Fetch Recent Tasks in Apex

Need to quickly check which tasks were created today in Salesforce? Want to show the top 5 most recent tasks for reporting or alerts? No problem!

In this blog post, we’ll walk through a simple Apex method that retrieves the latest five Task records created today, sorted by creation time. This kind of logic is super handy for dashboards, daily summaries, or notifications in Salesforce apps.

It’s short, sweet, and a great way to practice your SOQL skills and return lists from Apex methods. Let’s dive in!

🧠 What Are We Trying to Do?

Here’s the goal:

• Query Task records created today

• Sort them from newest to oldest

• Return only the top 5 based on creation time

This is perfect for showing a “Recent Tasks” widget, generating a report, or sending a daily digest.

🔍 Code Explanation

public with sharing class ApexUseCaseTwelve {
    
    public static List<Task> returnLatestTasks(){

We define a class called ApexUseCaseTwelve and inside it, a static method called returnLatestTasks.

This method doesn’t take any input — it simply fetches and returns data.

        return [SELECT Id FROM Task 
                WHERE CreatedDate = TODAY 
                ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC 
                LIMIT 5];

Here’s the breakdown of the SOQL query:

• SELECT Id FROM Task: We’re only selecting the Id field here, but you can easily add more like Subject, Status, OwnerId, etc.

• WHERE CreatedDate = TODAY: This filters records to only include those created today.

• ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC: Sort the results so the most recently created task comes first.

• LIMIT 5: Return only the top 5 results.

Once the query runs, we return the list of Task records.

    }
}

And that’s it! A clean, quick, and reusable method for fetching today’s tasks.

✅ Why This Is Useful

This method is a great example of:

• Using SOQL to filter by date

• Returning a list of records

• Applying sorting and limits in a query

You could plug this method into:

• A Visualforce page

• A Lightning Web Component

• A batch job that sends reminders or summaries

You can also easily extend it:

• Add more fields to the query (e.g., Subject, DueDate)

• Make the number of records dynamic

• Filter by owner or status

🧾 Final Code Snippet

public with sharing class ApexUseCaseTwelve {
    public static List<Task> returnLatestTasks(){
        return [SELECT Id FROM Task 
                WHERE CreatedDate = TODAY 
                ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC 
                LIMIT 5];
    }
}

🎥 Watch It in Action!

Prefer video? Watch my short walkthrough where I demo this method in the Developer Console and explain how to tweak the SOQL for different use cases.