Introduction to Salesforce DX
Developers are always source-driven people. Salesforce DX (developer experience) enables the developer to work with any externalized source – even incorporating version control. “What is Salesforce DX ? It is an open standard developer experience, letting you build with the tools you love including Git, Selenium, Eclipse, Sublime, and more. Salesforce DX includes an updated Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) that significantly expands the value of the toolset to developers. However, the development process is source-driven. Moreover DX not only allows them to collaborate with other members of team. Moreover, the environment for a developer never works in perpetuity – something that the developer can simply dispose of, on project completion. It is this combination of the environment and the source code that leads to faster development of mobile apps -something that is a yearned by a developer always. Finally, it is a packaging model that is used to aid in the distribution of changes – across environments.The below figure shows some of the core principles around which modern software delivery is centred around. Let us now find out more on the advantages of Salesforce DX: Advantages of Salesforce DX The advantages of Salesforce DX are: Salesforce DX has a source-driven development process, This allows to test the features with agility and confidence. Salesforce DX helps developers build together in teams. In many ways, it brings together the best of the Force.com and Heroku developer experiences. It’s a new approach that supports team collaboration with a focus on quality, predictability, and an open and standardized development lifecycle on Salesforce. The advantage for this is that it enhances productivity and a faster development – thereby decreasing the time to market the product or service. A core theme of Salesforce DX is letting developers choose the tools they want. For example, we’re investing in making the Force.com IDE a best-in-class solution, but with Salesforce DX and our new command-line interface, you can use the text editor or IDE of your choice, along with the CLI, to develop your app. It’s up to you. When it is time to test your development work, then a Salesforce DX uses a scratch org and pushes the metadata. This scratch org, otherwise known as developer server.- serves only the purpose of testing and validation. There must be automated test runs for each of the change sets for your application. This is named as continuous integration(CI). This is for ensuring quality before any corrupt changes makes it way into the source repository. Following are some of benefits of the scratch org: It is easy to integrate scratch org into a CI process. The scratch orgs are...
Salesforce Requirements Gathering Techniques for Small and Mid Size Projects
Sunday Morning, I finally got some time to be back to my fav work of sharing knowledge via blogs. This week I was able to get involved into a rapid-fire requirement gathering session of straight 2.5 hrs and was able to get to the requirements, pain points/ top 5 show stoppers and immediate solution as well. My specialty is suggesting solutions and approach within the process of understanding the problem with my past experience of solving similar problems or NEW features being launched by SalesforceTM every Release cycle. How Do I Gather Requirements? A project in a software development company starts with the Requirements Gathering phase. I have created a unique requirement gathering question and answers fill in the blanks I always take down with me in a meeting. The requirements are gathered by the Business Analyst which is most of the time me and my team, employing a set of techniques. Sometimes there is a diverse set of techniques to be applied. All this is to accurately comprehend the requirements from the client or the other stakeholders in the organization. There is a need to choose the right technique and this changes from one stakeholder to another. In this post, I will narrate the various methods that our team at Cloud Analogy employs – to understand the client needs in a precise manner. Let me share with you about my experience with a client named Eric Wilson, for gathering requirements. I will highlight the various approaches, I resorted to. But before we go into further details, let me tell you something about Cloud Analogy. About Cloud Analogy Cloud Analogy is a Salesforce Consulting Company with a team of Salesforce certified experts – architects, developers, designers in handling various projects. It has worked in various domains – finance, healthcare, real estate and has shown an unprecedented level of growth in the last few years of its operations. The team comprise of talented Salesforce professionals who have developed world-class applications in Salesforce technology, as well as mobile app development. It has maintained its winning spree by handling some of the complex projects, from clients all over the world. Let us now delve, right into these approaches of requirements gathering – resorted by Cloud Analogy. What are the Approaches Adopted? The approaches adopted by us are: 1. Fixing a Facilitated Session a. Client Requirements b. Solution Provided 2. Scope of Training 3. Request for Proposals (RFPs)1. Fixing a Facilitated Session The clients come to know about our profiles from Upwork or some other sources say our websites, social media posts etc. They fix up an appointment with us through Calendly. We...
Winning Demo Jam Session at India Dreamin 2018 – Another Milestone Achieved.
