Update Record From Formula Field

Recently an interesting implementation forced me to write this post, and may be many of you are already aware of this. There is a related list where I need to show a formula field, and on click of that field I need to change the status of that record.

Say case is related to account, and they are displayed in a related list on account. Now I want to change the status of any case which is related to an account. One way is to click on the case "edit", change the status and save it. I don't want to do this as it takes time and more button clicks. Another way is to provide a formula field as a hyperlink, and when that link is clicked status should be changed.

So for this create a formula field on Case ("UpdateStatus" for the reference) which will be a hyperlink and it will execute an visualforce page like this :

HYPERLINK("/apex/UpdateStatus?RecId=" + Id ,"Click To Change Status","_top")

Now add this formula field in case related list on account page layout, like this :

Now it's time to write a Visualforce page, so here is the code :

I know this is not the best approach to go with, and am open for any other solutions or findings.

Fetching sObject Type From Record Id

"How I can get the sObject Type from Record Id?". In many requirements I do have 15-digit or 18-digit Id and I want to know the sObject to which the Id belongs to. Answer is using Global Describe we can get the sObject type.


Am getting too many emails from folks from Community Forums regarding this, so here is the generic method which will help all.

public class KeyPrefix
{
    // map to hold global describe data
    private static Map<String,Schema.SObjectType> gd;
    
    // map to store objects and their prefixes
    private static Map<String, String> keyPrefixMap;

    // to hold set of all sObject prefixes
    private static Set<String> keyPrefixSet;
    
    private static void init() {
        // get all objects from the org
        gd = Schema.getGlobalDescribe();
        
        // to store objects and their prefixes
        keyPrefixMap = new Map<String, String>{};
        
        //get the object prefix in IDs
        keyPrefixSet = gd.keySet();
        
        // fill up the prefixes map
        for(String sObj : keyPrefixSet)
        {
            Schema.DescribeSObjectResult r =  gd.get(sObj).getDescribe();
            String tempName = r.getName();
            String tempPrefix = r.getKeyPrefix();
            keyPrefixMap.put(tempPrefix, tempName);
        }
    }
    
    public static String GetKeyPrefix(String ObjId)
    {
        init() ;
        String tPrefix = ObjId;
        tPrefix = tPrefix.subString(0,3);
        
        //get the object type now
        String objectType = keyPrefixMap.get(tPrefix);
        return objectType;
    }
}

Now how you can use this? Simply save the class and pass your object Id in method "GetKeyPrefix" like this 

//a0090000002QGKu will be your object Id
System.debug('::::::: '+ KeyPrefix.GetKeyPrefix('a0090000002QGKu') );

And it will return you the object API name.