Custom Pages for Updating Custom Metadata Types with the Metadata API
If you’ve worked with Custom Metadata before, you’ve probably sent them around through changesets from within the Sandbox, or maybe packed them into Managed Packages.
Custom Metadata
The Records of a Custom Metadata Types are themselves Metadata. That is, Custom Metadata Types are meta metadata- they’re twice as ‘meta’.
They also support Relationship Fields and Long Text Areas and Custom Fields, which are a great addition compared to Custom Settings.
The downside though, is there aren’t any DML(Data Manipulation Language) operations you can carry out to create or update them. So this time around, we’ve created a utility to create and update Custom Metadata through the Metadata API.
We’ve made a VisualForce page like the one below, that lets you upload data as CSVs and upload them. Here’s a walkthrough:
Testing Functionality
To upsert Custom Metadata Type Records in Salesforce, we’ll first create a new Metadata Type labeled Test Metadata. For size, let’s make the ‘Text Area’ Custom Field a ‘Description’ of the Datatype, as depicted here.
Then, to upsert Records, you’ll need to create a CSV file with one Column Header titled “MasterLabel”, and the others, the same as API Field names of the Custom Metadata Type in question, otherwise, the file upload throws up an error.
Upserting Records in Metadata type
Once you’re done formatting your CSV, you’ll need to fill in the API name of the Custom Metadata Type, as well as the CSV file as input.
Click ‘Upload’ once you’ve entered these.
You should now see a preview of the CSV data as depicted, along with a Save button.
Is should bring up the JOBId(including 18 digits) you can use to check the deployment status in Salesforce(via copying first 15 digits of the JOBId).
Great!
You can now check up on the Deployment Status to see if it worked. Alternatively, you could also check if Records were successfully upserted into the Custom Metadata Type in Salesforce.
Now, that we’ve shown you around, here’s the codebase for you to try this yourself.
Steps to develop VF Page to upsert Custom Metadata type:
Step 1: Create Apex Class: CustomMetadataCallback which implements Metadata.DeployCallback
Step 2: Create Apex Controller: MetadataLoaderPageController
Step 3: Create Visualforce Page: MetadataLoaderPage
Conclusion
In this Technical blog, we took you through one way to manipulate Custom Metadata Types with a utility coded under a VF Page, using the Metadata API. For further assistance with integration workarounds, productivity pages, or enhancements reach out to us at sales@hicstwebackup.yoursalesforcedeveloper.com
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