Tag Archives: devops

G2 reports winter 2024 high performer badge

Prodly in the G2 Winter 2024 Reports

December 21, 2023 Prodly Marketing

A Collective Success Story

Have you heard the latest buzz from the G2 Winter 2024 Reports? Your favorite low-code/no-code ALM platform for Salesforce has done it again! For the third time in a row, we’re celebrating our title as a High Performer in the DevOps, continuous delivery, continuous integration, and cloud migration platform categories. And here’s the twist: This achievement isn’t just about Prodly; it’s about every single one of our customers and their confidence in our solutions.

Real G2 Reviews

Here are just a handful of verified user reviews from the past weeks:

Good Experience, Sometimes Almost Magical

“I like the way Prodly handles CPQ deployment seamlessly. Once you create a good dataset, it will handle all the deployment for records with no friction. If you face any issues, it’s also pretty simple to debug and you basically re-run it and it magically knows which records to CREATE and which records to UPDATE because they have been successfully created before. For users that are already familiar with the Salesforce ecosystem, it’s almost fluid and natural.”

Prodly Makes Complex Data Deployments Easier!!

“Using Prodly daily, I know it has some amazing functionalities, but what I’ve been able to leverage it best for is deploying CPQ data from one org to another, which is a key part of CPQ implementation. The RecordMatch feature along with the OOTB templates definitely make it easier to leverage the tool to quickly move complex data and all associated data.”

– Owais A.

Comprehensive Tool for Data and Configuration Management With Salesforce

“What I like best about Prodly is having one centralized tool that can move both data and metadata. This means fewer errors and more effective release management. The dashboard offers real-time insights into the status of all deployments directly from Salesforce instead of admins having to access an external application.”

–Michelle M.

We Appreciate Our Customers’ Trust

Choosing a DevOps platform for Salesforce is no small decision. That’s why we’re committed to honoring your trust with continuous excellence and innovation. It’s this user-driven approach that catapulted us to new heights in the G2 Winter 2024 Reports with an astounding 49 High Performer badges and recognition in 96 categories. Thank you—we couldn’t have done it without you!

Prodly’s Future Looks Bright

Our CEO, Max Rudman, often highlights how user feedback and engagement are the backbone of our roadmap. And guess what? We’re not stopping anytime soon. 2024 is set to be a year of exciting new products to make Salesforce development even more streamlined by focusing on efficiency and ease of use. Our objective? To help you manage the DevOps process while remaining in compliance—all from one unified platform.

Features That Speak Volumes

Unsurprisingly, many of our features—like configuration management, data management, and access controls— received top-notch ratings. But here’s the real game-changer: Our go-live time is significantly shorter than our competitors. This means you spend less time waiting—and more time driving revenue.

The Growing Prodly Community

The increasing shift of companies towards Prodly is a nod to our comprehensive approach to LC/NC DevOps for Salesforce, while our growing community is a testimony to the trust and value that our customers place in our solutions. And with such a robust support base, we’re more committed than ever to delivering a product that goes beyond the status quo to redefine industry standards.

Embracing Feedback for Future Milestones

As we celebrate these achievements, it’s important to recognize that each accolade in the G2 Winter 2024 Reports is a milestone measuring how well we’re serving you—our valued customer. Looking ahead, we’re excited to launch our new products and hear your feedback for the Spring 2024 reports. Your insights are the catalyst that drives our innovation and growth.

So let’s keep the synergy going. Together, we’re set to break new ground and revolutionize the world of Salesforce DevOps. Here’s to the future—one where our community and our company continue to thrive and innovate.

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Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce DevOps

CPQ With Salesforce DevOps Tools vs. Without

March 17, 2023 Hayley Coxon Leave a comment

The Benefits of Using a DevOps Tool for Salesforce Revenue Cloud

Salesforce CPQ (or Revenue Cloud) is a highly useful tool to streamline the configure, price, quote process in Salesforce. But did you know you can enhance that process even further with Salesforce DevOps tools like the Prodly DevOps platform?

