Per-transaction limits in Salesforce are set to ensure the fair allocation of resources in the multi-tenant environment where multiple organizations share the same infrastructure. These limits prevent a single tenant or transaction from monopolizing shared resources, ensuring all users’ optimal performance and service availability.

In simpler terms, per-transaction limits control the number of operations that can be performed in a single transaction, mitigating the risk of resource contention and exhaustion and maintaining the overall health and efficiency of the Salesforce ecosystem.

What you will learn:

• The basics of pre-transaction limits and what it means.
• How to manage pre-transaction limits in Salesforce.
• Discover the best practices for managing pre-transaction limits.

Optimize and Manage Per-Transaction Limits in Salesforce

1. Bulkifying Code

Bulkifying code in Salesforce means designing your Apex triggers, classes, and methods to handle multiple records at once efficiently. A bulk-safe operation can process multiple records in a single transaction, reducing the risk of hitting governor limits. 

2. Using Collections Effectively

In Salesforce, efficiently utilizing collections like Lists, Sets, and Maps is pivotal. Collections can store multiple records, allowing developers to process bulk data efficiently and stay within governor limits.

• Lists are ordered collections and can contain duplicate elements.
• Sets are unordered collections of unique elements.
• Maps hold unique key-value pairs.

By effectively using collections, developers can reduce the number of SOQL queries and DML operations, optimizing resource utilization.

3. Efficient SOQL and SOSL Queries

Optimizing SOQL (Salesforce Object Query Language) and SOSL (Salesforce Object Search Language) queries are vital to prevent hitting governor limits. Efficient queries are selective, using indexed fields and avoiding queries within loops. A focus on debug log analysis during this phase can be crucial, helping identify inefficiencies and potential optimizations in the query structure and execution.

Strategies:

• Use Indexed Fields: Querying on indexed fields improves the query performance.
• Avoid Queries in Loops: Placing queries outside of loops prevents them from executing multiple times unnecessarily.
• Filtering: Using WHERE clauses to reduce the number of records retrieved.

4. Asynchronous Processing

Asynchronous Apex allows you to perform operations and execute logic in the background, which is useful when processing large volumes of data and performing complex calculations.

• Future Methods: Allows specific methods to run in the background.
• Queueable Apex: Offers more flexibility and allows chaining of jobs.
• Batch Apex: Ideal for processing large volumes of records asynchronously.

Utilizing asynchronous processing is crucial for avoiding limits related to synchronous processing and managing resources efficiently.

5. Utilizing Platform Cache

Platform Cache allows developers to store and access reusable static and dynamic data, reducing the reliance on computing resources and database queries. By leveraging Salesforce’s caching mechanism, developers can store frequently used data, thus improving the application’s response time and overall performance.

• Session Cache: Stores data specific to a user session.
• Org Cache: Stores data that any user in the organization can access.

Best Practices for Managing Per-Transaction Limits in Salesforce

1. Adhering to Coding Standards

Coding standards are guidelines and best practices designed to improve the code’s readability, maintainability, and reliability. Adhering to these standards is crucial in Salesforce development to prevent hitting governor limits. By following uniform coding standards, developers can avoid writing inefficient and resource-intensive code, reducing the likelihood of encountering per-transaction limits and improving overall application performance.

2. Regular Code Review and Optimization

Performing regular code reviews and optimizing the codebase is an essential practice in managing Salesforce per-transaction limits. Code review allows developers to identify inefficient code, redundant queries, and resource-intensive operations that can be optimized. This practice helps maintain an efficient and limit-compliant codebase, ensuring the longevity and scalability of the application.

Implementation:

• Periodic Reviews: Schedule regular code reviews to identify areas of improvement and ensure adherence to best practices.
• Performance Profiling: Use tools and techniques to analyze the code’s performance and optimize resource-intensive operations.
• Refactoring: Regularly refactor the code to improve its structure, readability, and efficiency, removing redundancies and inefficiencies.

3. Effective Testing

Writing extensive and thorough test classes is crucial to ensure that the code complies with governor limits. Well-designed test classes can simulate various scenarios and edge cases, uncovering potential issues related to per-transaction limits early in the development cycle. This proactive approach allows developers to address limit-related problems before deploying the code to production, ensuring a stable and reliable application.

Strategies:

• Comprehensive Test Coverage: Aim for high test coverage to ensure that all parts of the code are validated against governor limits.
• Scenario-Based Testing: Design test cases based on real-world scenarios and use cases to uncover potential limit-related issues.
• Continuous Testing: Integrate testing into the development lifecycle to identify and address issues early and regularly.

Conclusion

Understanding and respecting Salesforce’s per-transaction limits is not just about compliance; it’s about fostering a responsible and sustainable development approach. By embracing best practices, maintaining vigilance through regular monitoring, and pursuing continuous optimization and learning, developers can unlock the full potential of Salesforce and deliver exceptional value to their organizations and users.  

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