Apex Trigger to Update Account Name on Contact

Question

I have Contact records - of RecordType = AiM CR Writer - that when created I want the Account Name to automatically populate with a specific account. Here's the trigger I've written so far...This works, but I'd like to use a variable for the accountid so I don't have to hard code it. Is there a way to do this? Thanks

// if this is an AiM CR Writer contact then populate customer name to AiM CR Writer Master Customer

trigger UpdateCRWriterMasterCustomer on Contact (before insert) {
Id rtId1 = [select Id,name from RecordType where name='AiM CR Writer' and SObjectType='CONTACT' limit 1].id;
          for (Contact cont : Trigger.new) {    
                 If (cont.RecordTypeId == rtId1 ){         
            for (Contact c1 : Trigger.new){                  
                     c1.accountid = '001e000000Vw5Pb';     
            }                 
         }
    }
}

Answer 1

You can use a List Custom Setting for this. In your Sandbox, go to Develop > Custom Settings, and create a new Custom Setting (list type), let's say you call it "AiMSetting". You then add a text field to the Custom Setting (AiMAccountID) and in the Manage view you can create a new record ("AiMRecord") with the desired account ID as the value in the AimAccountID field.

Within your trigger, you would just put this somewhere higher in the trigger:

AimSetting__c myAimID = AimSetting__c.getValues('AiMRecord');
Id idToUse = Id.valueOf(myAimID.AimAccountId__c);

and then later:

c1.accountid = idToUse;

Now, if you want to update the id used in the trigger, you can just change the ID value in the Custom Setting record (within the declarative settings interface) rather than pushing a change set every time.

---

Added after discussion in comments

If you're confident you can prevent multiple accounts from having the master customer name, you can use this code to query for the account's ID within your trigger:

trigger UpdateCRWriterMasterCustomer on Contact (before insert) {
    Id rtId1 = [select Id,name from RecordType where name='AiM CR Writer' and SObjectType='CONTACT' limit 1].id;

    List<Account> masterCustomer = [SELECT Id, Name FROM Account WHERE Name = '<master customer name>' LIMIT 1];
    Id masterCustomerAccountId;
    for (Account a : masterCustomer) masterCustomerAccountId = a.id;

    for (Contact cont : Trigger.new) {    
        If (cont.RecordTypeId == rtId1 ){         

            c1.accountid = masterCustomerAccountId;     
        }
    }
}