Salesforce CPQ With a DevOps Tool

DevOps involves several key principles, including the automation of as many processes in the development lifecycle as possible. A comprehensive Salesforce DevOps tool automates many of the tasks involved with the change management process in Salesforce CPQ, including:

Sandbox seeding: Avoid conflicts with instant, on-demand, data-rich development environments for each individual team member.
Sandbox management: Easily spin up, sync, and refresh new sandboxes. Use data replication tools to make them look like production—and save money you’d otherwise spend on a Full Copy.
Version control: Quickly roll back changes with easy access to previous iterations of every configuration.
Regression testing: Avoid costly downtime by testing work earlier in the process—and prevent bugs from making it into production.
Salesforce CPQ data model deployment: Deploy complex relational CPQ schema in minutes, not days, with pre-built automation templates.
Audit trail: Ensure SOX compliance with a detailed audit log of every change at your fingertips.

On top of that, a DevOps tool ensures continuous integration and delivery of changes in Salesforce CPQ. This empowers your sales team, enables you to respond to market demands faster, and helps skyrocket your revenue!

CPQ Without Salesforce DevOps Tools

In contrast, without Salesforce DevOps tools that automate many stages of the change management process, you have to do everything manually. That involves hours of tedious, manual labor and unnecessary busy work. It also results in elevated risk due to the increased chance of bugs and issues that can cause downtime. This in turn can cause revenue loss.

Salesforce DevOps Tools Help Maximize CPQ ROI

Clearly, using DevOps tools for CPQ is a good way to maximize your ROI. You have the safety net of source control, the accuracy of deployment automation templates, and automatic SOX compliance. This greatly reduces the risk to the business.

At the same time, you empower your sales team, and you make your business more agile and responsive. As a result, it’s easier and faster to drive up revenue with your investment.

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FAQs

What is Salesforce sandbox seeding?

Salesforce sandbox seeding or data seeding consists of two parts: data replication to obtain test data and data migration. When you create a new environment or refresh an existing one, you can use sandbox seeding to move data replicated from production into the sandbox. This effectively makes your dev environments look like mini versions of production. Learn more about sandbox seeding.

Why do I need source control for Salesforce CPQ?

Source control for CPQ offers several advantages. You can easily roll the configuration back to earlier states if needed. It provides an automatic audit log. In addition, it lets you collaborate more effectively. Learn more about the benefits of version control for Salesforce CPQ.

A vector illustration with white ones and zeros and the word "rollback" in red signifying a rollback strategy in Salesforce

Rollback, Salesforce DevOps, Version Control

Salesforce Rollback Strategy: A Primer

March 3, 2023 Hayley Coxon Leave a comment

A robust rollback strategy in Salesforce safeguards your change management process against bugs and errors in releases. In this blog, we discuss exactly what a rollback plan is, when you should use one, and how to implement it.

What Is a Rollback Strategy in Salesforce?

A high-level definition of a Salesforce roll back strategy is a set of procedures you put in place to revert changes to your production environment. These procedures restore your Salesforce org to the stable state it was in before your previous deployment.

What Is the Purpose of Rollback?

The purpose of rollback is to minimize the impact of any bugs or issues that arise after deploying new changes to production. Because it acts as a kind of safety net, developers often call it the “oops button.”

Why Is a Rollback Strategy Important?

When you include a rollback strategy in your deployment process as a matter of course, you ensure you can quickly and easily deal with any issues without your end users being affected.

What Should Be in a Rollback Plan?

Your rollback strategy should encompass a carefully constructed, written, and tested plan that outlines all the steps you need to perform to revert production to a stable state. It should also define the part each team member plays in the process. In addition, it should include the checks you have to run and how to respond in the event of a failure situation.

When Should Rollback Be Used?

Use a roll back to restore stability to production when serious issues occur during a deployment, such as bugs or errors you can’t resolve in a short amount of time.

You should also use one when new changes are causing complications that have a negative impact on your Salesforce instance’s performance. By performing a rollback to restore your production org to the state it was in before the changes, you can restore stability for your end users. They can go about their daily business, while you can work on a fix for the issue in an isolated environment.

How Do You Perform a Rollback Operation in Salesforce?

Now you know what a rollback plan is and when you need one, you’re probably wondering, “How do I rollback changes in Salesforce?”

You can roll back changes using Salesforce tools, but this is quite complicated, as you can see from the steps below. You can also use Prodly to quickly and easily rollback a deployment.

How to Rollback a Deployment in Salesforce

To rollback a deployment in Salesforce, perform the following steps.

