COVID-19 and the resulting need for businesses to go all-digital has fast-tracked digital transformation initiatives for organizations across industries and regions. Projects scoped to occur over the course of months, even years, now have to take place in a matter of days, and the ability to build, scale and ship apps fast from anywhere is imperative. To accomplish this at breakneck speed while adapting to the new normal of largely remote workforces, developers need tools that streamline processes and eliminate time-consuming tasks, while also being flexible enough to let them build in ways that best suit their unique needs.
This is where the wide-ranging capabilities of the Salesforce Platform become apparent. With Salesforce, developers and admins can innovate faster than ever by building scalable, modern apps through a combination of clicks and code without ever having to sacrifice user experience or crucial security measures.
Today, Salesforce is excited to double down on our commitment to developers by supporting them in these efforts with three new innovations — Code Builder, Salesforce Functions and DevOps Center.
Build fast from anywhere
Code Builder, built on Microsoft’s Visual Studio Codespaces, is a web-based developer environment optimized for Salesforce. Building on the partnership we announced in November of last year, Code Builder has the potential to empower the Salesforce development ecosystem to be more productive by building apps how they want and where they want, all with modern tools and without time-consuming configuration tasks. Rather than forcing developers to switch between multiple toolsets during the development process, Code Builder brings all of the must-have tools into one place along with access to productivity-enhancing aids like code completion, powerful debuggers and integrated source control. Code Builder is launched from your organization right in your browser and provides immediate access to tooling that streamlines app building, like Salesforce extensions to Visual Studio Code and the Salesforce CLI, along with features for making low-code builders more impactful, such as a declarative SOQL Query Builder.
“Code Builder is a must-have developer tool for anyone building on the Salesforce Platform,” said Wade Wegner, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Salesforce. “With Code Builder, Salesforce developers get the best of both worlds — a web-based environment for developing wherever they are and all the productivity-boosting tools that make building apps on the Salesforce Platform faster and easier.”
“Today, developers’ tools are more integral to a developer’s world than ever before. At Microsoft, we aim to deliver products and platforms that enable developers to deliver more. We’re glad that Salesforce chose to build on our embeddable Visual Studio Codespaces offering to empower their users with the most productive developer tools,” said Amanda Silver, CVP at Microsoft. “Building on Visual Studio Codespaces means that Code Builder users get access to a web-based IDE which supports the entire VS Code ecosystem, built-in support for GitHub for source control, and access to the cloud-native environments they want without any time-consuming setup tasks so they can get to building impactful apps fast.”
Deliver connected experiences with elastic scale
As business demands grow, so does the need to build end-to-end experiences that can scale elastically. Salesforce Functions is a service that lets developers write code that integrates with their data and events on the Salesforce Platform, and run it on-demand with elastic scale in a serverless environment. It empowers development teams to focus on delivering apps and business logic fast, instead of managing infrastructure. To accelerate app building, developers have the flexibility to innovate using languages they already know, such as Node.js, Java and Apex, while taking full advantage of open source ecosystems. They can quickly build, test and debug Functions locally using the Salesforce developer tools they already love. Admins or other users can extend their business processes by calling Functions from existing Apex code or low-code tools like Flow or even distribute them as part of AppExchange packages.
Accelerate shipping with release management for everyone
When organizations grow rapidly, so does the need for governed release management that allows for easy stakeholder participation. With DevOps Center, admins and other declarative developers can build against source control, collaborate better with programmatic developers, release apps faster, and do so with modern workflows like continuous integration and delivery. DevOps Center allows organizations to continue to prioritize release velocity, simplifying how apps are progressed through development environments from concept to launch, and boosting both the speed and quality of deployments. And since DevOps Center allows you to develop in your traditional sandboxes, you can also take advantage of additional capabilities like Data Mask that anonymize sensitive data in your testing environments — delivering speed without sacrificing trust.
More Information
Code Builder and Salesforce Functions are both available in pilot, and DevOps Center will be available in development preview later this year. Additional details can be found on the Salesforce Developer Blog here.
Learn more about these and other products by tuning into TrailheaDX on June 25, 2020 at 9am PT.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM.” For more information please visit https://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
