• In a given scenario, recommend when to use API-based integrations, such as SOAP, REST, Bulk, Streaming, Canvas, Workflow outbound, APEX (Callouts, @ future, etc.), and Lightning Connect to achieve business requirements.
• Compare and contrast the advantages and drawbacks (design trade-offs) of using API-based integrations such as SOAP, REST, Bulk, Streaming, Canvas, Workflow outbound, APEX (Callouts, @future, etc.), and Lightning Connect.

Each System is connected to every other system through a direct integration.

• • Easy to implement with only a few systems
  • Difficult to scale

Every System connects to the hub.

• All data transfer is done through the hub.
• Easy to Design and implement
• Architectures are proprietary in nature.
• Single point of failure
• Inability to support large transactions volumes

Distributed services architecture

• • Employs distributed adapters
  • Highly scalable

Salesforce provides programmatic access to your org’s information using simple, powerful, and secure application programming interfaces.

• Uses XML message format and relies on another transfer protocol (like HTTP) for transmission.

Use the API for:

• Data Loading and Integration
• Data Replication – The API supports data replication, which allows you to store and maintain an external, separate copy of your organization’s pertinent Salesforce data for specialized uses, such as data warehousing, data mining, custom reporting, analytics, and integration with other applications.

When integrating using the SOAP API there are two different options for setting the Salesforce Schema and available methods using the WSDL.

• Enterprise WSDL

  • Strongly typed.
  • Tied (bound) to a specific configuration of Salesforce (ie. a specific organization’s Salesforce configuration).
  • Will display changes if custom fields or objects are added to an organization’s Salesforce configuration.

For the reasons outlined above, the Enterprise WSDL is intended primarily for Customers.

• Partner WSDL

  • Loosely typed.
  • Useful to reflect against/interrogate any configuration of Salesforce (ie. any organization’s Salesforce configuration).
  • Static, and hence does not change if modifications are made to an organization’s Salesforce configuration.

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Where the SOAP API is oriented around accessing data and manipulating records, the Metadata API’s focus – as its name implies – is metadata. So it gives you an API to manipulate layouts, Visualforce pages, Apex triggers and classes – pretty much everything you can do to your org from the browser interface you can also do from the Metadata API.

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• REST API provides a powerful, convenient, and simple Web services API for interacting with Lightning Platform.
• Provides access to Salesforce data and business logic.
• It’s lightweight making it ideal for integration with mobile devices.
• Uses REST, HTTP, JSON, and also supports XML (optionally)
• REST API requires the TLS protocol.

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• Enables integration with Salesforce Chatter to mobile apps, intranet sites, and third-party web applications. Using Connect REST API. Responses are localized, structured for presentation, and can be filtered to contain only what the app needs.
• Provides programmatic access to chatter feeds, files, recommendations, topics, notifications and social data.
• Use Chatter API to build:
  • Social applications for mobile devices
  • Highly interactive websites.
  • An integrations from Salesforce Chatter into other applications.

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Expose a near real-time stream of data from the force.com platform.

Notifications can be sent to :

• Pages in Salesforce Applications
• Applications servers outside of Salesforce
• External Clients

Best to use for:

• Applications that need to poll against Salesforce data frequently.
• Long Polling – The process thats emulates an information push from server to a keep the connection active.

Can be achieved using:

• Bayeux Protocol – Transports messages asynchronously over HTTP
• CometD – a scalable HTTP-based event routing bus, that uses Comet to implement the Bayeux protocol.

Tools and Mechanism:

• Platform Events
• Change Data Capture
• PushTopic – is a Record that triggered by event (create, update, delete, undelete):
  • Defines a channel
  • Determines what events will cause notification
  • Describe the data the notification contains.
  • Api Channel name will always be topic/topicName (case sensitive).