Stop the Deployment

If any issues arise during the deployment of a change, stop it immediately to prevent further damage to your Salesforce instance.

Inform Stakeholders About the Rollback

Communicate to everyone on your team, as well as all users and other stakeholders, that you’ve decided to perform a rollback and why.

Define the Scope of the Rollback

Determine which components have been affected by the deployment and need to be rolled back. Use this analysis to plan the steps you need to take to restore your production org to its previous state.

How to Rollback a Metadata Deployment

First, we’re going to look at how to rollback metadata changes. Let’s say you have three versions of a Flow, and the most recent version, version 3, is causing problems. You can deactivate version 3, reactivate the previous version (version 2), and deploy version 3 to a sandbox so you can fix it. You’ll have to perform a similar step for each metadata component that’s affected.

How to Rollback a Config Data Deployment

Performing a rollback of config data (for example, if you’ve made changes to Salesforce CPQ) is more complex. First, check that you made a backup before you deployed the record updates. Then use Data Loader to revert the updates with that backup. If you inserted new records, identify them using a query or a Salesforce report, and delete them from production.

Check and Test

After you’ve restored your production org to the stable version, ensure that it’s fully functional. This might involve reconfiguring settings, reimporting data, or updating configurations.

Test thoroughly to make sure all components are working as expected and that there are no unexpected problems.

Communicate With Stakeholders

Inform your team, as well as all users and other stakeholders, that the rollback has been successful. You should also make them aware of any changes to production that will impact their workflows.

Roll Back a Salesforce Deployment in 5 Steps With Prodly DevOps

Prodly DevOps integrates with various version control systems, including GitHub. Because of this, it lets you easily perform a rollback in five simple steps:

Navigate to the appropriate repository in GitHub and select the branch you deployed the changes from.
Click on “Commit History” and select the pull request you want to roll back in the commits list.
Click “Revert” at the bottom of the pull request and select the revert branch GitHub creates.
Merge the new pull request GitHub creates into the branch you originally deployed the changes from.
Deploy the restored changes from your branch to your Salesforce org.

Then all you have to do is log into Salesforce and confirm that your changes are successfully rolled back.

Conclusion

To ensure the continuity of your Salesforce instance, it’s critical to have a well-defined rollback strategy. By consistently making sure you have one for every significant deployment, you can minimize the impact of issues on your production environment and maintain the trust of your users.

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FAQs

What’s the difference between a rollback and a roll forward deployment?

When you perform a rollback, you revert your production environment to a previous state of stability—but then it doesn’t have the new features. With a roll forward deployment, you add additional changes that fix the issue while at the same time keeping the new features live.

How often should I make a rollback strategy?

It’s advisable to have a tested rollback strategy in place for every significant deployment you make.

An photo of a train in scenic surroundings as a metaphor for the automated Kaptio deployments of Prodly DevOps

Configuration Data, Kaptio Deployments, Salesforce DevOps

How to Run a Kaptio Deployment

February 8, 2023 Hayley Coxon Leave a comment

In this blog, we teach you how to run a Kaptio deployment using Prodly’s automation templates or data sets. This process is much more accurate than manually deploying config data with a Salesforce data loader. Automation takes 80 percent less time, which boosts your productivity significantly!

Automate Kaptio Deployments

Prodly DevOps provides automated deployment templates for the entire Kaptio data model. That means you can now perform accurate and successful Kaptio deployments in minutes instead of days!

Here’s how to run a Kaptio deployment in three steps with Prodly DevOps:

Select the source and destination environments.
Select the template you want to use to deploy your Kaptio object, i.e. Business Unit, Package, Agreement, Itinerary Data, etc.
Deploy.

Check out how quick and easy it is in this video:

Discover automation for Kaptio deployments—request a demo!

FAQs

What is Kaptio?

Kaptio Travel Platform is an end-to-end enterprise travel CRM built on the Salesforce platform. It allows travel providers to handle reservations, contracts, operations, and their distribution management system all from a single pane of glass.

Why are Kaptio deployments with Data Loader so difficult?

Kaptio deployments are so difficult because the Kaptio data model consists of complex configuration data, like Salesforce CPQ. As such, there are many object relationships that need to be taken into account in every deployment. When you use Data Loader, you have to map all these relationships out manually, one-by-one, to make sure the deployment is successful. This is tedious and time-consuming work that’s prone to error and often results in hours of rework.

