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Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management and business application platform.
Companies use it to manage information and workflows involving:
Salesforce also provides a development platform that companies can extend through:
This allows organizations to adapt Salesforce around their business processes instead of keeping every workflow inside a fixed CRM template.
Salesforce can support a wide range of customer-facing and internal workflows.
Sales teams can use Salesforce to manage:
Custom automation can update records, assign owners, create tasks, or trigger additional business processes when sales events occur.
Service teams can use Salesforce to manage:
Custom applications may connect Service Cloud with external ticketing, billing, logistics, or product systems.
RevOps teams may use Salesforce as a central system connecting:
Development becomes more important as the organization needs custom logic around handoffs, territories, account structures, lifecycle stages, renewals, and integrations.
Salesforce can support partner portals and business workflows involving:
Experience Cloud can expose selected Salesforce information and workflows to external users.
Companies can also build applications on Salesforce for internal processes that extend beyond traditional CRM.
Examples include:
Experience Cloud can support authenticated digital experiences for customers and partners.
Those experiences may include:
Salesforce Flow can automate processes such as:
Lead created → assign owner → create task → notify salesperson
or:
Opportunity reaches Closed Won → create onboarding records → update account → trigger downstream systems
Automation should simplify business processes without creating an impossible network of hidden dependencies.
Salesforce can also act as an application platform.
Developers can create:
using Salesforce's platform capabilities.
Understanding Salesforce begins with its data model.
Objects are comparable to entities or tables in a traditional data system.
Common standard objects include:
Companies can also create custom objects.
A recruiting organization might create custom objects for:
A record represents one instance of an object.
For example:
Account → Acme Corp
Opportunity → Acme Expansion Deal
Fields store individual pieces of information.
Examples include:
Custom fields can extend standard and custom objects.
Salesforce data can be connected through relationships.
Common models include:
Good Salesforce architecture uses relationships intentionally so teams can report on and automate connected business data.
A strong data model considers:
Poor schema decisions become increasingly expensive as integrations and automation depend on them.
Custom objects allow companies to represent business concepts that Salesforce doesn't provide by default.
Examples might include:
A custom object can have its own:
Record types can allow the same object to support different business processes or user experiences.
For example, an Opportunity might have different record types for:
Record types can influence areas such as:
They should be introduced when the underlying business process genuinely differs.
Validation rules protect data quality by preventing records from being saved when defined business conditions aren't met.
Examples include:
Validation should make business rules clear without creating frustrating workflows for users.
Formula fields calculate values dynamically.
They can combine fields and logic to display information such as:
Formula fields can reduce duplicated stored data when a value can be derived reliably.
Flow is Salesforce's primary declarative automation platform.
Teams can create business logic through a visual builder instead of writing Apex for every process.
Record-triggered flows execute when Salesforce records are:
They can perform actions such as:
Screen Flows guide users through interactive workflows.
Examples include:
Screen Flows can also incorporate custom Lightning Web Components when the standard Flow interface needs additional functionality.
Scheduled flows can run processes at defined times.
Examples include:
Autolaunched flows can execute business logic without displaying screens.
They can be called from other platform automation and code.
Use Flow when the requirement can be expressed clearly through declarative automation.
Apex becomes more useful when the process involves:
The strongest Salesforce architecture evaluates both instead of automatically coding every requirement.
Many established Salesforce organizations still contain Workflow Rules and Process Builder automation.
These are legacy automation technologies.
Modern Salesforce projects should generally use Flow for new declarative automation, while existing Workflow Rules and Process Builder processes may need to be reviewed and migrated.
That makes legacy automation knowledge useful for modernization work even though it shouldn't define a new Salesforce architecture.
Apex is Salesforce's server-side programming language.
Developers use Apex when business logic requires more control than declarative tools provide.
Apex can support:
Its syntax will feel familiar to developers with experience in Java or C#.
Apex classes organize reusable application logic.
