If your business is operating the world’s leading CRM – Salesforce and you’re interested in expanding the solution or further integrating it with your business, then you may or may not have been recommended using a ‘Salesforce Developer’ (SD). As Salesforce Consultants, we find many businesses are not very familiar with the role of a Salesforce Developer and the practical improvements they can bring to a CRM investment. In this blog, we discuss the role of a Salesforce Developer, their knowledge and how they can support your CRM investment.
What is a Salesforce Developer?
In simple terms, a Salesforce Developer is someone who is able to develop and build bespoke and custom applications for Salesforce – usually using the Salesforce Force Platform. A developer will usually have a very strong knowledge of Visualforce and be able to code using the APEX programming language – considered to be the world’s first on-demand programming language. However, that’s not the only programming knowledge usually required to be a Salesforce Developer. Most will also possess a relatively strong knowledge of Java and C# as well as other languages.
A Salesforce Developer will always have a very strong understanding of Salesforce and all of its current functionality. Their main role is to extend this current functionally and build on Salesforce applications to make the investment in the CRM more worthwhile.
What can a Salesforce developer do with Salesforce?
Build Additional Functionality: The most important responsibility of any Salesforce Developer is to build new Salesforce functionality in sandbox with Visualforce or Apex. Whilst standard Salesforce roll out already comes with an array of features, a developer will be able to add extra features specific to a business’s requirements. Once a feature has been built, it is given to the Salesforce Administrator for a scheduled deployment.
A Closer Business – Customer Relationship: It’s common for businesses to use a Salesforce Developer to customise Salesforce applications and make the best use of point-and-click capabilities of the Salesforce platform. Customisation will usually be in coherence with a customers’ specifications and requirements – making the business – customer/lead relationship closer.
Further Integration: Salesforce uses several Application Programming Interfaces (API) to access a company’s information and data. This allows Salesforce to be integrated fairly easily with a company’s architecture. A Salesforce developer can look after and control the adaptability of these API’s, ensuring seamless integration into surrounding solutions and architecture.
New Salesforce Developments: Salesforce Developers are regularly used to create and build new bespoke Salesforce solutions, that enable a business to operate more efficiently. These new solutions can range from small projects, which will be taken on by a single developer, or large-scale development projects which will be taken on by large teams of developers. Typically, an SD will serve as the project lead for new Salesforce projects.
Testing and Fixing Solutions: When a company is looking to expand its Salesforce solution, there will undoubtedly be bugs as new bespoke solutions are added. Bug Fixing is a key role for a Salesforce Developer. As bugs arise, a developer will be able to fix them, but without using a developer, a company could expect to meet some further problems down the line as bugs arise. For a perfectly functioning CRM with lots of bespoke features – using a developer is crucial.
At Purus, we offer Salesforce Development for a range of business industries. For more information on Salesforce Development or to discuss a new project, please get in touch with our team.