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Creating a Salesforce Community: Code vs Configuration
The document discusses the Salesforce Community Cloud, which allows employees, customers, and partners to connect outside internal systems. It outlines different implementation options for communities, comparing configurations using Salesforce tabs, templates, and custom Visualforce pages, highlighting pros and cons for each approach. The content emphasizes the varying levels of customization available and the technical skills required for implementation.
Creating a Salesforce Community: Code vs Configuration
- 1. Creating a SalesforceCommunity: Code vs Configuration Michael Welburn Senior Technical Architect, 7Summits michael.welburn@7summitsinc.com @MichaelWelburn
- 2. Michael Welburn Senior TechnicalArchitect, 7Summits
- 3. What are Communities? SalesforceCommunity Cloud offers a place for your employees, customers, and partners to connect outside the scope of your internal systems (but controlled and managed via your Salesforce org). Objects and records can be shared from your internal users with the community users Chatter Groups and Messaging are scoped to the Community Collaboration and self-service are some of the primary use cases Communities can be spun up and configured in a variety of different manners depending on level of customization necessary.
- 4. Standard tabs &page layouts Can configure light branding, including header & footer Configuration over code WYSIWYG editor Ability to leverage existing widgets Configuration over code Customize business logic with Apex & Visualforce Full use of custom HTML / CSS / Javascript Code in addition to configuration Salesforce Tabs Community Templates Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce Any CommunityEmployee / Partner Community Self-Service / Customer Community Implementation Options
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- 6. Salesforce Tabs Out-of-the-box Salesforcetabs, list views, & page layouts. Supports standard platform self-service functionality. Pros: Basic theming options available out-of-the-box for tabs (including custom header) Support for all sales, service, marketing, and platform features (depending on license) Full Force.com platform capability Cons: Visualforce is the preferred approach for better customization, yet Visualforce requires coding capability Requires some knowledge of the Force.com platform
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- 8. Community Templates Can choosepreconfigured templates for creating your community that leverages a WYSIWYG user interface editor. Alternatively, can leverage Site.com Studio for more granular edits. Pros: Out-of-box app targeted at self-service communities More CSS styles available Great for a quick rollout of a simple self-service community user case Cons: Limited to self-service functionality today (cases, Salesforce Knowledge, Chatter Answers) Doesn’t support other sales, service, or platform use cases Doesn’t have full platform capability
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- 10. Salesforce Tabs +Visualforce Mix out-of-the-box Salesforce tabs, list views, and page layouts with custom Visualforce pages. Pros: Full support for interface and business logic customization Support for all sales, service, marketing, and platform features (depending on license) Full Force.com platform capability Cons: Requires development background for Apex & Visualforce customization Requires knowledge of the Force.com platform
- 11. Salesforce Tabs +Visualforce Demo
- 12. Portal for usersfamiliar with Salesforce UI Can leverage existing Salesforce infrastructure (workflows, validations, etc.) No ability to implement page- level customizations beyond page layout modifications Currently geared towards self- service Prettier, more extensible version of Salesforce Tabs (future) Doesn’t yet have the full featured customization of Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce Supports complex, page-driven business logic Complete customization of the interface is possible Salesforce Tabs Community Templates Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce Any CommunityEmployee / Partner Community Self-Service / Customer Community Summary
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Editor's Notes
- #4 Use security settings to obscure certain objects, set specific access defaults, etc. Basically can create a mini-Salesforce for your target audience, all hosted on the Salesforce platform. Can create multiple communities, and people can be in one or many based on configuration
- #5 Salesforce Tabs - Easily administrable community that does not require any Apex or Visualforce. - The look & feel are standard tabs and page layouts, with some light branding ability (header, login page colors) - Good starter community; you can always make it fancier later - Works well for people familiar with Salesforce, or who can be trained to it Community Templates - Administrable without Apex or Visualforce - WYSIWYG branding options - Extendable with lightning components in the future will add a lot more customization - Napili template is meant for Self-Service community Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce - Completely customizable, but requires Apex and Visualforce knowledge - Can leverage the basic Salesforce Tabs and add a Visualforce tab, or you can go all out and rebrand the entire experience - Can use any of your favorite JS / CSS frameworks
- #6 Community Templates are built on top of Site.com. Site.com allows more granular customizations via a WYSIWYG type of editor if you need to change the look and feel of Community Templates beyond the configurable options provided, but it can get a little overwhelming if you aren’t well versed in it. Salesforce Tabs & Tabs + Visualforce are built on the same architectural platform, Force.com Sites. All of the options support standard Salesforce functionality like authentication, record access security, multilingual translations, custom login pages, and access to objects on the platform.
- #7 More easily integrates with Salesforce1 app due to lack of custom pages. Standard pages are not responsive. Does require some configuration of the downloaded Salesforce1 app to point to the community URL. Ability to use individual Visualforce based tabs if necessary. Can leverage CSS in the header to “tweak” the header/tabs/etc UI, but not officially supported. Great way to start up a community, since the functionality won’t be “lost” if you want to upgrade to a custom Visualforce based site later, only enhanced.
- #9 Templates are responsive (unless you mess it up in Site.com Studio) - Salesforce1 not a good option With Site.com Studio, you can get closer to a fully custom implementation, but it can’t implement custom interfaces driven by business logic quite like Visualforce can today. - Mention Lightning components for future extensibility All you have to do is spin it up, set up some configurable branding, and start seeding support documentation
- #11 Setup is the same as Salesforce Tabs, however you can extend the customization with Visualforce tabs…or you can go all out and remove the header and tabs completely. Salesforce1 is not an ideal mobile experience - Salesforce1 app won’t look anything like your custom site - Can build responsive pages for mobile site. - Can leverage Mobile SDK to build a hybrid app