Every business is unique. They goods and services they offer their customers and clients are distinctive and come with their own specific needs. Generic functions might not suit every business venture in the optimal way.
Customization in business applications is essential to tailoring service to your particular needs. Developers address this need by instituting updates and alterations in order to best serve the requirements of a business.
This is where Salesforce Apex comes in. It is a programming language specifically designed for Salesforce’s development platform Lightning.
Writing code is a specialized skill. It is not the type of activity that can be quickly picked up by the average person. This has historically meant that developing business applications or altering existing applications could only be done by a select few.
Apex was designed to change that. As stated on the Salesforce website:
“Apex is a strongly typed, object-oriented programming language that allows developers to execute flow and transaction control statements on the Lightning platform server in conjunction with calls to the Lightning Platform API.”
Developers are able to add business logic to most events in their system such as button clicks and record updates. The syntax itself is similar to Java and acts like a database stored procedure.
Here are 8 benefits you can expect from using Salesforce Apex:
1. User-friendly
Programming takes a long time to learn and years to master. Salesforce Apex seeks to shorten this learning period by utilizing a more user-friendly language.
One of the ways it does this it to introduce new elements by utilizing syntax and semantics:
“The syntax of a programming language describes which strings of characters comprise a valid program. The semantics of a programming language describes what syntactically valid programs mean, what they do.”
This helps to produce code that is concise and easy to write.
2. Easily Tested
Bad code can have widespread effects. Introducing new code needs to go through a quality control step in order to ensure everything is arranged and written properly.
Apex accounts for this by providing unit test creation and execution through built-in support.
Users receive a report analyzing the results of the test. It provides an explanation of the scope of the analyzed code as well as suggestions for which parts can be made more efficient.
Unit tests are performed on Apex code structures before integration of any upgrades to the platform.
3. Multitenancy
Multitenancy refers to a single instance of software that is able to serve multiple tenants from a server. This allows a provider to make updates one time and share it with all the tenants. There are other benefits such as shared maintenance costs.
Apex operates in a multitenant environment. This means the runtime engine sets and enforces limits on inserted code to prevent runaway processes dominating shared resources.
Code that is found to violate these limits will be met with an error message and fail.
4. Built-in Support
Salesforce is known for its ample support features. There are plenty of available features that can give even the most inexperienced user the direction they need to answer any question.
Salesforce offers a comprehensive help section devoted solely to Apex. You’ll find explanations of the basic layout of Apex, as well as resources for writing code, debugging code, testing your changes, and managing scratch orgs.
There are a lot of possibilities when integrating new code into your Salesforce experience. These resources can guide you through many circumstances that confuse newcomers and veterans alike.
5. Easy Updates with Triggers
Insertions, updates, and deletions are occasionally essential in order to preserve the functionality of your system. This also helps to customize the functionality and get the most from the platform.
Triggers can be used to perform operations, restrict operations, or modify related records when specific conditions are present. They can also be used to execute DML, SOQL and custom Apex methods.
Point and click tools are very useful in Salesforce, but they can’t do everything. Triggers can be used to perform functions not available through point and click.
6. Secure Platform
Salesforce is widely known for its functionality and benefits it can provide to users. It’s also well known for the security levels maintained for the platform. Apex is used within the grand scope of Salesforce, and therefore falls under the protective shield of the platform.
Information and metadata can be used for a variety of purposes. This is why metadata is often a target of cybercriminals. This detailed information relating to every movement and utilization of Apex needs to be protected, and Salesforce does just that.
7. Access to the Backend of Salesforce
Improving and customizing the functionality of your processes can be addressed through the backend of your Salesforce platform. We’ve already discussed the utility of triggers, but there is much more that can be done beyond that.
Anonymous blocks can be complied and instituted without the need for storage. This is useful for quick fixes or even to send out emails.
Other potential tools include:
- Event-driven Deployment
- Email Processing
- Controllers in MVC Patterns
- And more
8. Confident Deployments
Integrating new lines of code run the risk of going beyond being unproductive—and in fact being harmful—if they aren’t properly verified for accuracy.
Testing your code prior to deployment is the best way to find any potential errors and to see how it will work alongside existing code.
Apex helps to establish proper coding practices by integrating testing into the standard order of operations. Not only do coders produce reliable and better code, they establish a methodology that facilitates advantageous products.
The Necessity of DevOps
While Salesforce Apex offers a long list of benefits, there’s a simple fact to keep in mind—Salesforce was built to be a CRM, not a development platform.
And while Salesforce has taken great measures to increase the usability of their platform, there’s an entire suite of tools missing to properly act as a development platform. This includes items such as:
- Version control
- Audit trail
- Data recovery
- Test automation
- Data archiving
- And more
The best way to ensure proper usage of the power of Salesforce Apex is to utilize additional tools to account for these gaps in the platform.