3 Important Salesforce Optimization Tips

Everyone loves Salesforce, and given that CRM has become one of the central backbones of the business world in modernity, that’s a major complement to the developers of that flexible, nigh limitless design. With its intuitive app exchange network, fully exposed API, and a core of rich and multi-faceted standard CRM features, it’s good. It’s damn good, in fact. But, when it comes to Salesforce optimization, it’s a bit of a pickle. Salesforce already, out of the box, work remarkably well. It’s very fast, it’s very strong and it’s incredibly efficient. Salesforce optimization shouldn’t be needed, for basic use, if you install it properly, and choose wisely the server and operating system you use to support the implementation. But, the trick is, once you get into making custom forms, custom reports and adding new extensions, dashboards or other technologies, it can become less efficient. This is the same problem training has, with software this readily reshaped at its core. So, what can you do to further optimize a system like this? Well, there’s no specific set of tasks you can just get up and go do to “optimize Salesforce this week”. It’s more about bearing things in mind as you do things, to keep it optimized. #1 – Avoiding Redundancies Avoiding redundancies is the first thing to bear in mind for optimizing this software. When you go to make a custom form, or a custom report, or a custom control, be sure to make sure that one just like it, or remarkably similar, is not already in existence and accessible to those who will be accessing what you want to make. Following this logic, be sure to do routine maintenance to eliminate duplicate records, campaigns and other data stored within tables. This prevents the data from being updated wrong, reduces the bulk (and indexing times), and generally makes the storage and retrieval aspects much faster. #2 – Only Apps You Need With the App Exchange offering an app to make Salesforce do everything aside from serve you coffee, it’s easy to get carried away with things. I see this happen with other designs that use the “app” model of program delivery, such as mobile platforms and modern game consoles as well. It’s best to remember to install apps that you absolutely need, and will use frequently, and to not tack on every “neat” free or really cheap one you can. Most apps on the exchange are really well designed, but some of them are actually kind of redundant (as we’ve seen in a couple of our recent interviews). #3 – Sequential Forms In stead of making your forms absurdly complex and crowded with fields and elements, which slows down not only the framework, but the browser and user, in stead consider sequential forms that have a bit more white space, but also load much faster, making the entire task much cleaner. If you follow these practices as you use Salesforce’s open endedness to increase your capacity and capabilities, you’ll keep it efficient like it was when it was new. Salesforce optimization is more preventative and forethought centered than it is a task to go through now and then. It’s not like tuning an instrument or a car, alas. Get more Salesforce tips.
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Amanda is the Lead Author & Editor of Rainforce Blog. Amanda established the Rainforce blog to create a source for news and discussion about some of the issues, challenges, news, and ideas relating to Salesforce usage.