PushTopic pushTopic = new PushTopic();
pushTopic.Name = 'InvoiceStatementUpdates';
pushTopic.Query = 'SELECT Id, Name, Status__c, Description__c FROM Invoice_Statement__c';
pushTopic.ApiVersion = 49.0;
pushTopic.NotifyForOperationCreate = true;
pushTopic.NotifyForOperationUpdate = true;
pushTopic.NotifyForOperationUndelete = true;
pushTopic.NotifyForOperationDelete = true;
pushTopic.NotifyForFields = 'Referenced';
insert pushTopic;

• • Code breakdown:
    1. Construct a new PushTopic object
    2. Specify a name for the PushTopic
    3. Specify a SOQL query
    4. Optionally specify values for the PushTopic fields
    5. Insert a PushTopic in database
  
  

  Notes :

  • NotifyForOperation – defines the type of event that may generate notifications.
  • The query defines the type of record that can generate the event.
  • Updates performed by the Bulk API won’t generate notifications, since updates could flood a channel.
  • NotifyForFields – specify the fields that should be checked.
    • All – Notifications are generated for all record fields changes, provided the evaluated records match the criteria specified in the WHERE clause. – Avoid setting to this option unless it is necessary.
    • Referenced (default) – will use both the SELECT clause and the WHERE clause to generate a notification – all and only referenced fields in query will be evaluated and tracked.
    • Select – Only changes to the referenced fields in the 'SELECT' clause are evaluated to generate notifications.
    • Where –  Only once a record  meet the criteria in the 'WHERE' part of the query – notifications will be generated.
  
  

  Special Permissions :

  • Read Access to the Object
  • Field Level Security for each of the referenced fields in the WHERE clause.
  • Access based on sharing rules to the modified record.
  
  

  Unsupported notes:

  • Queries without Id specified in the Select clause.
  • Queries with relationships / join fields.

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Bulk API is based on REST principles and is an Asynchronous API to work with high volumes of data.

• Use the Bulk API for more the 50,000 records or for time-sensitive loads that can take advantage of very large batches.
• Increases stability, monitoring, and control of high-volume data loads.
• You can use the Bulk API to process jobs either in serial mode or in parallel mode. Processing batches serially means running them one after another (Slower but safer for lock contention), and processing batches in parallel means running multiple batches at the same time. (Much faster)
• When you create a bulk job, By default it will be marked to retry to run Unfinished batches in this job. the Batch Retry request header Sforce-Disable-Batch-Retry lets you disable retries for unfinished batches included in the job. Use this header to limit the batch processing time for batches that consistently time out.
Avoid Lock Contention – A Situation in which once process tries to acquire a loc help by another process.
• Organizing data in batches
• Can be caused when creating new Users, changing ownership of records. updating roles or territories.

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Use Tooling API to build custom development tools or apps for Lightning Platform applications. Tooling API’s SOQL capabilities for many metadata types allow you to retrieve smaller pieces of metadata. Smaller retrieves improve performance, which makes Tooling API a better fit for developing interactive applications.Tooling API provides SOAP and REST interfaces.

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Receive near-real-time changes of Salesforce records, and synchronize corresponding records in an external data store.

Use CDC to :

• Receive notifications of Salesforce record changes, including create, update, delete, and undelete operations.
• Capture all field changes for all records.
• Get information about the change in the event header, such as the origin of the change, so you can ignore changes that your client generates.
• Subscribe to mass changes in a scalable way.

With External Change Data Capture, you can track changes to data that is stored outside your Salesforce org when using the Odata 4.0 adapter. You can then build automation in response to the changes to increase productivity or provide a better customer experience.

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• Salesforce Connect provides seamless integration of data across system boundaries by letting your users view, search, and modify data that’s stored outside your Salesforce org.
• Salesforce Connect maps Salesforce external objects to data tables in external systems.
• Instead of copying the data into your org, Salesforce Connect accesses the data on demand and in real time.

When to Use :

• When you have a large amount of data that you don’t want to copy into your Salesforce org.
• You need small amounts of data at any one time.
• You want real-time access to the latest data.
• Archiving Salesforce Data and still need acces to it
• Search against external data

Cross-Org Adapter for Salesforce Connect

• Connecting the data across your Salesforce orgs and display as External Objects.
• Create interactions between the orgs using a REST API call.