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Salesforce DevOps

Pros and Cons of Salesforce DevOps

February 6, 2023 Salesforce DevOps 101 Leave a comment

It’s critical to understand the pros and cons of Salesforce DevOps before implementing it in your organization. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at the development philosophy’s advantages, including improved collaboration and creativity, faster delivery of changes, reduced risk, and increased ROI.

We’ll also examine the disadvantages, such as the time and cost investment, added complexity, and potential disruptions and delays during the transition.

Advantages of Salesforce DevOps

There’s one overarching benefit of Salesforce DevOps. It enables you to deliver higher-quality changes and applications much faster than you could using traditional release methods like change sets and Data Loader. Let’s take a closer look at these key advantages.

Improved Collaboration and Creativity

Implementing Salesforce DevOps eliminates silos and improves collaboration between development and operations teams. Salesforce admins, developers and business operation teams must work together to deliver process optimization for the business. This improved collaboration between the teams can lead to greater creativity and innovation.

Faster Delivery of Changes

Salesforce DevOps involves delivering incremental changes on a continuous basis. You can get updates and new apps to your sales team much faster than with traditional models. This in turn empowers them to do their job better.

Reduced Risk

Salesforce DevOps reduces risk because it allows you to be agile and respond immediately to the demands of the market. In the worst-case scenario, with conventional big bang releases, an app can be obsolete by the time it’s market ready. With Salesforce DevOps, you can prioritize bug fixes and change direction without too much disruption because you deliver work iteratively.

Increased ROI

Arguably the most important benefit of Salesforce DevOps is that it delivers an increased ROI. Automation—a key aspect of Salesforce DevOps—and risk reduction contribute significantly to keeping costs low and maximizing returns.

Disadvantages of Salesforce DevOps

While these advantages are significant, there are potential drawbacks, as well.

Time and Cost Investment

Implementing DevOps in Salesforce may require a certain financial investment if you need to purchase new automation tools and work management apps. At the same time, moving from a traditional development model to DevOps doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll need to dedicate time and resources to getting the framework and processes set up—all while ensuring business continuity.

Added Complexity

To make DevOps work in Salesforce, your teams need to communicate, collaborate, and adopt new processes and tools. Depending on the flexibility of your team, this can be easy or challenging. In some cases, already established processes are so ingrained that they’re almost impossible to overcome.

Potential Disruptions and Delays During the Transition

Salesforce DevOps involves a different way of working. No matter how enthusiastic the team is, this can potentially have an impact on change management during the transition period. It’s advisable to delay any major updates or deliveries until everyone is comfortable with the new development philosophy.

Measure the Potential of Salesforce DevOps for Your Business

Salesforce DevOps can provide efficiency gains and deliver a significant ROI for your business. However, there are many ways to implement DevOps best practices within Salesforce, and you don’t have to implement every best practice to start seeing results.

When you’ve decided on one or more best practices to implement, conduct a proof of concept trial on a smaller project, and use metrics to evaluate the results. This will allow you to make a data-driven decision as to whether Salesforce DevOps is right for your business or not.

FAQs

What are the four most important DevOps principles?

To implement DevOps, you need to incorporate the following four principles into your development process: automation, iteration, continuous monitoring and improvement, and collaboration. Learn more about DevOps principles.

How can Salesforce DevOps help my organization be more innovative?

Implementing DevOps principles in Salesforce involves fostering communication and collaboration between development and operations teams. The resulting combination of different points of view can lead to heightened creativity that you can then harness for innovation.

This post is republished with permission from Salesforce DevOps HQ.

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An illustration depicting the different stages in the DevOps lifecycle for Salesforce admins.

Salesforce DevOps

DevOps: What Salesforce Admins Need to Know

December 30, 2022 David Clark Leave a comment

DevOps is rapidly gaining traction as a way to better manage releases and drive faster innovation in Salesforce. In this blog, we examine how the Salesforce admin can leverage DevOps to better support their team, as well as improve how they manage risk.

How DevOps Helps You Better Support Your Team

When properly implemented, DevOps is not just a category of interest for developers. It’s rapidly becoming a method that empowers Salesforce admins and other “clicks, not code” developers to effectively manage change in their Salesforce instances. Watch this video to learn more about how it can help you better support your team.

