Import a Salesforce Diagram Into Lucidchart

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Use the Salesforce Reference Architecture Gallery to find useful diagrams.
Import diagrams from the Reference Architecture Gallery into Lucidchart.
Identify the 3 C’s in a Salesforce reference diagram.

Build Diagrams with Speed

In this unit, you explore how Lucidchart and Salesforce have teamed up to help you quickly achieve the 3 C’s—clarity, consistency, and contrast—in your architecture diagrams. This will take you from the Salesforce Reference Architecture Gallery into Lucidchart.

While it’s not necessary to earn this badge, you can use your own Lucid account if you have one, or you can get an account for free, to follow along.

Below are steps to get a free Lucid account. If you already have one, go ahead and skip to the next section.

Head over to the Lucidchart account creation page.
Click Continue with Free.
Choose how to create a new account.
1. Enter your full name, email, and password, then click Create account.
2. Click Google and follow the prompt to sign into your Google account.
As part of the welcome, Lucid asks a few questions about your role. Fill in and submit the relevant information.

You’re then taken to your new dashboard. Keep this tab open for later.

Set a Vision for the Future

You’ve just been hired by DreamHouse Realty, a real estate brokerage, to evaluate its current business systems and help design a solution for the future of the company. In a recent meeting, the CEO laid out a few key themes for the next 10 years—growth, loyalty and referrals, and national reach.

So where do you start? Luckily, there’s a library of resources available to help you. You can use a Business Capability Map from the Reference Architecture Gallery!

Open the Business Capability Map in Lucidchart

If you’re not signed into Lucidchart yet, go ahead and sign in. In a new tab, retrieve the template Business Capability Map.

Open a new tab in your browser and go to the Reference Architecture Gallery for architects.
Scroll down to find the Business Capability Map and click Read more. Here you’ll find a preview, useful links, and a high-level description of the context and usage. Business drivers and capabilities that are part of a company’s transformational vision, and high-level product positioning. Yep, that’s the one.
Scroll down and click Open in Lucidchart (Lucidchart account required).

The capability map opens in Lucidchart automatically, enabling you to start right away!

If you’re using a free account, you get a message that the map is trying to access premium features. Go ahead and click X. You won’t use any premium features in this exercise.

Explore Lucid’s 3 C’s in the Business Capability Map

It’s critical to communicate and collaborate with speed. That’s what the Reference Architecture Gallery and Lucidchart enable. With a suite of templates that can be quickly imported and adjusted to your needs, you’re that much closer to presenting the vision back to your team, especially when the foundation of the 3 C’s are built into the diagram.

Check out the template that just opened up.

business capability map with numbers next to the title, shapes, columns, and categories as described below

Clarity. The bigger size of the title font (1) indicates where the viewer should start. And the shapes (2) create a cascade effect that naturally draws the eyes downward. There’s a reliable flow of how the viewer should read this diagram—from left to right, top to bottom.

Consistency. Recall from unit 1 the ideas that different shapes and patterns convey. Here, there’s a noticeable set of symmetrical columns (3). This conveys stability, as if each column bears a load that holds up the business drivers and vision. Your viewer can feel confident that this vision will hold firm.

Contrast. Let's focus on the font one more time, especially in the capability categories (4). Just the simple difference between the bold header and the regular body text indicates the difference between higher level ideas and details. A VP at DreamHome may be guided by the values that the drivers and categories convey. While someone in operations may rely more on the details to build out their business plans. And they both know where to find them.

Turn Dream into Action

This is a good foundation. But now it’s time to customize the map to fit the needs of DreamHouse Realty and set the future vision that everyone can get behind. In the next unit, you use Lucidchart to develop the DreamHouse Realty business capability map.