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Salesforce to Salesforce makes it easy for businesses using Salesforce to share records and get updated data on shared records across customer orgs.

• You can see all of your sharing activity, manage your entire pipeline, share data across multi-tiered partnerships, and integrate your business processes with updates received from your partners using workflow and assignment rules.

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Enhanced External Services allows you to invoke an externally hosted REST service in a declarative manner (no code required).

Point and Click based integration from Lightning Flow

This feature is best used when the following conditions are met:

• The externally hosted service is a RESTful service and the definitions are available in an OpenAPI 2.0 JSON schema format.
• The request and response definitions contain primitive data types such as boolean, datetime, double, integer, string, or an array of primitive data types. Nested object types, and send parameters such as headers within the HTTP requests are supported.
• The transaction can be invoked from a Lightning Flow.
• The integration transaction doesn’t risk exceeding the synchronous Apex governor limits.

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Platform events are event messages (or notifications) that your apps send and receive to take further action. Platform events simplify the process of communicating changes and responding to them without writing complex logic. One or more subscribers can listen to the same event and carry out actions.

• Allow Guaranteed order of execution – Events are published in the Same order they occured
• Allow automatic retry.

Salesforce provides a workflow-driven outbound messaging capability that allows sending SOAP messages to remote systems triggered by an insert or update operation in Salesforce. These messages are sent asynchronously and are independent of the Salesforce user interface.

• Outbound messaging is a declarative mechanism that can be configured to send asynchronous notifications which are fired based on workflow rules and approval processes.
• Allows you to specify that changes to fields within Salesforce can cause messages with field values to be sent to designated external servers.
• It uses the notifications() call to send SOAP messages over HTTP(S) to a designated endpoint when triggered by a workflow rule.
• A Single SOAP message can include up to 100 notifications.
• Messages are queued until they are sent – so they may be delivered out of order.
• Audit trails cannot be created using outbound messages.
• Use 2-way TLS for verification of outbound messaging integrations.
• Special Permissions :
  • User access – The User that is specified on the “User to send as” field should have :
    • Read field level access
    • In case you wish to include encrypted fields, the user would also need the “View Encrypted Data” checked (true).
  • Send Outbound Messages – To stop callback from sending another outbound message, make sure the user you specify on the “User to send as” has the permission unchecked (false).

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An Apex callout enables you to tightly integrate your Apex with an external service by making a call to an external Web service or sending a HTTP request from Apex code and then receiving the response. Apex provides integration with Web services that utilize SOAP and WSDL, or HTTP services (RESTful services).

To perform callout in Salesforce we would use one of the following to “white list” the endpoints we will interact with:

• Remote Site Settings:
  • Before any Apex callout can call an external site, that site must be registered in the Remote Site Settings page, or the callout fails. Salesforce prevents calls to unauthorized network addresses.

• Named Credentials
  • Named Credentials are a safe, secure and maintainable way of storing authentication data for external services called from your apex code such as authentication tokens.
  • They allow an easy control for the Identity Type of access to the external system Anonymous, Named Pricipal, Per User .
  • Users with customize application permission can view named credentials.

Custom Apex Controller

A Custom Controller is an Apex class that uses the default, no-argument constructor for the outer, top-level class.

• Can be used if for example a button on a visualforce page initiates an Apex HTTP callout in a synchronous manner.

Asynchronous Apex

• Future Methods

  A future method runs in the background, asynchronously. You can call a future method for executing long-running operations, such as callouts to external Web services or any operation you’d like to run in its own thread, on its own time.

  When and how to use:

  • To allow callouts in a future method, specify (callout=true). The default is (callout=false), which prevents a method from making callouts.
  • Use when you have a long running method and need to prevent delaying Apex transaction
  • When you make callouts to external Web services
  • To segregate DML operations and bypass the mixed save DML error
  
  
  Notes

  • Future Methods does not necessarily execute in the same order they called.
  • Cannot be used in Visualforce controllers in either getMethodName or setMethodName methods, nor in the constructor.
  • A method that uses @future cannot call another method that has the future annotation.
  • Cannot call a trigger from an annotated method that calls another annotated method.

