Find string in a field, find account with same first and last name like that string and add that entire field to activity history field

Question

Here's the problem:

Every time a contact gets updated,

1. I need to go to Notes&Attachments of that contact and fetch JUST the first line of the BODY field for every individual entry if it contains "MailChimp Stats for:" string.

2. Inside that first line, after "MailChimp Stats for:" first string is the first and second is the last name of ANOTHER contact. so:

e.g. Body: Mailchimp Stats for: John Doe
(John = first name of the contact, Doe = second name of the contact).

3. Now - I need to find that contact (John Doe) and paste the FIRST line of the BODY field from Notes&Attachments into Activity History, field SUBJECT.

I just started working with apex, so I have no idea how to do this. I'm guessing I should use a trigger? If the answer is too complicated, I'd appreciate some pointers, or at least suggestions.

Answer 1

You will need an Apex Trigger, I think. Below are some snippets you will find helpful.

Parent Type

You can determine the SObjectType of the ParentId field as follows:

public Boolean isContactRecord(Attachment record)
{
    return record.ParentId != null &&
        record.ParentId.getSObjectType() == Contact.sObjectType;
}

You can filter matching records to get the collection you care about:

public List<Attachment> filterContactRecords(List<Attachment> records)
{
    List<Attachment> contactRecords = new List<Attachment>();
    for (Attachment record : records)
    {
        if (isContactRecord(record)) contactRecords.add(record);
    }
    return contactRecords;
}

Parsing

You will need to use Regular Expressions to get the FirstName and LastName values. The expression I think you should use is:

Mailchimp Stats for:\s+(\w+ \w+)

In Apex, you could use this as follows:

static final Pattern names = Pattern.compile('(Mailchimp Stats for:\\s+(\\w+ \\w+)');
class Parser
{
    final String name;
    final String subject;
    Parser(Attachment record)
    {
        Matcher m = names.matcher(record.Body);
        if (m.find())
        {
            name = m.group(1);
            line = record.Body.substringBefore('\n');
        }
    }
}
public static List<Task> parseNames(List<Attachment> contactRecords)
{
    Map<String, Parser> nameToData = new Map<String, Parser>();
    for (Attachment record : contactRecords)
    {
        Parser data = new Parser(record);
        if (data.Name != null) nameToData.put(data.Name, data);
    }
    List<Task> tasks = new List<Task>();
    for (Contact contact : [SELECT Name FROM Contact WHERE Name IN :nameToData.keySet()])
    {
        tasks.add(new Task(
            ParentId=contact.Id,
            Subject=nameToData.get(contact.Name).subject
            // other fields
        ));
    }
    return tasks;
}

Architecture

How you want to manipulate the relevant Contact records is unclear based on your OP, but the above should at least get you started. If you really want to check all these child records every time a Contact gets updated, you will want a before update trigger. I recommend implementing a handler pattern. You will need to research which pattern you feel works best for you.

However, it doesn't seem like the logical trigger event. My suggestion is that you should just trigger this logic whenever you create a Note or Attachment. In this case, you should use an after insert trigger.