Steps For Salesforce Application Development

Published on: 27 January 2020 Last Updated on: 19 March 2024

As an entrepreneur, your customers are the biggest pillar of your business. No matter your industry of domain, area of specialization, or even your business focus, they are the single most valuable asset to your organization and you should treat them as so.

Through their valuable feedback, your business can gain a new sense of direction, develop new concepts, as well as bring in more revenue. With that said, as a business owner, simply appreciating your customers isn’t enough. You need to truly understand them to tailor your products and services to meet them at their point of need. And that’s where Salesforce application development comes in.

It entails creating integrated customer relationship management solutions that interface businesses with their customers. These CRM platforms also give all the departments in a particular organization a unified view of all the customers and how they interact with various aspects of the business.

In this article, we are going to look at what Salesforce is and its uses. While at it, we are also going to delve deeper to see the entire Salesforce application development lifecycle.

What Is Salesforce?

Simply put, it’s a cloud computing SaaS company that provides customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Thanks to the company’s cloud technology, businesses are able to better connect with their existing clientele, partners, and potential customers.

Over the years, Salesforce software has grown to become the leading marketing and customer behavior tracking solution for both small startups and Fortune 500 companies. As it turns out, customer relationship management is one of the key driving factors for the increasing demand for application development in Salesforce.

Recent research from Vonage offered a compelling view of the effects and consequences of poor customer service. In the US alone, the research revealed that an estimated $62 billion is lost annually as a result of bad customer experience.

To underwrite this figure, a different report from Huffpost has indicated that 91% of customers won’t hesitate to switch brands once they experience bad customer service. These are mind-blowing figures, especially if a business has no solution to counter the consequences of poor customer experience.

However, with Salesforce in place, businesses are able to overcome the problems caused by poor customer service and other business process variables. According to statistics published on Salesforce’s website, companies that are currently using their software have continued to see average increases in multiple areas. For instance, 34% of users have seen an increase in customer satisfaction, with 27% and 32% users seeing an increase in sales revenues and lead conversion respectively.

In 2018, Salesforce emerged as the biggest CRM software commanding a total of 19.8% market share of the CRM software market. During the same period, the company was voted as the #1 CRM provider by the International Data Corporation. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that companies are willing to pay the highest Salesforce consultant salary just to get wind of this technology.

The Benefits of Using Salesforce

Given the commendable portfolio of Salesforce, here are areas it can help your business find success. Below I am going to discuss the benefits of using Salesforce.

Helps Collect Customer Intel

In the prevailing competitive business environment, overlooking data collection can be a fatal and unforgiving mistake. As a business, collecting and collating customer intelligence should be an obsession or the very least treated as a full-time affair, because it can lead to loss of revenue. As such, if you are to improve customer satisfaction and continue remaining competitive, hiring qualified Salesforce developers to build a high-quality CRM tool is inevitable.

And with Salesforce, you get an upper hand over your competitors by enjoying tools that help you identify, understand, and solve customer problems.

Flexible And Scalable

As companies and business needs continue to evolve, the tools of trade must also adapt. For instance, if the structures of your business start to grow, the management software should be able to seamlessly accommodate the changes. Cognizant of this fact, Salesforce CRM comes with multiple functions that allow for scalability right from the initial stages to any future interactions.

Helps in Account Planning

Having a unified view of customer information allows your teams to independently make plans for various accounts. It also facilitates a more hands-on customer connection approach as well as allows various reps and departments in your organization to modify their plans for optimized results. Salesforce also comes with a to-do items feature, which helps your entire workforce stay organized throughout the day.

Along with that, Salesforce also works as an organizational tool. Your team can create calendar reminders specifying the future customer follow-ups or important duties reminders to the upper management, which helps prevent anything from falling through the cracks.

If you are in the service-based businesses, Salesforce also gives you insights into the amount of time a particular customer/s has stayed in a particular subscription package. Once this info is established, your team is able to customize marketing materials to match a particular customer niche.

Cloud Connectivity

Many companies are now gravitating towards software as a service (SaaS), which means software that is available online. Luckily, Salesforce doesn’t need to be installed on a computer as it is cloud-based. This means that you can easily access it everywhere, interface it with other digitized services, and enjoy unlimited storage capacity. And since no maintenance is required, you get to save on a Salesforce developer salary that would have otherwise been paid for this purpose.

Facilitates Team Collaboration

Poor team communication and collaboration can lead to reduced productivity. On top of a unified view of customer data, Salesforce’s “Chatter” feature allows your team members to easily and regularly communicate work-related information. Additionally, the feature also lets you highlight and prioritize urgent issues that require special attention by inviting different team members to look at them.

