What's New in Force.com Web Services API Summer '08

Contents

Overview

The Summer '08 release, including the Force.com Web Services API, contains new features and bug fixes that improve the capabilities of applications that leverage the Force.com platform. Considerable effort has been made to ensure backwards capability for applications that have been written against previous versions of the API, starting with API 2.5.

Note: older XML-RPC APIs remain unchanged with this release.

The new API provides a number of powerful enhancements that further improve any integration already in place between Salesforce and your other systems. For additional information on the Summer '08 release, please see the Summer '08 Admin Preview, or visit the Apex Wiki. After version 13.0 has been released to your server, see the Force.com Web Services API Developer's Guide.

Important: After the Summer '08 release, the 12.0 version of the WSDL file will not be available. Instead, all requests for a WSDL will return a 13.0 version. Please remember to save WSDL files with your project, as the enterprise WSDL is custom to your organization.

Salesforce.com maintains backwards compability on previous versions of our APIs in accordance with our stated support policy. Salesforce.com recommends that developers migrate to the latest version of the API as often as is feasible in order to receive the benefit of new enhancements from release to release. Developers with integrations on API versions prior to version 2.5 should be planning to migrate to the most recent API in preparation for the eventual end of support for the older API versions.

Platform Changes

  • The AJAX Toolkit, Web services API and Metadata API have been updated to 13.0.
  • Sessions will only expire if the session has been inactive for a predetermined time. The period of activity before session expiration can be configured at Setup | Security Controls. Your session will stay valid as long as you continue to use your session.
  • The outer join behavior in API SOQL queries with lookup relationships has been fixed. Beginning with Version 13.0 of the API, the following types of relationship queries return records even if the relevant foreign key field has a null value, as you would expect with an outer join. The change in behavior applies to the following types of relationship queries:
    • In an ORDER BY clause, if the foreign key value in a record is null.
    • In a WHERE clause using OR, if the foreign key value in a record is null.
    • In a WHERE clause that checks for a value in a parent field, if the parent does not exist.

For more information, see Lookup Relationships and Outer Joins in the Force.com Web Services API Developer's Guide.

New Calls

  • invalidateSessions(): Ends one or more sessions specified by an array of sessionIds or a single sessionId. Useful for ending a large number of sessions at one time.
  • logout(): Ends the logged-in user session instead of waiting for it to time out.

New Objects

The following new objects have been added to the API version 13.0 and later:

  • ApexPage: Represents a Visualforce page.
  • AsyncApexJob: Represents a batch job initiated by an Apex method with the future annotation or an Apex sharing recalculation.
  • Community: Represents a Salesforce Ideas community.
  • OpportunityFieldHistory: Represents the history of changes to the values in the fields of an opportunity.

Changed Objects

The following objects were changed in API version 13.0:

  • Account: New fields have been added:
    • ConnectionReceivedId: the ID of the PartnerNetworkConnection that shared this account with your organization.
    • ConnectionSentId: the ID of the PartnerNetworkConnection that your organization shared this account with.
  • ApexClass:
    • Body field is nillable.
    • New picklist field Status.
  • ApexTrigger:
    • Body field is nillable.
    • IsActive field is not creatable or updatable in API version 13.0
    • New picklist field Status.
  • BrandTemplate: The NamespacePrefix field was added.
  • BusinessHours:
    • In API version 13.0 and later, the business hours for each day are of Time datatype. In API version 12.0, they were represented by datatype long.
    • The new field IsActive was added. Indicates whether the record represents the active business hours for the organization.
  • Contact: New fields have been added:
    • ConnectionReceivedId: the ID of the PartnerNetworkConnection that shared this contact with your organization.
    • ConnectionSentId: the ID of the PartnerNetworkConnection that your organization shared this contact with.
  • Event:
    • In API version 13.0 and later, multiday events lasting up to 14 days are supported through the new fields StartDateTime and EndDateTime.
    • If the StartDateTime field has a value, the ActivityDate and ActivityDateTime fields must either be null or match the value of the field.
    • You can filter on StartDateTime to find events with a specific due date.
    • The ActivityDateTime field is no longer required.
  • Folder: The NamespacePrefix field was added.
  • Idea: The following field has been added:
    • CommunityId: identifies the community an idea is posted to. If you create an idea in API version 12.0, you cannot specify the CommunityId so the idea is automatically posted to the oldest community that you have permission to access.
  • Profile: New fields have been added:
    • Guest is a valid value for UserType field.
  • Task: New fields have been added:
    • ConnectionReceivedId: the ID of the PartnerNetworkConnection that shared this task with your organization.
    • ConnectionSentId: the ID of the PartnerNetworkConnection that your organization shared this task with.
  • User: A new field has been added:
    • ApexPagesDeveloperMode

API Migration Issues

The following technical notes are available to assist you in migrating from versions earlier than 10.0:

Retrieved from ‘http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php?title=What%27s_New_in_Force.com_Web_Services_API_Summer_%2708&oldid=17561’