💃 Before You Go Looking for Solutions in the AppExchange... 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! According to AppExchange, 91% of Salesforce customers use AppExchange apps. Like your iPhone, there are apps you love, apps you hated and dumped, and everything in between. This may be a similar case with yours or your client's Salesforce org. How are you deciding to use an app from the AppExchange?

Agenda for today includes

• AppExchange - the Numbers

• Why You Should Pause Before Downloading and Installing that AppExchange App

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

AppExchange - The Numbers

• 10MM+ app downloads

• 4000+ applications

• 1200+ applications are FREE

• 91% of Salesforce customers use an AppExchange app

Salesforce's AppExchange is one of the largest and most successful Application Marketplaces in the world.

Before You Go Looking for Solutions in the AppExchange

Salesforce is a POWERFUL platform. With a large suite of configurable settings, pseudo-dev tools like Flows, and development tools like Apex Classes and Lightning Web Components. The on-platform solutions are robust.

If the platform is so great, why are there 4000+ apps available in the AppExchange? An admin or developer is able to build solutions within their org, but why, when someone has already done it? Some examples of drop-in solutions from the app store include -

• Support operations solutions for Project Management or Helpdesk Ticketing.

• Report and Dashboard package solutions.

• Connectors for common external apps like Company Email and Customer Payment solutions.

Fine! Dandy! However....these apps will go under the same microscope, that is the users, as the rest of the Salesforce org. All user's needs are not created equal, and that app you downloaded may have some configurability or it may be static.

Will that AppExchange meet the needs of your users? First, you will need to gather the requirements. Your next step could be to design and build your own solution, or head to the AppExchange to see if someone else has already solved this problem. What are the pros and cons of each?

Scenario 1 - Admin creates their own solution

Pros-

• Ability to document the design and build. This is good for maintenance and supportability.

• Ability to meet business requirements that an AppExchange app may not.

• The experience of creating the solution. Admins wanna configure! Developers wanna code!

Cons-

• Possible that you are recreating the wheel - something may already exist in the AppExchange, and it may even be better than what you can do.

• The time and effort required to design and build.

• In the case of Integration/Connector solutions, like for Microsoft Outlook, there is significant development effort that is not reasonably available for an internal resource.

Scenario 2 - Admin researches and finds solutions on AppExchange

Pros-

• Exposure to the various apps that align with the business need.

• Reduce time and effort of creating something yourself.

• Complex solutions, like Integrations/Connectors, are available and often built by the app's vendor, so it is supported.

Cons-

• If the app, whether static or configurable, does not meet the business requirements, then the users will need to be ok with that, or you will need to build on top of the app.

• The app is no longer supported by the vendor (perhaps the vendor went out of business or they stopped supporting this specific app), so if there is a Salesforce release that impacts the functionality of the app, then boohoo.

• $$$$$ - some apps are free, most are not. If the app is priced per license, and you have 200 users that need it, times the price, per month, it can be very expensive. However, there are certainly cases where the cost of the application outweighs the cost of building a solution in-house.

Daily Principle

💰Money Quotes💰

and now....Your Daily Memes