Can you add a sales process in change set?

Change Management is the practice or methodology that allows organizations to manage changes effectively within their systems without disrupting current operations, while ensuring continuity and quality throughout.

The key principle behind effective Change Management involves three main steps: communication (e.g., informing), synchronization (ensuring everyone's on the same page with regards to what has been communicated), and control (reviewing for any unintended consequences).

Achieving these principles requires constant monitoring of an organization’s environment, which means keeping track of everything going on in one place—Salesforce. To help ensure your company follows all regulations regarding Change Management Best Practices, there are several tools and solutions available. One such tool is called "Change Set". Here we'll explain exactly what it is and why it exists.

What can be included in a change set?

In order to create a successful Change Request, many things must be considered. The first two considerations involve making sure the request has enough information so as not to cause confusion later on down the line. The third consideration is to check if it will work properly inside the system as intended. If there are multiple users affected by the proposed change, each user should have access to the entire list of requirements in advance before submitting the Change Request.

Below is a list of items that could potentially go into a Change Set:

New fields

Custom Fields

Field-Level Security rules

Relationships

Workflow Rules

Processes & Packages

Visual Components

Queries

Reports

VF Pages

Page Layouts

User Stories

Solutions Documents

Once a decision is made about what goes into the Change Set, it's time to submit it for review. Once submitted, the Change Set Review Team reviews whether the change meets the objectives of the project. This team consists of the following people from different departments across the business:

An Owner/Project Manager who signs off on the Change Set once it meets the required criteria

One or more Subject Matter Experts (SME) who provide technical expertise on security concerns, data migration issues, etc.

If approved by the Project manager, then the Change Set moves forward towards implementation. However, even after approval, the Change Set may still need some additional improvements based upon feedback received during its review phase. These improvements might include adding new functionality, changing field names, customizing visual components, adjusting workflow processes, improving reporting capabilities, etc.

What can be included in a change set Salesforce?

As mentioned earlier, there are thousands of possibilities when dealing with CRM software like Force.com Sites, Apex Code, Lightning Experience, Communities, Leads, Accounts, Custom Objects, Reports, Process Builder, Workflows, Visual Component Libraries, Data Loader, Metadata API, Mobile SDK, Third Party Integrations, Streaming Messaging System, Chatter, Email Marketing, Push Notification Systems, and much more!

There are also numerous ways to manipulate these objects, including creating queries, modifying object definitions, inserting records, updating records, deleting records, copying records, navigating between pages, editing layouts, etc. There are also complex relationships that need to be maintained, such as Account lookup relationship, Contact lookup relationship, Lead lookup relationship, Opportunity lookup relationship, Order lookup relationship, Quote lookup relationship, Contract lookup relationship, Campaign lookup relationship, User lookup relationship, Sharing Rule, Relationship Field List, Lookup Rollups, Task List lookups, and more. All of these complexities result in errors that need fixing manually. In addition, every developer out there wants his own pet feature added, but sometimes it doesn't fit well with other features already present in the platform. For example, let's say I want to add a button named "Send Invoice" next to my lead record, but since a lot of developers are doing the same thing, it would break something else entirely. It's important to think ahead and map out possible scenarios, and figure out where those conflicts occur beforehand.

Lastly, there are hundreds of reports built directly onto various objects in Sales Cloud, meaning that instead of having to navigate through menus to find them, you'd just click a few buttons to get to the report. As a rule of thumb, don't ever assume that because a particular report was created on another platform, it will automatically function correctly on Force.com sites. Sometimes, the way reports were designed simply isn't compatible with the way they're rendered on Force.com Sites.

What can be deployed using change sets?

After the Change Set passes the initial review, it comes under the purview of the Deployment Team. They take over managing the update until it reaches production. Below are the roles played by a Deployment Team:

Release Engineer(s): responsible for testing the Change Set in Sandbox environments prior to rollout

Test Automation Analyst / Test Planner: responsible for designing test plans and automating tests for the Change Set

Sandbox Admin: maintains sandbox instances of Force.com Site and manages endpoints

Production Admins: maintain the server infrastructure used to run the Change Set

Deployment Support Specialist: handles support tickets related to deploying Change Sets

Endpoint Monitor: monitors endpoint health status, alerts, and logs from Production Endpoints

QA Testers: perform manual checks on developed Change Sets to validate integration with internal applications

Dedicated Release Planning Meetings: regularly scheduled meetings where Deployment Teams come together to discuss upcoming releases and coordinate efforts

It takes months, sometimes years, to build up a solid reputation around Change Management Best Practices. Unfortunately, many companies neglect to follow standard procedures at least once in awhile. When this happens, they often experience major setbacks due to bugs and problems caused by miscommunication among teams. And although most teams try their hardest to avoid mistakes, occasionally they slip up anyway. That's where Change Sets come in handy. By maintaining strict standards and guidelines, and avoiding human error altogether, Change Sets allow businesses to deploy updates smoothly and quickly.