Salesforce Application Development Lifecycle

Software developers spend a lot of time designing, developing, securing, and delivering products that perform better than initially envisioned. As a result, different software development approaches like agile development, waterfall model, and many others have merged.

When it comes to cloud-based solutions, the incorporation and implementation of various software development methodologies make it even more complex. Moreover, the Salesforce Development Lifecycle also means that the software is developed, tested, and deployed in a cloud environment.

Below, we have laid down 6 steps that clearly illustrate the entire Salesforce Development Lifecycle:

Business Requirements Analysis

The first step towards a successful custom Salesforce application is to conduct an internal business needs analysis. It entails the development team eliciting the potential customer needs, elaborating them, validating all the assumptions, and devising efficient methodologies to meet these requirements.

Business requirements analysis is important as it helps avert potential mistakes as well as make the final product both efficient and compatible with the existing system and security standards.

UI/UX Design

Another important aspect of Salesforce application development is optimizing the app for user experience. A report by iMPACT indicates that 52% of customers are less likely to conduct business with a brand offering a poor mobile experience. On the other hand, Forbes conservative estimates indicate that intentional and strategic user experience can yield a conversion rate as high as 400%.

If these numbers are anything to go by, designing a user-friendly and highly responsive Salesforce application development is absolutely paramount. In order to optimize an app for effective and enjoyable use, developers need to map out the user journey and creatively choreograph user/platform interactions to benefit the end-user.

Development Phase

The next step in Salesforce application development entails creating developers creating isolated sandboxes. Generally, these distinct sandboxes hold the main production app copy and other supplementary Salesforce configuration information. They are also independent, implying that changes in a single sandbox don’t affect the main Salesforce production enterprise. Individual developers have to clone their branches.

To retrieve the metadata from the sandboxes to the IDE, the developers need to use Force.com IDE. Once they have the metadata, they continue coding their assigned app features, performing initial unit testing, and then submit the finished code to the Git repository.

If a subsequent developer wants to build on top of this freshly updated branch, they need to clone it to their sandbox and continue developing new features. Once done, they also have to submit their latest development to the repository.

With that said, the possibility of multiple developers working on the same branch cant be overlooked. To avoid conflicts, it is important for everyone in the development team to check for possible branch updates before committing.

Testing

The next step after building a Salesforce application is to ensure that it has an excellent and stable performance. This mainly entails developers carrying out QA activities including unit tests and code reviews. It is also at this stage that functional, performance, and integration testing is conducted within the development process.

Lastly, automation tests and debugging are conducted to augment the app’s speedy delivery.

Integration

During the integration phase, the custom CRM application is interfaced with third-party software like CMS. To facilitate a smooth transition, the development team also conduct hands-on training sessions as well as provides training materials to the client.

Launch

Once the app is launched for internal use, it is transferred to the client and subjected to their User Acceptance Testing environment (UAT). Once satisfied, the finished product is moved to the production environment and deployed to the end-users.

Salesforce Application Development Team Actors

During the app development process, different players are involved and handle different aspects of the app. In the Salesforce app development life cycle, the most common actors include:

Product Manager: Help finalize business requirements.
Release Manager: Help coordinate the app’s release schedule.
Software Developer: Handles the main coding and produces the requisite deliverables.
Quality Analyst: Tests and confirms the functionality of various app features.

Potential money from the Salesforce AppExchange development:

After researching the fact this has been seen that Potential money from the salesforce AppExchange development can depend on several other factors.

How To Build an App for Salesforce AppExchange?

To build your AppExchange app, you must go through the multi-step procedure, which includes compliance, release, ongoing support, and demand app development. Below, I will discuss how to create an App for Salesforce AppExchange.

1st Step: Become the Part of Salesforce Business Partner Community

The first and foremost step in becoming a Salesforce AppExchange trade Partner is to join the Salesforce Partner Community. In this case, you must submit the form using AppExchange. After all, the Salesforce Partner Community is the hub of existing AppExchange Partners.

2nd Step: Examine AppExchange Market

The next step in building the app is to examine the AppExchange market. AppExchange offers many products and solutions for several products and cloud services in Salesforce. In this case, for optimal outcomes, you must use the curated collections of AppExchange.

