Extending with the AppExchange

You have been able to meet the majority of your requirements with the Sales Cloud out-of-the-box functionality and your solution is looking in good shape but there is a group of requirements that just don’t have a good fit for the standard functionality. You need to decide whether to buy or build and you want to know what your options are.

In this chapter, we will look at Salesforce AppExchange, your go-to place to understand what pre-built solutions are available. This is Salesforce’s marketplace for applications, components, flows, and more, which independent software vendors (ISVs) and partners have published to allow you to enhance your Salesforce solution.

We will cover the following topics:

• What is AppExchange?
• Getting the most from AppExchange
• Common types of applications to enhance your implementation

Supporting tools and information

Whilst AppExchange itself is a public website, to install any applications, you will need a Trailblazer account that you have connected your Org to. Your Trailblazer account is used for logging into the following Salesforce sites:

• AppExchange
• Commerce Cloud Developer Center
• Events
• IdeaExchange
• Salesforce Help
• Trailblazer Community
• Trailhead
• Salesforce+
• Salesforce.com
• Partner Community

You can sign up for a Trailblazer account at https://digital.salesforce.com/signup and use your Salesforce login credentials as the basis of the account. More information about the Trailblazer account, the benefits of the account, and how to sign up can be found in the following Salesforce help article: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.get_started_with_trailblazer_id.htm&type=5. If you type in the URL for AppExchange, you will be immediately prompted to log in with a Trailblazer account. However, if...

What is AppExchange?

AppExchange is Salesforce’s enterprise application marketplace, designed to allow customers and implementation teams to discover pre-built applications, components, and templates to help deliver a much quicker ROI for your implementation. You can find AppExchange at https://appexchange.salesforce.com.

AppExchange was launched in 2005 to allow ISVs to build and sell applications to Salesforce customers, providing them with pre-built solutions that Salesforce themselves would not be building and delivering on the platform. Many of the earliest applications were delivered to supplement the standard Sales Cloud functionality and enhance business integration. Over time, AppExchange has grown alongside Salesforce to include both applications that enhance and extend the Salesforce product suite and those that aren’t related to the standard Salesforce applications at all.

AppExchange has expanded from its original structure of being an application marketplace...

Getting the most from AppExchange

In this section, we learn about the different ways to identify apps, analyze your requirements to understand what is important, and select and then install apps from AppExchange. We start by searching the site itself.

Searching the AppExchange

When you begin navigating the AppExchange, you will be presented a list of solution cards as shown in the following image.

Figure 14.1 – AppExchange

In the top right, which is highlighted, you can see that the default ordering for applications is by popularity, that is, the number of installs. You can choose to change this to any of the following:

• Popularity
• Rating
• Release Date
• Name
• Provider

Doing so will update the list of items you will be presented and how they are organized. On the left of the screen is a set of filters you can apply that will further filter and narrow the results for you. The available filters are grouped to allow...

Common types of applications to enhance your implementation

In this section, we will list out and describe at a high level some of the more common application types that you may want to consider to enhance your Sales Cloud implementation. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but it will help you think about additional ways you can deliver requirements for your sales team’s Sales Cloud solution. Let’s review the decisions and discussion points you should be aware of when evaluating solutions.

Salesforce Labs solutions

As mentioned earlier in the chapter, there are a number of solutions that are created by Salesforce Labs. These are free, so it is a good place to start, however, it is also worth remembering that these don’t benefit from the level of support you get with paid apps.

The following are some of the apps that were available at the time of writing. A link to a summary video on YouTube has been included with each.

• Task Follow-Up Rules...

Summary

We began this chapter by discussing what AppExchange is and the types of solutions you could find on AppExchange. We then looked at how you can search and navigate AppExchange, adding filters and narrowing down the results to the right solution for you.

Following this, we discussed why AppExchange is so powerful for customers and consultants and how the Salesforce Security Review process ensures that you are getting a well-structured solution that can help you grow and scale.

We then looked at the process and steps involved in installing a solution from AppExchange and when an external party may become involved. We then finished the chapter with an overview of some of the most common types of applications you may want to install in your Org to enhance your Sales Cloud implementation.

Further reading

AppExchange

• App List:

  https://appexchange.salesforce.com/learn?contentType=app-listicle

Salesforce Community Conferences

• Trailhead: Salesforce Community Groups:

  https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/trailblazer-community-basics/discover-community-conferences

• Community Conference Timetable:

  https://trailhead.salesforce.com/community/conferences