ReportFolder record created but not FolderShare records?

Question

Begging your understanding,

My app creates 3 FolderShare objects, a ReportFolder object, sets the FolderShare objects to the ReportFolder obj, finally creating the ReportFolder object, to wit:

theApp.sfConnectionSandboxMetadata = Utilities.connectToSalesforceMetadata( "conv3");

aFolderShareObjA = createFolderShareObj( "00Ge0000000LAKo", FolderShareAccessLevel.EditAllContents, FolderSharedToType.Group);
aFolderShareObjB = createFolderShareObj( "00Ge0000000LAKo", FolderShareAccessLevel.EditAllContents, FolderSharedToType.Group);
aFolderShareObjC = createFolderShareObj( "00Ge0000000LAKo", FolderShareAccessLevel.EditAllContents, FolderSharedToType.Group);

folderShare_arry = new com.sforce.soap.metadata.FolderShare[3];
folderShare_arry[0] = aFolderShareObjA;
folderShare_arry[1] = aFolderShareObjB;
folderShare_arry[2] = aFolderShareObjC;

aRepFolderObj = createReportFolderObj("RameshOwesMeLunch","RameshOwesMeATurkeySwiss",FolderAccessTypes.Public, folderShare_arry);

metadataObj_arry = new Metadata[1];
metadataObj_arry[0] =  aRepFolderObj;   

//subtlty - even though Folder is a concrete class,
//          create() wants more-complete concrete class like ReportFolder
//subtlty - had to go up from 24 to 28 on authEndPoint
AsyncResult[] ar_arry = theApp.sfConnectionSandboxMetadata.create( metadataObj_arry);

The app runs and completes w/o error and we do see the report folder in Salesforce BUT not the folder shares. Must I create the FolderShare objects in Salesforce first? And if so how are they created and how does one bind them to the ReportFolder object?

TIA,

Still-learning Steve

Answer 1

The problem is that not everything in the Metadata API is accessible via the CRUD calls. You need to use the file-based deploy() function. There's sample code to show how this is done, passing in a zip file containing the metadata.

Basically, you'll need a package.xml in the root of the zip, with content like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <types>
        <members>FolderName1</members>
        <name>Folder</name>
    </types>
    <types>
        <members>FolderName2</members>
        <name>Folder</name>
    </types>
    <version>30.0</version>
</Package>

Then, in reports and/or dashboards directories in the zip, you'll have an XML file per FolderShare with names of the form FolderName1-meta.xml, and content like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ReportFolder xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
  <folderShares>
       <accessLevel>View</accessLevel>
        <sharedTo>R1</sharedTo>
        <sharedToType>Role</sharedToType>
    </folderShares>
</ReportFolder>

See the FolderShare docs for more detail on the element values.