Salesforce apps are a way bigger deal than you believe they are. Some projections say Salesforce's AppExchange market share will be worth millions of dollars by 2028.
Salesforce is the biggest name in the consumer relationship management (CRM) game. This has been around since 1999, after all. One thing that means it is very easy to conform to changing tech needs? Its app ecosystem.
But these apps may be built-in many different ways applooter. The most frequent apps are generally custom-coded by a 3rd party, or built elsewhere and connected via a credit card applicatoin programming interface (API).
We'd argue that the best are native Salesforce apps. They're built entirely within the Salesforce platform, and let admins expand the software's core functionality without compromising on speed or security.
There are tons of benefits to native salesforce apps, and we'll get for them in a minute. First, let's go over some basics.
Types of Salesforce Apps: A Rundown
You will find over 4000 apps listed in Salesforce's AppExchange. You will find a lot more custom possibilities that can't be counted. Those numbers are mind-boggling, but these apps typically fall under certainly one of three categories: third-party, non-native, and native apps.
Third-Party Connections
These integrations can't be found in AppExchange. That's simply because they have to be custom-built for an extremely specific use case.
They're entirely separate from Salesforce's main platform, and only connect with it through API calls. Because they're custom-built, they'll need some dev attention to steadfastly keep up and run.
Non-Native Apps
These are the most common kinds of Salesforce apps you'll see in the AppExchange. Because they are usually listed in the AppExcahnge, they are generally only a little easier to control than bespoke third-party solutions, specifically for common tasks.
Non-native apps are made specifically to speak with and share information with Salesforce, however they “live” elsewhere in the cloud. Some areas of the app could be hosted by Salesforce, but at the least area of the app is external.
A number of these are typical business tools that relate solely to marketing, email, and document functions that aren't a part of Salesforce's original toolset. Some great examples will be Marketo, Mailchimp, and Adobe Sign.
A number of the popular apps will even integrate call data — call records, notes, and more — directly into Salesforce records.
Fun fact: these telephony-related apps make up the biggest subcategory in the Salesforce AppExchange's “Customer Service” category.
These apps connect with Salesforce's servers through APIs, which allow them to import information directly into the Salesforce platform.
Native Apps
The 3rd type is native apps. These apps are as near to Salesforce's main platform as you can get. They're built within Salesforce itself — with tools the company is promoting to allow it.
But it's a very tight dependency. If Salesforce isn't working, then the native Salesforce app won't work either. The app can't run independently of Salesforce.
Because of those close ties, there are tons of benefits to using native Salesforce apps in your business.
Why Do I Desire a Native Salesforce App in the First Place?
We've already established that Salesforce is the big name in CRM technology. But there's a lot that adopts managing customer relationships that Salesforce's core platform doesn't let you do.
Some allow you to share and sign legal documents and add that information to your Salesforce record. Some apps can spin up contracts at the click of a key and attach them to prospect records as well.
Other apps connect Salesforce directly to phones. For sales teams using Salesforce to touch base to prospects, connecting phone functionality to the information in their Salesforce entries is really a no-brainer. Even for customer success teams looking after their client relationships, accurate information on what often times a consumer has been around contact is a crucial resource.
Others help you utilize your customer database information to send timely communication emails — as well as SMS text messages.
Keeping all of this information in a single place is essential for helping businesses use fewer platforms to obtain work done. While this doesn't seem like a big deal, it's hidden benefits.
For instance, in this new era of distributed teams, limiting how many new tools to master might help new hires onboard faster. Instead of experiencing to master multiple software platforms to obtain up and running, new team members would only have to learn a few.
Strategic app use also can help distributed teams stay coordinated by centralizing information in a single CRM. Combining both sales outreach and marketing communication in a single Salesforce record is critical to understanding how often your company is interacting having its customers, and how.
In short, it's much simpler to construct on top of software you have through an app, than it is to get in touch two different tools.
