When it comes to the world of Salesforce the sky’s the limit. There isn’t code a Salesforce developer can’t execute nor a field that can’t be added by your Salesforce administrator. I believe that with Salesforce ANYTHING is possible and never has this been more true than when it comes to you, Admins.
To find out why lets take a step back and look at Dreamforce 14. For those that attended you will have noticed that there was a strong focus around Admins as not only was there a Dev zone this year, but there was also an #Awesome Admin zone. However, if you looked further into the Admin zone you will have noticed a Dev stand, which believe it or not was not in the wrong zone, but was surrounded by Admins wanting to learn code.
With that in mind, I wanted to know the differences between a Salesforce Administrator role and Salesforce Developer role.
Here are the roles of a Salesforce Administrator:-
Clicks not code
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Customise and Develop – A lot of time can be spent in the setup menu adding Picklist Values, amending Page Layouts, creating assignment rules and more.
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User Maintenance – Admins will add new users, amend existing accounts, check system permissions on user profiles, restrict and open up data access and more.
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Reports and Dashboards – Build Reports to create a wealth of information from data stored in Salesforce.
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Data cleanups – Remove duplicate Accounts and Contacts by merging, mass updating and will also import data using import wizards e.g. Data import wizard, Data Loader etc.
Training – Keeping up to date
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Ongoing documentation – produce and update existing Salesforce documentation for colleagues and customers. This helps to keep on top of new developments and future Salesforce releases and enhancements.
Grow – A stronger base
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Help to manage ongoing system developments – communicating with customers and colleagues regarding new developments, support etc.
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Provide continued support to colleagues, especially Salesforce Developers, and clients.
Here are the roles of a Salesforce Developer:-
Building – Application logic
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Building functionality – This includes writing apex code e.g. creating Salesforce Triggers that can’t be done declaratively, creating Visualforce pages, building Triggers and more based on customer/colleague requirements.
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Integration – Salesforce has more APIs than an centipede has shoes! If your business depends on existing systems or data, Salesforce developers can harness the incredible adaptability of Salesforce APIs, integrate all your processes and information in both directions, making sure all your systems can talk to each other efficiently.
Testing and deployment
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Developers can sign up for a 2 licence “Developer Edition” in which they are afforded the complete freedom of the platform. This is great for throwing together conceptual work, and trying out techniques away from complication of version control, test requirements and other users.
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Developer Sandboxes is where new functionality is born. Developers will continue to test development in a staging sandbox before finally submitting to live. This guarantees new functionality will work as expected and won’t interfere with any existing business processes.
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Bug fixing will also take place to ensure a smooth release to users. This is a great time to involve the Salesforce admin so that they can test usability and provide feedback.
Deploy and Document – Shared responsibilities
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Ongoing documentation throughout the development. This can be communicated with the Salesforce admin so that they are prepared for any customer interaction/support issues
The above provides an insight into the roles as I know them and there are probably more to each role than mentioned. However, I guess it is important to understand that though Admins and Devs have their own roles, there really are no boundaries when it comes to the capabilities of Salesforce Admins.
As identified at Dreamforce 14, more and more admins are coding and are taking on some of the responsibilities that would otherwise be left to a Developer e.g. creating Triggers. It would also not be out of place to see Admins taking on the 401 to broaden their developer knowledge! It is evident that the lines between the Admin and Dev are becoming more and more blurred.
How blurred are the lines becoming and are you as an Admin taking the plunge into code? Let me know what you think by either leaving a comment below or tweeting @jenny_bamber
If you would like more information on Salesforce why not contacts Desynit’s Shaun Holmes or leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to get back to you.
See you next week.
Jenny
Nice break down of duties. Of course the lines get very blurred, especially when coders feel the need to invent and create everything on there own rather than making use of all the great functionality that is already built in or when they fall prey to the very old problem of failing to listen to the users and the ones maintaining everything.
