This document summarizes a presentation about using Lightning Web Components (LWC) to build a datatable to search for products from a large dataset. It discusses challenges faced, such as platform restrictions, performance issues, and type coercion errors when trying to query fields. It provides tips for handling large data volumes, like using offsets, limits, and Apex for sorting. While promising, LWC datables have limitations and require special handling of features like selections and relationship fields. Open source tools can help generate test data to explore solutions before projects launch.

1. Having serious fun with LWC Datatable
and Large Data Volume
by Christian Szandor Knapp
& Christian Menzinger

2. #CD22
About us
Christian Menzinger
Salesforce Architect, Copado
@chris_menzinger
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianmenzinger
Christian Szandor Knapp
Head of Development, appero
@ch_sz_knapp
https://www.linkedin.com/in/szandor

3. #CD22
- Chapter I - In a Land far, far away
- Chapter II - Trails for Rangers, Crossroads for Heroes
- Chapter III - The mole’s tale - Summer is coming
- Chapter IV - The dwarf’s tale - We dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig
- Running out of time
- Q&A
Your Fairytale Today

4. #CD22
Chapter
~ I ~

5. #CD22
In a Land far, far away

6. #CD22
… there was a charming product owner princess
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away …

7. #CD22
… and two innocent developers.
(Full Hair)
(Beard)
(Hat)

8. #CD22
They were working happily together

9. #CD22
We have a need, she said.
It is going to be beautiful, she
said.
It will be so much fun to build,
she said.
We use base components,
she said.
Until one day …

10. #CD22
A meeting, two days before …
His dog,
Franz K.,
Architect
Herr Governor Limit
Karl,
4th Gen CEO
Inherited an Empire
(Pricebook)

11. #CD22
“This is our idea”, princess said

12. #CD22
“Find products by tabular search”, princess
said

13. #CD22
Franz, the Architect (sometimes a little too busy)
We always empower Admins.
Have them configure a List View on
Product2.
Use the List View to define the table.
By the way, a Pricebook has 1.500.000
products per currency. Could get a lot
more very quickly.

14. #CD22
We have a long standing SAP business relationship.
Picklist Values/Keys on Product2 are internal to SAP
Picklist Labels give User Guidance
Use localized Picklist Labels
Make sure fields like Term (12, 24, 36) can be
searched.
Karl, the Boss (Trailhead Ranger, Part Time Admin)

15. #CD22
“Here are a few pointers for you”, princess said

16. #CD22
Questions? Any elephants in the room?
For example:
- Are we rebuilding Standard Product Search on Opportunity?
- Is this a good idea?

17. #CD22
Chapter
~ II ~

18. #CD22
Trails for Rangers,
Crossroads for Heroes

19. #CD22
Front End / LEX
(Base Components)
Backend
(Apex)
Front End / LEX
(Wire Adapters)
Project Setup
(e.g. Test Data)
Where to next? Agile or Waterfall?
Backend
(sObjects)

20. #CD22
Forward Looking
Statement

21. #CD22
Official cause of death
Governor Limit
RI
P
You died
Invalid Type
Coercion
Platform
Restrictions
Fuzzy (Ideas about)
Requirements
Racing Conditions /
Flags
Performance Issues
currently in Beta
or Deprecated

22. #CD22

23. #CD22
Chapter
~ III ~

24. #CD22
The mole’s tale
Summer is coming

25. #CD22
Documentation
https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/component-library/bundle/lightning-datatable/documentation
Examples and useful Snippets
https://github.com/trailheadapps/lwc-recipes
https://github.com/trailheadapps/apex-recipes
)* in comparison to the start of Aura**
)** Aura today and all Salesforce Docs are in a much more accessible state than most other docs
Excellent state of LWC documentation*

26. #CD22
He’s a curious and crafty krtek
I’m off building a tiny Proof of Concept
I’m back in an hour

27. #CD22
He’s a curious and crafty krtek
I will
- Set up a Scratch Org with sample
data using VS Code
- Pump it full of products
- Create LWC
- Use LWC Local Development for
fast prototyping
- Use Wire Adapter to load list view
and records! I used that last year

28. #CD22
Official cause of death
RI
P
You died
Platform
Restrictions
Racing Conditions /
lags
currently in Beta
or Deprecated

29. #CD22
Official cause of death
RI
P
You died again
Platform
Restrictions
Racing Conditions /
lags
currently in Beta
or Deprecated
Needs a higher API version than
supported by LWC Local Development

30. #CD22
First Demo

31. #CD22
Forward looking statement
RI
P
You died
Performance Issues

32. #CD22
A Scratch Org comes with <30 Products
Use Open Source tools for data
Snowfakery Config / CumulusCI:

33. #CD22
Death by Platform Restriction / Limits?
Use Open Source Tools for Data
Snowfakery Config / CumulusCI:

