Salesforce.

com Data Model:

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Objects: Standard & Custom
Fields: Standard & Custom
Relationships: Master-Detail, Lookup, External Lookup
Standard fields automatically created when a custom object is created:
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1) Record Name: Alphanumeric Value(can be entered manually)
Data type: text (or) autonumber based on requirement
2) Owner: automatically created with some exceptions (Your owner field
will be populated with a user from your system)
3) created by: system generated field. (Captures user created the record
along with date & time of the creation)
4) Last Modified by: system generated field. (captures user, date/time
associated with the last record update)
*concatenation of two system fields(Last Modified by Id + Last Modified Date)
* users just see the concatenated field----> "Last Modified By"
owner, created by, last modified by-----> System generated
Record name-----------------------------> entered manually
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Attributes of Fields in salesforce:
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1) Field Label: displayed to users (Required)
2) Field Name: *unique name (Required)
*not shown to users
*we can make this visible to users
*only alphanumeric characters & underscores
*must begin with a letter and must end with a letter or number
3) Description (Not Required): purely for reference (Hihgly recommended to alway
s populate
this field)
4) Help Text (Not Required): bubbled text displayed to users upon hovering over
a question
mark next to the field (It might be helpful for users if you populate this field
)
5) Required: Checkbox---> Legitimately formatted value present before a record c
an be created
or saved
6) Unique: Checkbox-----> ensures that the field on a new or existing record can
not contain value
that matches that of the same field on another record. Can be configured to be c
ase sensitive or case insensitive
7) External ID: Checkbox------> serves as a reord Identifier for a field in a sy
stem or application out of
salesforce.com. These have special behavior when corresponding records are impor
ted either via standard import wizards
or the Apex Data Loader
Note: External ID by itself doesn't guarantee that the fieldd values are unique
in salesforce.com
Unique attribute is a separate function.
8) Default Value: default value on a field-----> can set initial value on every
record that is created. string-->new
number---->5. It can also be a formula that uses salesforce.com's built-in formu
la functions and can even derive values
from other fields/objects.
Field name & Field API (directly related)
API name referenced in code & formulas
__c is appended in API name for custom fields & objects.
for standard objects same as field or object name