Cloud Analogy is a Salesforce Consulting company formed in 2015. It offers customized solutions using Salesforce technology. It has developed some wonderful mobile apps as it treads on the path of continuous success – striving ahead of its competitors. Cloud Analogy was the Gold Sponsor for this year’s India Dreamin 2018. This was a spectacular event that was conducted in the local time zones – yet an internal event. An event that was participated by the Salesforce Community – networking with the peers and students, who participated. In this years, Cloud Analogy showcased its app Pintags in the AppExchange, along with big names such as Cognizant, Fully-Verified which is doing KYC verification using video call and others. These were exhibited in the Demo Jam session of India Dreamin 2018. There was a description of the Pintags app. About the Pintags App The Pintags app is about creating tags, for important records, high cost opportunities, critical cases and region wise accounts. It is a very useful feature that is present in Classic but not in Lightning. This app developed by Cloud Analogy is developed for creating tags for records, in the Lightning experience. The app from the AppExchange has to be installed and then configured. The tags can be used for any of the objects in Salesforce say the Leads. There are lots of reports generated for the end user through this app. An example to cite would be viewing all the tags record wise – for all the objects. It is possible to create a tagwise report. The reports can be of any of the following four formats – tabular, summary, joined and matrix. There is a drag and drop feature that works for creating the reports. The reports will show consolidated grand total amounts. The Proud Winners Finally, the time came to announce the winner of the Demo JAM session. Cloud Analogy performed this time too. They emerged as winners of the session. And believe us it was for the first time. For everyone at Cloud Analogy it was an incredible moment of cheering for all – that too someone with a first-time experience in a Demo Jam...
Magnify Your User Experience With Lightning Flow
Before we proceed to educate our readers on “How to Enhance User Experience with Lightning and Flow ?”. Let us understand “What is Flow?” in terms of Salesforce and Lightning experience. Flow is nothing but a tool in Salesforce that can configure and can even be compared with a tool like Visio – the only difference is it can do some activities like data query, update and delete records and make complex logical decisions as well. Although it is similar to Process builder but it is important to remember that it comes with screens. The users simply provide some input, in the form of a preconceived logic. It is here that you need to use Lightning runtime that can be turned on any org – even in Classic. This in what turns on an engaging look to Flow. Lightning runtime will have the look and feel of the Lightning experience. Next, we will find “How to setup Lightning Runtime?”. How to setup Lightning Runtime? Just Navigate to setup and arrive at process automation settings – for putting on the Lightning runtime. However, this cannot be done when flow is embedded in some Visualforce page – one that alters the CSS. This enables flow to run in the Classic environment. However, there are certain questions that prop up in our minds – as to why Lightning component get used in the Flow. Why Use Lightning Components in Flow? Afterall, Lightning components are codes, so what then is the point to use them in flow. Flows are not good at displaying of lists say an account list. So, it becomes easier for the Lightning component to display. It is definitely much easier than writing any code or integrating with Salesforce page. In this post, we will highlight on some of the outstanding features of flow. 1. Flow in Tab In Lightning, we can create a dedicated page which has an embedded flow in it. There is no Visualforce side involved into this, whatsoever. You need to go the Lightning app builder from the Set up. Create a new Lightning page by choosing an app page. This is just for the flow. You need to save and activate this page. You can now run this flow tab, in your mobile client running as your mobile menu. 2. Actions in Flow They are predefined fields but looks like a button. You need to create a new action in the objects section and a flow type. But there is one thing that is important here to remember that once the flow is created there exists no way to manually determine an input variable. So, you need to use a variable...
Salesforce Predictive Intelligence
What is Predictive Intelligence? Predictive intelligence is a technique to calculate customer behavioral pattern over their buying decision from any brand. The Salesforce platform which uses predictive intelligence features, are based upon the set of complex algorithms that collect customer data from various marketing channels such as emails, mobile, social, web & tap customer infer preferences with their every click, view, download, purchase which gives valuable insights to the predictive intelligence engine for analysis. The predictive intelligence engine consumes both explicit and implicit customer behavior patterns in real time to build a customer profile for their preferences. How Salesforce Use Predictive Intelligence? The Salesforce Marketing Cloud product “ExactTarget” utilizes the Predictive Intelligence model to gives its users a set of features that help them collect customer behavioral data & record their infer preferences. We are living in an age of digital marketing where with each passing year the proliferation is causing noise in this segment, for this the data is much valuable to the companies looking forward to targeting their clients in new ways, it also helps in suggesting their customers best offers, delivering personalized messages across various channels and devices based on the insights gathered from analytics. How Does It Work For Companies? It all started with collecting customer data & capturing customer behavioral patterns of how they surf the internet, go through the company website and products, how they interact with the company on social media, how they respond to emails, search terms etc. As all this will be monitored in real time, recording their preferences in profiles give companies 360-degree view of their customers which help companies predict & automate crucial marketing decisions, creating new business rules and adjusting their campaigns. How Does It Work For Customers? The main objective of implementing predictive intelligence is to provide personalized experiences for customers by listening carefully to their requirements. Instead of receiving 1000 of junk messages, customers will only be communicated for what they are looking for, they view tailored content & offers specially designed for their attention on web & email. Overall the customers are walked through a journey of hassle-free guided purchase and all this is achieved by Journey Builder feature, tightly integrated with ExactTarget...