Salesforce Governance Strategy

To implement DevOps, start by defining a Salesforce governance strategy regarding how everyone on your team participates in the flow of change. When you define a strategy for making changes using Salesforce DevOps tools, you can dramatically increase who gets to participate in the ideation process of change management.

For many teams, the process of adoption of these new methodologies causes some anxiety. But without a tool supporting your change management processes, over time, you’re likely to develop a risk-averse, siloed attitude towards Salesforce release management. DevOps aims to break down silos and encourage more people to participate in the management of Salesforce.

Salesforce DevOps Encourages Innovation

DevOps is centered around helping you build and adopt a culture, mentality, and processes that encourage innovation. Because you’re in the driver’s seat, you’re able to introduce ideas that help you sustain your workflows more effectively.

Plus, every member of your team can ideate within a trusted process with the appropriate safeguards. This results in a more robust flow of solutions and opportunities for consistent growth and collaboration.

You’re also able to test those solutions without worrying it will drain your team’s time and resources. As a result, you’ll see a positive impact on your team’s bottom line!

Salesforce Admins Can Better Manage Risk

DevOps has the power to transform your company’s perspective on risk aversion. It makes risk aversion a priority starting in the strategy development phase.

When everyone on the team is engaged in spotting and managing risks, the chances of bottlenecks are significantly reduced. Moreover, the changes that are promoted to production are more thoroughly tested.

Prodly for Salesforce Admins

Prodly DevOps was designed with the understanding that not just developers, but also Salesforce admins want to accelerate the pace of innovation without sacrificing trust. It enables Salesforce teams to:

Foster greater collaboration
Create more opportunities for inclusion
Develop goals that focus on empowerment
Maximize overall growth
Clear backlogged projects faster
Change your risk stance from risk averse to willing to experiment

To learn more about how Prodly can support you as an admin and help accelerate your change management, contact us.

FAQs

Can Salesforce admins apply DevOps—or is it just for low-code developers?

Yes, Salesforce admins and other low-code/no-code programmers can apply DevOps processes and leverage DevOps automation tools to optimize their change management process. Learn more about why implementing Salesforce is a good idea for admins.

Why is it important to implement DevOps in Salesforce?

To remain competitive, companies have to innovate how they market and sell things at a rapid pace. DevOps allows businesses to implement streamlined, transparent processes and automate repetitive, error-prone tasks. As a result, businesses can accelerate their change management process, be more innovative, and improve the top line. Learn more about innovation for sales.

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A computer keyboard with a blue return key that says "One Click."

1-Click Scratch Org, Salesforce DevOps

How to Create a Scratch Org With One Click

December 9, 2022 Joe Marshall Leave a comment

Using Prodly, you can quickly and easily create a scratch org with one click, as you can see in the video below.

How to Create a Scratch Org With Clicks, Not Code

To do this yourself, follow these steps:

In Prodly, navigate to the AppOps Release tab and select “Create Scratch.”
Add a name, username, source, and duration.
(Optional) To add a package, activate the “Installed Packages” toggle and select the packages you want to install.
(Optional) To add metadata, activate the “Metadata” toggle and select a comparison view.
(Optional) To add data, activate the “Data” toggle, and select a data set or deployment plan.
Click “Create Scratch Org.”

There you have it! Your scratch org is now created, along with all the metadata, data, and complex relational record data you need. All you have to do is log in and get to work!

FAQs

What is a scratch org?

A scratch org is a temporary environment in Salesforce that you can use to complete small tasks for projects you’re running on an agile methodology. Learn more about scratch orgs.

Why do I need a scratch org?

A scratch org makes your development and release management process faster and more agile. All you have to do is seed it with only the packages, data, and metadata you care about. Then you can use it for up to 30 days, complete and promote your work, and move on. Read more about when to use a scratch org.

Can I use scratch orgs with Salesforce DevOps Center?

Yes, you can. In fact, with the release of DevOps Center, Salesforce makes it easier for you to use them and adhere to DevOps best practices. Get our FREE Ultimate Guide to Salesforce DevOps Center to learn more!

