Discover AgentExchange Solutions

Learning Objectives

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

• Define AgentExchange.
  
• List AgentExchange solution types.
  
• Describe the benefits of using AgentExchange solutions in your projects.
  

AgentExchange Is More Than Apps

AgentExchange has evolved far beyond apps since launching as the first enterprise cloud marketplace in 2006. It’s a robust trusted marketplace for 3rd party:

• Agents
  
• Apps
  
• Bolt solutions
  
• Components
  
• Consultants
  
• Flow solutions
  

Collectively, these solutions span just about every industry, department, and line of business. 

AgentExchange solutions have several things in common. They are:

• Easy to install: Thousands of solutions install in just a few clicks.
  
• Seamless to set up: Integrate and configure solutions with clicks not code.
  
• Peer reviewed: AgentExchange has more than 186,000 peer reviews.
  

The Need for Speed

By far, what our customers request most is speed. Not speed in the sense of page load times, but rather the ability to build and deploy solutions faster. Solutions on AgentExchange speed up your time to market because you don’t have to start from scratch.

Customers also want to find the right AgentExchange solution quickly. This module explores popular solution types, highlights when to use each type, and shows you how to quickly find the solution you need. 

Let’s get started.

Follow Along with Trail Together

Want to follow along with an expert as you work through this step? Take a look at this video, part of the Trail Together series.

Agents: Autonomous AI Solutions

Agents are autonomous AI entities and agent skills that perform tasks on your behalf, such as qualifying leads or resolving customer service cases. Unlike standard apps, agents can reason through complex problems and take action within your Salesforce environment or Slack Workspace.

Apps: Specialized Applications

An app is a ready-to-install collection of items that work together to serve a particular function. To create apps, developers combine custom objects, applications, tabs, components, and more into a single app package. Every app on AgentExchange lists what it contains. Some are packed full.

Others are lean.

Components: Building Blocks

Apps have their advantages, but sometimes you just need a piece of functionality to make an app or web page more useful. That’s where components come in handy. 

Components are modular building blocks. You can use components to build other solutions, such as apps—no coding required. Components allow you to add functionality without having to develop it on your own. 

Web components are user interface elements. To understand web components, it helps to understand the Lightning Experience user interface. In Lightning Experience, everything on a page—buttons, tabs, and so on—is a Lightning web component. To augment or customize a page, you add web components to the page.

Salesforce developers create some components, but partners create most of the components listed on AgentExchange.

Here are a few component usage examples.

• Track Salesforce logins and feature usage.
  
• Kick off processes.
  
• Find and merge duplicate records across all Salesforce objects.
  
• Add a calendar to a page.
  

Bolt Solutions: Industry Solutions

Sometimes you need to bring an industry-specific solution to market quickly. The solution must work with a Salesforce product, such as Sales Cloud or Service Cloud, and have business logic and automation built in. It also must have a customizable user interface. When you need all that, you need a Bolt solution.

Bolt solutions are complete industry solutions that are quick to deploy on Salesforce. 

Here are some examples of what Bolt solutions can do.

• Deliver a complete customer onboarding experience.
  
• Jumpstart the creation of a community or website that seamlessly integrates with Salesforce CRM.
  
• Create a portal for franchisees to access the latest version of logos and other brand assets.
  

Keep in mind: unlike ready-to-install apps and components, Bolt solution deployment requires the services of the partner who created the Bolt. 

Flow Solutions: Process Automation

Sometimes you need to automate a process, and you’d like to avoid from-scratch integrations and coding. That’s when you need a flow solution. Flow solutions automatically do things, such as update data, send emails, and interact with external systems, on behalf of the user.

“Flow solutions” is an umbrella term. Under the umbrella there are two solution types: flow actions and flow templates.

Flow actions are prebuilt, stand-alone, functional elements that perform an action within the context of a flow. Take, for example, credit card validation. That’s one activity in a multistep payment processing flow.

A flow action is one piece of a bigger picture. Flow templates represent the big picture. In our payment processing example, a flow template not only validates your customers’ credit cards, but also saves their payment info and collects payments. 

Flow templates are prebuilt, end-to-end, configurable business processes tailored to match specific industry use cases.

In addition to these amazing solution types, AgentExchange also hosts solutions for specific Salesforce implementations.

Slack Integrations

As part of AgentExchange, you can find Slack integrations that bring the power of Salesforce directly into your Slack conversations, allowing your team to collaborate where they work.

Consultants

There’s another type of help you can find on AgentExchange: consultants. Consultants are specialists with deep industry knowledge and proven Salesforce expertise. They join forces with our customers, many of whom don’t have the in-house resources or solution knowledge to achieve their goals on their own.

Consultants demonstrate their expertise by keeping their Salesforce certifications up to date and by assembling portfolios of successful projects. More often than not, the guidance, expertise, and support of one of our consultants drives customer success. Together, our customers and consultants can accomplish more and accomplish it faster.

Extend the Power of Salesforce

AgentExchange solutions are the fast and easy way to get even more value out of your Salesforce investment. There's something for every business challenge. 

Need more convincing? Take a test drive. Many of our partners let you try before you buy. This is a great way to validate that the solution you’re interested in meets your needs. 

You and other top Trailblazers use AgentExchange to get more out of Salesforce and their business. 

Resources

• Trailhead: AppExchange Basics
• Trailhead: Lightning Web Components Basics
• Salesforce Partner Community topic: Lightning Components Overview
• Trailhead: Flow Builder Basics
• AppExchange Blog Post: 8 New Flow Templates to Accelerate Automation