In the modern business landscape, it has become increasingly important for businesses to work with the high-scale data that comes in from different portals. One of the crucial data types with which businesses work constantly is data collected from customers and leads. The customer is the most important link in the supply chain, and every company needs to foster high-quality customer relations with its user base.
The days of manually managing data are long gone. With immense data generation from multiple channels, companies need a platform that can handle large data sets and diverse customer profiles in an automated manner. For this, companies, starting from startups to giants of the industries, depend on Salesforce.
Salesforce is the top CRM platform based on the cloud environment, so it is scalable and resource-optimized. Companies that use the Salesforce platform have seen more than an 18% jump in their recent revenue charts. Businesses are using Salesforce development services because the platform helps with data analysis and faster decision-making in the business workflow.
Understanding the Salesforce Development Process
The Salesforce development process is crucial in creating a Salesforce suite that fits the present needs and future vision of a business. Salesforce is an intelligent platform, and it is very easy to set up. However, without any customizations and specifications, the Salesforce platform fails to deliver maximum benefits. For proper and complete Salesforce development, you need the help of a Partner Salesforce development agency that has an expert Salesforce development team to engage.
Professional developers acquainted with the Salesforce suite are well aware of the Best Practices for Salesforce Development. A good Salesforce development team will understand the expectations of the client side from the platform. To achieve the necessary results, the Salesforce development agency creates a structured plan for the development process. This plan helps map out the phases of the Salesforce Development Lifecycle very clearly. This sets the expectations in the initial phase and creates a road map that the development team follows as an action plan.
Salesforce Development Process Step-By-Step Guide
In the next sections, you will learn in detail about the Phases of the Salesforce Development Lifecycle, which the Salesforce development services follow. The Salesforce Development process goes through phases and steps that are designed to get specific results and customize the Salesforce platform for the client company. This phase-by-phase plan helps improve the understanding of the development lifecycle for the client side, too.
Step 1: Define Business Objectives and Requirements
Identify Business Goals
Before the actual phases of the Salesforce Development Lifecycle start, the Salesforce development team has to look into the client brief, which helps develop the roadmap for the development phase. During the initial consultation phase, the Salesforce development team has to discuss the project thoroughly with the client company to identify the business goals it wants to achieve.
The Salesforce platform will be a crucial part of the business process after the customization and development phase. Therefore, it is highly important to identify the business goals and industry niche to which the platform will align. Only then can the Salesforce platform be implemented in a result-driven manner.
The development team and the client side have to come on the same page regarding the strategic areas where Salesforce will be implemented and how. Identifying and elaborating on the goals helps in giving a decisive direction to the Salesforce development project.
Gather Requirements
Once the goals of the Salesforce development project are clear, the team of Salesforce developers has to start preparing for the actual development phase. This begins with the gathering of requirements and more information about the scope of the project. Often, clients do not have a full idea of the potential Salesforce holds for their business.
To make the foundation of the development project strong, the team researches and gathers insights from different company stakeholders. For example, it interacts with the internal team, management, and customer segments to further lay down ideas for the development approach for the project. The research and gathering of requirements help start the Phases of the Salesforce Development Lifecycle in a data-driven manner.
Key Questions to Ask:
Before delving into the Salesforce development process, the development team focuses on creating and asking some key questions to get clarity on the direction to take and the customizations to pick. The Salesforce platform has a range of cloud features and integrations.
The team has to develop the platform in a well-defined manner so that it does not go through customization overload. For this, the Salesforce development team interacts with the client side and finds out the primary reasons why there is a need for Salesforce implementation. The team also internally brainstorms over the data gathered to identify the key areas where Salesforce implementation is very necessary.
This helps Salesforce development services complete the Salesforce development in a phased manner. The Salesforce development team also identifies the end users and the people who will be most affected by the Salesforce implementation results. This helps the Salesforce development team in designing the platform and its UI accordingly.
Step 2: Design and Planning
System Architecture Design
The design and planning phase of the Salesforce development process starts with the choice of a single-organization approach or the approach for multi-organization models. The single organization approach is best for small and mid-scale businesses that function as a single entity in the market. The multi-organization approach diversifies the Salesforce platform depending on the multiple business units existing under the company umbrella.
