JSforce: A Quick Path to Salesforce Development
By Couragyn Chretien
October 21, 2023
Using JavaScript with JSforce can get you working on a Salesforce project quickly if you don’t have a Salesforce expert on hand. It provides easy access to Salesforce’s API, which will allow you to focus on development instead of learning a new system.
No Salesforce learning curve
Apex is a platform-specific language created so that developers can interact with Salesforce classes/objects and write custom code. Apex allows you to do some cool things such as directly triggering custom Apex code based on an action in Salesforce.
The problem with Apex is that it is its own world, with its own IDEs, deployment processes, etc. There’s a steep learning curve to getting up to speed with the Apex ecosphere.
JSforce is a wrapper/abstraction of the Salesforce API. It allows you to do a lot, like search, perform CRUD actions, and even send emails. These functions aren’t as streamlined as their built-in Apex counterpart, but JSforce allows any JS developer to jump right into the code without wasting costly training time.
Using JSforce CLI
Below are some examples of connecting and performing basic CRUD operations.
Connecting
Installation:
$ npm install jsforce -g
Connection:
$ jsforce
> login('user@example.org', 'password123');
{ id: '00550000000vwsFAAQ',
organizationId: '00D500000006xKGEAY',
url: 'https://login.salesforce.com/id/00D500000006xKGEAY/00550000000vwsFAAQ' }
>
GET
conn.sobject("Account").retrieve("0017000000hOMChAAO", function(err, account) {
if (err) { return console.error(err); }
console.log("Name : " + account.Name);
// ...
});
POST
conn.sobject("Account").create({ Name : 'My Account #1' }, function(err, ret) {
if (err || !ret.success) { return console.error(err, ret); }
console.log("Created record id : " + ret.id);
// ...
});
PUT
conn.sobject("Account").update({
Id : '0017000000hOMChAAO',
Name : 'Updated Account #1'
}, function(err, ret) {
if (err || !ret.success) { return console.error(err, ret); }
console.log('Updated Successfully : ' + ret.id);
// ...
});
DELETE
conn.sobject("Account").destroy('0017000000hOMChAAO', function(err, ret) {
if (err || !ret.success) { return console.error(err, ret); }
console.log('Deleted Successfully : ' + ret.id);
});
For a deeper dive into setup and uses of JSforce check out this post by my coworker Dylan Wooters.
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