SOQL plays a vital role in the development of Salesforce.com and administration tasks. As a developer or as an administrator in Salesforce.com, we write many SOQL statements to fetch and validate the data present in the objects. If we know all the features in SOQL, we can easily write optimized SOQL statements to filter the data and fetch the required data from the object.
The sample queries used in this book will help you to understand the SOQL features easily. In the first few chapters, the sample queries are intended for beginners and for developers or administrators who are new to Salesforce.com. In the rest of the chapters, the sample queries are intended for Salesforce.com experts. So, in the first part, simple queries are used, and in the next part, complex queries are used for
an easier understanding of the SOQL features. Real-time examples are used as sample queries. These examples include querying data from a single object as
well as querying data from multiple objects in a single query.
This book also addresses the standards and guidelines to be followed when writing SOQL statements. The standards and guidelines discussed in this book will help you to write SOQL statements without hitting any limitation set by Salesforce.com and
to avoid unwanted data fetched through the queries.
The last chapter provides the installation procedures to be followed to install the software needed to execute SOQL statements. These software help us to get the
real-time data from the objects for viewing. They also help you to execute the
sample queries used in this book in each and every chapter simultaneously.
The most interesting part is the knowledge check at the end of each chapter. The knowledge check is a kind of assessment that grabs our attention and concentration and helps us to recollect the topics learnt in that chapter. It is also helpful for Salesforce.com certification preparation.