Heroku Workbook

Integrating Force.com and Applications on Heroku

Heroku www.heroku.com provides an ideal platform for building, developing and deploying applications that interact with Salesforce APIs. Heroku supports multiple programming languages including Ruby, Java, Node.js and Python, which makes it easy to tap into a vast number of libraries and utilities to help build applications that integrate with APIs, using languages that are very familiar to professional developers.

About the Workbook

This workbook shows one typical example of building an API integration: it creates a web application that lets users sign in (utilizing Force.com’s OAuth), and then performs API calls back to Force.com. Along the way, it also demonstrates some of the Heroku platform and how it can be used.

Like Force.com, Heroku is based around applications—it removes many of the barriers around getting a production deployed and scaled—letting you concentrate on writing your app instead. Unlike Force.com, these applications can typically run locally, as well as in the cloud.

For development, this workbook uses the Ruby language and the Sinatra web framework. Ruby is an elegant language that permits us to show these integrations with the least amount of code, thus providing the most clarity.

The source code for the finished application developed in this workbook is available on GitHub at https://github.com/jonmountjoy/heroku-force-workbook-demo. Refer to it if you ever need any help.

Intended Audience

This workbook is intended for experienced developers and programmers who may be new to Heroku and/or the Force.com platform. For more information about Heroku see the Getting Started for the language of choice at https://devcenter.heroku.com. For more information about developing datadriven cloud applications using Force.com see the Getting Started at http://developer.force.com/ gettingstarteddevelopers.