simple.....and pretty fun to implement.
 
The applications for this are pretty broad and not limited to just workflow triggers within Salesforce.  I can easily imagine lots of other applications in our company using little snippets of Python code sent to an e-mail address or a series of e-mail addresses to create or update data on Salesforce. 
 
The downside, for me, right now, is that I haven't had much luck getting the 2.5 SOAP API to work in Python and I need to be able to see/create custom objects in order to do some really cool stuff.
 
If anyone has ZSI or SOAPy working with any version of the Salesforce API, I'd appreciate some hints!
 
Best Regards,
 
- Brendan