Here are 3 common pitfalls associated with Change Management Best Practices:

Lack of Communication - Changes aren't always easy to communicate. Many times, only certain individuals know what needs done, and others tend to forget or overlook details. Without proper documentation, projects can easily fall apart and become unprofitable.

Poor Coordination - While working on a single task, someone forgets to notify other members involved in the project. Other parties get left hanging when deadlines pass without notice. Uncoordinated tasks can put unnecessary stress on employees.

Unintended Consequences - Due to poor planning, unexpected obstacles occur along the way, causing delays and increasing costs. Even worse, some unforeseen circumstances force the hand of executives, resulting in unwanted product launches.

With Change Sets, none of these situations arise. Everything gets documented thoroughly, and it is easier than ever to keep track of what needs to happen.

What are 3 characteristics of change set deployment?

Easy Updates - Since Change Sets contain detailed instructions, anyone can use them to install updates. No special training is necessary.

Simplified Reporting - With Change Sets, it's simple to see the progress being made toward completing a specific goal. You won't have to worry about missing critical milestones and delayed launch dates anymore.

No Major Flaws - Because everyone knows what's expected, no unexpected surprises occur; thus reducing downtime and boosting productivity.

Less Manual Input Required - Employees don't waste countless hours trying to fix broken products. Instead, they spend less time debugging and troubleshooting compared to traditional methods. Overall, this saves money and increases efficiency.

Isolate Bugs Faster - Since Change Sets contain clear directions and step-by-step instructions, bugs rarely affect overall performance. Bugs affecting individual parts of the application are isolated faster, preventing customers from experiencing loss of service.

Reduce Costs - Time spent on failed installations is cut drastically, saving both effort and resources. Furthermore, there is no longer any reason to hire expensive consultants to deal with complicated technology issues.

Increase Productivity - Since Change Sets eliminate wasted time and prevent mishaps, employees can focus on core responsibilities rather than spending endless amounts of time figuring out how to resolve glitches.

Improve Customer Service - Customers receive accurate updates straight from the source, eliminating customer frustration. They can rest assured knowing that whatever they purchase will operate flawlessly with little risk of malfunction or delay.

Boost Reputation - Companies gain credibility by consistently delivering high levels of service. Their clients begin trusting them further, eventually leading to increased revenue streams.

Conclusion

Now that you've learned about Change Sets, hopefully you understand why they exist and how they benefit your future endeavors. We hope our explanation helps you improve Change Management Best Practices moving forward.

Change Management Best Practices (CMBP) can help your team manage changes more efficiently, increase the likelihood of success, reduce project risks, and improve overall performance. However, managing large-scale projects with CMBP requires training on how to identify them, plan for their execution, track progress, coordinate teams, and communicate effectively. And while there have been many advances made in cloud technology over time, it's still not as easy or automated as adding a new field to an existing object. One option to overcome these challenges is by creating custom objects that will allow greater flexibility when designing complex flows and processes. But what if your goal was to deploy only specific fields from hundreds of available options without any customization? The answer is the Change Set feature.

In this article we discuss Change Seshes and show how they can speed up development cycles, allowing users to focus solely on developing functionality instead of spending valuable resources identifying where to start building out features. We also explain how to integrate external systems into SFDC through workflows, triggers, and data validation rules so that your organization can achieve maximum efficiency across all its applications.

What Are Change Sets In Salesforce?

If you've ever had to design a system within your current environment, then you know that finding a place to store information about your customers or clients becomes difficult once every entity has unique identifiers. For example, consider a company that owns several different properties including offices, retail stores, warehouses, etc., each having their own database containing customer records. If one property wants to send emails to customers who purchased something last week but forgot which item, they would need to search multiple databases to find those records. This could take hours if the email needs to contain information such as name, address, phone number, purchase date, product description, shipping details, invoice numbers, etc. To avoid this headache, organizations may want to use Change Sets that provide a way to isolate sensitive client information and keep it centralized under one roof.