That is true, and I think Jenny has drawn attention to this well in the article (naturally favouring Admin abilities!). Being a Salesforce developer is a very specific skill set these days, and in order to be a GOOD Salesforce developer you have to be totally aware of the standard features, and how to use them. You certainly can’t just drop any old programmer into the role and hope for the best! Like you said, they will just start coding over everything. This is what the certification tracks are really great for, being sure the developers you engage with are aware of these tools so they don’t rebuild existing functionality.
The problem doesn’t just come from inexperienced developers re-inventing the wheel though. I think an equal problem (as a developer!) is sometimes seeing administrators who have built great-big Jenga towers out of the configuration tools, with 15 workflow rules and 10 roll up summaries to achieve what a Developer could have done in 17 lines of code. In Salesforce, the Admins and the Developers really do need to work *together* to build the best solutions! Here at Desynit, we are all in the same office, working on the same projects together, to build the very best solutions for our clients, and that’s how it needs to be.
Great description of the different roles. As an Administrator, I work side-by-side with our 2 Developers (almost literally…we converse across the cubicle walls 🙂 And hardly any decision is made without consulting each other. We are in the middle of implementing a 2nd Salesforce Org so there is no way we could do this without constant communication.
You both had good points about knowing when a modification should be created in Code or whether to use the standard Salesforce tools. Sometimes that is a grey area so we try to look ahead & see how it may be used or changed in the future and what kind of maintenance it will need.
As an Admin I have taken a few Introduction to Apex classes so I can “read” most of the code but cannot write any from scratch yet. Once the project is over, I am going to delve deeper into coding but until then, my developers can whip up any coding needed. Learning coding can only increase my understanding of Salesforce & make my skill set more valuable to the company 🙂 I’d like to hear from other Admins!
Thanks for your comment 🙂 It’s good to hear about other organisations where the Admins/Developers work side by side. Luckily I just have to stick my head up over my monitors to talk to Jenny (though I imagine sometimes she wishes there was perhaps a cubicle wall!)
If you are interested in some access points to development, keep an eye on the Developerforce calendar for an event called ELEVATE in your local area… https://developer.salesforce.com/calendar (for example there is one going on in London tomorrow). I delivered the subject matter of the “beginner” track at Dreamforce this year, and it is a really good (and free!) introduction to get you writing your first classes/triggers. If you can’t find an ELEVATE event to attend, you can work through it yourself, here http://ccoenraets.github.io/salesforce-developer-fasttrack/ (and if you have any questions, I’m sure you can give your developer-over-the-wall a shout!). Probably takes about 2 – 3 hours on your own?
On the flip side, I constantly enjoy learning new Administrative tips from Jenny. The last thing I want to do is start coding and supporting something I don’t need too, so it’s always worth checking with her first, and she always does a great job of explaining some of the deepest, darkest, secret features of Salesforce a regular person would never know about!
Thanks alot for writing this blog. It is very usefull for someone who is newbie. I am web developer and now looking to move to salesforce. Not very much clear whether to take admin route or developer route. Also can any of you help me in understanding the scope of job in salesforce (developer/admin) mainly in east coast.
many
Thanks
Hi,
I’m planning to route my career into Salesforce admin. Could you please let me know the scope of Salesforce adminstrator in India. Also, want to confirm that can one learn salesforce admin work from online videos since I cannot afford the salesforce course fee. Thanks.
This is great! I’ve been wondering where the lines are drawn. I am an admin, but am heavily involved in integrations since my company does not have a developer but my org has SSO as well as multiple integrations. I just got admin certified and would one day like to be a developer so it’s nice to know I’m already doing some of the work.
Thanks for a great writeup!
Thank you for sharing great article for Salesforce developer. i am also want to become salesforce developer this Help me for salesfroce developer.
Thanks a lot for sharing amazing article. I was really helpful. Nice Stuff
Nice Article. Thank you for sharing.
Very good points over differentiation and this is a great, free way of explaining Salesforce.
Thanks
Zivoke – The Salesforce Managed Support Consultant
Very informative and helpful post for users, Appricialble post.
Thanks for sharing…..