• Queueable Apex

  When to use:

  • To Start a long-running operation and get a Job ID for it
  • To pass complex types to a job
  • To chain jobs
  
  

  Notes

  • Governor limits are higher than Apex

• Invocable Methods

  • Invocable methods are called with REST API and used to invoke a single Apex method from process builders or Lightning flows.
  • Invocable methods have dynamic input and output values and support describe calls.
  • The invocable method must be static and public or global, and its class must be an outer class.

• Apex Continuation

  Use case

  • Visualforce page might get warranty information for a certain product from a Web service. This page can be used by thousands of agents in the organization. Consequently, a hundred of those agents might click the same button to process warranty information for products at the same time. These hundred simultaneous actions exceed the limit of concurrent long-running requests of 10, but by using asynchronous callouts, the requests aren’t subjected to this limit and can be executed.
  • Use when a Custom Visualforce page continues to hit the Apex Concurrent limit. Due to heavy usage and slow response time of the external web service.
  • Use the Continuation class to make callouts asynchronously to a SOAP or REST Web service.
  • The timeout maximum is 120 seconds.
  
  
  Asynchronous callouts that are made from a Visualforce page don’t count towards the APEX limit of 10 synch requests that last longer than 5 seconds

Used primarily for invocation of remote processes using Apex callouts from DML-initiated events.

• Typically, invoked from Salesforce data changes performs an Apex SOAP or HTTP callout in a synchronous manner.
• An Apex proxy class can be executed as the result of a DML operation by using an Apex trigger. However, all calls made from within the trigger context must execute asynchronously from the initiating event.

• Large data volumes are broken into chunks and processed in queues based on available resources
• Can be implemented through Bulk API, SOAP API and REST API to perform an Apex SOAP or HTTP callout in a synchronous manner.
  Often associated with a scheduled process
• You can make calls to a remote system from a batch job. This solution allows batch remote process execution and processing of the response from the remote system in Salesforce. However, a given batch has limits to the number of calls.

When to use:

• For long-running jobs with large data volumes that need to be performed in batches, such as database maintainance jobs.
• For Jobs that need larger query results than regular transactions allow

Scheduled Apex

Allow scheduling an Apex class to run on a specific schedule

Apex class methods can be exposed as custom SOAP Web service calls.

This allows an external application to invoke an Apex Web service to perform an action in Salesforce.

• Not applicable for platform events

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An Apex class can be exposed as REST resources mapped to specific URIs with an HTTP verb defined against it (for example, POST or GET).

• Not applicable for platform events

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You can use email services to process the contents, headers, and attachments of inbound email.

Apex can be used to send emails out of Salesforce to both internal and external email addresses.

• An email servic e only processes messages it receives at one of its addresses.
• No more than 5000 emails an be sent to external email address per day.
• Salesforce calculates the limit by multiplying the number of user licenses by 1,000; maximum 1,000,000.
• Email services reject email messages and notify the sender if the email (combined body text, body HTML, and attachments) exceeds approximately 25 MB (varies depending on language and character set).

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A mashup is a Web page or application that combines data or functionality from two or more sources to create a new service.

• One approach to reducing the amount of data in Salesforce is to maintain large data sets in a different application, and then make that application available to Salesforce as needed. Salesforce refers to such an arrangement as a mashup because it provides a quick, loosely coupled integration of the two applications.
• Mashups use Salesforce presentation to display Salesforce-hosted data and externally hosted data.

Examples

• Link to an external site
• Embedded page
• No passing of data to Salesforce
• No Reporting in Salesforce

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• A connected app is a framework that enables an external application to integrate with Salesforce using APIs and standard protocols, such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), OAuth, and OpenID Connect.
• Connected apps use these protocols to authorize, authenticate, and provide single sign-on (SSO) for external apps.
• Admins can set security policies to control what data the third-party app can access from your org or who can use the third-party app.

Canvas enables you to easily integrate a third-party web application in Salesforce.

