Monday, September 21, 2020

Display Google Map within a Flow using Lightning Web Components

Motivation behind this


Earlier I have written about the post on displaying Google maps either on Salesforce Community and through drag-and-drop functionality. From a long time, I want to experiment that on Flow and tried to achieve the same thing.

This way, we can extend the power of Lightning Web Components combining the configurable features of Flow.

Use Case


Business has a requirement to see the location of an Account in a Google Map, but only on a demand basis. Business doesn't want to see this map on Record Detail page every time. Rather, they want to view as and when required upon clicking on a button on Record Detail page and it will show as a pop up screen.

Developer wants to build this Google map component using Lightning Web Components which will be displayed as a pop up using Flow.

Expected Outcome




Clicking on Show Location quick action, the flow will be displayed as pop up screen to display the location.

Solution Approach


Salesforce provides lightning-map component which displays one or more locations. It inherits the styling from map of Lighting Design System. 

And, it is easier to display the component inside Flow, rather than using a separate pop-up component.

So, let's first prepare the component in LWC.

displayAccountMapInFlow.html

Simple page which holds lighting-map component.


<template>
    <lightning-map
        map-markers={mapMarkers}
        zoom-level={zoomLevel}>        
    </lightning-map>    
</template>

displayAccountMapInFlow.js

Few important points on the approach:
  • My earlier post talks about fetching the data using Apex classes. Here I have used ui*api Wire adapters. The benefits of using this is, we don't have a create separate Apex Class to fetch the record. Secondly, it recognizes access rights of the users meaning if the user doesn't have access to the field then error will return. If you are not sure about field access then you can use those fields as Optional.
  • We know that, we can get recordId using @api, but when the component is embed into flow then this recordId will not work. We need to pass recordId explicitly from Flow. This is tricky.
  • As this component can be reused to display in App page or record detail page so the recordId check has been done in connectedCallback method. 
Following way, you can check falsy values, no need to separately verify null or undefined.

this.recordId = (!!this.recordId) ? this.recordId: this.sfdcRecordId; 

Here is the way, through metadata config file.

<targetConfigs>
	<targetConfig targets="lightning__FlowScreen">
		<property name="sfdcRecordId" 
			type="string" 
			label="Pass record Id"
			description="Pass record Id"/>			   
	</targetConfig>
</targetConfigs> 

Entire .js as below


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/*
* Author: Santanu Boral
*/
import { LightningElement, api,track, wire } from 'lwc';
import { ShowToastEvent } from 'lightning/platformShowToastEvent';
import { getRecord } from 'lightning/uiRecordApi';

//define the field values to be retrieved
const FIELDS = ['Account.Name', 'Account.BillingStreet',
                'Account.BillingCity', 'Account.BillingState',
                'Account.BillingPostalCode', 'Account.BillingCountry'
                ];

export default class DisplayAccountMapInFlow extends LightningElement {
    @api recordId;  //if this component is used other than flow then it will be used
    @api sfdcRecordId; //this is passed from flow
    @api zoomLevel; //this is passed from flow
    
    account; //internal variable to store the account data
    mapMarkers = [];  //this is used on HTML for attribute value 
    
    //This method check the values passed into the component
    connectedCallback(){
        this.recordId = (!!this.recordId) ? this.recordId: this.sfdcRecordId;  
        this.zoomLevel = (!!this.zoomLevel) ? this.zoomLevel: 6;        
    }

    //fetch record details based on recordId
    @wire(getRecord, { recordId: '$recordId', fields: FIELDS })
    wiredRecord({ error,data }) {
        if (data) {
            this.account = data;
            //prepare marker to display on map
            this.mapMarkers = [
                {
                    location: {
                        Street: this.account.fields.BillingStreet.value,
                        City: this.account.fields.BillingCity.value, 
                        State: this.account.fields.BillingState.value,
                        PostalCode: this.account.fields.BillingPostalCode.value,                         
                        Country: this.account.fields.BillingCountry.value
                    },    
                    icon: 'custom:custom26',
                    title: this.account.fields.Name.value,
                }                                    
            ];
            
        }
        else if (error){
            let message = 'Unknown error';
            if (Array.isArray(error.body)) {
                message = error.body.map(e => e.message).join(', ');
            } else if (typeof error.body.message === 'string') {
                message = error.body.message;
            }
            this.dispatchEvent(
                new ShowToastEvent({
                    title: 'Error loading Account',
                    message,
                    variant: 'error',
                }),
            );
        }
    }
}

displayAccountMapInFlow.js-meta.xml

You can see the zoomLevel has been passed along with recordId from Flow.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<LightningComponentBundle xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <apiVersion>49.0</apiVersion>
    <isExposed>true</isExposed>
    <targets>
        <target>lightning__RecordPage</target>
        <target>lightning__AppPage</target>
        <target>lightning__FlowScreen</target>
    </targets>
    <targetConfigs>
        <targetConfig targets="lightning__FlowScreen">
            <property name="zoomLevel" 
                type="string" 
                label="Enter zoom level of map"
                description="Enter zoom level of map"/>   
            <property name="sfdcRecordId" 
                type="string" 
                label="Pass record Id"
                description="Pass record Id"/>                   
        </targetConfig>
    </targetConfigs>        
</LightningComponentBundle>

Development on Flow Side


Overall flow will look like as below:


First, create recordId variable to capture the recordId of the current record.


Next, create a variable with text datatype with a name varRecordId.

Now, assignment to be done as follows:


Finally, the form screen as below


You can see that zoom level is passed as 16 and record Id has been passed with {!varRecordId}

Now, let's call this flow through quick action and expose that in the page layout.

That's it!.

For testing purpose, go to a record detail page and clicking on Show Location quick action, the flow will be opened to display the component.

Hope it helps and thanks for reading.

References



Further Reading




Friday, September 4, 2020

Salesforce JavaScript Developer I Certification Cheat Sheet - 6 Pager

 Motivation behind this

After passing JavaScript Developer I certification, I thought of preparing this cheat sheet which is a bridge between the syllabus and level of questions and can provide proper guidance to effectively prepare for this exam.

I didn't find this type of material during my preparation which motivates me to come up such a 6 pager cheat sheet which covers almost all important points and sections. This document mainly focuses on multiple choice exam. I have provided all the references at each section.

This will definitely help trailblazers to prepare and pass this exam.

To download entire cheat sheet in pdf version, scroll through at the end of the blog.

Here is each page will look like:

Page 1



Page 2


Page 3


Page 4

Page 5


Final Page



Download entire cheat sheet: Salesforce JavaScript Developer I Cheat Sheet - pdf

If you find this useful then post your feedback as comments and share it.

Happy to share and good luck for your exam.

Note: Since I love all those astro, codey etc characters that's why I have used those almost every pages.

Further Reading