SFDC Formulas
Spring 2019 Note: Pulsar now directly supports evaluating Salesforce formulas both online and offline.
- Supports formula fields
- Supports default value field formulas (during initial record creation)
- All numeric, logical, string, and date/time operators and functions are supported
- Most summary and advanced functions are supported (some server-side-specific functions are not supported)
To enable evaluating Salesforce formula fields and default value formulas, add the pulsar.formula.enableSFDCFormulas Pulsar Setting and set it to TRUE.
Best practices:
- We recommend first testing that Salesforce formulas are working in your testing organization before enabling in production
- If there is both a Salesforce formula and a PSL formula for the same field, the PSL formula takes precedence, and the Salesforce formula is ignored
- Salesforce formulas and PSL formulas across objects/fields should not interact (e.g., if FormulaFieldA__c is a Salesforce formula and FormulaFieldB__c is a PSL formula, the result is undefined if they reference each other).
PSL Formulas
Spring 2019 NOTE: we recommend that you use SFDC Formulas going forward, but PSL formulas will continue to be supported.
Pulsar originally did not support evaluating SFDC formulas, and instead offered similar functionality through logic implemented in Pulsar Settings Language (PSL).
PSL Formulas are implemented via a group of flexible Pulsar Settings that define the fields affected, the order in which they are processed, and the formula logic in PSL for each field. Just as in Salesforce formulas, default values are used during record creation and formula fields are used to calculate the proper values for fields throughout the life of the record.
Please note that regardless of the values calculated for formula fields in Pulsar, if the same field has a formula defined on Salesforce, the Salesforce formula supersedes the Pulsar formula when the record is synced to the server.
Usage
Formula fields and default value formulas follow an identical pattern when defined using Pulsar Settings. For each affected object or record type:
- Specify which fields to process and the order in which they should be processed (Field Order Settings)
- Describe the logic or calculation that must occur (Formula Settings)
Field Order Settings
The formula field order and default value field order settings both allow you to specify a list of field API names separated by commas, newlines, or semicolons. The setting key optionally allows you to narrow the scope to a specific record type.
Formula Field Order Setting Format
Name: Object Name – Formula Field Order
Key: pulsar.<object API name>[.<record type developer name>].formulaFieldOrder
Value: Field1APIName, Field2APIName, Field3APIName, ...
Example:
Name: Order Line Item – Formula Order
Key: pulsar.Order_Line_Item__c.formulaFieldOrder
Value: Unit_Price__c,Total_Discount__c,Amount__c
Default Value FIeld Order Setting Format
Name: Object Name – Default Value Field Order
Key: pulsar.<object API name>[.<record type developer name>].defaultValueFieldOrder
Value: Field1APIName,
Field2APIName,
Field3APIName,
...
Example:
Cheque_Number__c
Formula Settings
Defining the formulas associated with the default value or formula fields requires using PSL. The only requirement is to use the SetFieldInMemory action to set the resulting value to the field in question. The setting key optionally allows you to narrow the scope to a specific record type, as with the field order settings above.
Formula Field Formula Setting Format
Name: Object Name – Formula Field – Field Name
Key: pulsar.<object API name>[.<record type developer name>].<field API Name>.formula
Value: Pulsar Settings Language
Example:
Name: Order Line Item – Formula Fields – Unit Price
Key: pulsar.Order_Line_Item__c.Unit_Price__c.formula
Value: See the code below. Notice that the last action is the SetFIeldInMemory action.
DEFAULT{ Action=SetVar; VarName=UnitPrice; VarValue=Product__r.Unit_Price__c; | Action=SetFieldInMemory; FieldType=General; FieldName=Unit_Price__c; FieldValue=%%UnitPrice%%; }
Default Value Formula Setting Format
Name: Object Name – Default Value Field – Field Name
Key: pulsar.<object API name>[.<record type developer name>].<field API Name>.defaultvalue
Value: Pulsar Settings Language
Example:
Name: Cheque – Default Value Field – Cheque_Date__c
DEFAULT{ Action=SetVar; VarName=ThisDay; VarValue=@@Today; | Action=SetFieldInMemory; FieldType=General; FieldName=Cheque_Date__c; FieldValue=%%ThisDay%%; }