Force.com Applications

Hi Folks, Today I’m writing about the Force.com Applications for Salesforce.com. Developing an application on force.com has a defined process. This process goes as - 

1. We can develop our application in Developer Edition Org.
2. After being developed an application must be tested in a Sandbox.
3. Since it’s a tested application it must be submitted for the Security Scanner reviews. Scanner scans our application for security, complexity and other issues.
4. If our application gets a “No issues found” result then only it can be pushed on App Exchange.

App Exchange is a marketplace for force.com applications. App Exchange is just like Google App Store. From the App Exchange we can download and install applications directly into our Salesforce.com CRM org.

An application is a collection of different Kinds of Components as we see after logging into CRM. Components available in an application have a big picture behind it’s view and behavior so before understanding these components first we must take a look into Salesforce Data Model.

This information is need to be known by every developer or administrator, To know that what is the best way to design the Architecture of an application on force.com or we can say that what kind of standard objects can be suitable for their application.

We can also design our own Database model for our force.com application for Salesforce.com and we can configure it according to the requirements of our application. Objects available in Salesforce Data Model are Standard Objects and Objects Created by Us are Custom Objects.

Most basic components in an application are Tabs and Objects and these components are integrated and configured as the business requires. An application can have many more components developed with Declarative and Programmatic development tool kits.

In Salesforce, Objects are the database tables in which we store our data in fields and that data make records. Records are the source of information which we can use to create Reports, to track the business processes at the time we need it.

An Application can have various tabs for objects we created in the Model. This can be understood as View of Records or information that an object in the model, Contains in it. A tab is Home for object which is associated with it. By Clicking on tabs we can navigate through our records in an object.

For example, if you click on Contacts tab in your Salesforce organization, you will be at Home of Contact object/table, Predefined in Salesforce Data Model. Contact is a Standard Object because it’s defined by Salesforce. If you want to create a new Contact Record then you can hit the New Button available there and after hitting “New” you will see a form to be filled with data of a person who is or can be a contact person in your organization.

So that’s how data and information is kept in records in our application. In an application we can Create, Read, Update, Delete Records as our business process goes on.

A Record is always owned by a User in our Organization. Users are major in an application. Users are employees in an organization. An organization has various departments and those departments have their employees. Like Sales Department and Marketing Department.

To make an application secure, an application is always designed after knowing appropriate requirements for departments and for their employees.

We will discuss “Users” later in a separate article.

To make an application as logically functional we can implement our business logics using declarative and programmatic development tools like we can create various rules and actions to automate and validate the processes on records.

We will discuss that how can we add more components like validation rules, workflow rules etc as implementation of our business logics, later in separate articles.

So that’s how we can describe an application, developed on force.com platform for Salesforce.com users and businesses.

  

Summary

Every Application has a Schema/Data Model which contains database tables. In Salesforce, Objects are Database Tables. Salesforce objects have Model/View/Controller features, built in and even if it’s created by us. These features can be used by developing with Declarative development tool kit. To enhance these features we can use Programmatic development tool kit.

Hope this article will help you to know the process to develop and application on force.com platform for Salesforce.com CRM.

Stay tuned to Salesforce Nation