AppExchange and Custom Applications

In the last chapter, you learned about reports and dashboards, an incredibly important part of Salesforce, loved by many. In this chapter, we will focus on existing solutions, but these won’t be the default solutions that come with Salesforce Out-of-the-box. Instead, we will explore dedicated solutions for specific functionalities. In this chapter, you’ll get to know AppExchange, what it is and why it’s important, what you can find there, and how to use it.

The chapter will be divided into three sections:

• Introduction to AppExchange
• Salesforce Labs Apps
• Installing and Managing App

Introduction to AppExchange

Do you like shopping? I think everyone has their favourite store – some love to go Saturday shopping in a clothing store, others prefer a bookstore, and yet others opt for a computer store. Just like with tastes, scents, or favourite colors, we have our favourite places to shop. But have you ever considered a store to be a friend? I do not think so. However, with AppExchange, you will definitely hit it off. AppExchange is a special place in Salesforce where you can find custom solutions. On your phone, you have either the App Store or the Play Store, each filled with numerous apps designed to make your life easier or more enjoyable. Similarly, AppExchange is a digital marketplace for Salesforce applications. This platform allows you to search for, install, and review applications. You will find apps that expand the functionality of your system without the need for reconfiguration or development.

Where to find AppExchange? In our beloved Setup...

Salesforce Labs Apps

Let us start with what Salesforce Labs is. It is not something like the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil, and that is for the best - a zombie apocalypse would be closer than we might expect. Salesforce Labs is a group of exceptional people at Salesforce who design and create solutions available on AppExchange. These solutions are often provided for free to all users and bring a lot of innovation to our systems. Personally, I am a fan of their solutions and the fact that they provide them entirely for $0. Salesforce Labs, as the team could also be called, gives Salesforce employees the opportunity to develop their own ideas and turn them into reality through their initiative.

With their applications, they demonstrate the platform’s capabilities and its flexibility in adapting to the increasing business needs worldwide. Salesforce Labs engages in developing its user community, promoting innovation and a creative approach to the system.

I would...

Installing and Managing App

In the previous sections of this chapter, we learn about the Salesforce AppExchange apps, and we get to know few examples of important and useful apps. Now let’s learn how to install one of them. You will see how easy it is.

To learn how to install applications from Salesforce AppExchange, we will use a practical example of installing an application that may be useful to each of you. This application is called Salesforce Adoption Dashboards. We already learned about this application more extensively in the previous subsection, so let’s briefly recall that the Salesforce Adoption Dashboards offer a view into pertinent user login history and trends, the embrace of crucial features like accounts and opportunities, and enhancements that significantly improve sales and marketing productivity. When you become a Salesforce Administrator this kind of Dashboard will become a must have sooner or later.

Alright, enough theory. Let’s move...

Summary

Here we are, at the end of Chapter 9. Your knowledge of Salesforce is already quite substantial, and yet, this is not the end of the book. In this chapter, you learned that while Salesforce is indeed the best CRM in the world, it still doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that a user might dream of. To address various needs of users, Salesforce supports itself with applications from the AppExchange store, the app market which belongs to the Salesforce itself, but you can find their apps that are created by Salesforce technology partners. Those partners are called by Salesforce ISV which stands for Independent Software Vendor.

After you found what the Salesforce AppExchange is, what kinds of applications you can find there, and what criteria to consider when searching for them we described examples of a special type of application available on AppExchange under the Salesforce Labs Apps label—applications created for Salesforce by Salesforce’s own development...