34. #CD22
SUMMER IS COMING

35. #CD22
Here’s what we’ve learned
- A lot about client side performance
- Why Summer 22 will make it better
- Why Selections need special care
- Why there are no shortcut/s via Listview
APIs
- Decisions
- No data, no table, no columns, no table
- To talk to Apex we need to know which fields to query
first
- Use getListInfoByName()
- Salesforce Fields are also columns
- Columns need type information
- E.g. Booleans should render as a checkboxes
- Use getObjectInfo()

36. #CD22
Although we called it
“Tabular Product
Search”
It is not Products we are
looking for but
PricebookEntries
Official cause of death
RI
P
You died
Fuzzy (Ideas about)
Requirements

37. #CD22
Official cause of death
RI
P
You died again
Platform
Restrictions
PricebookEntries
Do
Not
Support
ListViews

38. #CD22
Official cause of death
RI
P
You almost died
a 3rd time
Racing Conditions /
Flags
Wire Adapters
are supported only in
@wired decorated
properties/function
No Promise.all()
available

39. #CD22
Official cause of death
Governor Limit
RI
P
You died
a 3rd time
Performance Issues
currently in Beta
or Deprecated

40. #CD22
Here’s what we’ve learned
- Loading fewer records is always better
for performance
- Use infinite loading
- Use offsets to avoid query limits for
LDV
- Use a record limit / threshold for
rendered rows in table
- Have we talked about sorting yet?
- String.prototype.localeCompare()
- Or Apex?

41. #CD22

42. #CD22
Sorting should work exactly
like in Salesforce
We sort things all of the time
in reports or list views
Of course …

43. #CD22
“This should be simple”, princess said

44. #CD22
Here’s what we’ve learned
- Loading fewer records is always better
for performance
- Use infinite loading
- Use offsets to avoid query limits
- Use a record limit / threshold for
rendered rows in table
- Apex does the sorting
- Works good within caching
- Needs a bit of loading otherwise

45. #CD22
Summary I
- LWC provides
- Offsets
- Limits
- Search Term
- SortedBy Field and Sort Direction
- LWC is responsible for
- Providing Initial Data for Apex Query
- e.g. Field Names
- Talking to Apex
- Debouncing
- Selection Handling
- Data Wrangling
- Data Table does not support
Contact.Account.Name

46. #CD22
Chapter
~ IV ~

47. #CD22
The dwarf’s tale
We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig

48. #CD22
The actual Fairytale (Query based on String Inputs)
(Large Data Volume)
(Strongly Typed)

49. #CD22
Official cause of death
Invalid Type
Coercion
Fuzzy (Ideas about)
Requirements
RI
P
You died
Platform
Restrictions

50. #CD22
Should you know the dwarf…

51. #CD22
Where Clauses and not yet dynamic SOQL

52. #CD22
Official cause of death
RI
P
You died
Platform
Restrictions
RI
P
You died

53. #CD22
Finally…

54. #CD22
Summary II
- Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig, Dig
- Not all field types can / will be supported for text search
- (Idea) specialised search fields for e.g. date
- All supported types need to be converted for queries
- Product2.Description is a special snowflake
- (Idea) SOSL for long text fields
- (Challenge) combine User Experience

55. #CD22
Summary II
- Will we meet Large Data Volume Trouble?
- No due to tight LIMIT clauses
- Rules differ for standard and custom indices
Standard Index
Total # of records is < 1M:
Query must return less than 30% of
total
Total # of records > 1M:
Query must return <300K rows
Custom Index
10% of total records and < 10k rows

56. #CD22
~ OPEN END ~

57. #CD22
Architectural Mindset: keep asking questions
Challenge “simple-use-case” documentation
Commit early, commit cleanly, commit often
Handling events as they come out of the box is not always the whole truth
Product2, PricebookEntry do not count against record limit
Inserting 1.5m records is easy, LDV Selective Query Limits are not.
Huge Gains in Summer 22 for Datatable Render Performance
Random Collection of Take-Aways

58. #CD22
~ RESOURCES / LINKS~

59. #CD22
“LWC Utils” by tsalb
- Includes a Salesforce-Records-To-Datatable Component
- https://github.com/tsalb/lwc-utils
CumulusCI
- https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/trails/build-applications-with-cumulusci
Apex and LWC Recipes
- https://github.com/trailheadapps/lwc-recipes
- https://github.com/trailheadapps/apex-recipes
Demo Repository for 1.5M Products/PricebookEntries & a simple datatable
- https://github.com/Szandor72/cd22-lightning-datatable
Resources / Links - all Open Source

60. #CD22
~ Q & A ~

61. #CD22
appero GmbH is hiring a new
Head of Development
Thank you for 5+ amazing years
Wanna wear my hat?

62. Thank you! #CD22