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dptr1988 How do I store 'settings' for each user?
I'm wanting to create an apex page that will allow users to export contacts into another program, called BBP.
The problem is that each users has their own username and access key that the apex page needs to use to allow them to add a contact to BBP. I don't want the users to have to enter their username and access key each time they export a contact. So I'm wondering how I can store the username and accesskey for each user somewhere in the salesforce account.
I have read through the entire 'salesforce_apex_language_reference.pdf' and 'salesforce_pages_developers_guide.pdf' books but was not able to find anything that would allow me to store settings like that. The best I could find was in the 'ExampleController' code snippet that was demonstrating the difference between transient and non-transient variables. But non-transient variables appear to be erased when the sessions is closed ( ie user logged out or closed browser window ).
The problem is that each users has their own username and access key that the apex page needs to use to allow them to add a contact to BBP. I don't want the users to have to enter their username and access key each time they export a contact. So I'm wondering how I can store the username and accesskey for each user somewhere in the salesforce account.
I have read through the entire 'salesforce_apex_language_reference.pdf' and 'salesforce_pages_developers_guide.pdf' books but was not able to find anything that would allow me to store settings like that. The best I could find was in the 'ExampleController' code snippet that was demonstrating the difference between transient and non-transient variables. But non-transient variables appear to be erased when the sessions is closed ( ie user logged out or closed browser window ).
The page needs to store more settings than just a username and access key. There are also some settings that determine the mapping of the SalesForce contact fields to the BBP contact fields. I would like some way that a 'System Administrator' could edit the default mappings and the page would use those default mappings unless the user had overridden them with some of his own. Where would I store the default mappings, as they are not associated with any user but with the page?
Maybe a better way to ask this question would be Where/How do I store user data and program data for an apex page? For example, on linux the user data would be stored in the /home/joe_sample/.BBP/ and the global program data would be stored in /usr/share/BBP/ and on windows XP user data would be stored in the 'C:\Documents And Settings\Application Data\BPP\' and the program data would be stored in the registry or an .ini file at 'C:\Program Files\BBP\' Where/How would it be stored in salesforce?
I'm quite surprised that SalesForce doesn't have a convenient way for custom programs to store arbitrary data.
I'll see what I can do with custom fields in the User record.
Thank you all for you help!!
Message Edited by dptr1988 on 06-25-2008 04:45 PM
Your code would look for a particular user's record in that object and take setting and credentials from there. If not, it could use default settings from a "generic" user if the given user isn't found.), or present the user with a visualforce page to collect their authentication data to use and store.
The code would be Apex running with a level of security sufficient to CRUD the custom object, however standard users wouldn't have access to that object.
This is similar to just using extra fields in the User object, however the user won't see them. However it would require you to write more visual force code to allow the user to administrate that custom object, reset passwords, etc.
Don't know if that helps, Steve.
That is a lot more like what I was wanting to do.
What do you mean by 'generic user' for getting the default settings from? I would like to make it so an 'administrator' could specify the default settings. So I guess I would just make the 'generic user' only modifiable by an 'administrator'? How would I create a 'generic user'? By putting a NULL value into the lookup reference to the User ID?
By Generic user I meant to implement something like having an extra field called "isDefault" on the custom object. It would be false for all records except for the one record which you want to use for the default settings. ( You have to make the reference to the user an optional field).
Then your code goes to look up the settings for a specific user and if it can't find a record for that user it queries for the record with "isDefault" set to true.
I suppose you could use a null reference ID as well as long as you make the reference an optional field.
Another option, if you have the user licenses to burn, is to just make one of the users the "generic" user. Then you can just use custom fields on the User object, and hide them from the standard users with page layouts.
Best, Steve.