Decode Obstacles In 5 Productive Methods
With as many problems we face in our daily routine and hustling lives, it appears as there isn’t enough time to sort each one of them with equivalent surveillance and energy. With the goal to minimise the occurrence of the problems — here are the five most effective ways of problem-solving methods:- BITE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN CHEW: The idiom itself refer towards the concept of attempting to do more work than you are able of. Perhaps, one is already involved into many activities which causes to negligible outputs. Problem solving needs one to be transparent from their working capabilities. Effective solution would be to break down a big problem into smaller chunks and solving them independently with all your potentials and knowledge. REVERSE ENGINEERING: It is a process of extracting knowledge or to design information from reproducing anything based on the extracted information. It is the optimum way of finding pieces of the puzzle when you are not aware about all of them. Reverse engineering is like an expedition in which you can locate the accurate piece to it’s exact site in the puzzle as well as different ways to construct a solution within. FIND SIMILARITIES: This method is easy yet an essential part of problem solving. This involves pure experience of solving complex problems which have had helped you in the past to resolve the same. If you can easily related one with the other you are exceeding towards achieving the key of problem solving with an ease. Maintaining all of your project’s code base in GIT and details of all the work you have done even on a sheet will give you a helpful knowledge base. This will specially become a boon to the team leads and your developers. ORGANIZED EXPERTISE: This method covers a huge area of problem solving.. As an individual one can’t be sailing on two boats. Having an expert UI developer in your team is a welfare but in case of problem solving you need to bring in different experts -to get absolute and swift outcomes. i.e, one should be having expertise of System Integrator, Front End designer and most importantly Business Analyst.Get some info on makiahonjuustola TIMELINE: Another key factor towards problem solving is setting up timeline. This will make your work result efficient and effective, qualitative and quantitative. It helps upbringing the progress of meeting deadlines. It’s a plan of how much time a small task or an overall project will or should take accordingly. A well defined Project plan should always have buffer time for each milestone or for the overall project. I start framing the timeline to estimate a project with the following: Requirement gathering and Data Model...
Zoho To Salesforce Data Migration
Zoho CRM is inexpensive when compared with other CRM’s. That’s why it is preferred CRM for small scale organisations and start-ups. Transferring all data from Zoho CRM to Salesforce and integrating and extending all necessary functionalities in Salesforce platform in a very swift,fast and secure environment. So basically except the customization part, the main thing is request to move data. It is generally the transfer of data from one salesforce platform to other. There are two ways to transfer data from Zoho to Salesforce: Using Data Loader Integrating Zoho with Salesforce using third party tools After some point people generally prefer to migrate from Zoho CRM because of the following limitations of this CRM: Zoho don’t have extensive third party support such as that of salesforce has in Appexchange It is easy to create Custom Dashboards in Salesforce as it is not flexible and customizable in Zoho Zoho do not allow you to integrate with any other mail like Outlook or Gmail as it has it’s own mail as Zoho Mail but it is not much user-friendly Document Management is not as simple as that of Salesforce LET’S START WITH THE MIGRATION-DATA LOADER: Data loader is a data migration tool and we export data in CSV files and then transfer it to Salesforce. Here are the stepwise instructions to migrate your data to Salesforce and experience the all new CRM: Click on setting gear icon in right upper corner-> Setup-> Data Administration-> Export Select the object which you want to export to Salesforce from the Dropdown Menu. Remember we can export maximum of 3000 records at a time from Zoho account. It generates a .CSV file which can be easily uploaded to salesforce official website. Create database in Salesforce with all the headers as the fields and don’t discard the Zoho generated ID as Zoho same as Salesforce provides you with unique ID and it can be used later for several mappings. Now use data loader and import your .CSV file and get started with the all new...
ARE YOU READY FOR CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES?
Whether you accept or not but Cloud Technology is a great tool for businesses looking for staff productivity. Availability of data from remote locations, significantly reducing IT costs. Then why we are still not open to accepting its benefits without having second thoughts? Let’s Not to forget the human tendency, not to accept new changes. We all like the way in of which we are comfortable & habitual about. Anyone working in IT industry know the market shifts way too fast they can come up with, technology comes fast and goes fast, to stay ahead in competition companies need to make quick decisions. At some point companies need to take that “BIG STEP”, the step which they fear about but crucial for their success. More about loans by loansflow But before taking that first big step, you need to ask yourself what is CLOUD? and are you ready for it? Let’s throw some light on it which will eventually gear you up for the CLOUD TECHNOLOGY. THE CLOUD IN BRIEF With cloud now there is no longer need to use your computer hardware to store data. Cloud enables you to access information and applications over the internet from almost anywhere. It keeps you informed to make good decisions for your business. You just have to log in to a portal and order your cloud services. The cloud services are provided by your service provider which can act as a virtual machine & a gatekeeper of cloud technology and resources. Now the provider will validate your request and once confirmed it will give a portion of a service set onto their platform. Generally, we prefer this kind of setup as Saas- (Software-As-A-Service) model. WHO ELSE CAN BE ON CLOUD WITH ME? This is the most attractive feature of the cloud. The sharing of files and documents entirely depends upon you. It can be shared with whoever you want to give access to. It is you who give permission to an employee what to access and what not to access. This helps you to keep your information safe, avoid the risk of losing your valuable information and minimize the risk of virus or malware. THE GOALS TO BE ON CLOUD Cloud is inexpensive. It is installed online so no need to install local software onto your system. At a very low cost, you can increase your storage size and memory. It allows you to pay on monthly or yearly basis making it flexible for the users. It helps you to terminate your service usage anytime and only has to pay when you use your services & resources. There can be many...