A well-structured Salesforce application may separate responsibilities into classes for areas such as:
Keeping complex logic out of one enormous trigger makes Salesforce code easier to test and maintain.
Triggers execute Apex when records change.
They can respond to events such as:
A trigger should usually remain thin and delegate complex behavior into reusable classes.
Salesforce can process many records in one transaction.
Apex therefore needs to operate correctly when a trigger receives:
Code written only for one-record-at-a-time behavior can quickly run into platform limits.
Strong Salesforce development uses collections and bulk operations rather than placing database operations inside unnecessary loops.
Salesforce operates on a multitenant architecture.
Governor limits restrict how much of certain platform resources one transaction can consume.
Limits may apply to areas such as:
Developers need to design with these limits from the beginning.
Governor-limit knowledge is one of the clearest distinctions between general programming experience and real Salesforce development experience.
Salesforce Object Query Language, or SOQL, retrieves Salesforce records.
A query might retrieve opportunities that meet specific conditions along with related account information.
Developers need to understand:
Poor queries can create performance and governor-limit problems.
Salesforce Object Search Language, or SOSL, performs text-oriented searches across objects.
SOQL is useful when developers know which data and objects they're querying.
SOSL becomes useful when they need to search text across multiple searchable objects.
Data Manipulation Language operations allow Apex to modify Salesforce records.
Common operations include:
Bulk DML should generally operate on collections rather than individual records inside loops.
Some operations shouldn't run entirely inside the original user transaction.
Salesforce provides several asynchronous patterns.
Queueable Apex can move work into a background job.
It works well for many asynchronous application tasks.
Batch Apex can process large datasets across multiple execution transactions.
This is useful for jobs involving substantial numbers of records.
Scheduled Apex runs code according to a schedule.
Future methods remain present across older Salesforce codebases.
Modern development will often prefer Queueable Apex when its capabilities fit the workload.
Lightning Web Components, or LWC, is Salesforce's modern framework for building custom user interfaces.
LWC uses familiar web technologies including:
It also integrates directly with Salesforce platform services and security.
Developers can build components for experiences such as:
Complex interfaces can be divided into smaller reusable Lightning Web Components.
For example:
Opportunity Workspace
├── Account Summary
├── Contact List
├── Pricing Panel
└── Approval History
This can make interfaces easier to maintain.
LWC components can expose public properties that allow parent components or platform tools to configure them.
Child components can communicate user actions upward through events.
LWC follows a one-way data-flow model between component owners and children.
This makes ownership clearer and helps reduce unexpected state changes.
Lightning Data Service provides standardized access to Salesforce records and metadata.
It can help components work with data while respecting platform security and sharing.
Developers should generally use the simplest platform data-access method that meets the requirement before introducing custom Apex unnecessarily.
Modern Lightning Web Components can also use Salesforce's GraphQL wire adapter for selected data requirements.
GraphQL can be useful when a component needs:
within a single query operation.
This gives LWC developers another option between basic record components and custom Apex.
Some interfaces still require custom Apex.
A Lightning Web Component may call Apex when it needs:
Developers should understand when standard Lightning Data Service or GraphQL can solve the problem before creating additional Apex endpoints.
Aura is Salesforce's earlier component framework.
Many established organizations still contain Aura components.
Developers maintaining these systems may need to:
For new component development, Lightning Web Components should generally be the primary choice.
Visualforce is Salesforce's older page-development framework.
It remains relevant across established Salesforce organizations and managed packages.
Developers may encounter:
New user-interface development should usually prioritize Lightning Web Components when the platform and requirements support them.
Salesforce Lightning Design System provides interface patterns and styling for Salesforce experiences.
LWC base components use these patterns to help custom interfaces fit naturally within Salesforce.
Developers should understand:
rather than recreating standard Salesforce UI behavior unnecessarily.
Security is a fundamental part of Salesforce architecture.
Access can be influenced by multiple layers.
