With the Salesforce Architect career path being one of the most coveted roles in the Salesforce ecosystem, it’s only normal that Salesforce themselves will invest in capabilities as well as resources to set up professionals for success.
Dreamforce 2024 brought us the fourth Architect Keynote, which focused on the importance of Well-Architected solutions across any and every functionality that is to come your way – be it AI, CRM, or Data related.
Highlights
In the technology world where constant change is the norm, the Well-Architected framework can (and should) easily become your guide as to what healthy solutions should look like. Each pillar has its own particularities with the end goal of ensuring that your solution will be future-ready.
- Trusted: As trust is one of Salesforce’s core values, security and regulations should be considered during every implementation. In the era of AI, trust is paramount.
- Easy: It’s important that solutions are fast and easy to implement without compromising reliability.
- Adaptable: With business challenges evolving, the solutions have to keep up. As a result, composable solutions, as well as reusable components, are sure to become an essential part of any implementation.
Trusted: Protect Data and Stakeholders
As Salesforce Architects in the age of AI, building trusted solutions means accounting for anything and everything. Data and org security are foundational to any solution but on top of these, Architects and Salesforce professionals have to account for scalability, performance, legal adherence, and ethical standards.
When it comes to ensuring the compliance, security, and reliability for your solutions, Salesforce has got you covered with the newest updates for each category: from already GA functionality such as Data Masking for Gen AI and External Client Applications to new features coming to your org in just a few weeks such as Tagging and Classification for Data Cloud (beta) and the long-awaited Event Log Objects.
Also, with the help of the community, you can now find Data Cloud included in the pattern and anti-pattern explorer on architect.salesforce.com!
Zooming in on Data Cloud security and how it relates to the CRM mechanisms, the audience got a glimpse into how the access layers work and how the newly announced enhancements such as Data Masking and Platform Encryption come into the landscape.
Easy: Deliver Value Fast and Over Time
More often than not, keeping things simple can have maximum impact on both users and technical folks. It should come as no surprise that the greatest solutions are often the ones thought out with both strategy and efficiency in mind, which are of course supported by a streamlined and accessible experience. Carefully considering all these aspects is bound to drive adoption alongside a positive overall user experience.
As you can expect by now, Salesforce already thought about these needs, and in order to help you create even more intentional, engaging, and of course, automated solutions, Agentforce is joining the Salesforce suite of products in full force alongside many other new features and capabilities! Now, your organization can provide the expected support 24/7 with confidence, trust, and the latest generative AI functionality grounded in your very own business data.
With efficiency in mind, making use of the newest Salesforce innovations will supercharge previously cumbersome processes in no time, regardless of what kind of data structure (or lack thereof) has to be processed by your very own fully integrated autonomous agents.
Adaptable: Keep Transforming
Salesforce Architects, Admins, and even users are nothing if not adaptable when it comes to learning and using new products and technologies, especially within the Salesforce ecosystem. Adaptable solutions evolve alongside your business needs. Being able to plan, deliver, and maintain complex solutions that are resilient and composable is an art, and Architects, just like painters, need the right tools for the job!
To help you achieve the ultimate solution, Salesforce introduced a variety of new features for the most optimal behind-the-scenes experience. From the Scale Test Load Generation pilot to the Data Cloud sandboxes becoming generally available in Winter ‘25, rapidly building and releasing your solutions has never been easier.
The below example showcases the different blocks of how release management can be looked at when both CRM and Data Cloud changes need to happen simultaneously. By leveraging the newly available Data Cloud sandbox functionality, Salesforce professionals can easily build, test, and deploy the entire functionality and mitigate any risks that come with making changes in production orgs.
The Return of the Light Boards
Architects asked, and Salesforce listened! Using Light boards during the Architect Keynote has been a huge hit with the audience, so it should come as no surprise that they made a comeback. All diagrams you saw above, corresponding to each of the Well-Architected pillars, were drawn and explained live during the Architect Keynote.
The step-by-step approach to creating and explaining the diagram while going through each aspect of it not only makes it easy to understand and follow but also brings transparency into how exactly Salesforce is building behind the scenes.
Make sure to watch the Architect Keynote yourself to hear all the details directly from the people involved in making these features a reality – now already available on Salesforce+!
Keynote Ambassadors Q&A
What better way to end a great keynote than a live Q&A with a panel of the very innovators behind Salesforce’s most powerful functionalities? That’s right, the Dreamforce 2024 Architect Keynote ended on a high note with the panelists answering questions from the audience!
Take a look at the questions as well as the panelists’ answers on demand on Salesforce+.
Summary
Finally, all improvements referenced during the Keynote are here to ensure that Salesforce Architects have all the tools, resources, and support to build solutions that the business can count on, are easy to understand and use, and are adaptable to the ever-changing business needs. The future of Salesforce Architects is looking bright – in a Well-Architected fashion.
What do you think it’s the most promising Architect Keynote highlight? Tell us in the comments below!