Making Applications Social with the Chatter API

Making your Application Social
with the Chatter API

Logan Henriquez
Product Manager
@loganh

Quinton Wall
Developer Evangelist
@quintonwall

Follow us @forcedotcom

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Agenda

 Why Social Enable Your App?
 Use Cases
 Eloqua: Demo and Sample Code
 Tips
 Summer ‘12 Preview
 Q&A


Make any app social with the Chatter API

REST API


IT: Why Social Enable Your Custom Apps?

Partners, customers, suppliers
Collab between dept. &
teams

Make existing apps social


IT: Why Social Enable Your Packaged Apps?

Easily add social functionality
Connect to enterprise-
(feeds, likes, comments etc)
wide news feed (eg:
Chatter)

Distribute app virally via feed


Chatter API Use Cases


Next Generation Intranets for the Social Enterprise
Burberry World

 Company-wide and team
based collaboration

 Dynamic, real-time
information

 Integration of multiple
data sources

 Sharepoint webpart
reference implementation


Use Case – Custom Mobile, Desktop, Tablet
Apps
 Build custom mobile
applications, e.g.
– Product information apps
– Q&A
– Note taking and case
discussion for medical
providers

https://github.com/quintonwall/rhatter

https://github.com/cseymourSF/Chatter-API-iOS-Sample


Use Case - Internet of Things
• Share service data
from Cars, Generators,
Computers – using
custom object records /
feeds

• Foster conversation
centered on products
and services.

• Scenarios:
- Service
- Technical presales
- Technical support
- Project
Management


Build Highly Branded Customer Communities

• Enable partners or
customers to
collaborate with your
employees or each
other

• Share business
process data

• Customize the UX to
meet your exact brand
requirements

• Extend to mobile and
tablet apps


Drive Collaboration Around Business Process and Data

• Chatter feed inside
external
applications

• Supplement data,
process, and
analytics with rich
conversations

• Analytics, Finance,
Supply Chain
Management, HR


Drive Collaboration Around Business Process and Data


Eloqua Use Case

105,000
42

2.5 Billion
8.2 Billion


Why Collaboration with Chatter?

 Buyers need information
– Marketers create info assets
– Sales has relationships
 Collaboration is key:
Sales intuition
+
Marketing resources
=
Buyer engagement


What scenario are we solving

Sales Marketer


REST API Resources


Chatter API Resources

 Latest version
– "/services/data/v24.0/chatter”

 All requests to API made using OAuth2

 Start here
http://developer.force.com/chatter-api


How We’re Using the Chatter API
Today Future

Feed
Users
Groups
Messages
Records
Topics
Recommendations
Files
Organization


/chatter/users/me

TBD – styling changes


Chatter API Tips


Chatter API or SObject REST API?

 Chatter API:
– Semantically rich resources
– Localized presentation-ready data in JSON or XML form
– Comprehensive feed data in a single request
– Matches the web UI
 SObject REST API:
– Data directly from the database
– Arbitrary SOQL queries
 The same Oauth tokens can be used for both


Tips - General
 Group feeds are just record feeds
– /chatter/feeds/record/<group id>
 Security model of UI is observed
– News feed can only be retrieved for the logged-in user
 Following an object is described by a “subscription”.
DELETE the subscription to stop following
 Use 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate’ HTTP header
 Always encrypt your Oauth access and refresh tokens


Rate Limiting

 Rate limiting:
– each user + remote access app combination gets 200 requests
per hour
 Requests to endpoints outside /chatter and /connect are
not counted in this rate limit
– Image requests not rate limited
– Sobject API requests count against org-wide rate limit
 Use separate remote access apps for production and
development to avoid being rate limited
– Also use different users if your automated tests run often


Tips – Javascript served from non-salesforce domain

 Use a controller pass-thru to work around Single Origin
Policy for ajax requests
 Two approaches to rendering:
– pass JSON responses through server as-is and render using
client side template library such as Mustache, Handlebars, or
Eco
– Deserialize and render to HTML on the server and send to client
 Requests from HTML (img tags, HTML forms) must also
use controller pass-thru to put Oauth token into HTTP
header


Tips – Javascript served from salesforce domain

 Can make ajax requests directly to Chatter API and
render to HTML on client.
– When Connect in Apex goes GA, you can also make requests to
a controller to get custom rendered HTML.
 Use an ajax proxy if you’re on a custom domain. (see
the salesforce ajax toolkit) to work around SOP.


Tips – Apex

 Apex Now
– Call the Chatter API using Apex callouts
– Use session Id from UserInfo

 Apex Future
– ConnectAPI class will provide Chatter API resources directly


Connect in Apex (Pilot in Summer)

 Exposing the same Chatter API resources and data in
Apex
 Use cases include:
– Customized social experiences in Visualforce
– Custom Chatter feed rendering in Visualforce
– Posting feed items with @-mentions in Apex
– Modifying user and group photos in Apex

 Taking pilot nominations over the next two weeks.


How do I begin?

https://developer.force.com/chatter-api


Take Aways

 Chatter can drive better user engagement with external
applications
 Easy to build integrations with existing applications
 Wealth of interesting use cases emerge from news feed
integration.


Q&A
http://bit.ly/chattersur
vey

@loganh @quintonwall

Making Applications Social with the Chatter API

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