What is Salesforce ?
Salesforce Introduction
SALESFORCE ADMIN
Introduction
Salesforce is a cloud computing company that has a cloud-based CRM as its main product
Salesforce was founded by Marc Benioff in the year 1999
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States
It has an App store called as AppExchange where third-party applications are available for free as well as by paid subscriptions
Salesforce uses click and drop setup for setting up the basic CRM process as per requirements
Salesforce has its own developed programming language for building complex logic requirements called as "Apex”
Salesforce also has its own developed custom UI-building language called as "Visualforce". It also launched a component-based framework called as "Lightning”
In 2016, it launched its Artificial Intelligence tool "Salesforce Einstein" which can be used by developers/administrators to add Intelligence to the existing CRM features
Salesforce releases new features to the cloud CRM through 3 different releases every year. The three releases are known as "Winter Release", "Spring Release" and "Summer Release"
Advantages:
Strong market leadership
It is based on the cloud
Largest app marketplace for the CRM SAAS industry
Highest User adaptability
Complete CRM Package
Compatibility with almost all browsers
Customization
Super Simple to manage
Business Automation
Increases value of each part of the customer life cycle
Disadvantages:
It is too expensive for small businesses
Implementation is expensive, so is modification
The pricing structure is not streamlined
Unlimited isn’t unlimited
There are numerous limits for each information product
Complicated technical support
The customer base is predominantly B2B. CRM is not nearly as well oriented to the B2C industry
Too much customization leads to cumbersome and tedious tools which can be seen as repetitive or distracting in the interface
Salesforce Environments
Multi-tenant Architecture:
Set of pooled computing resources that are shared among many different organizations (tenants)
Multi-tenant CRM goes well beyond a group of companies sharing the same data center.
A large number of customers actually share the same database
Even multi-tenancy has limits to scalability
Advantages of Multi-tenant Environment:
Hardware and Power Economy
Elasticity
Efforts to Upgrade are low
Backup
Salesforce Instance or Point of Deployment (POD):
A POD also known as an instance is a self-contained unit that contains all that is required to run salesforce – application server, database server, database itself, search and file systems
To determine which instance you are using, check the URL after your login to Salesforce
https://ap4.salesforce.com/home/home.jsp
In the above URL, the instance is ap4
Salesforce Org ID:
An org id is an identifier that represents its data within an instance
Each org can be highly customized
You can see your org ID in Setup | Company Profile | Company Information
Pre-Requisites:
App Cycle:
Plan | Build | Test | Deploy
Object
An object in Salesforce corresponds to a table in a database table
Field
A field in Salesforce corresponds to a column in a database table
Records
A record in Salesforce corresponds to a row in a database table
Salesforce Environment:
It is an org for the special purpose
Salesforce customers will have an org that is used as their production or live environment
They will also have additional orgs used for development and testing
An instance of the Force.com infrastructure and platform
In Force.com terminology, environments and organizations (frequently shortened to org) are synonyms
An environment lets you instantly start developing and testing your cloud computing application, and you don't need to touch a single server
Characteristics of an Environment:
It can be used for development, testing, and/or production
Contains data (records) and customizations (Custom Database Objects & Fields, Apex Code, Visualforce, Workflow, etc.)
Each environment is based on an edition, which contains specific functionality, objects, storage, and limits
By default, environments are not provisioned with certain advanced features (such as multi-currency or developer preview technology). You can request enablement of advanced functionality by contacting salesforce.com Customer Support.
All environments can be accessed through a Web browser, but some can also be accessed from the Force.com IDE, SOAP API, and the Metadata API.
Types of Salesforce Environments:
Environment
Production Development Testing
Environment Environment Environment
Developer Partner Developer Sandbox
Edition Edition
Developer Developer Pro Partial Copy Full Sandbox
Sandbox Sandbox Sandbox
Production Environment:
Production Force.com environments store the live data that is actively used to run your business
Most of the production environments in use today are Salesforce CRM customers who purchased Group Edition, Professional Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Unlimited Edition
You can develop a custom Force.com application for your own production use, for existing salesforce.com customers, or for any business or organization in the world. When building an application, it is recommended you use a development environment
Developer Environment:
Development environments are used strictly for developing and testing apps.