The following figure shows an outline of a simple workflow designed in Change Set format. You'll notice that there are two sections here—one for inputting values and another for outputting results. Below is a detailed explanation on how to complete each step of the flow.

When starting off, the user must first select whether he/she will enter a new record or update a pre-existing value. Then, the next screen should ask for some basic demographic information like First Name, Last Name, City, State, Phone Number, Email Address, Gender, Date Of Birth, ZIP Code, Account Type, Interested In, Do Not Call List, etc. Once entered, the form should display a message indicating that the data entry task is ready for review. At this point, the user should click the Submit button at the bottom right corner of the page. After clicking submit, a pop-up window will appear asking the user if everything looks good. By selecting Yes, the user acknowledges that his/her information is accurate and valid. Finally, after hitting OK, the user will see the final result displayed beneath the previous inputs.

Now let's look at how to implement this kind of logic into Change Set format. Here, we assume that the company sells shoes online and wishes to collect payment information via email. They currently utilize Stripe integration to accept payments electronically. When someone orders a pair of shoes online, they fill out a short registration form with all pertinent billing info, and upon submitting the order, Stripe sends an authorization code back to our hypothetical shoe seller. Now, imagine that the owner of the site receives an order, checks the box marked "shipping outside US" and hits Send Order. That trigger will automatically fire certain actions based on other conditions being met. As soon as Stripe replies with an authorization code, the web developer will immediately forward that code to the API controller so that it can initiate sending out the authorization card directly to the buyer. If however the sender does not check the box marked "Shipping Outside US", the workflow will simply pass control of that transaction onto the standard checkout processor.

For reference purposes, below is the initial Create New Change Set layout used to generate a request to create a new Change Set. Note that during creation, you're able to customize the elements included in the template using parameters. Also, when running your tests, you can choose to run against the sandbox, production, or both environments simultaneously.

How Does It Work?

Change Sets can be created using three methods: Apex Triggers, Visual Force Pages, and Custom Objects. Depending on the complexity of the desired tasks, developers may opt for either option to fit their particular situation. Let's walk through the steps required to build a Change Set for our previously mentioned scenario.

Click on Save & Deploy. This action creates a new ChangeSet called ShoeOrderFormPayment. Next, highlight the newly created ChangeSet and click Edit Settings located towards the top right corner of the screen. From here you can adjust settings related to deployment, security access, sharing permissions, etc. Clicking Update Changeset brings us to Step 2 where you can now begin entering data into the various text boxes provided.

Next, hit the blue Run Tasks button just above the main editing area. A popup menu will appear providing you with several choices. Select Execute Selected Task(s). Upon doing so, you'll see a list of items that were successfully added to the table. Hit Done at the very end of the page.

Finally, go to the Home tab, scroll down to Find Actions, and type in "trigger". Make sure to include the word Trigger in front of the phrase. On the resulting dropdown menu, pick System Event. Your selected event should be Completed. Scroll down to the section labeled Before Action and locate the green plus icon near the center of the row. Drag it onto the line representing [After Insert].

Once you drag that icon onto the appropriate location, you will receive a prompt stating "Before insert." Hit Continue again. Another popup window will pop up asking you if you're sure you want to continue. Simply press Yes. A third popup window will appear after pressing yes. This window will inform you that your trigger fired successfully. Go ahead and repeat the same procedure for the second part of your workflow. There should be no difference between completing the before and after portions of the workflow separately vs. executing them together because they act independently of each other. Just remember to save your document whenever possible, otherwise your entire workflow might disappear!

Let's say you wanted to delete rows from a table after a user submitted a successful payment confirmation. To accomplish this task, you'd follow the exact same steps outlined earlier. Instead of triggering the workflow based on inserting a new record, you should rather execute it after deleting a record. So, go to the Home tab and navigate to Find Actions " Find Events... Press the blue + icon to expand the events section. Choose Delete Record. Repeat the same process for the second half of your workflow.

How Can You Use Change Sets?

