And here we are, for the second part of our adventure storing Formula 1 data inside Salesforce! 😀
I’ll try not to make this post too technical, so I don’t bore you too much—promise I’ll keep it light! 😅(But if you are a nerd — like me — you can follow this other post where I go some deep inside implementation —Nerd)
First, let’s start with the goals we achieved in this phase:
- ✅ Named Credentials
- ✅ Apex exception handling when the API doesn’t respond
- ✅ Connecting to the API and fetching data for a chosen year
- ✅ Storing the received data into specific Salesforce objects
- ✅ Visualizing the inserted data within our app
- ✅ Creating an app dedicated solely to Formula 1
- ✅ Studying the API’s data model to implement a proper Salesforce data model with the correct relationships between objects
Step 1 – Studying the Endpoint 🔍
- We began by analyzing what the API returns, which endpoints exist, and which ones we wanted to use in this first phase.
- After evaluation, we decided to use the Season endpoint, as it provides most of the data we need — race results, drivers, teams, and everything essential.
Step 2 – Creating the necessary objects 🗂️
- After studying the API, we designed the Salesforce objects needed to store all relevant data from the API
- Once the object structure was solid, we moved on to API implementation
Step 3 – API Configuration ⚙️
- Following Salesforce best practices, we created a Named Credential to securely store the API connection
- Then we built an Apex class: F1APIService, which holds all the logic for integrating Salesforce with the API. It contains all possible API calls.
- We can now perform direct queries for specific drivers, teams, etc.
- The code workflow looks like this:
Step 4 – Creating a ScreenFlow 🔄
- We created a Screen Flow as the user interface for interacting with the API. In this flow, the user can search for any season they want.
- Once the user triggers the search, the following records get created:
After all that, we reached the first version of our Formula 1 app! 🏁
It’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting there.
Right now, you can view all key info related to each season — everything is available inside the Lightning Record Pages for each object! ⚡
Next Steps 🛠️:
- Implement a better way to identify whether a Race record is a race or a sprint — right now you have to open the record and check the “Type” field
- Automate updates for the current season with weekend race results
- Build a dynamic calendar showing upcoming races 📅
- Create report types and dashboards to compare data between races, drivers, teams, seasons, and more 📊
