Introduction

Let’s get started with some Salesforce terminologies to help us have a better understanding when we’re faced with anything and everything related to Salesforce. Consider this your stepping stone into the world of Salesforce, this article is here to help you feel more confident when starting on Salesforce.

Salesforce Basic Terminologies

Salesforce

Salesforce is an American cloud-based software company that provides customer relationship management software which includes Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Analytics Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Health Cloud, IoT Cloud, Force.com and Chatter to name a few. Salesforce is a Software as a Service(SaaS) platform which simply means you can instantly start running your business, you don’t need to install the software or a server to get started.

Salesforce force.com platform

Force.com is a Platform as a Service(PaaS) product owned by the Software as a Service(SaaS) vendor Salesforce.com, developers can create apps and websites through cloud IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and deploy them instantly using the force.com platform. Let’s make it even more simple, Salesforce.com is built upon the Force.com platform, and when we built custom objects, workflows, approval processes, etc we’re using the Force.com platform. When you sign up for Salesforce.com you have access to all Force.com features.

Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is made especially for the sales team to increase their effectiveness, sales, and overall performance. It enables the sales team to close more deals, get more deals, close on deals faster and make prompt decisions. Key features include Contact Management, Opportunity Management, Lead Management, Reports and Dashboards, Workflows and Approvals, Territory Management, File Sync and Share to name a few.

Service Cloud

Service Cloud is dedicated to providing support to customers and helping them out. Service Cloud stands out due to some key factors – one-on-one support through multiple channels, faster support, service console, case management, knowledge base, mobile platform, service analytics, self-service communities, Einstein bots, app builder and so much more. Service Cloud enables the business to retain more customers, increase customer satisfaction, take on a proactive approach to customer issues, and facilitate instant support.

Marketing Cloud

Marketing Cloud is a Salesforce product targeted at the world of marketing, it’s a digital marketing platform that automates marketing across email, social media, SMS, websites, mobile apps, and more. It provides multiple insights into customer journeys and helps businesses deliver tailor-made, connected, one-on-one customer experiences. The platform offers – email and marketing automation, SMS messaging, Customer Marketing Analytics, Social Media Engagement and so much more.

Communities

Salesforce Communities bridge the gap that can surface due to automation, it allows companies to build branded communities for customers, partners, and employees. Experience Cloud ( formerly Community Cloud) provides a space for businesses to share information, and users can connect and collaborate.

Profile

In simple terms, profiles control what a user can do in an org. Each user is assigned a profile that determines their level of access, permissions, and settings. Salesforce provides several Standard Profiles, or you can create your Custom Profiles. Some of the Standard Profiles are – System Administrator, Standard User, Marketing User, Minimum Access – Salesforce, Read-Only, and Partner User.

Role

In layman’s terms, Roles define a hierarchy that determines what a user can view in the org. Roles are designed to open up access to the org by increasing data visibility. You have a baseline visibility setting for all objects in your org labeled as “org-wide defaults”, roles work to open up access beyond what the org-wide defaults offer depending on the role you are assigned.

Campaigns

A little-known Salesforce object, Campaigns, is typically used by the Marketing Team. It helps businesses obtain a better picture of their marketing initiatives by tracking the leads and contacts associated with a certain marketing initiative – emails, demos, conferences, and advertisements to name a few. Campaigns help businesses analyze the leads secured due to a particular campaign and the ROI on a venture, this can lead to smarter choices and fewer lost sticky notes with valuable information.

Leads

A Lead is a Salesforce Object that represents a potential customer/client. A Lead is usually referred to as an unqualified contact, it can be someone you’ve captured through a phone call, your website, or a paid ad. A Lead can take on one of the following statuses – Open, Contacted, Qualified or unqualified.

Opportunities

Opportunities, a Salesforce object, is essentially a deal in progress. An Opportunity is created when a Lead is converted. An Opportunity record contains everything on the progress of the deal, from recent changes to tasks related to the Lead, it’s your one-stop-shop for potential deals.

Quotes

Often customers require multiple quotes on a service they’re looking for, it can include certain add-ons, without the add-ons, or based on a different quantity. A salesperson will likely offer more than one quote. This is where Quotes come into play, it helps the salesperson to keep track of all the quotes. Quotes take on two distinct meanings in the Salesforce CPQ ( Configure, Price, and Quote) – An electronic record of data or a PDF that displays quote data.

