Making Applications Social with the Chatter API

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Making your Application Social

with the Chatter API

Logan Henriquez

Product Manager

@loganh

Quinton Wall

Developer Evangelist

@quintonwall

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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?

Collab between dept. &

teams

Make existing apps social

Partners, customers, suppliers


IT: Why Social Enable Your Packaged Apps?

Connect to enterprise-

wide news feed (eg:

Chatter)

Distribute app virally via feed

Easily add social functionality

(feeds, likes, comments etc)


Chatter API Use Cases


Next Generation Intranets for the Social Enterprise

Company-wide and team

based collaboration

Dynamic, real-time

information

Integration of multiple

data sources

Sharepoint webpart

reference implementation

Burberry World


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

https://github.com/quintonwall/rhatter









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

2.5 Billion

8.2 Billion

42 105,000


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

Marketer Sales

Eloqua Demo


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

Feed

Users

Groups

Messages

Records

Topics

Recommendations

Files

Organization

Today Future


/chatter/users/me

TBD – styling changes

Feed Item Resources

Comments Resources

Users Resources

Comments Resource ( POST )


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

Technology

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