The development team has to define the data model and data elements that will be part of the Salesforce platform so that the functions can be data-driven. The team plans for the kind of data with which the company deals on a day-to-day basis.
Depending on the nature of the data, the development team defines the fields and record types for the integration of data. The development team also maps out the connections and integrations so that it can identify the security layers needed and share channels to be functional inside the new workflow.
User Interface Design
During the planning of the customized elements to be included on the Salesforce platform, the development team also plans for the user interface design and elements aligned with the end users. The developers for Salesforce plan out the page layouts and custom fields needed for the customization of the UI so that the pages of the Salesforce platform are easy to use and personalized to the end users.
Timeline and Milestones
Once the crucial phases of the design and development planning happen, the team sits together to lay out the final plan with the milestones to track during the progress of the project. The expected timelines of different phases and their milestones are laid out to create a plan that is actionable and achievable in terms of final results.
Step 3: Configure Salesforce Environment
Setting Up Salesforce Org
Among the best practices for Salesforce development that the developers follow is setting up the development environment so that they can configure and customize the Salesforce platform according to the needs of the client. The development environment is the suite in which the developers create specific customizations using Salesforce tools and languages like Apex, Lightning Web Component, and AppExchange.
These native elements help make seamless customizations on the Salesforce platform. After the development of the Salesforce platform, the customizations are tested and validated in the Sandbox environment. The Developer Sandbox environment helps in running different kinds of tests on the coded elements before their deployment.
Customization vs. Configuration
For further customization with specific elements and apps, the Salesforce development team can use built-in tools like Salesforce Flow and Process Builder. The Salesforce Flow and Process Builder are tools that help automate workflows at the right points after analysis of the existing data.
Salesforce developers mostly use in-built tools to create new workflows but, in some cases, also integrate with external tools through APIs to enhance the functionalities of the Salesforce platform.
Install Apps and Integrations
The Salesforce AppExchange has many inbuilt apps and tools that the development team can integrate with the Salesforce platform to extend the range of features and functions available to end users. The development team analyzes the scope and gaps in the workflow to identify the Salesforce native apps to configure with the platform. The same process happens for the external apps with API Integrations so that the company gets a centralized work suite and dashboard for managing the internal workflow. These integrations are also tested to ensure that they are seamlessly part of the platform.
Step 4: Develop and Code
Choose Development Approach
The Salesforce Development team then selects the development approach by focusing on the built-in language and components it wants to use for customizations. For example, Salesforce has a native coding language called Apex, which the developers use to create customized business logic and set up triggers to execute code and set up apps in the workflow.
Apex can be versatile and can be used to code for Salesforce automated features that are specific to the client’s needs. The Visualforce and Lightning Web Components elements of Salesforce are used for front-end development and customization of the UI/UX design. These components help with customized page views, features, and flows on the Salesforce platform.
Customizations and Features
The Apex language and LWC, as well as Visualforce, are used to create custom fields and objects that customize the platform in an industry-specific manner. The fields, objects, and other elements can be customized according to the kind of customer base and data that flows into the Salesforce platform. With the help of the LWC feature, the team can personalize the UI layout and create dynamic elements that maximize user experience.
Testing Throughout Development
The best practice for Salesforce Development is to conduct continuous testing at different steps of the customization process. The use of a robust Sandbox environment for the testing of the customized elements and the platform integrations can ensure that the end result will be very stable and useful. A sandbox environment can be designed to be a close replica of the production environment.
With regular sandbox testing, the risks and issues in the Salesforce customizations are detected early on. A continuous testing process with sandbox testing and unit testing gives the developers an idea about what works and what does not so they can create the best output in the deployment phase. A periodic QA review is also important as it identifies the gaps present in the testing cycles and documents the issues flagged to date.
Step 5: Quality Assurance and Testing
Testing Types:
- Unit Testing: The Partner Salesforce development agency focuses on testing out the individual components of the customized platform before integration in this test cycle. This ensures that each component is safe to be integrated with the platform and can work smoothly.
- System Testing: After unit testing, the development team also runs through system tests, which validate the system architecture and functions as a whole. A balance between system testing and unit testing is needed to meet Salesforce’s 75% code coverage requirement.