SKUID-Scalable Kit for User Interface Development
SKUID SKUID has always been my favourite since the first time I saw this in Dreamforce 2014. My first interaction was with their team on Dreamforce booth and the after understanding its capabilites I was amazed! SKUID is set of tools that allow you to change almost any element of your Salesforce User Interface, quickly and easily. We can quickly implement any changes as per suggested by your team, across your org and even in Production. It is basically used to build the UI to have a look on the data your company needs. STORY: Salesforce connected Rich (Rich Slack, CFMO of Chrysalis and CEO of Meridian Meds) with a private developer who would charge $300,000 – $500,000 to build out their user interface. It was a non-starter. Rich decided to kill the Salesforce project and hire a team of developers to create their own platform. However, the team hit many roadblocks. Rich realized that Salesforce could do what he needed if he could figure out a way to overcome the gap of user interface. That’s when he found Skuid. Within 2 days, Rich had re-skinned the user interface of his app within Salesforce. He rebuilt his entire system during his nights and weekends in four months. Let’s get Started with SKUID: Compose your new page from Skuid Central tab in your Salesforce Org Connect your Salesforce objects and external data through models present in Skuid. For each MODEL, choose the standard and custom fields from your Salesforce objects that you want to include in your page, and can even set criteria for the records to get display on your page. You can create as many model as needed. The only thing to know is that they will be loaded the way they are listed. For each model we have: Fields: Fields refer to the fields from the object which we want to show in our page. Conditions: They apply criteria for the records which are to be shown onto the page. Actions: They help us to specify the actions which we want our page to perform after some event. We have two properties for Model which are Basic & Advanced. Basic properties let you define the model Id, data source type, SObject name, model behaviour, number of pages to be displayed etc. Advance properties let you have a look on cloning the data, Query Deleted, Update Salesforce Recently Viewed Info etc. Skuid provides you with pre-built components which can be used to create your own page. Also you can create your own components. There is only the need to drag and drop those pre-built components and you can...
5 things about Salesforce Certification
This blog is for the Developers who wants to get a Salesforce Developer I Certification . What is Salesforce Certification? Why is it so important for the developers seeking a career in Salesforce? Salesforce certification is vital to the salesforce career path as it differentiates you from other developers, makes you an expert in your field. This Certificate is provided by salesforce.com where people demonstrate and prove their technical Skills in different areas of Salesforce. It’s a damn good certification, if you are thinking about a career in Salesforce, by enhancing your skills and expertise in respective fields. It is very easy to get hired in an organization with a salesforce certification in hand. You need to follow these steps to enroll for examination : First you have to create your webassessor Account on https://www.webassessor.com/wa.do?page=createAccount branding=SALESFORCE Secondly Register and schedule your exam Five things you must know while preparing for salesforce certification:- Course Content and their weightage -: The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I exam measures a candidate’s knowledge and skills related to the objectives listed below. A candidate should have hands-on experience of developing custom applications on the Force.com platform and have demonstrated the application of each of the features/functions below. 2. Prepare each topic with written practice of programs. Exploring it on trailhead will be a great start. It will provide huge knowledge for practical implementation. In different areas. Below is the link to access trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/ 3. Go through /Solve previous years certification:- Preparing from previous year question papers is always a good strategy to cover frequently asked topics in a short span of time. 4. Practice as many Mock test papers as possible once you think you have a good command on Salesforce syllabus. Mock test papers are available on various websites for free where you can practice them. Do register yourself if required (as asked by some of the websites) 5. And last but not least, be confident and relaxed while writing the exam and remember the best way to gain confidence is to do more and more practice. According to my exam experience every aspirant must prepare well in the following topics as most of the questions I faced in the exam were from these topics : Validation Rule Workflow Rule Process Builder Object Relationships So all the best guys for exam. The exam is simple and easy. All you need is to do...
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