Salesforce.com For Dummies®

Chapter 21. Extending Salesforce Beyond CRM

In This Chapter

• Understanding the AppExchange

• Creating AppExchange apps

• Deploying AppExchange apps for your company

What if you could modify your business applications in minutes to match the unique ways you manage your customer relationships? How much more productive could you be if you spent less time fighting your technology — and more time with your customers?

AppExchange is an entirely new way of customizing and creating your on‐demand applications by simply pointing‐and‐clicking your mouse on easy‐to‐use Web pages. In fact, with AppExchange, you can not only customize your existing Salesforce applications, but also now build (or just install) entirely new applications to fit the way you do business.

In this chapter, we demystify AppExchange and define some basic terms. Next, you get a glimpse of the awesome power of creating custom apps using AppExchange Builder. Then, you see how you can share your creation on the AppExchange Directory. Finally, we offer simple and critical tips for preparing your deployment game plan.

Understanding the AppExchange Platform

AppExchange is salesforce.com's on‐demand platform, a suite of development tools for customizing, building, integrating, and installing business applications.

The AppExchange is both a platform of tools and a directory site. That distinction may seem confusing at first, but it's not unlike eBay, which provides a platform of e‐commerce tools for sellers and a directory site for buyers ...