Discover Flosum Platform Basics and Benefits

Learning Objectives

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

Describe the Flosum platform.
List Flosum security and compliance features that protect data.
Summarize how Flosum’s native version control system keeps orgs in sync.
Explain how Flosum’s integration capabilities streamline DevSecOps processes.

Flosum: An End-to-End Solution

Flosum is a cohesive platform of solutions for Salesforce DevSecOps that allows developers and operations to orchestrate changes throughout the development lifecycle.

The Flosum platform comprises four products:

DevSecOps
Trust Center
Backup, Restore, and Archive
Data Migrator

We talk more about each product in the next unit, but first, let’s talk about how the products work together within the Flosum platform.

The platform’s four products are deeply integrated and work seamlessly together to establish effective DevSecOps practices by:

Providing project visibility across teams.
Facilitating easy communication and collaboration.
Automating processes.

Flosum uses Salesforce:

Interface, which reduces ramp-up time and administrative tasks for busy teams.
Functionality, which streamlines predeployment activities and syncs sandboxes.
Security, which makes it a great solution for highly regulated, security-conscious industries and the public sector.

As we mentioned in the previous unit, companies sometimes struggle to put effective DevSecOps practices in place. You’ve just learned how Flosum solves the problem of siloed tools. Now, let’s take a closer look at how Flosum helps teams overcome the other challenges.

Flosum Security and Compliance

DevSecOps solutions that don’t prioritize security and risk management create data vulnerabilities and compromise compliance. Flosum provides security and compliance from ideation through deployment and lets users track changes across the entire DevSecOps lifecycle.

Flosum adheres to five “A”s of compliance:

Compliance Category	Flosum…
Access controls	Ensures the separation of duties and uses Salesforce and Flosum security to assign proper permissions.
Auditing	Automatically generates a complete and uneditable history of all changes to code and component versions.
Approvals	Allows users to set up approvals at any point in the DevSecOps process and receive notifications for every transaction.
Analytics	Provides out-of-the-box analytics, storing all information and custom objects for easy reporting via Salesforce CRM Analytics.
Architecture	Uses no shared infrastructure and does not have access to data in the production org.

Flosum Native Version Controls

With DevSecOps solutions that lack version controls, developers can’t be sure that they’re working with the correct release of a program. Flosum’s native version control system—which is integrated with Salesforce—keeps orgs in sync.

Users can deploy either Flosum native version controls on their own or take advantage of Flosum’s complete bidirectional synchronization with various flavors of Git (for example, GitHub, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, and GitLab). Both deployment modes offer features such as:

Branching strategies: Developers collaborate without disrupting the main code base.
Code merges, requests, and comprehensive reviews: Work done simultaneously by different team members is integrated and made available for peer review.
Overwrite Protection: Developers see and resolve merge conflicts to prevent any changes on the org from being overwritten unintentionally by other developers.

Flosum Integrations

DevSecOps solutions that aren’t integrated (or have limited integration) with third-party tools create inflexibility and often require teams to build their own ineffective solutions to fill in gaps. Flosum integrates bidirectionally with many applications right out of the box, which allows companies to quickly deliver high-quality software.

As we mentioned, Flosum is built entirely on the Salesforce Platform, making Salesforce DevSecOps:

Efficient: Users save both effort and time with automated processes.
Fast: Users quickly move changes from development sandbox to production.
Flexible: Users work with existing systems and manage the full release lifecycle, no matter if they’re an admin or a developer.
Secure: Users conduct all interactions within a native solution within their Salesforce environment.

Flosum also offers the following third-party integrations, in addition to many others:

Feature	Integrations
Version control	GitHub Bitbucket Team Foundation Server (TFS)
Agile management	Jira ServiceNow Rally
Regression testing	Silk Test Selenium Unified Functional Testing (UFT)
Code quality	SonarQube Apex PMD Checkmarx
AppExchange packages	Vlocity Veeva Apttus
Integrated development environment (IDE)	The Welkin Suite IntelliJ IDEA Visual Studio Code

That’s a high-level look at how the Flosum DevSecOps solution solves all sorts of business challenges. Head over to the next unit to learn more about the four products on the Flosum platform and how they help manage releases.