Salesforce is a powerful and versatile platform, but like any technology, it’s important to follow best practices to ensure success. Join us to learn about Salesforce Implementation tips & tricks and best practices in the Software development life cycle. Here are some Salesforce best practices to keep in mind.
What is Salesforce’s Best Practices?
Salesforce best practices are guidelines that help ensure the success and optimal use of the Salesforce platform. They cover various aspects of Salesforce, including data management, customization, security, governance, training, and testing. Here are some key Salesforce best practices to keep in mind
- Keep data clean: All best practices start with data. Make sure your data is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. This will help you make informed decisions and avoid errors. So focused to data modeling in Salesforce.
- Avoid over-customization: Use our out-of-the-box customization if it’s necessary to meet your business requirements. Avoid over-customization and code, as it can lead to technical debt and future maintenance headaches.
- Platform Security: Configure your security settings to control access to data and features. Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication to protect against unauthorized access.
- Project Governance: Setup Governance model required in Salesforce projects. Establish governance policies to ensure that users follow best practices, such as data entry standards, naming conventions, and report creation guidelines.
- User Training: Train users to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to use Salesforce effectively. This will help them get the most out of the platform and reduce support requests.
- Testing: Test your changes in a sandbox environment before deploying to production. This will help you avoid unintended consequences and ensure your changes work as expected. Check our Salesforce testing guide.
Learn more about Salesforce Implementation Tips & Tricks.
Salesforce Platform Best Practices
Salesforce is a robust platform offering a wide range of tools and features to help businesses manage customer relationships, automate processes, and analyze data. To ensure that your Salesforce implementation is efficient, scalable, and maintainable, it’s important to follow best practices. Here are some key best practices for Salesforce.
1. Data Management
Data management is the practice of collecting, using data securely and, efficiently, and cost-effectively in Salesforce.
- Data Quality: Data is the fundamental constituent of all business applications. To ensure data accuracy, implement validation rules, duplicate management, and regular data cleansing.
- Data Security: Use role hierarchies, sharing rules, and field-level security to control access to sensitive data.
- Data Backup & Archiving: Regularly back up your data using Salesforce loading tools. Check different types of data loader tools in Salesforce. Data Archiving in Salesforce has proved to be one of the most adopted approaches to managing data growth and optimizing storage usage. It helps us follow
- Reduce Costs
- Optimize Performance
- Reduce Latency
- Allow recovery

2. User Management
- Role Hierarchy: Define a clear role hierarchy to reflect your organization’s structure and ensure proper data access.
- Profiles and Permission Sets: Use profiles to define baseline permissions and permission sets to grant additional access as needed.
- Training: Provide ongoing training and support to users to ensure they are proficient in using Salesforce.
Check User Management Best Practice.
3. Customization
- Standard Features: User Salesforce standard features before customizing the platform.
- Custom Objects and Fields: Create custom objects and fields only when necessary, and use meaningful names and descriptions.
- Page Layouts and Record Types: Use page layouts and record types to tailor the user interface to different user needs.
4. Salesforce Automation Best practices.
- Declarative Tools: Use declarative tools like Flow before resorting to custom code.
- Efficient Automation: Avoid over-automating processes, which can lead to complexity and performance issues.
- Testing: Thoroughly test automated processes to ensure they work as expected and handle exceptions gracefully
5. Integration
- APIs: Use Salesforce APIs (REST, SOAP, Bulk) to integrate with external systems.
- Middleware: Consider using middleware like MuleSoft for complex integrations.
- Data Synchronization: Ensure data consistency between Salesforce and integrated systems.
Check the Salesforce Integration Guide.
6. Reporting and Dashboards
- Standard Reports: Use standard reports and dashboards to provide insights into your data.
- Custom Reports: Create custom reports and dashboards to meet specific business needs.
- Filters and Folders: Use filters to refine report data and organize reports and dashboards into folders for easy access.
7. Security, Monitoring and Maintenance
- User Authentication: Implement strong user authentication measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- Session Settings: Configure session settings, such as session timeout and IP restrictions, to enhance security.
- Audit Trail: Regularly review the setup audit trail to monitor changes to your Salesforce configuration.
- System Monitoring: Regularly monitor system performance and usage to identify and address issues proactively.
- Regular Maintenance: Perform regular maintenance tasks, such as cleaning up old data, reviewing logs, and updating configurations.
- Health Check: Use Salesforce Health Check to assess the security and performance of your org.
Learn about Monitoring & Auditing Tools in Salesforce.
8. Governance & Documentation
- Change Management: Implement a robust change management process to track and manage changes to your Salesforce org.
- Sandbox Environments: Use sandbox environments (Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, Full) for development and testing before deploying to production.
- Release Management: Plan and schedule releases to minimize disruption to users.
- Technical Documentation: Maintain up-to-date technical documentation for custom code, integrations, and configurations.
- User Documentation: Provide user documentation and training materials to help users understand and use Salesforce effectively.