Cases

A Case object refers to a customer’s question, feedback, or issue, and the resolution process. It can be considered the focal point of the Service Cloud, it facilitates Service agents in delivering the finest service possible. From the Case Home, you can create, view, or edit cases. It contains fields that include information about the case, associated records, case history, case hierarchies, and more.

Reports

Reports are filtered records or records that meet certain criteria you specify. Building a request essentially implies asking a question you need an answer to, such as:

• How satisfied are my customers?
• Which are my top products?

Depending on your question, requirements, and the criteria it needs to fulfill, the report is generated in the form of rows and tables and can be filtered, clustered together, or displayed as a graphical chart.

Dashboards

Dashboards always work with one or more underlying Reports associated with them. They provide more insight than reports by laying out a visual depiction of crucial metrics and trends within your org. They help businesses make more informed decisions based on real-time data gathered from reports.

Salesforce Jargons for Newcomers

Admin 201

Salesforce Administrator (ADM201) certification exam by the Trailhead Academy is for candidates looking to demonstrate their expertise in the field and to serve their company in a better way. It may seem daunting at first, but it gives you an upper hand in the field. You can either sign up for classes – online or offline or find self-study resources online to acquire the certificate. It’s made up of 60 multiple-choice questions with a time duration of 90 minutes, to pass the test, the candidate must earn a passing score of 65%.

Apex

Is an object-oriented programming language developed by Salesforce, it is used for building SaaS applications on top of the Salesforce.com platform. It enables the developer to add business logic to system events such as button clicks, related records updates, and Visualforce Pages. The language uses syntax that is extremely identical to Java. Apex is easy to use, comes with integrated support for all DML operations, is strongly typed, and is easy to test.

App

Apps in Salesforce consist of a name, a logo, and an ordered set of tabs, it can be considered a cluster of objects, tabs, and other functionalities that work together to perform a particular function. Some Standard Apps on Salesforce include Sales, Marketing, and Community.

AppExchange

AppExchange is an all-inclusive marketplace for a plethora of Salesforce Products, from Salesforce Applications to Flow solutions it has an answer to any need you may come across. It can be considered a community where Salesforce partners, clients, or developers provide solutions or Salesforce products. Admins can elevate the power of their orgs by installing solutions that fit their organization’s needs.

Chatter

Chatter is a social tool provided by Salesforce for real-time collaboration that includes a multitude of features that facilitate interaction between users. Chatter helps connect, engage and motivate your workers to work together more efficiently. Chatter Groups make collaboration effortless, by grouping users with a shared interest or goals. Chatter Groups can be – Public, Private, Unlisted, Broadcast Only, or Groups with Customers.

Classic

If you’re a Salesforce Veteran you may be more familiar with Salesforce Classic, until the launch of Lightning Experience in 2015, Classic was the interface for the CRM platform. Classic exists mostly for customers who still haven’t transitioned to the Lightning Experience

Connections

Salesforce Connections is a two-day conference that’s brimming with educational and stirring content geared towards marketing, commerce, and digital professionals. It’s an annual event that can be attended in-person or online.

Dreamforce

Dreamforce, an annual event, brings together the global Salesforce community for learning, community building and loads of fun! Trailblazers from around the globe gather to connect and share their stories. You can either sign up for the in-person event or attend online on Salesforce+.

Ecosystem

The Salesforce Ecosystem is based on 4 major factors: Customer Engagement, App Marketplace, Salesforce Partners, and Salesforce Developers. Salesforce revolutionized cloud computing by providing a SaaS space to implement business solutions on an extensive eco-system consisting of customers, partners, experts, and developers.

Lightning

The successor of Salesforce Classic with more functionalities and an improved UI is the revolutionary Lightning Experience. Released in 2015, Lightning Experience is faster, more efficient, modern, and intelligent. Lightning includes additional developer tools and the Lightning Component System making it smarter than its predecessor, Classic.

Org

A Salesforce Org short for Organization represents your specific, unique organization data and metadata within a Salesforce instance. You can find your unique org id by navigating to Company Information in the Setup Menu. It simply refers to a collection of objects, classes, pages, apps, etc belonging to your organization.