Change Sets offer tremendous benefits for enterprises looking to streamline operations with minimal effort. Developers are given the freedom to modify templates according to individual requirements without getting bogged down in tedious programming. Users benefit from increased productivity due to less downtime caused by errors or bugs. With Change Sets, companies are able to get feedback much faster than traditional manual testing procedures by enabling real-time updates to test documents. Lastly, organizations become equipped with tools necessary to handle critical situations and emergencies quickly and efficiently.

Although Change Sets can't replace coding entirely, they definitely help to simplify repetitive tasks and cut down on rework. Additionally, Change Sets allows businesses to scale seamlessly as they grow. Companies can even use Change Sets in conjunction with Lightning Components to develop high performing mobile apps.

To learn more about Change Sets, read the documentation available on Github.

Change Management Best Practices (CMBP) are designed to help organizations manage their IT infrastructure effectively, minimize risks associated with technology deployment, and mitigate operational disruptions. To achieve these goals, it's essential for an organization to have clear policies on what can or cannot be changed within its system.

A Change Set allows multiple updates that include new functionality, enhancements, fixes, refactoring, etc., to be rolled out together instead of deploying them individually over time. The service packs all related changes into one package so end users don't need to download hundreds of individual files.

In addition, many organizations use CMBP as part of their Service Level Agreement. For example, if there's any outage due to software bugs, then customers get compensated based on whether they were able to perform certain functions during the outage. Similarly, some industries also have SLAs around specific types of workflows such as ticket creation, status update, etc. Since these functionalities are critical to customer satisfaction and revenue generation, they should ideally not go down even when servers crash!

How do I add a support process to changeset in Salesforce?

Adding a Support Processes to Change Sets is relatively straightforward once we understand where those processes exist in our enterprise today. In other words, let’s first identify which parts of your current application belong inside Change Sets and which ones can stand alone outside them.

Here are two examples below:

An Order object contains information about each order placed by customers and has several dependent objects like Invoices, Shipping Information, Picklists, Credit Memos, Shipments, Receipts, Packages, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunties, Reports, Quotes, Campaigns, Leads, Documents, Metadata, Communities, and more. Each record from these objects requires custom fields to store various data elements. These records will never change without changing the entire order model itself because they depend on every piece of metadata stored across dozens of different tables. Hence, Order needs to use a separate Change Set than Customer Contact since adding a new field to either would break existing orders. On the contrary, Customers can easily create additional contacts just by clicking New " Person Account and filling up required fields. So you should put Customer Contact under standard Change Sets.

You may think that inserting a simple formula field named Is_Active in Orders table wouldn't require a whole new version but actually, updating formulas involves complex logic that makes them hard-to-maintain. You'll find yourself writing complex expressions to check for validation rules or comparing values between fields—all of which eventually leads to errors and performance issues. Plus, formulas are often used by developers to trigger actions or calculations depending upon other fields. If you want to modify the calculation, you must edit formulas directly in Apex code rather than through user interface. That means you may need to deploy thousands of lines of Apex Code to handle the same task that takes only 5 lines of VisualForce expression. As such, formulas should always use standard Change Sets.

Where is the business processes in Salesforce?

Sales Cloud provides three core areas of functionality: Marketing Automation, Force.com IDE & Platform, and Application Lifecycle Services (ALM). All activities within these blocks operate independently of one another. Only the administrator/owner of the org gets access to these services. However, there are instances when both technical teams and marketers might wish to collaborate on tasks like creating templates, reports, lead scoring models, etc. While doing so, they might inadvertently introduce unwanted behavior modifications that could result in unexpected outcomes. It's at times like these when using Change Sets becomes useful since anyone who wants to make a minor change to the template, report, workflow, or function doesn't need admin privileges and can simply patch it right away.

Let me demonstrate this further via an analogy. Imagine you're playing football against your friend while he's running towards you holding his ball. He drops the ball accidentally and you try catching it before him. Now imagine you're playing basketball against your teammate while she keeps dribbling the ball back and forth. She suddenly loses control of the ball and you grab it immediately. This scenario illustrates why administrators commonly lock down Change Sets until an approved person adds the next content item.

Hence, whenever possible, keep business processes outside Change Sets. They're less likely to contain sensitive items like formulas, triggers, validation rules, etc.

What Components Cannot be deployed using change sets?