It’s a Platform service to allow external applications to be easily and securely integrated into Salesforce from their native environment with little re-design.

• Canvas is a set of tools and JavaScript APIs that you can use to expose an application as a canvas app.
• Provides an Ajax based Javascript SDK – for UI integration and solves the problem of “Same origin” policy.
• Canvas app is defined within connected app framework and allows administrator to determine who can access the application.
• Can be placed and used within:
  • Chatter tab
  • Visualforce Page
  • Publisher action
  • Salesforce Console
  • Page layout (Custom or Standard Objects)
  • Mobile app navigation item (aka. Salesforce1 )
  • Open CTI call control tool

What is Same Origin Policy ?

• Web Standard
• Permits applications from the same domain to interact and exchange data
• Does not allow application from different domains to interact and exchange data
• Practiced to protect end user’s data

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Lightning component or page may initiates an Apex SOAP or REST callout in a synchronous manner.

• • Use continuation class to avoid hitting synchronous Apex transaction governor limits.
  • Salesforce enables you to consume a WSDL and generate a resulting proxy Apex class. This class provides the necessary logic to call the remote service.
  • Salesforce also enables you to invoke HTTP (REST) services using standard GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE methods.

Data Loader is a client application for the bulk import or export of data. Use it to insert, update, delete, or export Salesforce records.

• Free app for bulk import or export of data, multiple interfaces – Wizard, batch and cli, loads CSV and JDBC sources.

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• Always prefer utilizing middleware if you want to integrate salesforce with multiple system.
• When there is a need to extract and transform data from salesforce and then to send it to external system, then middleware is best option.
• Middleware helps in Orchestration, Error handling and logging.

• Provided an integration scenario, describe requirements and issues that the Architect must consider to select the right pattern (Layer, Timing, Direction, and Volume).
• In a customer scenario containing business requirements, summarize which implementation pattern will achieve those goals.
• Compare and contrast the advantages and drawbacks (design trade-offs) of using various patterns, such as Remote Process Invocation—Request and Reply, Remote Process Invocation—Fire and Forget, Batch Data Synchronization, Remote Call-In, and UI Update Based on Data Changes.

• Which system is initiating the Integration and which System(s) are Integrated with the Source?
• Does the System guarantee delivery? What if it’s down?
• Does the external system require or follow a Salesforce contract / WSDL ?

• Is the Integration at the Presentation, Business Process, or Data Layer?

• What is the Projected Amount of Data / Transactions Across the Systems?

Do you need to perform anything immediately with a given response ?

• Synchronous – Is the Source waiting for a (near Real-time) Response?
• Asynchronous – Does the Source initiate the request and then continue processing? (The result(s) are sent or retrieved at a later time.)

Writing code always leads into maintainance, hence Declarative option will always be preferred.

Context

Org is using Sales cloud and after the order details are captured in Salesforce, the order is created in the remote system, which manages the order to conclusion.

Salesforce makes a call to a remote system, passes in required information and waits for successful completion of the call

Salesforce will perform additional processing based on the response from the remote system (e.g. update an external Id)

When to apply this pattern

• Salesforce is required to wait for a response before continuing processing
• The processing of the response is part of the same transaction as the remote call
• Relatively small message sizes (Max 3MB)
• Triggered as part of a business process (e.g. button click) rather than a data event

Solutions

• External Services – Best – no code required
• Custom Component / Button on a Page – Best – A user-initiated action on a Visualforce page or Lightning page then calls an Apex controller action that then executes this proxy Apex class to perform the remote call.
• A trigger – Suboptimal – calls made from within the trigger context must execute asynchronously from the initiating event. Therefore, this solution isn’t recommended for this integration problem.
• A batch Apex job – Suboptimal – batch has limits to the number of calls.

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Context

After the order details are captured in Salesforce, an order must be created in the remote system, which manages the order through to its conclusion.

When you implement this pattern, Salesforce calls the remote system to create the order, but doesn’t wait for the call’s successful completion. The remote system can optionally update Salesforce with the new order number and status in a separate transaction.

