After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Understand the Trailhead resources to deliver a solution
- Understand the concepts of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
DEVELOPMENT BASICS
Trailhead is a fantastic resource to give you the skills to be able to configure, code and test Salesforce. There are also certifications and the initial one for any admin is ADM201.
Here is the link to the ADM201 Trailhead information
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/academy/classes/adm201-administration-essentials-for-new-admins/
DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE – ALM
There is industry standard approach to managing changes through the development lifecycle. It is called Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). It is described in the image below which comes from the ALM Trailhead trail https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/application-lifecycle-and-development-models/understand-what-application-lifecycle-management-is
A key point here is the use of Sandboxes so that changes can be developed and tested without risking breaking your Production Org.
The 2 key activities that are not shown on here and are not covered in the Trailhead trail in any detail are “Org Impact Assessment” and the related “Org Documentation”. These are covered in later units of this training.
ISV TOOLS SUPPORT
COPADO: You could manage the ALM cycle using the tools Salesforce provide, but they are not really designed to scale. Which is why products like Copado exist. Running on the Salesforce platform they automate many of the tasks in the ALM cycle. copado.com
OWNBACKUP: Whilst they are known for backing up customer data, OwnBackup have several other solutions. They can backup your metadata as you make changes and release them. When you are spinning up and seeding Sandboxes with data for testing you can do that manually. Or you can use tools like OwnBackup. They not only speed up the process, but also help you anonymize data so you don’t fall foul of the new data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. ownbackup.com
NEXT – Org Impact Assessment