3rd Step: Make the First Sketches of Your Product

Once you are done researching the existing solutions on AppExchange, you must start defining the unique value proposition of your product. For the outline, you must follow the below-mentioned procedure such as:

Firstly, you must understand your target audience.
Secondly, ensure you have an idea of business targets.
Thirdly, you must follow the types of Salesforce editions you will support.
After that, ensure you have an idea of the package type.
Next, ensure you have the Salesforce Licenses that you want to use.
Lastly, it would help if you ensured the requirements for your AppExchange App security.

4th Step: Define the Type of ISV Partnership and the Type Of Your AppExchange Solution

Once you have joined the Salesforce Partner Community, then, you must analyze the existing products, and you can create a rough roadmap. In this case, ensure you have defined the type of ISV partnership, and consequently, you also have built the AppExchange solution.

There are seven types of ISV partners in AppExchange. It includes OEM, CDP Cloud Partner, Commerce Cloud Partner, All Other Clouds (paid), All Other Clouds (free), and Technology Partner/Tableau.

5th Step: Choose the Programming Type and Tools to Build Your Salesforce App

Recently, Salesforce provided two types of programming languages and two types of tools that you can use. Let’s know what programming tools are used in Salesforce App development. This includes Apex Cloud-based programming language. Next are Lightning components and Visualforce.

6th Step: Build Your Salesforce App

Once you can identify the exact type of solution, it must have the programming language, licensing, and packaging, and of course, you must continue with the building procedure.

Two ways to do this are using internal sources or outsourcing the dedicated team. If you want to build the SalesForce App using an in-house team, it could be one the most viable and remarkable options. If you don’t have enough resources, ensure you can control the entire product cycle of AppExchange.

7th Step: Test Your Salesforce App

If you want to ensure optimal performance, then it must conduct comprehensive end-to-end testing in technological domains. In this case, you must adhere to the development of best business practices, especially for testing.

8th Step: Prepare Your App for the Launch on AppExchange

Once you are done testing and finalizing the app, the next step is to prepare by submitting it to the SalesForce AppExchange. In this procedure, it includes creating the managed packages and providing screenshots.

9th Step: Submit Your App for Security Review and Market This

Ensure you have submitted your final app by undergoing the security review and then have met the necessary security requirements.

Final Thoughts

Salesforce CRM is a critical business tool. It helps streamline data analysis and reporting, provides invaluable customer feedback, and aid in formulating better customer service strategies. As a result, businesses are able to align their resources towards creating timely, customer-oriented solutions.

With that said, Salesforce application development isn’t a linear process. It entails working with different tools and multiple software development methodologies. And with cloud solutions continuing to capture the imaginations of business owners, the world is yet to see the full potential of CRM Salesforce and the cloud ecosystem as a whole.

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Ideas For An Excellent Product Packaging

