The vast world of Salesforce is made up of a lot of interconnected components, each playing an important role in every business process. In this web of components, two fundamental ones stand out: apps and objects.
Both apps and objects comprise a fairly large part of your org’s foundation. For some users, there is no question of differentiating between the two, but for others, it can get a bit confusing. Knowing and understanding the differences between these components is important for anyone building on the platform. In this article, we’ll dive into what apps and objects are, their differences, as well as their use cases.
What Are Salesforce Apps?
When you log into Salesforce, the app you’re using determines what you see and interact with. This includes a set of objects, tabs, dashboards, and other components that are configured to meet specific business needs.
Apps in Salesforce are collections of tabs that work together as a unit to serve a particular business function. It’s generally a way to group related functionalities and data in a single, easy-to-use interface. For example, a Sales app includes sales-related functionalities and objects shown as tabs for Accounts, Opportunities, and Leads, while a Service app would include support-related functionalities and objects shown as tabs for Cases and Knowledge.
There are two types of apps in Salesforce: standard and custom. Standard apps are pre-built on the platform and cover common business processes. Examples are Sales, Service, and Marketing. Custom apps, on the other hand, are user-defined. Since businesses vary and have different needs, apps can be tailor-made to business processes that are unique. This is where creating a custom app comes in.
Benefits of Using Apps
Grouping related functionalities and separating them into apps has its pros, the most significant of which is having a more organized layout for everyone. As an org grows, the objects, functionalities, and records also grow in number. Before you know it, the org could be so cluttered that your end-users find it more difficult to navigate swiftly into what they need to access.
Imagine opening Salesforce and being greeted by a multitude of tabs or having to specifically search for an item to access it just because it isn’t directly available. Since apps have their own home pages, apps can be configured to show relevant information immediately.
For example, you can set up a custom Sales app for sales managers who can use it to track pipeline progress and manage prospects. When the user opens the app, they can immediately see a dashboard that has this information, along with only sales-related tabs. They wouldn’t have to go through other objects and functionalities that they don’t use!
What Are Salesforce Objects?
Objects in Salesforce allow you to store data specific to an organization. You can think of them as database tables, where the rows are records, and the columns are the fields within them. Since they actually hold the data, they form the backbone of Salesforce.
Similar to apps, there are also two types of objects: standard and custom. Standard objects come out of the box with Salesforce and cover common business data. Some examples are:
- Account: Representing an organization or person involved with your business
- Contact: An individual typically associated with an account
- Opportunity/Lead: Tracking sales and potential revenue
- Case: Managing customer support issues
Custom objects are created by Salesforce professionals to store information unique to their organization. They are great for uncommon business data since custom objects can be tailored to hold data and relationships that fit specific needs.
For example, a real estate firm might create a custom object called “Property” to manage listings and related details, or a healthcare facility might create a custom object called “Medicine” to keep track of the meds available to prescribe to patients. Custom objects usually have their API names appended with “__c”.
Object Relationships
Objects don’t only hold important data – they can also be related to one another through various types of relationships. The two most commonly used relationships are lookup relationships (loose link) and master-detail relationships (strong link).
In lookup relationships, objects are loosely coupled such that they can be related to one another but do not directly affect each other. It’s a one-to-many relationship where a record of one object can be related to multiple records of another. One standard example of this is the account-contact relationship, where an account can be related to multiple contacts.
Master-detail relationships have a much tighter link, where deleting a record of the parent object will delete all its related child records as well. Parent records can also control the sharing and visibility of the child records. Since this is the case, creating a child record will always require a parent record.
There are other kinds of object relationships in Salesforce, so make sure to check them out here.
Key Difference Between Apps and Objects
The main difference between apps and objects is their purpose.
Apps are collections of functionalities tailored to business processes, while objects are the components within Salesforce where actual data is stored. Apps can contain tabs representing different objects that support a specific business function. While one focuses mainly on interface and convenience or ease of use, the other actually holds data and the relationships between them.
Salesforce boasts great customization capabilities, and customizing both apps and objects to cover unique business needs is definitely a plus. However, customizing an app is mainly about organizing functionalities for easier access to end users, while customizing an object affects the whole data model in the org. This highlights their difference not only in purpose but also in scope.
If we were to use an analogy, think of apps as ‘wants’ and objects as ‘needs’. Just as a person can live without wants, an org’s end-user can function without apps grouping or organizing functionalities. But like a person who can’t survive without basic needs, an org won’t have anything to hold data without objects. This isn’t to say that apps aren’t more important than objects, but just as a person can survive without wants but thrives when they are fulfilled, an org’s end user can function without apps but can operate much more efficiently with them.
Summary
Understanding the distinction between apps and objects is fundamental for navigating and building within Salesforce effectively. Apps provide the interface and organization needed for users to perform their roles efficiently, while objects are the foundational elements that store the data driving those processes. By mastering both, it’s easy for users to tailor Salesforce to meet specific business needs, enhancing not just productivity but also data management.
How do you use apps and objects? Leave your answers in the comments below!