Permissions determine whether a user can:
records for an object.
Field-level security determines which fields users can access.
Sharing determines which individual records a user can see or edit.
Permission sets grant additional access to users.
Modern Salesforce administration increasingly favors modular permission-set-driven access rather than using profiles as the only security mechanism.
Permission Set Groups combine related permission sets into reusable access packages.
This can make large permission models easier to manage.
Custom Apex needs to respect the security context expected by the application.
Developers should understand:
Modern Salesforce releases have continued strengthening secure defaults, which makes explicit security design increasingly important when code intentionally needs elevated access.
Salesforce exposes several APIs for integrations and custom applications.
REST APIs can allow external systems to:
SOAP remains relevant across established enterprise integrations.
Bulk APIs support high-volume data operations.
They can be useful for:
GraphQL provides another interface for querying Salesforce data.
Metadata API allows tools to retrieve and deploy Salesforce configuration and development metadata.
Tooling API supports development-oriented access to selected Salesforce metadata and platform resources.
Salesforce rarely operates alone.
Organizations frequently connect it with:
Apex can call external HTTP services.
Developers need to handle:
Named Credentials provide a structured approach to defining external endpoints and authentication.
Modern Salesforce architectures can combine Named Credentials with External Credentials so integration authentication isn't hard-coded into Apex.
This creates a more manageable and secure integration model.
Platform Events support event-driven communication.
A business process might publish an event such as:
Order Created
Other systems can then react without the original transaction needing to call every consumer directly.
This can reduce tight coupling between systems.
Change Data Capture publishes events when selected Salesforce records change.
External systems can use these events to synchronize Salesforce data without continuously polling for updates.
Salesforce Pub/Sub API provides an event interface for publishing and consuming platform events and Change Data Capture events.
It can support integrations requiring scalable real-time communication between Salesforce and external applications.
MuleSoft can provide an integration layer between Salesforce and other applications.
It becomes particularly relevant in environments with many systems and APIs requiring centralized integration management.
Salesforce Data 360 can unify customer and business data from multiple sources for use across Salesforce experiences.
Development around Data 360 can involve:
This is a more specialized area than core CRM development, so organizations should define Data 360 experience separately when it's central to the role.
Agentforce adds agentic AI capabilities to the Salesforce ecosystem.
Developers may extend AI-driven workflows through areas such as:
AI development on Salesforce still depends heavily on well-designed data, permissions, business logic, and integrations.
A sophisticated agent can't compensate for an unclear underlying CRM architecture.
Salesforce's developer platform is also expanding toward headless access to platform capabilities through APIs and developer tooling.
This allows external applications and AI systems to interact with Salesforce services without requiring every experience to live inside the traditional Salesforce interface.
Salesforce CLI provides command-line tooling for modern Salesforce development.
Developers can use it to:
This moves Salesforce development closer to familiar software-engineering workflows.
Salesforce DX provides a source-driven approach to Salesforce development.
A Salesforce project can store metadata alongside application code in Git.
That enables teams to use:
instead of treating the production Salesforce organization as the only source of truth.
Scratch orgs are temporary Salesforce environments developers can create for development and testing.
They can help teams isolate work and reproduce selected environment configurations.
Salesforce sandboxes provide copies or partial copies of Salesforce environments for:
The appropriate environment strategy depends on the organization and deployment model.
A modern Salesforce deployment workflow might look like:
Developer changes metadata and code
↓
Git branch
↓
Pull request
↓
Static checks and Apex tests
↓
Deployment to test environment
↓
Validation
↓
Production deployment
Tools may include:
The specific CI/CD tool matters less than having repeatable, reviewable deployments.
Salesforce requires automated testing around Apex deployments.
Strong tests should verify behavior rather than exist only to increase code-coverage percentages.
Tests may validate:
Tests should generally create the information they need rather than depend unpredictably on production data.
External HTTP integrations can be mocked during Apex testing so tests remain predictable.