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The importance of version control in Salesforce

Analyze, Best Practices, Salesforce DevOps, Version Control

Versioning and Backup in Salesforce

August 17, 2022 Max Rudman Leave a comment

Versioning tracks the flow of changes in your code, metadata, or configuration data. It’s important because it provides an auditable history of changes. You can refer to this history if you need to roll back to a previous version due to an issue. You can also refer to it for SOX compliance purposes. Versioning also facilitates collaboration.

Backup is the practice of routinely taking a snapshot of your Salesforce org. Its value is that you can use it to restore and recover your records in the event of a disaster.

In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at the definitions of versioning and backup. We’ll examine the importance of backup and source control in Salesforce DevOps. And we’ll describe how to use each of these methods to accelerate development in Salesforce with less risk.

What Is Backup?

A backup is a copy of a portion or all your metadata, configuration data, and transactional data from your production org. You store this backup outside of your Salesforce production org. It allows you to recover and restore your production org to the most recent snapshot if you suffer data loss or corruption.

Data loss can occur due to a serious technical issue, an employee mistake, a bad actor, or even a cyberattack. As such, backup is a critical aspect of data management and data security.

Backing Up Data and Metadata

You need to have a defined backup strategy for both your data and metadata.

Back Up Your Data

To backup your data, you can use:

• Data Export App: Manual or scheduled exports of your data using the UI
• Data Loader: Manual, on-demand exports of your data using the API
• Report Export: Manual, on-demand exports of your data using reports

Many companies back up their data to external cloud storage outside of Salesforce, as well as to hard drives.

Back Up Your Metadata

To backup your metadata, you can use:

• Change sets: Copy metadata from production to a sandbox or Developer environment.
• Sandbox refresh: When you refresh a sandbox, the metadata is automatically copied over.
• Force.com Migration tool: Java/Ant-based command-line utility for moving metadata between a local directory and a salesforce org
• Package Manager: Create an unmanaged package of your metadata to save in Salesforce.

Salesforce Backup and Restore offers backup, recover, and restore for Salesforce. It lets you create backup policies that automatically generate backups. In addition, you can use it to restore data in just a few clicks.

There are also various third party backup solutions available on the AppExchange.

Why Should I Back Up My Salesforce Data?

It’s essential to routinely back up your Salesforce data as a part of your overall data management and security model. There are so many things that can cause data corruption or loss. Think of a bug, technical glitch, virus, or intentional data theft by a bad actor. Backup mitigates the risk.

If part or all of your org is wiped out, your users can’t do their jobs anymore. You lose the record of what you’ve sold and delivered, as well as what the next steps are with a customer. Worse: Your customers would be in for a terrible customer experience. This in turn has a whole host of consequences, including financial, reputational, and even legal repercussions.

When you have your data backed up, you can easily restore it and get back to business as usual. A backup won’t protect you from data corruption or data loss, but it makes it easier to recover from a catastrophic incident.

What Is Versioning?

Versioning is also referred to as version control or source control. It provides a single source of truth, as well as automation, that lets teams make changes to Salesforce faster and more reliably. It also improves collaboration across the team.

What Does Versioning Involve?

Versioning involves maintaining an accurate history of all changes made to how the production org is set up in a shared repository. It automates many of the tasks associated with maintaining an auditable history of the org’s changes.

With this detailed change history, you can easily pinpoint and undo any change when you need to roll back a change in Salesforce.

Backup reverts the entire org to the previous snapshot. In contrast, versioning offers the targeted rollback of specific changes made during development.

Source Control for Low-Code Apps

Pro-code developers have used version control systems (VCS) for decades. However, because Salesforce is a low-code application, source control has only recently become available to low-code admins.

Third-Party Tools for Versioning in Salesforce

There are several third-party tools that provide versioning for Salesforce, like Prodly DevOps. In addition, Salesforce DevOps Center integrates with GitHub, which provides a powerful source repository.

Versioning involves:

Maintaining a Shared Repository

The VCS has to maintain a shared repository for everyone on the team of all project code, metadata, and configuration data on a server. This shared repository must have a form of automatic backup.

Tracking Changes per File

The VCS must track changes per file (such as a metadata component or a Price Rule) that you commit to the repository. This allows you to review a file’s entire history. If you commit multiple files as a bundle, you can see the changes to them, as well. Additionally, it also makes it easier to determine failures from a specific change. Plus, you can easily revert one file or a bundle of files to the previous state… or any state before that.

