💃 Salesforce Architect Decision Guides Unlocked 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! In my 20+ years in tech, I’ve seen countless times when the business stakes a claim …

“We need this feature yesterday!” ‼️ 

And I’m standing there juggling trade-offs, limits, and future cost. 😰 

That’s where the Salesforce “Architect Decision Guides” (ADGs) come in.

These are curated, opinionated resources created by Salesforce’s architecture and product-teams to help you make intentional tool-and-pattern decisions rather than “It depends” guesses. 😌 

In short: they’re your decision framework for Salesforce architecture.

Helping you evaluate trade-offs, choose the right tool, and document that choice so you can defend it. 👇️ 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

💃 Salesforce Architect Decision Guides Unlocked 🕺

• Why They Matter

• Core Components

• How They Work in Your Process

• Common Use Cases & Picking the Right Guide

• Conclusion

STOP REINVENTING THE WHEEL

WHY THEY MATTER

I’ve built on .NET, SQL Server, AWS, Mulesoft and many, many other platforms.

I know how one wrong decision ripples across data volume, performance, maintenance, tech debt. 💯 

On Salesforce, the platform offers many paths (declarative vs code, batch vs near-real time, forms vs components). It can be tricky to implement the right thing.

The Decision Guides narrow down the noise. 👍️ 

For example:

• The “Record-Triggered Automation” guide clearly states that for same-record field updates, before-save Flow is preferred over Workflow/Process Builder.

• The “Data Integration” guide warns: avoid needless replication unless you really need it; consider virtualization with Salesforce Connect.

They save you guess-work and help align with the long-term architecture strategy instead of tactical chaos. 🛣️ 

Architect Pro Tip: Keep the chosen Decision Guide link in your design docs. When someone asks, “Why did you pick this pattern?”, you pull the guide, show the trade-offs matrix, and voilà. Instant alignment.

WHAT’S INSIDE THE GUIDES

CORE COMPONENTS

 Each Guide typically has the following building blocks: 🧩 

• Context & decision-points: What problem are we solving? What are the typical scenarios? For example, the “Building Forms” guide starts by asking: single vs multiple objects? Modalizing? Mobile vs external website?

• Tool comparison matrix / trade-off table: Low-code vs pro-code; features vs performance; license cost vs maintainability. These help you see “if I do this, I trade that.”

• Best-practice narrative and patterns: Not just “you can” but “you should (and here’s why)”. E.g., the Async guide says asynchronous processing has no SLA, so if user-wait or immediate response is required, choose synchronous.

• “When Not to Use” section: Because every architectural pattern has anti-patterns. The Event-Driven guide lists cases where event-driven is not appropriate.

• Roadmap / future capability notes: You get notion of what’s “Available”, “Roadmap”, “Future” so you plan with your eyes open.

• Pointers and links to deeper detail: Studio links, pattern docs, monitoring/ops considerations.

These components give you a tool-agnostic way to think through choices. 👈️ 

Exactly the kind of structured thinking you value coming from full-stack architecture.

EMBED THEM IN THE DESIGN RYTHM

HOW THEY WORK IN YOUR PROCESS

Here’s how you, as a Salesforce Architect, can use ADGs in your lifecycle:

1. Requirement capture – If the business says “We need it fast, real-time, multiple systems,” you internally ask: what decision guide(s) apply? E.g., Data Integration, Event-Driven, Async.

2. Brainstorm options – Use the trade-off tables in the guides to map options: e.g., use Flow or Apex? Use Batch or Pub/Sub? Use replication or virtualization?

3. Evaluate with criteria – The guides help you evaluate: scalability, governance, skills required, cost, SLA. (Link to the anatomy of a good decision: viable + feasible + desirable.)

4. Select and document – Choose a pattern/tool, document your reasoning citing the guide’s matrix. The “why” will stand up in peer reviews or auditors.

5. Design & implement – Use the patterns and anti-patterns in the guide to shape your code, your Flow architecture, your integrations.

6. Post-go-live review – The guide’s roadmap helps you revisit choices later. Are we still aligned? Should we migrate to newer pattern? For instance, if you used PushTopic for events, the Event-Driven guide now recommends Pub/Sub API for new work.

Architect Pro Tip: When you deliver your architecture diagram, include a footnote like “Based on Salesforce Architect Decision Guide: Record-Triggered Automation (June 2025)”. It shows you’re aligning with platform guidance and adds professionalism.

MATCH NEED TO GUIDE SMARTLY

COMMON USE CASES & PICKING THE RIGHT GUIDE

Here are common Salesforce-architect scenarios and how to use Decision Guides:

• Choosing automation tool: Business wants immediate updates when a record changes. Use Record-Triggered Automation Decision Guide. As we saw: before-save Flow for same record, after‐save Flow + Apex for more complex.

• Designing integration: You must sync data between Salesforce and other systems daily/near-real time. Use Data Integration Decision Guide to decide virtualization vs replication, middleware vs direct API.

• Architecting event-driven systems: You’re building loosely-coupled services, messaging between orgs, real-time responses. Use Event-Driven Architecture Decision Guide. Trade-offs: asynchronous nature, skill sets, message structure governance.

• Building user forms: You must provide screen flows on mobile, external site, or nested navigation. Use Building Forms Decision Guide to choose between Dynamic Forms, Flow, LWC etc.

• Platform strategy for new features: For example, provisioning strategy for Salesforce Data Cloud (“Data 360 Provisioning Decision Guide”) for multi-org architecture—found recently.

In each case the logic is: define the decision, pick the relevant guide, review trade-off matrix, pick tool & pattern, document it, implement.

YOUR ARCHITECTURE COMPASS

CONCLUSION

Throughout my career, I’ve learned one truth: the right tool is only right if it fits the context, team skill-set, and future roadmap. 🔥 

The Salesforce Architect Decision Guides are like a seasoned mentor stepping in and whispering in your ear, “Here are the trade-offs you’ll face, here’s how platform-teams see things, here’s what to watch out for.”

By embedding these guides into your Salesforce architecture process you gain clarity, you raise the quality of decisions, you reduce technical debt, and you earn the trust of stakeholders who hear “Here’s why we chose this path, and here’s the document to prove it.” 💥 

So bookmark those guides, reference them early, and let them sharpen your architecture decisions.

For today and for the releases ahead. 🤩 

Now … go forth and architect with purpose.

SOUL FOOD

Today’s Principle

and now....Salesforce Memes