An average supermarket in the United States has about 40,000 different items for consumers to choose from. How does one consumer choose a product from the number of choices? Every industry relies on manufacturers, consumers, and distributors, but how do they grab the attention of potential buyers? Product Packaging. An industry in itself, proper packaging has the power to attract consumers. If you want to build a strong brand, consider optimizing your product packaging with a unique design and sustainable solutions. What makes an excellent Product packaging design? 1. Simplicity and clarity: When you walk into a supermarket, just go through products and take a glance at them. Do you identify the product or the brand by simply looking at it? The best example of quality packaging will be a clear and simple but highly distinctive packaging design. You will be amazed to learn that most consumers will decide to buy a product or not within a few seconds only. There will be numerous product listings with no specific brand name and you will also look at products that look great from the outside but they are unable to explain what is inside the box. Most importantly, packaging design should not confuse consumers. It should always deliver on clarity. There are some categories that allow a little bit of mystery but if the consumer fails to identify the product in terms of usage, content, or brand identity, it needs to be revamped. Be clear about what you are selling. Do not complicate it in any manner. 2. Be honest: A lot of brands try to depict the product in the most perfect way one can imagine. The packaging shows something about the product which is not real at all. When you try to depict a product ten times better than it actually is, you end up misleading the consumer and eventually disappointing him. This only leads to poor sales performance and builds a very bad brand image. Honesty plays a crucial role here. A lot of consumers like simplicity, they want to know what is the product is about and how it will serve them. You can do face lifting to a small extent but not where the product is something totally different. You need to show the product in the finest manner possible and ensure you show all honesty in it. Remember that the consumers need to be treated in an appropriate manner at all times. 3. Be authentic: Character and originality need to be at the core of great brands and excellent packaging designs. There are numerous products in the market and every product is competing for the attention of the consumer. If you want to set yourself apart, you will have to be very authentic. Product packaging is a matter of creativity and it is not possible to create a fake impression based on the design only to sell the product. People have a number of brands to choose from, they have different appeals and looks to try. You need to remain authentic in your product design in order to ensure that your product design is memorable. Do not get on with a genetic-looking design. Look for strong visual standards and an uncommon style to appeal to the consumers. If you notice that most brands have a contemporary product design, opt for something retro. Be creative and always look for different options for your product. With more customers looking for eco-friendly options, Brad Zaikov from Jansy (https://www.jansypkg.com/) says that businesses that use biodegradable packaging will attract more customers. 4. Consider shelf impact: If you look at a product from the view of a consumer, you will notice that no product is ever seen alone. It is also not seen in exceptional detail. All the products are organized in columns and rows and there are numerous patterns and designs you see. Until a particular design or pattern catches your eye, you are not going to take a better look of the product. The appeal of a product when it is placed on a shelf is known as shelf impact and it will make a huge difference to the sales of a product. You need to check shelf impact and explore the designs. Do this by copying the placement of the design on a shelf and then surrounding it with different products. It will sell better if it looks good. 5. Keep space for extensibility: The idea of product packaging should leave space for the introduction of a new product or a new brand. There should be a possibility to make easy variations to the product without it losing its appeal. The initial design concept should not heavily rely on one product or one color. You might expand in the future or introduce a new product and you need to leave space in product designing for the same. Create a visual design that will allow for easy alterations in the visual of the packaging or will allow for easy addition or removal of information. 6. Practicality: Last but not least, practice is important when designing the packaging of a product. It not only deals with the label but deals with the shape, functionality, and size of the product you are selling. To get higher sales, the product needs to be more practical. A lot of business owners tend to overlook the aspect of practicality in packaging design because they think consumers are simply going to pick the product off the shelf without any thought. Unfortunately, this does not happen and consumers are looking for innovation. Practicality merged with innovation can solve a number of packaging design challenges. Product packaging is as important as product manufacturing. If you have an excellent and highly functional product to sell but if you do not spend enough time and effort on its packaging, you might never be able to reach out to the consumers. Packaging is your last opportunity to convince the consumer to purchase the product. Read Also: How To Pack Clothing Properly For Shipping Simple Packaging: Your Guide To Branded Design Make Sure Your Product Hits The Market As Soon As Possible 6 Shameless Examples Of Product Placement In Movies We’d Like To Forget

Use Structure-Style Tents to Expand Event Space

Do you rent out event space? Or are you a field manager for a company that is involved in a lot of exhibitions? Either way, a structure-style tent can provide you with a convenience that saves cost and makes your life a lot easier. You have lots of guests coming into the party, and when you need extra space to accommodate the influx, you shouldn't worry. You can make an addition by using Structure-Style Tents to Expand Event Space. These sturdy temporary structures can be customized, and you can even convert a parking lot or even a rooftop to an event space. There are many good reasons why you need to consider having a structured-style commercial canopy tent for your event space. Here are some suggestions below: Branding visibility Are you hosting an exhibition or a training workshop? Why not pitch a branded structured style canvas at the entrance. That is not only good PR but also good branding of the organizations. Most canvas manufacturers will have customized branding of your structured style canvas for companies that are keen on branding their merchandise and properties. Having a branded tent is not only free advertisement, but it also saves on the cost of requiring a banner every time you pitch one in a location. Its wall can have a well-printed brand message. Versatility (ideal for all events) A tent is not limited to a specific event only. From weddings to birthdays, reunions, and even barbeques, to name a few, a structured style tent will ideally expand your event space to make it comfortable as it can get. When planning for an event away from the office, one of the options that you should inquire about is the availability of tented spaces. Outdoors function is fun compared to when enclosed in a building. Also, the fee for gathering in a tented area is always affordable. Also, companies can have their own structured style canvas to be pitched in the garden or rooftop to hold group birthdays for their staff or event award parties. Ideal for any themed event Canvas is a blank canvas that gives you lots of room to play around with your creativity in terms of décor. It is more convenient to decorate a tent than it would be with a brick and mortar structure. With canvas, you have a blank slate, and you can customize the same from the ground up to realize your ideal theme. Tents have no solid walls or layouts compared to a building, which has its color, lighting, and floor design, among others. With a tent, you can quickly achieve your vision 100% without having to compromise to blend with the existing layouts as with events held indoors. Easy to manage spaces Tented spaces are easy to manage and organize. If you are a site manager using a structured style tent to expand the event's venue makes not only the area more significant, but it also makes your work even more relaxed. There is no floor space to clean. You only need to pick up the trash. If you instead rented out a ten, you can talk with the canvas company to clean the space as they pack the tent. It's that convenient. There is no wall, and moving furniture around to design a theme according to a client's needs is quite convenient. You can add or reduce event space by reducing the ground surface covered by the tent. Weatherproof The tent protects outdoor events guests from all sorts of climatic conditions. If it's cold, you can lower the canvas wall and let the guest have it warm inside the tent while feeling the ambiance of being outdoors. Same to when it rains. If it’s hot out, you can bring up the walls and let fresh air breeze through the crowd. Also, the tented rooftop is dome-shaped to reduce the heat from the scorching sun. What about the durability in all climatic conditions? You should know that anodized aluminum is used to make the skirtings and frames of the canvas to ensure they are corrosive resistant and durable. The structured style canvas nowadays is light but quite sturdy against strong wind and is not likely to tip over during an event. Read Also: How to Make Your Store Look More Put Together? Terrible mistakes you are likely to encounter in diamond painting and the way out