Large Salesforce environments can accumulate substantial technical debt.
Common problems include:
Strong architecture keeps declarative automation and code understandable as the organization grows.
Salesforce development happens inside a governed platform.
Developers need awareness of limits around:
Designing with these limits produces more scalable Salesforce applications.
A modern Salesforce architecture might look like this:
Salesforce becomes the application layer connecting CRM data, business automation, custom development, external systems, and customer workflows.
A Salesforce Developer builds custom applications, Apex logic, Lightning components, and integrations on the Salesforce platform.
A Salesforce Admin manages configuration, users, permissions, reports, automation, and day-to-day platform administration.
A Salesforce Architect focuses on broader decisions involving:
A Salesforce Consultant focuses more heavily on translating business requirements into platform design and implementation.
A CRM Developer may work across Salesforce and other CRM platforms.
RevOps professionals may work extensively inside Salesforce while focusing on processes, reporting, data quality, and go-to-market operations.
Salesforce is the platform.
A Salesforce Admin is one professional role using it.
Admins typically focus more heavily on declarative capabilities such as:
Developers add deeper custom functionality through:
Complex Salesforce teams often need both.
Salesforce and HubSpot both support CRM and go-to-market workflows.
Salesforce generally provides a deeper application-development and customization ecosystem around:
HubSpot may provide a more straightforward operating model for organizations whose requirements fit closely within its CRM and marketing ecosystem.
The right platform depends on the processes, technical complexity, and existing technology stack.
Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 can both support CRM and customer operations.
Dynamics can integrate particularly closely with Microsoft's broader business-application and productivity ecosystem.
Salesforce provides its own extensive CRM, application-development, data, automation, and integration ecosystem.
Organizations should compare them based on business processes and existing platform investments rather than feature counts alone.
Flow provides declarative automation.
Apex provides programmable server-side logic.
Use Flow when the process remains clear and maintainable through declarative tools.
Use Apex when requirements involve deeper:
Many sophisticated Salesforce implementations use both.
Lightning Web Components is the modern component framework.
Aura remains present in established Salesforce environments.
For new supported component development, LWC should generally be the starting point.
Aura skills remain useful when maintaining or migrating older implementations.
Salesforce is a cloud CRM and application platform used for sales, customer service, automation, analytics, custom business applications, and integrations.
Important skills include data modeling, Flow, Apex, SOQL, Lightning Web Components, security, APIs, integrations, Platform Events, testing, Salesforce CLI, and deployment practices.
Apex is Salesforce's server-side programming language for custom business logic, integrations, triggers, APIs, and background processing.
Lightning Web Components are Salesforce's modern framework for building custom user interfaces using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Salesforce platform APIs.
Flow is Salesforce's declarative automation platform.
It can automate record changes, scheduled processes, guided user experiences, and other business workflows.
Existing Salesforce environments may still contain Process Builder processes.
For modern declarative automation, Salesforce directs teams toward Flow and provides migration tooling for older Process Builder and Workflow Rule automation.
SOQL is Salesforce Object Query Language.
Developers use it to retrieve Salesforce records and related data.
Governor limits restrict the amount of selected platform resources a Salesforce transaction can consume.
Developers need to design Apex and queries with those limits in mind.
Yes.
Salesforce provides REST, SOAP, Bulk, GraphQL, Pub/Sub, Platform Events, Change Data Capture, Apex callouts, and other integration capabilities.
Salesforce Developers, Salesforce Admins, Salesforce Architects, Salesforce Consultants, CRM Developers, and Revenue Operations professionals may all use different parts of the platform.
Understanding Salesforce helps you identify whether your CRM needs stronger data modeling, Flow automation, Apex, Lightning Web Components, APIs, integrations, event-driven architecture, security, or deployment practices.
If you need someone dedicated to custom development on the platform, South can help you hire Salesforce Developers in Latin America.
Schedule a free call and find remote Salesforce talent in Latin America with South.
