Key Differences You Should Know About Salesforce Configuration and Salesforce Customization

Salesforce proves to be the leading CRM platform where businesses continuously achieve their pinnacle of success. As a compelling platform, Salesforce is easily configurable and can be customized effortlessly to fulfill organizational goals and objectives. But off the track Salesforce applications might be limited in potential when it comes to unique business challenges. You need to configure your application to ensure optimal performance, maintainability, and platform limits for your Salesforce projects. The configuration and customization of the Salesforce platform all center around aligning existing or creating new functionalities in Salesforce so that users can make the most of their Salesforce investment.

Before touching on the best practices involved in Salesforce customization and configuration, let us understand the difference between Salesforce customization and configuration, as many use these terms interchangeably.

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What is Salesforce Configuration?

Salesforce configuration is carried out within your CRM system. Formula and specific rules are applied to add new fields to your Salesforce system to achieve business outcomes. Simply put, the configuration in Salesforce means that user-defined values enable certain modules or features to function. You can configure and create the best business practices to double up your ROI by utilizing built-in tools, features, and components. Configuration involves complex functionalities, and this problem can be resolved by hiring a trusted and certified Salesforce Consulting Partner.

Configuring existing applications to create new functionalities is very cost-effective compared to customizing, as configuring uses the built-in tools, features, and components to stabilize the process. Furthermore, the process's risk is meager and causes less disruption.

To get a better view, some of the areas where configuration in Salesforce is carried out are,

• Setting up an email
• Making changes in workflows
• Creating additional reports
• Tweaking the fields
• Modifying the UI
• Changing page layouts

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What is Salesforce Customization?

Salesforce Customization refers to adding new functionality or unavailable features in the existing application environment. It is the process of coding and developing custom software for your CRM platform to add powerful features. These features can be integrated with your business to have a scalable impact. Usually, these actions aren’t possible with your off-the-shelf Salesforce application. With customization it is possible to extend the functionality of your CRM and expanding the scope of your business tasks.

With customization, you can improvise the UI performance that suits your team. When AppExchange doesn’t have a readymade solution to fulfill your need, you can make use of the integration of third-party applications to customize your solution. You can develop low-code apps using customization and create new functionalities using Force.com.

Some of the areas that use customizations are as follows.

• Apex Classes
• Apex triggers
• Third-party integrations
• Visual force emails
• Changing page layout using CSS
• Building visual force pages

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How do they work?

Salesforce Configurations necessitate the involvement of diverse switches and setups within the Salesforce program, which can be properly managed from the control panel. Someone best does this with the appropriate training to manage the Salesforce platform.

Salesforce Customizations are created with custom code to change the platform's functionality. Companies mostly or entirely composed of sales representatives with complex sales funnels should consider customization instead of configuration.

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When to choose Salesforce Configuration?

It is beneficial to choose the Salesforce configuration under the following circumstances.

• To use in-built tools, functionalities, and modules to their fullest potential.
• To streamline business processes by implementing some logic to the Salesforce application.
• To generate custom functionality for multiple users.
• To complete a task with the limited availability of time, budget, and resources.

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When to choose Salesforce Customization?

Choose Salesforce Customization when,

• Integration of third-party applications is needed.
• Integration of third-party applications is needed.
• You cannot achieve customer satisfaction through configuration.
• You need to stabilize your business processes with a robust CRM system.
• The workflows are complex.
• New functionalities that support the sales teams operations are a need.
• Calculation intensive features.
• The resources, time, and budget are boundless.

In some cases, a mixed solution combining configuration and customization is needed to fulfill the requirements.

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Advantages of Salesforce Configuration

• It supports different kinds of users.
• It is highly flexible, and the rest of the application is not affected.
• It can be reused for future operations.
• Multiple approaches were possible.
• Prevents duplication of code.

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Disadvantages of Salesforce Configuration

• It can be complex to build and difficult to maintain.
• As each of the components is to be considered, testing becomes complex.
• Multiple approaches can destabilize the code.

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Advantages of Salesforce Customization

• Caters to the exact need of the customers and so customer satisfaction and retention are higher.
• Unique solution for a business case and hence easy to build.
• It does not affect the rest of the application.
• It focuses on a single customer base.
• Best fit for system integration and website customization.

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Disadvantages of Salesforce Customization

• It isn't easy to maintain.
• The scalability of applications in the future is risky.
• Endless customization can make future scalability a risk and hard to maintain.

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Chosen best features of Salesforce Configuration

1. Themes and layouts

The Salesforce platform contains built-in themes and layouts that help make it more interactive and innovative. These can be done by leveraging the configurations for changing the layouts and themes in the configuration in Salesforce.

2. Changing logos

This is one of the most compelling features used in Salesforce Configuration. As per your organization's requirement or scenario, you can change company logos and choose where it has to be displayed.

3. Custom objects and field levels

Configuring Salesforce to add field levels and custom objects can easily be done to streamline the workflows and maximize the potential.

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Chosen best features of Salesforce Customizations

1. Custom Portal

The Salesforce Custom portal is a great way to improve end-user experience. Different portals can be customized, e.g., the Custom Client portal will make things more convenient for both clients and yourself, while the Salesforce employees or Salesforce Partners portal helps to streamline communications among teams or partners and promote business growth; This makes the Salesforce Custom portal valuable among other Salesforce customization features.

2. Custom Dashboards

With the effective use of custom dashboards, you can get a 360-degree view of all your business processes and opportunities. Once you have a Salesforce customized dashboard, you can represent data interactively; This will set you up to see increased productivity and efficiency from your teams. Create custom modules using customized dashboards to keep track of your leads, buyers, sellers, brokers, list of properties, agents, etc.

3. Custom views

Salesforce Custom views is another effective solution that can elevate your business performance. With this, your customers can have a more cohesive customer experience and amplify the functionality of your Salesforce by providing more functionalities such as list views, custom forms, options to upload attachments, etc.

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The Bottom Line!

It is essential to know the difference between Salesforce Customization and Configuration, as both could be essential to achieve your set business objectives. The concepts surrounding managing configuration and customization in Salesforce CRM are easy to understand and implement. Thus, identifying the right solutions while considering your business requirements will help you leverage your Salesforce CRM system.