- Process Documentation: Document business processes and workflows to ensure consistency and clarity.
9. Compliance
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensure your Salesforce implementation complies with relevant regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA.
- Data Privacy: Implement data privacy measures, such as data masking and encryption, to protect sensitive information.
Salesforce best practices for developers
What about Salesforce Platform Best Practices? Here are some best practices that we documented for Developers.
1. Salesforce Apex Code Best Practices
As with any language, there are key coding principles and best practices that will help you write efficient, scalable code. Regarding Salesforce Apex’s best practices, there are a few key things to remember.
- Bulkify Apex Code
- Avoid SOQL & DML Inside For Loop
- Optimize SOQL Queries to avoid Timeout Issues
- Use Of Map Of Sobject
- Use Of The Limits Apex Methods
- Avoid Hardcoding IDs
- Use Database Methods While Doing DML Operation
- Exception Handling In Apex Code
- Write One Trigger Per Object Per Event
- Use Asynchronous Apex
- Security And Sharing In Apex Code
- Make Reusability Of Apex Code
- Code Coverage
- Return Early Pattern
- Avoid Nesting Loops Within Loops
- Don’t Mix Apex, Process Builders, Workflow Rules, And Record-Triggered Flows
- Apex Naming Conventions
- Setup Code Review Checklist And Code Review Process
- Apex Performance
Learn all Salesforce Apex Code Best Practices with example.
2. Salesforce Flow Best Practices
By following below best practices, you can create effective and efficient flows that automate your business processes and improve productivity.
- Always! Plan Before You Build
- No DML Statement In Loops
- Use The Advanced Technique To Merge Decision Node
- Build Reusable Flow(S) – Subflow(S)
- Don’t Create Flow For Everything
- Build In A Test/Sandbox Environment
- Supercharge Flow With Invocable Apex
- Don’t Hardcode IDs; Query For Them
- Don’t Mix Trigger, Process Builder, Flow, And Record Trigger Flow
- Handle Errors With Fault Paths
- Exception Handling In Flow Using Platform Events
- Use Debug Log To Check Why A Flow Fails At Runtime
- Document Your Flows
- Flow Naming Conventions
- Screen Flow UI Design Tips
- Tests For Salesforce Flow
Learn Salesforce Flow Best Practices with examples.
3. SOQL Best Practices
When dealing with Large Data, your SOQL query may return so many Objects that the limit on heap size is exceeded, and an error occurs. Here are Apex SOQL’s best practices in Salesforce and how important it is when you’re dealing with large databases.
- Building Efficient & Selective Queries
- Common Causes Of Non-Selective SOQL Queries
- Query Optimizer
- Avoiding Querying On Formula Fields
- Custom Indexes Containing Null Rows
- Delete Record From Recycle Bin
- LastModifiedDate Vs SystemModStamp
- SOQL Injection
- SOQL Vs SOSL
- Avoid SOQL Inside FOR Loops
Learn SOQL Best Practices with example.
4. Apex Test Class Best Practices
Unit tests are the tests performed by the developers to ensure that functionality is working as expected, considering Both positive and negative tests. We should not focus on the percentage of code coverage we should focus on the below test class best practices.
- Focus on 90+ code coverage.
- One Assert Statement per method.
- Use @testSetup to create test records once.
- Create TestFactory class
- No SeeAllData=true.
- Use System.runAs to enforce record sharing.
- Avoid Using Hard Coding Ids.
- Using
Test.startTest()
gives developers a new set of governor limits for the act stage of their test.Test.stopTest()
then allows them to return to their previous governor limits. - Exercise bulk trigger functionality
Check Apex Test Class Best Practices with examples.
5. Lightning Web Components (LWC) Best Practice
Learn Lightning Web Components (LWC) Best Practices like when to use apex class and when not to use apex class. When should we use which event in LWC. Here are Lightning Web Components (LWC) Best Practice.
- LWC Component Bundle Naming Convention
- Calling Apex From LWC- Wire Vs Imperatively
- Event In LWC- When to use which event
- Streaming API, Platform Event, Change Data Capture
- How To Debug LWC
- Use Storable Action/ Cache Data
- Build Reusable Lightning Web Components
- Styling Reusable Components
- LWC Best Practices Guide.
- Lazy Loading In LWC
6. OmniStudio Best Practices
Salesforce Industries (Vlocity) Digital Platform Components are divided in the following categories. FlexCard, OmniScript, DataRaptor, and Integration Procedures. Here are OmniStudio Best Practices which can help you to learn omnistudio.
Learn more about platform best practices.
Summary
By following these best practices, you can help ensure your Salesforce implementation is successful and delivers value to your organization.
Thank you for this comprehensive guide! The best practices you’ve outlined for Apex development are incredibly helpful, especially for someone trying to navigate Salesforce. I particularly appreciated the emphasis on performance optimization and code maintainability. Looking forward to implementing these strategies in my projects!
All the best. Glad this best practices helped you