- UAT (User Acceptance Testing): The development and testing team also tests the User acceptance rate of the Salesforce platform in its customized form through UAT. This tests out the features and UI/UX to see if the platform is ready to be launched and can meet user expectations in terms of deliverables. For this, the development team uses tools that can mimic real-world use cases to test the platform against.
Automated Testing Tools
Developers and testers now use a lot of automated testing tools to accelerate testing cycles and reduce the time to deploy for the Salesforce platform. Selenium is a major automation testing tool as it is versatile and customizable to specific testing needs. It is also open source, and it can run with limited resources.
The development team also depends on the built-in test automation tools in Salesforce that are designed to test specifically for Apex code. Salesforce-specific test automation tools like Provar are also good options to automate test cases easily.
Bug Tracking and Fixing
The Salesforce testing process is a success only when there are tools and mechanisms to document the tests. Developers select tools that quickly screen issues and bugs and resolve them. The testing tools also have detailed and easy-to-understand reporting mechanisms so that the documentation process is easy. Real-time bug tracking and document compilation are required to create a highly efficient Salesforce testing process.
Step 6: Deployment and Release Management
Prepare for Deployment
Once the Salesforce platform is ready to be deployed after thorough testing, the implementation team has to keep every possible scenario in mind and prepare to tackle downtime. The deployment should be planned in such a way that the platform users do not face any downtime or struggle to use it for their work.
For this, the team has to deploy the platform during fewer traffic hours and avoid peak usage hours so that the user requests and dependency are considerably low. Before the deployment phase starts, the team needs to create a data backup of the migrating data set so that no historical data of the organization is lost.
Release Strategy
Just like the development strategy, the team of Salesforce developers also has to plan for the deployment. The team needs to use deployment tools and Salesforce change sets to reduce the hassle of deployment. Moreover, the deployment should ideally happen in a phase-by-phase manner so that the operations are smooth and the user base can smoothly transition into the new platform.
Post-Deployment Checks
After the deployment goes through, the Salesforce implementation team also has to run post-deployment checks. The team has to verify that the Salesforce platform is working as customized and that all its functions are accessible to the users. The developers have to check the integrated data sets to see if there are any discrepancies that need to be fixed with the help of the data backup.
The testing team has to run thorough checks on the Salesforce front-end experience and backend settings before the platform is completely handed over to the client side.
Step 7: Training and Support
User Training Programs
A good Salesforce development agency not only develops the customized platform but also helps the company’s internal team adapt to the new platform. The professionals and experts of the development agency hold User training sessions depending on the roles they play in the workflow.
This training approach prepares the users at different levels of the organization for the integration of Salesforce into their workflow. Apart from training sessions and knowledge about Salesforce trends, the team also provides personalized user guides and digital tutorials so the change is easy to adapt to.
Ongoing Support
The development partner for Salesforce also offers ongoing technical support in the initial phases so that the company can troubleshoot any issues coming up from the platform. The Salesforce platform also needs maintenance from time to time, which the Salesforce development and implementation team helps with. The developers also stay in tune with new Salesforce trends and update the platform as needed by the client so that the company can maximize the use of the customized suite.
Step 8: Maintenance and Optimization
Regular System Updates
For the Salesforce platform to work smoothly and very efficiently, it is important to run regular maintenance schedules. The client company needs to collaborate with the Salesforce deployment team to set up a schedule and time for maintenance and updates to the Salesforce platform. This reduces the persistent issues in the Salesforce platform.
Performance Optimization
The best practices of Salesforce development also include the evaluation of the platform performance and finding out the scope of optimization for the Salesforce functions so that the internal team can benefit from it.
Continuous Improvement
Even after the deployment of the Salesforce platform, there will always be scope to improve its functionalities. In fact, Salesforce releases new updates and features three times a year. To align with the seasonal releases and improve the existing platform, the company should discuss with its Salesforce development partner and see which features are best for its workflow.
From Planning to Deployment: Get Expert Guidance on Salesforce Development!
In order to create a highly specific and customized Salesforce platform for your business, you need an excellent partner Salesforce development agency. The team of the development agency should have the skills and knowledge to complete the project efficiently. Choose a team that is able to grasp new Salesforce trends and releases to help you get the best output for your business.
