API Design and Enterprise Mobile Apps

1.31.2014 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

API Design, Development and Enterprise Apps

RENAISSANCE 2014SAN FRANCISCO, CA

JANUARY 31, 2014


Evan KirchhoffCOO, Qubop [email protected]: @theevank

www.qubop.com

Hello!

twitter: @qubopinc

http://WWW.QUBOP.COM


mailto:[email protected]


http://www.qubop.com



≠


What is Salesforce?

Salesforce for native iOS developers

API design for enterprise apps

OUTLINE





IN A GOOD MOBILE APP,

API DESIGN IS DERIVED

FROM UI DESIGN




IN MOBILE, YOUR UI

DESIGN DETERMINES

YOUR BUSINESS MODEL*

* SLIGHTLY CONTROVERSIAL TO CLIENTS




What is Salesforce?





Mobile Back-end as a Service (MBaaS)

= ?!




The “Big 4” Salesforce elementsfrom a mobile app developer’s point of view


(BASED ON MARKETING TERMS THAT YOUR CLIENTS WILL KNOW)




Our job is to “flatten” the platform into a minimal set of APIs





Default apps running on a general-purpose

database platform with common APIs

=

The Salesforce architecture & APIs




Different APIs=

= Different APIs

The Salesforce architecture & APIs




Lead Objects & Opportunity Objects

Example: the Sales Cloud technology stack

SOQL

Apex

VisualForce / HTML5

DATABASE TABLES

QUERY LANGUAGE

SERVER MIDDLEWARE CODE

WEB UI AND PRESENTATION



1.31.2014 - WWW.QUBOP.COM1.31.2014 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

The Salesforce developer community is primarily a web development community

...and extremely seperate from the iOS developer community




Salesforce for iOS Developers





SALES LEAD

SALES OPPORTUNITY

PROSPECTING (10%)QUALIFICATION (20%)

PROPOSAL (50%)NEGOTIATION (80%)

WON! or CLOSED

Typical Salesforce “sales pipeline” model




Default Salesforce web paradigm


Does Salesforce 1 (Nov 2013) affect the world of native iOS developers?

(NOT THAT MUCH, SO FAR)




The “Salesforce 1 app” (hybrid platform)

3RD PARTY WEB-TECHNOLOGY APPS PLUG INTO THE LEFT SIDE MENU

BUILT-IN ACCESS TO STANDARD SALESFORCE DATA TYPES




Salesforce platform: what is interesting to native iOS developers

Native SDK (OAuth, communication stack)

Rapid back end development

Automatic server-side optimization

Lots of free general business logic

Authentication, security, user roles

Valuable clients: $$$




Sales Organization Manager (live demo)

NATIVE IPAD APP USING ALL OF THE “BIG 4” SALESFORCE ELEMENTS




API Design for Enterprise Apps





Design the app UI first!



The world’s smartest dumb terminal

EVEN IF BUSINESS LOGIC LIVES ON THE SERVER, THE CLIENT IS “THICK” AND MAY CONTAIN SUBSTANTIAL UI LOGIC





Don’t design the UI based on the data structure

X

THE USER DOESN’T PERCEIVE THE APP THE WAY YOU PERCEIVE THE DATA

...AND THE SCREEN IS VERY SMALL




Don’t be satisfied with the stock APIs

THIS USUALLY MEANS THAT YOU’LL NEED TO WRITE MIDDLEWARE




Sales Organization Manager:our custom API calls from iOS




Example: Opportunities Heatmap UI




Example: Opportunities Heatmap UI



(1) iOS connection to custom Apex endpoint

(2) Apex class written specifically to feed this heatmap UI


(MASHES UP LEAD AND OPPORTUNITY OBJECT DATA)



(3) JSON response from Apex, converted to NSDictionary in iOS





(4) Finally: render the circles and columns in iOS

“AMOUNT” = NUMBER OF DEALS IN THE COLUMN (DETERMINES CIRCLE RADIUS)



Where should your code live?your code live?




Business logicvs. presentation logic?

Data vs.documents?





Example: Documents + server-based email = API

GOAL: THE SALESPERSON WANTS TO ATTACH COLLATERAL FROM SALESFORCE TO EMAIL




Standard solution: use the iPhone native email client

SALESFORCEDOCUMENTSTORAGE




Better solution: create an API to send email + attachments from the server

ALLOWS FOR QUEUEING LOGIC, LOW BANDWIDTH, OFFLINE CASE HANDLING

SALESFORCEDOCUMENTSTORAGE




Evan KirchhoffCOO, Qubop [email protected]: @theevank

Thanks!

www.qubop.comtwitter: @qubopinc








Technology

API Design and Enterprise Mobile Apps