Salesforce Lightning Week
Starting this week is Salesforce's Developer week; and today I traveled to Greensboro to learn about Salesforce's Lightning framework for building apps, processes, and connecting data. I love learning new things and Salesforce just keeps getting better. Here's a quick overview of each piece of the puzzle that we covered, an example of how to use it, and a link to the tutorial where you can try it out yourself. Many thanks to the folks that organized and ran this event!
My personal favorite of all four is process builder because it allows me to accomplish a lot of automation in a graphical way, and helps close the gap between declarative and programmatic development in Salesforce. I will use it the most out of all four tools. The one that really just blew me away, though, was Lightning Connect, WOW. How amazing to "read" data from another source and it looks so similar to Salesforce. Its just astounding. Although this costs additional to use, its pretty powerful and worth it for organizations who want to bring their larger systems together and don't have the ability, nor desire, to build custom integrations. For more information go to the developer site, there is a great FAQ about lightning that you should read.
Lightning Connect
- Overview: Allows you to connect Salesforce to external data sources easily
- Example: Connect your CRM data to your ERP data
- Tutorial: http://developerforce.github.io/lightning-connect-tutorial/
Lightning Process Builder
- Overview: Visually build processes that automate actions
- Example: Based on data on a record, conditionally and automatically submit a record for approval
- Tutorial: http://developerforce.github.io/lightning-process-builder-tutorial/
Lightning Component Framework
- Overview: You can purchase or build reusable "gazinta's" for your Apps you build or Salesforce1, basically allowing you to assemble a set of functions/features
- Example: Charts, Bars, Sliders, Lists. . .
- Tutorial: http://developerforce.github.io/salesforce-lightning-tutorial/
- AppExchange: https://appexchange.salesforce.com/results?keywords=lightning
Lightning App Builder
- Overview: Take those "gazinta's" and bring them all together for your users to love
- Example: Field Sales App that allows reps to find their nearest prospect, plan routes, log miles
- Tutorial: http://developerforce.github.io/lightning-app-builder-tutorial/
Here are some photos I snapped of the event and presentation, as always, the presentation included the Safe Harbor statement, which says don't make any future purchasing decisions based on what you see. . . I had a front row seat, so these are close ups!