Benefits of Native Salesforce Apps
Now, to the nice stuff. For stakeholders, don't worry. If you don't know much about APIs or technical terms, we'll do our best to explain the complex stuff clearly!
Security
Native Salesforce apps provide an increased amount of security to users. Because Salesforce is really a large and trusted industry name, they have the resources to ensure customer data is extremely secure. Including the amount of money, time, and staff to retain security experts, run regular audits, and thoroughly test network and server security.
Native apps are made within Salesforce itself. What this means is they have the added advantages of Salesforce's centralized security without needing to construct the infrastructure themselves. The app's developers don't need to put quite the maximum amount of time and effort into securing data in a third-party platform — Salesforce has recently done that legwork for their app builder.
Including authentication information. Salesforce users can very quickly become native app users, without generating a separate group of credentials. There's no importance of layers of authentication, just register and go.
The multiple logins associated with a non-native app aren't necessarily challenging to manage. It's just that it's much, much simpler with an indigenous app.
With a non-native or third-party app, your information is on a separate platform from Salesforce.
The provider, even when they have a non-native app having an easy API connection, could have different data security practices than Salesforce. Sharing your valuable information between systems with various security protocols might put your valuable information at risk.
Speed
Native Salesforce apps are much quicker to run than other Salesforce apps.
This is because non-native apps depend on making API calls, which take time.
Here's how it works: one platform has to send a request to the other for specific information. Then, the receiving platform translates that message and sends back the requested data.
Once that information helps it be back again to the very first platform, it now has to translate data into something the platform will recognize.
To the common user, this can not sound like much. In fact, oftentimes, it only takes minutes at most of the — often merely a second or two. But also for some type of computer making hundreds of those calls each and every day, these “calls” can mount up and slow the device down.
This is particularly so if you're working together with huge chunks of Salesforce data or very big customer databases. All that information must be translated, sent, stored, and mapped correctly. The sheer volume can slow down the processing time for a non-native app's API.
However, native Salesforce apps don't need to make as numerous API calls — because they're built right into Salesforce itself. Which means that the time each system would try request, await, receive, and translate data is cut way down.
In the long run, utilizing a native app can get you a quicker, more accurate integrated Salesforce experience.
Reliability
Because they're built on Salesforce, native apps are far more reliably online.
Ever had web-based work software decrease in the center of a workday?
Yeah, it's not fun.
Larger tech companies like Salesforce, Amazon, and Google, have invested a LOT to keep this from happening. They routinely have the time, money, and staff to ensure outages rarely occur. Even if an outage occurs at a big web supplier, they have the resources to solve it quickly.
With smaller companies, like many who offer non-native apps through Salesforce's AppExchange, an outage may be devastating. This is because smaller operations may not have the exact same resources to dedicate to keeping the servers up.
Outages can work for longer, which can hurt your ability to obtain things done in Salesforce (and generate revenue).
With an indigenous Salesforce app, however, your app will be up as long as Salesforce is. That you don't need certainly to concern yourself with a third party's service outage affecting your Salesforce workflows.
Imagine not being able to use your Salesforce-integrated phone system for a day. Your team would need to manually enter call logs and notes in your CRM, costing you precious time. And that is clearly a best-case scenario.
For more reliable and consistent uptime, an indigenous Salesforce app is the best way to go.
Easy Use for Non-Developers
Salesforce's internal app-building frameworks allow it to be easy for anyone to make native apps. For instance, their Lightning App Builder supplies a drag-and-drop experience to generate mobile apps within Salesforce itself.
For those devoted to the Salesforce platform, this is an excellent and business-user-friendly solution to customize your app ecosystem.
Even for anyone with lots of Salesforce expertise, this is a helpful tool. It's a simpler way to develop and deploy your native apps, applooter without sinking precious time, money, and other resources into DevOps. Or worse, custom-building a remedy that probably already exists in AppExchange.