These environments contain test data that are not business-critical.
Development can be done inside your browser or with the Force.com IDE, which is based on Eclipse
Types of Developer Environment;
Developer Edition
Developer Edition
Partner Developer Edition
Sandbox
Developer Edition:
It is a free, fully-featured copy of the Enterprise Edition environment, with less storage and users
DE is a logically separate environment, ideal as your initial development environment
You can sign up for as many DE organizations as you need
This allows you to build an application designed for any of the Salesforce production environments
API Enabled: Yes
Storage Limits: 5MB, File Storage: 20MB, Attachment Limit: 25MB
User Licenses: 2 full CRM Licenses, 3 Force.com Licenses
Sign Up is Free!
Partner Developer Edition:
This is a DE org with more storage, features, and licenses.
API Enabled: Yes
Storage Limits: 250 MB
User Licenses: 20 full CRM Licenses, 20 Force.com Licenses
Free for enrolled Salesforce partners
Sandbox:
Sandbox is a copy of your production organization
Sandboxes are completely isolated from your Salesforce production organization, so operations you perform in your sandboxes do not affect your Salesforce production organization, and vice versa
You can create multiple copies of your organization in separate environments for different purposes such as development, testing and training, without compromising the data and applications in your production organization
Common Terminologies for Sandboxes:
Sandbox Refresh Time Interval:
The time interval you have to wait to refresh a Sandbox again
Sandbox Templates:
Sandbox templates allow you to pick specific objects and data to copy to your Sandbox, so you can control the size and content of each sandbox
Types of Sandbox:
Developer Sandbox
Developer Pro Sandbox
Partial Data Sandbox
Full Sandbox
Developer Sandbox:
Intended for coding and testing by a single developer
Multiple users can log into and share a single Developer sandbox
The primary purpose is to provide an environment in which changes under active development can be isolated until those changes are ready to be shared
Data Copy: Metadata
Refresh Interval: 1 Day
Storage Limits:
Data: 200 MB
File: 200 MB
Sandbox Templates: Not Included
User Licenses: Same as Production Environment
Developer Pro Sandbox:
Same functionality as Developer Sandbox with increased file and data storage
Can host larger and more complete data sets
Can use it for additional tasks such as data load and integration testing and user training
Data Copy: Metadata or Setup data
Refresh Interval: 1 Day
Storage Limits:
Data: 1 GB
File: 1 GB
Sandbox Templates: Not Included
User Licenses: Same as Production Environment
Partial Copy Sandbox:
To create a Partial Copy sandbox, you must apply a sandbox template at creation time
A Partial Data sandbox is a Developer sandbox plus the data you define in a sandbox template
For each selected object in the sandbox template, the sandbox copy engine samples up to 10,000 records
The copy engine also understands the required relationships between objects
Data Copy: All Metadata and Samples of Object Data
Refresh Interval: 5 Day
Storage Limits:
Data: 5 GB
File: 5 GB
Sandbox Templates: Required
User Licenses: Same as Production Environment
Full Sandbox:
Replica of your entire production organization
You can apply a sandbox template to limit the data that is copied, so that your sandbox contains only the records that you need for testing or other tasks
Use for data load testing, integration testing, user acceptance testing, performance and load testing, and staging purposes
This environment is the only one that can support full performance and load testing
Data Copy: All Metadata and Data
Refresh Interval: 29 Day
Storage Limits:
Same as the Production Environment
Sandbox Templates: Available (Apply)
User Licenses: Same as Production Environment
Sandboxes:
Best Practices:
Always develop in a development environment (like Developer Edition (DE) or Sandbox) and deploy to a production environment.
DE cannot be upgraded to Partner DE
Do not assume that if a feature is available in your Developer Edition environment, it is also available to customers who may be using Group or Professional Edition.
Always test your application before deployment
Keep your development and testing environments separate