Apex Code Example for SOAP API in Salesforce

Introduction:

In Salesforce development, Apex provides a powerful way to integrate with external systems using various APIs. One such API is the SOAP API, which allows you to create, retrieve, update, or delete records in Salesforce. In this blog post, we will explore an Apex code example that demonstrates how to work with the SOAP API in Salesforce.

Prerequisites:

Before diving into the code example, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

1. Salesforce Developer Edition or Sandbox account.
2. Basic knowledge of Salesforce development, including Apex and SOAP API.

Code Example:

Let's consider a scenario where we want to create a new contact record in Salesforce using the SOAP API. Here's an example of Apex code that accomplishes this task:

// Import necessary classes and namespaces

global class SOAPAPICodeExample {

    

    // Method to create a new contact using SOAP API

    webservice static void createContact(String firstName, String lastName, String email) {

        

        // Create a new contact object

        Contact newContact = new Contact();

        newContact.FirstName = firstName;

        newContact.LastName = lastName;

        newContact.Email = email;

        

        // Create a new connection to the SOAP API

        WebServiceCallout.Soap soap = new WebServiceCallout.Soap();

        soap.endpoint_x = 'https://login.salesforce.com/services/Soap/c/44.0'; // Replace with your SOAP API endpoint

        

        // Invoke the create() method to create the contact record

        WebServiceCallout.Soap.create_element soapCreate = new WebServiceCallout.Soap.create_element();

        soapCreate.sObject_x = newContact;

        WebServiceCallout.Soap.createResponse_element result = soap.create_x(new WebServiceCallout.Soap.create_element[] { soapCreate })[0];

        

        // Check if the contact was created successfully

        if (result.success) {

            System.debug('Contact created successfully. Contact ID: ' + result.id);

        } else {

            System.debug('Contact creation failed. Error message: ' + result.errors);

        }

    }

}

Explanation:

Let's go through the code step by step:

1. We create a global class called "SOAPAPICodeExample" that contains a web service method called "createContact". The method takes three parameters: firstName, lastName, and email, which are used to create a new contact record.

2. Inside the "createContact" method, we create a new Contact object and populate its fields with the provided values.

3. We then create a new instance of the "WebServiceCallout.Soap" class, which represents the SOAP API connection. Set the "endpoint_x" property to your SOAP API endpoint URL.

4. Next, we instantiate a "create_element" object and assign the Contact object to its "sObject_x" property.

5. We invoke the "create_x" method on the SOAP connection, passing an array of "create_element" objects. This method returns a "createResponse_element" object, which contains the result of the create operation.

6. Finally, we check the "success" property of the result. If it's true, we log a success message along with the ID of the created contact. Otherwise, we log an error message.

Conclusion:

In this blog post, we explored an Apex code example that demonstrates how to use the SOAP API in Salesforce. We learned how to create a new contact record using the SOAP API and handle the response appropriately. Feel free to modify and extend this code example to suit your specific integration requirements with the SOAP API in Salesforce. Happy coding!