Storing the Code or Data Somewhere Changes Can Be Detected

The code, metadata, or configuration data must be stored in a place where a build system like Salesforce or VS Code can detect changes to the repository. The build system then automatically triggers a build and an immediate integration test.

Managing Conflicts and Overwrites

The version control system must manage conflicts and overwrites among multiple users. The source control system can do this by leveraging tools that automatically merge changes and detect conflicts. It may also require individual developers to lock the files they’re working on so only they can access them.

Sending Automatic Notifications

The VCS must send automatic notifications to developers when specific files change or when they need to manually resolve merge conflicts.

Why Enable Versioning in a Salesforce Release Pipeline?

Managing Salesforce changes in a source repository is the foundation of automating your release pipeline. To enable true CI/CD, Salesforce or VS Code need to know instantaneously when you’re making changes to the repository. Versioning instantly updates the source code when you make a change. This offers five distinct benefits.

Change History

It maintains a change history, which allows you to restore components or parts of components to before the last change with laser precision.

Collaboration

Versioning facilitates collaboration, because multiple people can seamlessly work on the code, metadata, or configuration data at the same time. They won’t overwrite each other’s changes or introduce changes that could break any functionality.

Change History

It provides an accurate history of the who, what, when, and why of all changes that were made. This is critical in apps like Salesforce CPQ or B2B Commerce that require meticulous change tracking for SOX compliance purposes. The detailed history of changes makes the source repository auditable over time.

Because you add notes when you commit changes, you can link the why of a change to a specific user story.

Troubleshooting

Versioning enables troubleshooting as early as possible in the release pipeline, which helps minimize costs. Because versioning facilitates continuous integration, every change you make triggers an automatic build. It also runs automated tests. If the change causes any kind of conflict or issue, you’ll know about it in just a couple of minutes.

Should I Use Version Control or Backup in Low-Code Salesforce Apps?

Version control and backups are clearly not the same thing. Version control helps accelerate your development cycle, and backups protect you from the consequences of data loss or corruption.

In Salesforce, each method plays an important role:

• To safeguard your transactional Salesforce data such as Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities, back up your data using either data exports or a data backup solution.
• To accelerate development and releases, use source control to manage and version code, metadata, and configuration data.

If you want to adhere to DevOps best practices, you can’t use a backup solution for source control in Salesforce. Why? It doesn’t provide the automation you need for continuous integration. On top of that, a backup solution also doesn’t provide the granular change tracking you need for versioning and compliance.

Continuous Source Control Software for Salesforce

A comprehensive DevOps solution like Prodly DevOps offers the ability to integrate your release pipeline with GitHub, Bitbucket, and Azure. This provides you with meticulous change tracking and version control for metadata and configuration data in Salesforce. It enables fast and easy rollbacks if needed. Plus, it ensures SOX compliance. It also facilitates streamlined collaboration between your team members.

To learn more about Prodly DevOps, request a personalized demo.

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Salesforce DevOps

Salesforce DevOps: What Took So Long?

September 23, 2021 Hayley Coxon Leave a comment

Salesforce DevOps has been a long time coming. However, DevOps has long been a popular methodology for IT teams. So what has caused the slow adoption of DevOps by the Salesforce community?

First, Salesforce isn’t a code-first environment. Second, the production org has always been the source of truth. And third, creating reproducible environments has been extremely challenging.

In this blog, we take a closer look at these factors. Then we explain how Prodly directly addresses each one to facilitate Salesforce DevOps.

3 Reasons Salesforce Was Slow to Adopt DevOps

We can attribute the Salesforce ecosystem’s slow adoption of DevOps to the following key principles.

1. Salesforce Is Not a Code-First Environment

Salesforce is first and foremost a low-code platform. It’s as much declaratively configured as it’s programmatically configured. That’s why it’s such a great tool for low-code developers such as Salesforce admins and citizen developers.

Often, Salesforce admins, business analysts, and project managers have great ideas. Unfortunately, they’re still excluded from conversations due to their inability to work with code-heavy DevOps tools.

To achieve successful adoption of DevOps for any team, low-code and no-code citizen developers must be first-class citizens from the very beginning. This is why Prodly DevOps is designed with the lowest technical user in mind.

