Tag: piptips

Decoding Salesforce Buzzwords

Ever felt like Salesforce speak is its own language? You’re not alone.

Whether you’re new to the platform or just tired of nodding along in meetings (we see you), here’s a quick decoder for some of the most common Salesforce terms:

• Object = Just a fancy word for a table (like Leads, Accounts, or that custom one your admin built at 2am).
• Record = A single row in that table. Like one customer, or one sales deal.
• Field = A column. First name, email, budget, etc.
• Flow = Point-and-click automation that does things so you don’t have to.
• Lightning = No, not weather. It’s the modern UI (user interface, what you see and click on when you use a digital tool) – think fast, sleek, more clicks.
• Apex = Salesforce’s programming language. (Basically, what devs do when Flows can’t handle it.)
• Sandbox = Your practice playground. Where you (hopefully don’t) break things before they go live.
• Trigger = A bit of code that fires when something changes. Like “if X happens, do Y.”
• AppExchange = The App Store, but for Salesforce tools and add-ons.
• Admin = The superhero who makes Salesforce work for everyone else.

A helping hand for Developers

Github Copilot is a generative AI tool that can offer coding suggestions based on comments in the code, plus auto completion for current lines and entire blocks of code.

Copilot can offer multiple suggestions which can be manually accepted or rejected, boosting your development speed and precision.

The Visual Studio Code extension for Github Copilot allows you to use all of this within the editor itself, and with the Github Copilot chat extension (which uses GPT-4) and Copilot, you can use “@workspace” at the beginning of your search, allowing it to scan your local project to provide suggestions or help locate specific pieces of code, as well as clarifying error messages in the console!

Explaining Open API

The strength of Salesforce lies in its seamless integration with a variety of tools and applications.

Utilising OpenAPI can significantly simplify this process. But what exactly does this mean?

Think of OpenAPI as a standardised recipe for APIs. Similar to how a recipe guides you in preparing a dish, OpenAPI provides clear instructions on how to structure and implement an API.

It is a specification that ensures APIs adhere to consistent rules and documentation standards, serving as a blueprint.

This ensures that developers can easily understand, implement, and integrate their software with a specific service, platform, or system. Using OpenAPI to establish connections is akin to following a recipe to create a 5 star meal!

It is essential to note that in order to create your own connections in Salesforce using Open API, you must have the Enterprise Salesforce license at minimum!

Rescue your org from risks

Did you know that every few years, OWASP makes a top 10 list of the top security issues in development?

They most recently published a Top 10 web application security risks in 2021, which includes among other flaws broken access control, cryptographic failures, and injection.

In 2023, they published a Top 10 API security list which includes broken object level authorisation, broken authentication, and broken property level authorisation as the top 3 security vulnerabilities in API development.

Read more

Transform your app development

Custom Metadata Types in Salesforce offer a transformative approach for app developers, enabling the seamless storage and management of application configurations.

Unlike their counterpart, Custom Settings, Custom Metadata records stand out for their deployability, packageability, and upgradeability. This distinction is particularly beneficial in the context of managed package development.

Furthermore, one standout feature of Custom Metadata is its ability to expose configuration directly to Admins, eliminating the need for code modifications. Thus, Admins can effortlessly customise app behaviour to align with specific business requirements by simply updating Custom Metadata used in the application.

This flexibility allows developers to craft applications that are not only more dynamic, but also highly adaptable. Said adaptability is extremely powerful for enhancing an application’s utility and scalability.