Active Shooter In The Workplace Training: How To Conduct It

Active shooter situations in the workplace are definitely unpredictable, and they can evolve in so many different directions in a matter of minutes. Naturally, contacting law enforcement is the best way to stay safe, but here is the thing. You need to know what to do until law enforcement arrives on the actual scene. After all, you don’t want to leave anything up to chance even for a few minutes. These situations usually last around 15 minutes, or even longer, and that is definitely enough for serious damage to be done, and for a lot of people to get hurt. So, as mentioned, what you need to do is learn what to do in order to keep yourself and your employees safe. This is why conducting active shooter and violence training is absolutely necessary. If you visit https://clearlawinstitute.com/active-shooter-and-workplace-violence-training/, you will get to see precisely why this training is necessary. Anyway, if you have thought about this for at least some time, then you have most likely already figured out why this type of training is actually necessary for your employees. This further means that you are ready to conduct it. It’s just that, you might not know how to do that. Well, you are not alone there. When people first start thinking of this training, it is natural for them to be a bit confused about how to conduct them. The same goes for you. So, instead of just jumping towards making some random moves, you should learn a bit more about how to actually conduct workplace active shooter and violence training, and I’ll help you out with that below, by letting you know which steps to take. It Can Be Done Online The first thing to understand here is that this can now be done online. There are a lot of amazing training programs that you can find through the Internet that you can use to raise your employee’s awareness of active shooter situations and violence in general. This is a great thing since it makes everything much easier. Your employees will get the chance to easily learn more about how to react in these situations. But Make Sure To Find A Great Course While it is clear that this can be done online and that there are a lot of helpful resources out there that you can use to your advantage, there is one thing that you should always keep in mind. The quality of the training will depend on the course that you will choose. This basically means that you should take time to find a great active shooter and violence in the workplace training course so that your employees can get the best out of it. Research The Providers When you are trying to make that specific choice, you should remember to research the course providers as well. Their reputation and their experience will tell you a lot about the actual quality of their courses. So, don’t forget to do this. You will be able to find info regarding the providers on the official sites, as well as on some other places online. Check Out The Courses In Details Apart from checking out the providers, you should also check out the contents of the actual courses in detail. This way, you will get to see in advance what your employees will be able to gain by going through certain programs. Thus, you’ll be able to determine if certain courses are of great value or if you should perhaps avoid them. Make Sure That Your Employees Have Gone Through This After you have made your choice, you will need to be absolutely sure that all of your employees have gone through the course. You want them to gain all the knowledge they need, and nobody should be left out. By going through the programs, your employees will learn how to address violence in the workplace and how to behave in the event that an active shooter arrives on the premises. Check What Has Been Learned Once everyone goes through the course, it would be a wise move to check what it is that your workers have learned. After all, you are not conducting the training simply because it is mandatory and because it complies with certain regulations. Instead, you really want your staff to learn how to protect themselves and the people around them in dangerous situations. So, make sure to always check what they have learned. Revise & Repeat If Necessary If you find that the employees haven’t really learned everything they need to know, you should start thinking about repeating the training. Of course, if you believe that some revisions are necessary regarding the course, feel free to mention that to the providers. This way, you’ll get a tailor-made course for your company, and you’ll be sure that your staff will get the most out of it. Additional: Common IT Security Risks in the Workplace Strategies For Preventing Workplace Injuries Proactively What To Do About Discrimination In The Workplace: First Steps To Take The Hidden Damages In Workspaces: 5 Steps To Reduce The Risk Of Workplace Injuries!