💃 Build healthy solutions with Salesforce Well-Architected 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds!

You’ve heard us tout the benefits of following development frameworks. 🏗️ 

Frameworks provide guidance, resources, reusable concepts/components, and tools to help solve problems.

In short, they’re awesome. 🤙

Did you know there’s also a framework for Salesforce architects?

Today we’re going to check out Salesforce Well-Architected! 👇️ 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Build healthy solutions with Salesforce Well-Architected

• What is Salesforce Well-Architected?

• How can it help?

• Trusted

• Easy

• Adaptable

What is it

What is Salesforce Well-Architected?

In short, Salesforce Well-Architected is a framework aimed at guiding architectural decisions on the platform.

It shows you what a healthy implementation looks like and where to spend your time when designing your solutions. 🔥 

Used the right way, this framework is like having another architect on your team.

It’ll give you recommendations and opinionated views that can either validate or challenge your thinking. 🤔 

It’s a common practice.

In fact, all the main players have their own Well-Architected frameworks:

✅ AWS Well-Architected

✅ Azure Well-Architected

✅ IBM Well-Architected

Yeah, even IBM.

Salesforce is no different.

Why should I care

How can it help?

Long story, short. It’s designed to help step you through the architectural thinking required to build solid solutions on top of the platform. 🪜 

One of the unique challenges for Salesforce architects is the flexibility of the platform.

One solution might extend a pre-built service offered by Salesforce - like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, etc.

Another might be a completely custom app. 🤷 

Maybe one extends a managed package …

The point is this:

What we can do with Salesforce is broad and deep, and the specific technology choices that best suit your implementation will depend on business needs. 💯 

It’s next to impossible to know what will create the best chance of long-term health for every possible Salesforce solution.

Salesforce Well-Architected will help you navigate these waters with following three pillars. 🚢 

Trust me

Trusted

Trusted solutions protect the business and stakeholders. A solution well-architected to be Trusted is secure, compliant, and reliable.

🔒️ Secure solutions control access and protect data

🤝 Compliant solutions follow legal and ethical guidelines

🏦 Reliable solutions operate efficiently and dependably

This takes careful planning.

It requires understanding the full context of the business/industry you’re building for.

Get with your stakeholders throughout your business. This will help you develop a clear view of what users/systems you’ll be servicing as well as the data and permissions needed. ⛰️ 

Take it Easy

Easy

Easy solutions deliver value fast. ⏩️ A solution well-architected to be Easy is intentional, automated, and engaging.

🧠 Intentional solutions deliver business value immediately and over time

🤖 Automated solutions enable the business to get work done faster and at scale

😃 Engaging solutions delight users and drive adoption

This is not always a simple thing to pull off.

Think about the flexibility of the Salesforce platform and all the different ways admins and developers can automate things.

Not to mention how implementation details can wildly differ between orgs.

Easy architectures require smarter and difficult trade-off analysis and conversations with your stakeholders. 😵‍💫 

Make sure you understand the priorities of your business. Know your users - their preferences, their needs, their day-to-day realities. This will set you on the right path.

Learn to adapt

Adaptable

Adaptable solutions evolve with the business. A solution well-architected to be adaptable is resilient and composable.

🌳 Resilient solutions handle change well

🧩 Composable solutions adjust quickly and with greater stability

Change is constant. And it can come from any source - customer requests, market/industry disruption, or digital transformation opps.

Sometimes changes are small. Sometimes, they’re not. 😨 

Change at the larger levels can mean businesses need to rethink and shift their means/reasons for operating or to reevaluate the what, how, and where of their offerings.

An adaptable solution won’t just help your business survive and recover from disruptions like this, it can create the potential for businesses to innovate and thrive in times of profound change. 💥 

This is the fun part of architecting solutions. You need to think precisely and creatively. Start by thinking in terms of people, processes, and technology stacks.

Soul food

Today’s Principle

and now....Salesforce Memes