The following list describes all the supported objects that can be included in a Change Set:

Custom Fields - Custom fields allow us to customize the look and feel of our applications by providing extra attributes to pick lists, document libraries, contact forms, and visual page editors. Unfortunately, you cannot tweak the API of custom fields unless you plan to rollback to older versions.

Visual Editors - A few popular visual editing features provided by Adobe Flash Builder 4.5+ include drag and drop action buttons, chart controls, form layout options, menu bar navigation, rich text toolbars, tabbed panels, color palette selection, button customization, etc. Any attempt to override these behaviors results in runtime error messages. Even though you can manually remove built-in flash movie clips, removing embedded CSS classes breaks compatibility with apps that still rely on preloaded stylesheets. Additionally, embedding JavaScript frameworks like jQuery Mobile causes similar problems. Therefore, you shouldn't place visual editor components inside Change Ssets. Instead, move them to Standard Objects.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) -- An API is essentially a library of methods that provide common building block functionality for developing web pages and mobile applications. By default, APIs come packaged inside ChangeSets. When someone else tries to alter them, they run into serious conflicts. Consider placing APIs in Standard Objects since they won't interfere with other artifacts.

Reports -- Like APIS, most Report definitions reside inside ChangeSets. But unlike APIs, people generally expect reports to automatically display relevant data on dashboards. Attempting to disable automatic pagination or introducing new sorting criteria can severely impact reporting performance. Consequently, please avoid putting reports inside ChangeSets. Use Standard Object instead.

Metadata Types -- Metadata consists of descriptive information regarding object properties and relationships. There are lots of places where you'd see dynamic lookup fields containing references to other records. For instance, a Company object can link to Users through User Lookup Field. Whenever someone modifies the reference value of this field, it causes errors for existing records. Thus, you should avoid including these kinds of fields inside ChangeSets. Move them to Standard Objects.

Queries-- Similar to Metadata, queries are statements written in SQL language that return rows of data from databases. Using Update Queries, you can delete old entries or export large datasets. People usually write complicated scripts to automate manual processes. If you try to execute these scripts inside a ChangeSet, they may encounter concurrency issues. To solve this problem, move these scripts outside ChangeSets. Alternatively, you can use Query Activities to define read-only views of data sources.

Formulas and Calculations -- Most formulas consist of conditional logic or mathematical equations. Unlike static values, formulas dynamically calculate output values according to input parameters. Due to this reason, they're extremely difficult to maintain and scale. Moreover, formulas are sometimes used by programmers to trigger actions or calculations depending upon other fields. Attempting to modify a formula will cause the app to stop working correctly. Keep formulas outside ChangeSets.

Lead Conversion Rules -- Lead conversion rules determine whether or not a submitted lead should become a case, campaign, quote, or purchase order. Anyone trying to bypass these rules can potentially damage production systems. Because of this risk, you should prevent them from being modified or moved outside ChangeSets.

Field History Tracking -- Unlike most objects mentioned above, Field history tracking uses unique identifiers called Ids to track changes made to fields. Without proper security checks, hackers can gain unauthorized access to your database and steal private information. Field history tracking is disabled by default and comes enabled only after performing proper authorization procedures. Moving these kind of fields outside ChangeSets is recommended.

Functions -- Functions are high level programming constructs that encapsulate repetitive tasks. Developers frequently utilize functions to reduce coding effort and improve productivity. However, you shouldn't wrap them into ChangeSets since they tend to duplicate logic. Just move them to Standard Objects.

Batch Jobs -- Batch jobs take care of long-running processes that don't fit nicely into ChangeSets. Examples include email automation, scheduled job executions, maintenance windows, etc.

Script Libraries -- Script Libraries enable third party vendors to integrate their products seamlessly with Salesforce platform. Everytime you deploy a script library, it overwrites previous copies. Unless you've taken appropriate measures to preserve the original state, moving these kind of assets outside ChangeSets is highly discouraged.

Document Workflow Templates -- Document Workflow Template files typically contain basic layouts created by designers for documents relating to marketing campaigns, proposals, contracts, invoices, quotes, appointments, tickets, opportunities, cases, packages, orders, shipments, receipts, credit memos, attachments, etc. You can save significant amounts of development hours by leveraging these reusable file formats. However, since many of these files live inside ChangeSets, modifying them introduces unnecessary complexity. Therefore, move them outside ChangeSets.