Salesforce - Free Live Callout Mock Web Service Testing Using a JSON Bin or JSON Hosting Service

A great developer crafts elegant solutions, while a true pro delivers on schedule, every time!

Guys, let's enhance the testing techniques in Salesforce callouts, we have so many options available there just to be utilized. So let's deep dive to make your development more robust and timeline-friendly than ever!

Many a time it happens that your 3rd party environment or web service is not ready and you end up developing the piece from your end to GET, POST, DELETE or PUT callouts. Now as the 3rd party services are not active to support your callouts, you just have a JSON format or an example JSON. You have many ways from which you may still be able to test and make sure your development is working as expected and you may be able to fix any bugs detected and keep up with the timeline.

Things you will need before you consider taking this approach.

• Your side of callout development is partially/fully complete.
• You are aware of the HTTP method to be used.
• You have the JSON architecture or an example JSON.

If you have the JSON example, you may use it directly by mocking the values or fields a bit as they might have some business-sensitive data.

Now, if you only know the format to be used in the JSON you will be interacting with, make an example JSON yourself. It is easy and barely like a wrapper class.

1. Open a notepad.
2. See below and understand, the things directly inside the curly brackets are a single entity and any square brackets work as a list of entities. Create your JSON following this convention. Note - Don't leave extra white spaces to save yourself from troubles
3. [ { "Name" : "noni1", "Description" : "Noni1 Company", "Account Number" : "1ABC1234" }, { "Name" : "noni2", "Description" : "Noni2 Company", "Account Number" : "2ABC1234" } ]
4. Copy your created JSON lines from the notepad.

Now you will need to find a JSONBin or JSON hosting service, this typically provides

you to perform GET, POST, or any HTTP method you want to use. These JSON bins can be

used by your other team members or anyone you would like, they don't even have to create

an account or something.

I prefer https://extendsclass.com. As it is simple and free.

1. Go to the JSON hosting service, you might have to create an account, but it can be done from your personal mail.
2. Find an option to create a JSON bin and paste your JSON data to create your JSON bin.
3. The website will return with the address of your JSON Bin, save it somewhere, this is the callout URI that you will be using.
4. It will also return with another URL where later on you may go and make changes to your JSON file. 
5. The number of JSON you may upload in a day may or may not be limited.

Now go to your Salesforce setup and create a Remote Site Setting. 

1. From Setup, enter Remote Site Settings in the Quick Find box, then select Remote Site Settings.
2. Click New Remote Site.
3. Enter a descriptive term for the Remote Site Name.
4. and paste the URL of your JSON bin for the remote site.
5. Optionally, enter a description of the site.
6. Click Save.

Now, go to your apex class from where you are making this callout. In the endpoint

parameter, paste the JSON bin URL. See the example below.

Http http = new Http();

HttpRequest request = new HttpRequest();

request.setEndpoint('<Paste JSON bin URL>');

request.setMethod('GET'); //your required method

HttpResponse response = http.send(request);

if(response.getStatusCode() == 200) {

system.debug(response.getBody());

<Your business logic here>

}

Hope it helps!

If you have any doubts, comment here, I will try to help.