Suppose you are a seasoned Apex coder or just starting off with development on the mighty ecosystem of Salesforce. In that case, it is important to know the right resources and to make use of the same by following the industry best practice. However, if you are a developer, you do have a great advantage in using Salesforce as both the provider itself and the Salesforce partners are highly helpful and technologically advanced.
However, many developers are limited in their knowledge and reach when it comes to exploring the right tools and resources. There are a huge number of Salesforce and allied technological and nontechnological resources out there, which are also quite varied. You can find thousands of discussion forums, tutorials, blogs, videos, graphics, virtual training modules, tutorials, interactive tutors, in-person training sessions, and so on to make use of.
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In this article, we will try to unveil some of such important resources that every developer should bookmark and use. In addition, this article is written to provide some guidance to the new and skilled Salesforce developers alike to fill the gaps in their knowledge and make their Salesforce experience more enjoyable and productive.
Salesforce Resources for Developers
1. Developer site
The official site of Salesforce Developers had improved largely over time. It gives access to a wide range of documentation, which a beginner or experienced developer may ever need on handling various developmental and usage aspects of Salesforce. Along with reference documentation, you can also track the events, read blog posts, and get the most updated news about fundamentals and advancements in Salesforce development.
2. Salesforce Trailhead
Trailhead had evolved as a standalone entity in the second half of the year 2014, which is an interactive and enjoyable way of learning. This platform is aimed at those who want to deep drive into Salesforce by enjoying the user-friendliness of a self-learning interactive platform to learn Salesforce development.
Trailheads are developed intuitively by taking up and addressing all the challenges well. On Salesforce Trailhead, you can connect effectively to developer org and take on the challenges and earn badges as you progress in your learning.
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3. Advanced Apex Programming
The book was written by Dan Appleman named “Advanced Apex Programming for Salesforce.com and Force.com” is ideal reference material for the established Salesforce developers who are now looking for the next level of growth. This is one of the most useful and important reference materials for all Salesforce resources developers.
This simple book goes far beyond the basics of Apex development and can give you tips on thinking out of the box and make your codes more reliable and efficient in practice. Providers like Flosum also take the initiative to give such tips to the developers.
4. SFDC99
It is a blog dedicated to training by David Liu, an MVP at Salesforce. David is a person who learned coding from scratch and now using his blog to inspire other people also to do the same and achieve with his SFDC99. David here explains how to do coding from scratch, all the way as to how he had learned and done it himself.
He says that 99% out there can do it the same way and achieve their goals. This is definitely one blog for aspiring Salesforce resources developers to check out and learn how to hone their Salesforce developer skills.
5. Success Community
No matter at which position you are on your career ladder or which Salesforce ecosystem you now fit into, one best way to get all your questions answered and doubts cleared is Salesforce Success Community.
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It is one of the biggest Salesforce communities with more than 1.5 million members and is primarily a forum-style portal dedicated to Salesforce development. Developers consider it a platform to learn, ask questions, help others, and pitch their ideas to a dedicated community for more Salesforce features and functions.
6. Stack Exchange
Dedicated to the developers, Salesforce maintains its own subsidiary of Stack Exchange, which is a platform for newbies and seasoned developers to ask questions. The questions here are answered by the experts of Salesforce in exchange for the votes the question gathers.
Even though the majority of the questions on Stack Exchange deal with coding and related topics, you can also feel free to ask queries and get answered about other customizations too for Force.com.
7. Salesforce University
Salesforce University is a rebranded version of Salesforce Training, which is the dedicated training program from the provider, which includes various training methodologies as classes lead by instructors, virtual training, and in-person sessions, etc.
These classes are run to grab different Salesforce certifications or hone the skills of the attendees in various Salesforce development and customization topics. The university offers training for both developers and Salesforce administrators.
8. Salesforce user groups
These dedicated user groups come in varying sizes and shapes. Now there are more than 200 such official groups across the globe to support Salesforce development. User groups are basically meeting which take place at different times of the year.
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In these meetings, the attendees discuss various aspects of Salesforce. The users in these groups are an ideal mix of Salesforce developers, consultants, admins, and users. Users of these categories can find such a user group closer to your location and join it.
9. Code Talk Live
Recently, Salesforce had also launched Code Talk; places where the developers can raise their queries related to Force.com and get answered through live calls. This is a very brilliant approach in Salesforce support, with which the developers can be double sure of whether they are doing the right thing or not while in development.
A huge number of developers dedicate themselves to spend their free time blogging about what they are doing on Salesforce platforms and the solutions they have found for their development challenges. You may never know when someone may write anything about what you are up to, so you may sign up under specific categories to get email alerts about articles related to your areas of interest.
As many of these blogs are handled by Salesforce MVPs, they will put in their best to help the developers personally in trying to reach out to them with your queries. There are plenty of such blogs to explore like Bob Buzzard Blog, ForceGuru, My Life is a Hackathon, etc. Even on being experienced as a Salesforce developer, you may spend some time exploring these blogs and learn new ways to hone your skills and knowledge.
Author’s Bio:
Pete Campbell is a social media manager at Flosum who has worked as a database administrator in the IT industry and has written numerous articles and blog posts on topics related to DBA services for small businesses
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