Partner

Salesforce Partners are either Salesforce Consultants or AppExchange Partners authorized by Salesforce to deliver and provide custom solutions. You can either develop your solutions using the Salesforce Platform and put them up on AppExchange by joining as an AppExchange Partner. Or if you’d rather help others make the most of the Salesforce platform, you can start your very own consulting practice.

Release

Salesforce delivers 3 seasonal updates a year: Spring, Summer, and Winter. It’s all on the cloud, so don’t fret about any software or hardware updates. Seamless, real-time, automatic updates with no downtime for all customers.

Salesforce mobile app (previously “Salesforce1”)

With the mobile app, you can work on the go, whether you’re waiting in line for a coffee or catching a flight, all you need is your mobile or tablet and you are good to go! Download “Salesforce” (formerly Salesforce1) in the App Store or Play Store.

SFDC

SFDC stands for Salesforce.com, the SaaS(Software as a Service) supplier situated in San Francisco. Salesforce provides cloud-based applications for Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Trailblazer

A trailblazer according to Collins dictionary is “A person who is the leader in a particular field, especially who does a particular thing before anyone else does”, which is apt, to say the least when describing a Salesforce Trailblazer. Trailblazers in the Salesforce ecosystem are life-long learners, innovators, and pioneers who work to make the world a better place by innovating and delivering success on Salesforce.

Trailhead

Is Salesforce’s very own learning tool and platform that consists of a series of online trails ( tutorials) that enables you to skill up on anything and everything related to Salesforce. Whether you’re training to be an admin or developer, get started on your journey by visiting Trailhead.

User Group

Salesforce has a marvelous feature that permits you to create User Groups based on shared interests, goals or functions. A User Group consists of a set of users and can be either public or private depending on its use. You can use a group to implement a sharing rule, share records with users, and so much more.

World Tour

The Salesforce World Tour is Salesforce’s biggest marketing and sales event spanning from March to June covering a wide range of major cities around the world including New York City, Paris, and London to name a few. You can either attend in person or stream online on Salesforce+.

Salesforce Trailhead Glossary

Modules

Modules are composed of units, each unit covers a sub-topic and ends with either a quiz or a hands-on challenge, on successful completion you earn points that are displayed on your profile.

Trails

Trailhead as the name suggests consists of Trails. A Trail can either be an ordered group of modules, projects, or both. It provides a guided learning path to master either a skill, a role, or a product.

Trailmixes

A Trailmix though similar to a Trail enables you to create custom learning paths from your favorite trails, modules, or projects. You can access custom Trailmixes created by your friends and co-workers on Trailhead.

Projects

Projects on Trailhead is perfect to get your hands dirty on the platform, you can learn how to build apps from scratch all while you get step-by-step instructions. As of now, there are about 126 Projects available on Trailhead to skill up.

Favourites

Have some particular module, trail, or trailmix you can’t get enough of? Simply click on the heart symbol below the trail to favorite the trail, later on when you need to access your favorites, visit your profile and it’s just a click away!

Badges

As you complete a module, project, or superbadge, you are awarded badges. A badge is a shining symbol of the complex business task you tackled and the skill you gained. There are 100s of badges you can earn by simply learning more!

Points

Points can be earned on Trailhead by completing trails, modules, projects, and superbadges. Hands-on challenges earn you the most points,500. Quizzes earn between 25 and 100 depending on the number of tries.

Ranks

Ranks range from Scout to Ranger depending on the number of badges and points you acquire. These badges make learning way more fun! Earn up to 100 badges and 50,000 points to reach the ranger rank!

Skill Categories

You can avail the multiple skills offered on Trailhead to step up your game! A few of the skills you can acquire on Trailhead are – Commerce Cloud, CRM Analytics, Education Cloud, Einstein, Experience Cloud, Lightning, MuleSoft, Slack, Tableau, Service Cloud, and Non-profit Cloud.

Certification

Trailhead makes it as easy as it can get to be Certified! You can do all your learning on Trailhead and get certified on Trailhead too. Depending on your role – Admin, Architect, Developer, Marketer, Consultant, or Designer – and experience, you can secure certifications ranging from beginner to expert and maintain your certifications all on Trailhead. Even if you are experienced in the Salesforce Platform, a certification helps you stand out and would give more confidence to a potential employer when it comes to hiring.