Advanced Salesforce Design Patterns for Scalable Development

In Salesforce development, utilizing advanced design patterns is key to building robust, scalable, and maintainable applications. These patterns go beyond the basics, helping developers tackle complex problems while adhering to best practices. In this blog post, we’ll cover some of the most important advanced design patterns in Salesforce, such as Service Layer, Domain Layer, and Dependency Injection, and explain how these patterns enhance the overall architecture of your Salesforce solutions.

1. Service Layer Pattern

The Service Layer pattern separates business logic from the technical implementation. This layer contains the business rules and logic, allowing developers to manage all operations related to objects in one place.

Key Benefits:

• Simplifies code maintenance by centralizing logic.

• Improves scalability by providing a single entry point for business operations.

• Makes code more testable by isolating logic from UI or data access code.

Example:

When to Use It:

• Use the Service Layer when you need to encapsulate business logic and keep it separate from triggers or other layers in your Salesforce application.

More details about this pattern can be found in our blog post Salesforce Best Practice: Using Service Classes.

2. Domain Layer Pattern

The Domain Layer pattern is essential for ensuring that business rules are encapsulated within the Salesforce data model. It represents the core logic related to your Salesforce objects and ensures that the business logic stays close to the objects it concerns.

Key Benefits:

• Encapsulates object behavior.

• Helps avoid bloated service classes by placing logic directly in the object layer.

• Ensures that business rules are executed consistently, regardless of how the objects are manipulated.

Example:

When to Use It:

• Implement the Domain Layer pattern when you need to enforce business rules directly within your objects and ensure consistency across different areas of your application.

More details about this pattern can be found in our blog post Salesforce Best Practice: Using Domain Classes.

3. Dependency Injection Pattern

The Dependency Injection pattern promotes loose coupling between classes by passing dependencies (services, utilities, etc.) into classes rather than hardcoding them. This approach makes code more modular and easier to test.

Key Benefits:

• Promotes testability by making it easier to mock dependencies.

• Enhances flexibility by decoupling dependencies from the implementation.

• Supports the inversion of control, allowing for better abstraction.

Example:

When to Use It:

• Use Dependency Injection when you want to decouple your classes from specific implementations and improve the flexibility and testability of your code.

More details about this pattern can be found in our blog post Salesforce Best Practice: Using Service Classes.

4. Unit of Work Pattern

The Unit of Work pattern coordinates and manages changes made to objects in a single transaction. It ensures that all DML operations (insert, update, delete) are committed together as one atomic operation, reducing the risk of partial updates or governor limit issues.

Key Benefits:

• Reduces the number of DML operations by grouping them.

• Ensures that all changes are committed in a single transaction, improving consistency.

• Helps in adhering to Salesforce’s governor limits by reducing multiple database hits.

Example:

When to Use It:

• Use the Unit of Work pattern when you need to group multiple DML operations and commit them as a single transaction.

More details about this pattern can be found in our blog post Salesforce Best Practice: Using Unit of Work.

5. Selector Pattern

The Selector pattern encapsulates all the SOQL queries related to a specific object, providing a centralized and optimized way to manage database access. This pattern also makes querying easier to manage, reuse, and optimize.

Key Benefits:

• Reduces redundancy by centralizing SOQL queries in one location.

• Improves code readability by separating data access logic from business logic.

• Makes it easier to optimize database performance.

Example:

When to Use It:

• Use the Selector pattern when you need to manage and centralize SOQL queries for a specific object in your Salesforce application.

More details about this pattern can be found in our blog post Salesforce Best Practice: Using Selector Classes.

Conclusion

Leveraging advanced design patterns such as the Service Layer, Domain Layer, Dependency Injection, Unit of Work, and Selector patterns can significantly improve the structure, scalability, and maintainability of your Salesforce solutions. These patterns are essential for developing clean, efficient, and scalable applications that can grow with your business needs.

FAQs

1. What is the Service Layer pattern in Salesforce? The Service Layer pattern centralizes business logic, making code more maintainable and scalable by separating it from the UI or data access layers.
2. How does the Unit of Work pattern help in Salesforce? The Unit of Work pattern groups DML operations into a single transaction, improving performance and ensuring data consistency.
3. Why use Dependency Injection in Salesforce? Dependency Injection decouples your code from specific implementations, making it easier to test, extend, and manage dependencies.
4. What is the Selector pattern? The Selector pattern centralizes all SOQL queries related to a specific object, improving query management and performance optimization.
5. How does the Domain Layer pattern work? The Domain Layer pattern encapsulates business rules within Salesforce objects, ensuring that logic is enforced consistently across the application.