[SalesForce] What are the best practices for Triggers

My requirements are:

  1. Upon creation of Accounts there is a trigger that creates a contact with specific record type Organization Donor Proxy
  2. I wanted to create another trigger on Account after Insert/Update that will update a field Aaron_Contact_id__c with the Aaron_Account_id__c

Trigger

trigger Account_UpdateDonorProxyTrigger on Account (after insert, after update) {

    Contact[] dpContact = new list<Contact>();        // donor proxy contact

    try{
        Map<id, account> acctMap = Trigger.newmap;
        //for (Account acct : trigger.new){
        System.debug('account ids >>> :' + acctMap.keyset());        
        // Get all the contacts against each AccountId
        for (Contact cnt: [SELECT contact.id, contact.accountid, contact.name, contact.Aaron_Contact_Id__c, contact.RecordType.Name
                           FROM Contact
                           WHERE Contact.accountid IN: acctMap.keyset() ]){ 
            System.debug('Contact record type <<< :' + cnt.RecordType.Name);
            if(cnt.RecordType.Name == 'Organization Donor Proxy'){

                cnt.Aaron_Contact_ID__c = acctMap.get(cnt.accountid).Aaron_Account_ID__c;
                dpContact.add(cnt);

            }
        }       // end of for loop
        //}            
        update dpContact;
    }
    catch (exception ex){
        System.Debug('stack trace string:::' + ex.getStackTraceString() );
    }

}

Question
Does this trigger comply with the apex best practices? Am I missing something or anything that can be improved? What are the best practices and pitfalls in triggers anyways.

Best Answer

After searching here and there and writing few triggers myself, I have come up with the following:

  1. Follow proper naming conventions to make your code more logical and readable.
  2. Write one-trigger per object.
    • Use trigger context-variables to identify specific event and performs tasks accordingly.
  3. Logic-less triggers
    • Now, debugging in apex is itself serious pain, adding whole lot of logic in trigger and debugging it is... well you can guess. So, break your trigger logic in to trigger-handler classes.
  4. Context-Specific Handler Methods
    • Using specific methods in your trigger-handler-class to keep your code clean and scalable.
  5. Use a framework.
    • A framework! Why? It will make your code conform to the best practices, better testing, scalability and cleaner.
  6. Keep the salesforce order-of-execution of events in mind (they will come in handy).
  7. Understand when to use before-trigger and when to user after-trigger.
  8. Write trigger logic to support bulk operations.
  9. Triggers can't contain test methods. So, its unit tests must be saved in a separate file.
  10. Use custom settings to turn the trigger On/Off.
    • Once deployed, any changes or making a trigger Active/Inactive, you would need to make the changes on sandbox and then push it from their using changeset or IDE. Using custom settings to make a decision on the trigger will make life easy.

Helpful links: https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Trigger_Frameworks_and_Apex_Trigger_Best_Practices http://www.iterativelogic.com/salesforce-apex-trigger-best-practices/ http://krishhari.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/an-architecture-framework-to-handle-triggers-in-the-force-com-platform

https://developer.salesforce.com/page/How_to_Write_Good_Unit_Tests https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/developer-relations/2015/01/apex-best-practices-15-apex-commandments.html https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Trigger_Frameworks_and_Apex_Trigger_Best_Practices

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