2. The Production Org Has Historically Been the Source of Truth

Within Salesforce, we think of production as the source of truth. The problem is that production is always evolving—and there’s no real history of changes.

In DevOps, the code is the source of truth. The code is versioned, and every change is stored in a repository so it’s easy to roll back changes if there’s an error. Think of the “track changes” feature in a document.

For Salesforce DevOps to be successful, we need to version not just the code, but also the declarative configurations.

This is why Prodly helps you version your Salesforce data with GitHub, Azure, and Bitbucket integrations.

3. Creating Reproducible Environments Has Been Challenging

One important DevOps principle is to be able to easily create reproducible environments.

Why? Because by giving each developer their own org, they have a safe place to play around and test new ideas without stepping on each other’s toes. So it’s imperative to be able to quickly spin up and discard new orgs.

Salesforce has sandboxes. However, they’re not truly reproductions of production because they don’t contain all your data.

Even Full Copies get out of sync with production quickly—plus, they can only be refreshed every 30 days.

Salesforce data is highly relational, and those data relationships are hard to maintain org to org. That’s why most companies fall into one of two buckets:

Everyone shares the Full or Partial Copy sandbox. All the work happens here, and people overwrite each other’s work by mistake. This frequently results in access restriction to certain data.
They work in Developer Pro sandboxes without the right test data, meaning they can’t efficiently build new stuff or test it very well.

To be successful with Salesforce DevOps, you need to be able to create true copies of production. What’s more: You need to be able to do this really quickly.

That’s why Prodly Sandbox Management allows you to select, filter, and seed data into any org in minutes. Check out Maximize Your Salesforce Orgs With Sandbox Management to learn more.

Schedule a demo to discover how to enable Salesforce DevOps with Prodly.

Salesforce DevOps, Version Control

Version Control: What Salesforce Admins Need to Know

September 7, 2021 Sandra Hegler Leave a comment

Version control is a critical aspect of software development, and it’s becoming increasingly important in Salesforce change management. In this blog, we discuss what version control is and how it can benefit Salesforce admins.

What Is Version Control?

Version control, sometimes called source control, involves tracking and managing changes to software code to ensure developers are always working on the latest version.

If you only have one software developer writing code, it’s easy for them to keep track of the changes they’re making and how they impact the existing code. However, when multiple developers are working on different parts of the code, it requires much more effort and communication to keep the changes straight.

A version control system or VCS is a tool that makes tracking and managing changes to the code easier for teams.

Teams maintaining Salesforce encounter the same challenges as software developers. There are lots of people working on different parts of the Salesforce instance. Some are pro-code developers working in Apex, while others are admins and citizen developers.

With all these different people working in the same environment, sometimes work is lost or overwritten, and it can be difficult to fix mistakes.

Clearly, for admins following an agile release management methodology, version control is essential.

How Can Admins Benefit from Version Control?

The most important advantage to using a VCS is that it becomes the source of truth—instead of the production org.

This eliminates questions about which version is correct and provides several additional benefits for admins.

Identify Conflicts as They Occur

When you’re working with multiple versions of your project, a VCS lets you make changes without worrying you’ll overwrite work another member of your team is doing. By enabling source control, you remove the anxiety of creating conflict when you implement changes.

Track the Revision History of Changes Over Time

Sometimes, when you’re making changes, you need to refer back to a specific change you scrapped previously. A version control system stores a history of all changes made to the code, so you can easily look them up.

With Prodly, you can effectively “move backward in time.” Then you can pluck out the configurations you need and reconfigure your changes as simply as pointing and clicking.

Work in a Truly Agile Environment

Agile release methodology is based on close collaboration and continuous improvement that you achieve by means of tight feedback cycles. For this methodology to be effective, both developers and admins need to work from the same source code and follow the same process for introducing change.

To achieve this collaborative efficiency, you must reconfigure your workflow. It should be easy for pro-code developers to follow—plus, it should be easily consumable for admins and other no-code team members.

Prodly Makes Version Control Simple

Prodly DevOps is designed to work in conjunction with your Salesforce deployment system, so you don’t have to load up on multiple tools to get the benefits of version control. If you’re an admin, you can simply point and click to complete versioning tasks—as well as version both your data and code.

Request a personalized demo to learn more about implementing Prodly for your team!