Salesforce Integration Best Practices

I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately to talk about Salesforce integration best practices. My response has been “I’ll get to that when there’s something worthwhile to say, and well-tested by a majority of experts.” And now there is. I am going to discuss Salesforce integration best practices from my own understanding of SaaS integration and the software itself. Allow me one caveat: nobody’s been very specific in what they mean by integration, so I’m going to be pretty general here, in order to sure I Definition 1 The first thing, when it comes to Salesforce integration, is the use of its API and SDK, Apex. This system enables the use of dotnet applications, as well as AJAX and PHP services, to work with Salesforce. It allows for the creation of widgets and controls that add a lot of automation and/or UI flair to the basic Salesforce system. Some examples of this integration, in practice, are: automatic mailing lists, compatibility with POS systems and BI systems, as well as help desks. (Be absolutely certain that you’re using standard APIs and compliant libraries). Truth be told, there are other API sets and library kits which can work with Salesforce and Apex, but there’s no guarantee these will work properly with all standard platforms. Definition 2 The other big definition of Salesforce integration is the use of onboard systems that can be integrated with Salesforce. A great example is the tutorial/self help service system called WalkMe. This guidance system is a useful application for teaching Salesforce –in real time-while trainees get actual work done in the process. It gives them real experience, learning by doing. (WalkMe can actually prevent damaging mistakes while trainees work on live data). When it comes to integrating Salesforce with onboard systems; it’s important to make sure that the elements in your forms are clearly labeled and tagged. It’s mandatory that these labels be W3C compliant as well. This ensures that all platforms can run WalkMe and Salesforce across the board. Outlined above are 2 important Salesforce integration best practices, for either definition of the term. Hopefully this article will get the ball rolling, and help people get the most out of Salesforce.