SFDC Randomizer

Let’s get random here for a moment.

Have you ever needed a random number in Salesforce.com? Or maybe you need to pick a random value from a list or have the system return a random Boolean value. Here is the solution, the SFDC Randomizer class. Install this randomizer class in your org and call the available methods from any other APEX class or trigger.

The class is all built off of the getRandomNumber method which can be called to generate a random integer, but also provides a “random seed” for the other methods in the class. So if you choose to only copy individual methods to an existing class, be sure to understand which other methods will be called and copy those as well.

Download the Randomizer class

The table below shows the available methods, their arguments and what they return:

getRandomNumber

getRandomBoolean

getRandomString

getRandomPickListValue

getPicVals

getPlaceholderText

Usage and Examples

Example 1 - Generating a random number

Once you have the randomizer class in your org, you can generate a random number using the following code.

Integer i = randomizer.getRandomNumber(10);

The argument for the getRandomNumber method represents the number of possible results. So if you entered 10, the possible results could be from 0-9. If you entered 1000, the possible results could be from 0-999.

Example 2 - Update a record with a random picklist value

For a single record, you can use the getRandomPicklistValue. However, this should not be called from a loop because the method uses describe calls and there are only 100 describe calls allowed in a single execution. See example 3 below on how to use the getPickVals method to get around this governor limit.

Account a = [select id, AccountSource from account limit 1];
a.AccountSource = randomizer.getRandomPicklistValue(a,'AccountSource',true);
update a;

Example 3 - Populating a config sandbox with randomized sample data

So let's say you just created a new config or developer sandbox and yo need to load in some "dummy" records for testing your new development. You can create more realistic data by randomizing the field values. Here, we can create a number of Accounts with randomized values.

//Gets a map of all picklist/multiselect picklists for the account object
//as well as the field values. Use this instead of calling the getRandomPicklistValue
//method from within a loop which will likely result in too many describe calls
private Map<String,List<String>> accountPicVals = randomizer.getPicVals(new Account());

//Number of Accounts to Insert
Integer createNumber = 10;

//List to hold the new accounts in memory so they can all be inserted at one time
List<Account> accontList = new List<Account>();

//Create the new accounts and randomize the values
for(Integer i = 0; i < createNumber; i++){
	Account a = new Account();
	a.Name = 'Account ' + i;
	a.Site = randomizer.getPlaceholderText(20);
	a.AccountSource = randomizer.getRandomString(accountPicVals.get('AccountSource'));
	a.NumberOfEmployees = randomizer.getRandomNumber(1000);
	accontList.add(a);
}

//Insert the new Accounts
insert accontList;

Example 4 - Get random cases for a quality audit

Here we will create a visualforce page that a manager can use to pull 10 random cases created today for a quality control audit.

Visualforce Page

<apex:page controller="randomTesterController">
    <ul>
        <apex:repeat value="{!RandomCaseIDs}" var="c">
            <li><a target="_blank" href="/{!c}">{!c}</a></li>
        </apex:repeat>
    </ul>
</apex:page>

APEX Controller

public class randomTesterController {

    public Set<String> RandomCaseIDs {get;set;}

    public randomTesterController(){

        //Number of random cases to be returned
        Integer numberOfCases = 10;

        //Query the cases, modify the where clause to fit your needs
        List<Case> cases = [select id from case where createddate = today];

        //Make sure there are enough records
        if(cases.size() >= numberOfCases){

            //create a list of strings to pass to our randomizer method
            List<String> caseIDs = new List<String>();
            for(Case c : cases){
                caseIDs.add(c.Id);
            }

            //create a set to hold the returned ids so that we can make sure there are no dupliates
            Set<String> usedIds = new Set<String>();

            //Now lets get the random Case IDs
            for(Integer i=0; i<numberOfCases; i++){
                String randomId = randomizer.getRandomString(caseIDs);
                //check for duplicates
                while(usedIDs.contains(randomId)){
                    randomId = randomizer.getRandomString(caseIDs);
                }
                usedIDs.add(randomId);
            }
            RandomCaseIDs = usedIDs;
        }
        else{
            //TODO:handle exception
        }
    }
}

Thanks so much for reading. I hope you found this post to be helpful. If you did, I would appreciate a comment or two. They are the fuel that give me the energy to keep posting. Also , let me know if you had any problems getting this solution to work for you and I will do my best to get back with you as soon as I can.