Salesforce Glossary: Getting Started with Key Terms
Whether you’re just getting started or you’re a multi-year vet, you may find yourself scratching your head — or turning to Google — to understand the lingo that gets thrown around in the Salesforce ecosystem. Especially given how things can change or sound quite similar.
Good news! Salesforce does provide a thorough glossary with definitions of key terms. That said, while it is quite helpful, that guide is GIANT and can be a lot of info to digest in one go.
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! This curated glossary breaks down key terms you’ll hear in the Salesforce ecosystem — so you can spend less time decoding jargon and more time getting things done.
Key Salesforce Terms Explained
Org - This is short for “organization” and you’ll hear this term quite frequently. Each Salesforce customer has their own unique org environment. This is where you log in, where your records are stored and where your own unique configuration lives.
Instance - While an org contains your unique data, code, objects, and configuration, an instance is the server that your org lives on.
Object - Many folks come to Salesforce having previously used Excel to manage contact and account records. An object is a type of record contained in Salesforce comparable to a tab on a spreadsheet. Salesforce comes out of the box with standard objects like Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities. You can also create custom objects to track any information especially important to your organization. The sky’s the limit here, so it can be helpful to chat with an expert to discuss your goals, find the right solution for your needs, and determine the best path forward.
Standard Objects - Out of the box objects that are included as a part of Salesforce’s core functionality. These objects include business entities and processes that are commonly used across different organizations.
Examples: Account, Contact, Lead, Opportunity
Custom Objects - Additional objects that can be created alongside Salesforce Standard Objects to enhance and extend Salesforce's built-in functionality. You can tailor these objects to align with your organization's unique business processes, workflows, and data management needs.
Examples: Project, Project Risk, Project Team Members
Record - Sticking with our Excel metaphor, you can think of a record as the horizontal row in a spreadsheet. If we’re looking at a spreadsheet of contacts, the record would include the name of the contact, as well as all relevant information about that contact (address, phone number, email, employer, preferred method of contact, and any other info you might have).
Field - A field would be the columns in your spreadsheet. On each record, you’ll want to track certain distinctive data points about that record. Using the example of the Contact (which is the object) for each record, fields are the individual columns in the spreadsheet. “Address” is an example of a field.
Standard Fields - Out of the box fields that are included in Salesforce as a part of Salesforce's core functionality. These fields are included by default in Standard and Custom Objects to support common business processes.
Examples: Name, Phone Number, Id
Custom Fields - Additional fields that can be created to store unique information related to your business processes.
Examples: Nickname, Customer Loyalty Tier
Metadata - Often you’ll hear the term metadata referred to as “data about data.” But what does that mean within Salesforce? Metadata encompasses the structure, settings, and configurations that make up your Salesforce platform but not the actual data stored within it. Objects, fields, page layouts, and automation you’ve implemented within your org are all examples of metadata.
Account - One of the standard objects that come with Salesforce, an Account will help you track most organization entities, whether they are companies, partners, organizations, or households.
Contact - In Salesforce, data can be related in a parent/child relationship. For example, an Account can have many related Contacts, making each contact a child record of the account.
Opportunity - An opportunity represents any potential financial transaction that could occur. Simply put, an opportunity is a deal. Opportunities progress through a series of stages before ultimately being closed when they’re marked as closed/lost or — ideally — marked as closed/won! This is where most salespeople live.
Lead - Where salespeople live and die by opportunities, leads are marketing’s domain. Before an opportunity ever becomes an opportunity, first we have to identify the potential for revenue. Leads are generally individuals that come into the system as potential business opportunities that haven’t been connected with a salesperson. They often come through as a result of a marketing campaign or call to action on a website. A more clinical way to define this is an unqualified sales opportunity.
Child Records - Within Salesforce, you can specify certain data models for your given object structure. Accounts may have many related Contacts, so the Contacts have a lookup field that allows you to connect the proper Contact to its related Account.
Lookup Fields - A lookup field creates a link between two records — essentially connecting data across different objects.
Example: On a Contact record, a lookup field links to the related Account record.
Campaign - A Salesforce campaign is generally used to track a series of outreach efforts, whether related to sales or marketing. In its simplest terms, a campaign is a way to group records together. It can provide better context and thread together your data in useful ways.
Task - An item that must be completed by a certain due date. While this definition probably doesn’t blow your mind, a Salesforce user can create tasks connected to certain objects (like follow up with an Opportunity or send a Contract), set a due date, and even assign them to other members of their team. Reports can be pulled on overdue tasks to see where items may have fallen through the cracks.
Event - A scheduled meeting, demo, call, activity or other interaction planned for a specific date and time.
Trailhead - The virtual learning and training environment available for free to any Salesforce user looking to sharpen their skills. Trails are available on numerous subjects and you can even drill down by skill level. If you’re new to Salesforce, this is a fantastic starting point – right after this glossary, of course.