When to apply this pattern

• Salesforce is not required to wait for a response before continuing processing
• Relatively small message sizes
• Triggered as part of a data event (e.g. insert or update)

Solutions

• Process-driven platform events – Best
• Workflow-driven outbound messaging – Good
• Customization-driven platform events – Good
• Outbound messaging and callbacks – Good
• Custom Lightning component or Visualforce page that initiates an Apex SOAP or HTTP asynchronous callout – Suboptimal
• Trigger that’s invoked from Salesforce data changes performs an Apex SOAP or HTTP asynchronous callout – Suboptimal
• Batch Apex job that performs an Apex SOAP or HTTP asynchronous callout – Suboptimal

No customization in Salesforce will always be prefered.

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Context

You’re moving your CRM implementation to Salesforce. Migrating Large data volume of records.

When to apply this pattern

• Synchronization is not process or event driven but is usually scheduled
• The data needs to be stored in Salesforce or remote system (e.g. for reporting)
• The data supports primary business purposes (e.g. accounts, contacts)

How do you import data into Salesforce and export data out of Salesforce, taking into consideration that these imports and exports can interfere with end-user operations during business hours, and involve large amounts of data?

Solutions

• Salesforce Change Data Capture – Best
• Replication via third-party ETL tool Using the BULK API – Best
• Replication via third-party ETL tool Using SOAP API – Good
• Remote call-in – Suboptimal
• Remote process invocation – Suboptimal

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Context

You use Sales cloud, But Orders are managed by an external (remote) system. That remote system needs to update the order status in Salesforce as the order passes through its processing stages.

When to apply this pattern

• Does the remote system need to wait for a response before continuing processing? (i.e. request-reply)
• The format of the message is SOAP or REST, both over HTTP
• Transaction processing required.

How does a remote system connect and authenticate with Salesforce to notify Salesforce about external events, create records, and update existing records?

Solutions

• SOAP API – Best
• REST API – Best
• Bulk API – Optimal for bulk operations
• Apex SOAP Web services – Suboptimal
• Apex REST services – Suboptimal

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Context

You use Salesforce to manage customer cases. A customer service rep is on the phone with a customer working on a case. The customer makes a payment, and the customer service rep needs to see a real-time update in Salesforce from the payment processing application, indicating that the customer has successfully paid the order’s outstanding amount.

When to apply this pattern

• The requirement is to have Real time UI updates when data changes

When an event occurs in Salesforce, how can the user be notified in the Salesforce user interface without having to refresh their screen and potentially losing work?

Solutions

• Streaming API – Best

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Context

Orders are managed by an external (remote) system. But sales reps want to view and update real-time order information in Salesforce without having to learn or use the external system.

We want Data from a remote system to be displayed in Salesforce along side data stored in Salesforce without having to copy the data over.

When to apply this pattern

• Does the data from the remote system need to displayed in Salesforce but not copied over?
• The amount of data being displayed is small in size and contextual in nature e.g. Order Details for an Account
• The requirement is to integrate already built web applications, developed in other technologies and hosted in other locations, directly into the Salesforce user interface.

In Salesforce, how do you view, search, and modify data that’s stored outside of Salesforce, without moving the data from the external system into Salesforce?

Solutions

• Salesforce Connect – Best
• Request and Reply – Suboptimal
• Force.com Canvas – Suboptimal

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• WebServiceMock : This interface enables sending a fake response when testing web service callouts of a class auto-generated from WSDL.
• HttpCalloutMock : This interface enables you to specify the response that’s sent in the respond method. Your test class instructs the Apex runtime to send this fake response by calling Test.setMock again.
• REST request : To simulate a REST request, create a RestRequest in the test method, and then set properties on the request.

Best Practices

• By default, callouts aren’t allowed after DML operations in the same transaction because DML operations result in pending uncommitted work that prevents callouts from executing.
• Sometimes, you might want to insert test data in your test method using DML before making a callout.
• The Test.startTest statement must appear before the Test.setMock statement.
• DML operations must not be part of the Test.startTest/Test.stopTest block.

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