Discover AppExchange Solutions

Learning Objectives

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

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

What Is AppExchange?

AppExchange is the first-of-its-kind marketplace geared toward helping customers find everything they need to run their businesses in the cloud. People like you—admins, developers, and other Salesforce users—use AppExchange solutions to make your business processes more efficient and your teams more productive. 

AppExchange Is More Than Apps

More than 88% of Salesforce customers have installed at least one app. But AppExchange has evolved far beyond apps. It’s a marketplace for:

• Apps
• Components
• Bolt solutions
• Flow solutions
• B2C Commerce solutions
• Data Cloud solutions
• Tableau Accelerators
• Consultants

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

AppExchange 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: There are more than 80,000 peer reviews of AppExchange solutions.
• Tested for security: To get listed on AppExchange, confirm that the solution linked to your listing complies with all applicable requirements in the Salesforce Security Requirements for AppExchange Partners and Solutions.

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 AppExchange speed up your time to market because you don’t have to start from scratch.

Customers also want to find the right AppExchange solution quickly. This module explores every solution type, 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.

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 AppExchange 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 AppExchange.

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 get to market yesterday with an industry-specific solution. 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. 

Lightning Data: CRM Data Enrichment

Sometimes you need high-quality data that completes the picture of what’s going on in your customer’s world. You need Lightning Data. 

Think of Lightning Data as a special type of app. It connects your Salesforce org to a data feed and automatically enriches your CRM data. 

Behind the scenes, the Lightning Data Engine provides an automatic and perpetual connection between your org and a third-party data feed, ensuring that all of your data is as current as possible.

Our customers use Lightning Data to power critical business processes such as:

• Lead scoring and routing.
• Marketing segmentation, especially in account-based marketing (ABM).
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and Einstein features.

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, AppExchange also hosts solutions for specific Salesforce implementations.

B2C Commerce Solutions

If your Salesforce implementation includes B2C Commerce, B2C Commerce solutions on AppExchange are installable packages that give you:

• An accelerated time to market
• Low-risk ecommerce implementations
• Lower total cost of ownership
• Innovation with speed
• Trust at scale

There are two types of B2C Commerce solutions on AppExchange: B2C Commerce cartridges and headless integrations. 

• Cartridges are containers for packaging and deploying program code and data. They’re structured in folders for maximum efficiency.
• Headless integrations are an API-first implementation pattern that decouples your ecommerce frontend and backend. This gives your developers more flexibility to create an extraordinary user experience with your storefront and UI layer.

Complete the B2C Commerce Solutions on AppExchange: Quick Look to learn more.

Data Cloud Solutions

Data Cloud harmonizes and stores your customer data at massive scale. It also transforms your data into a dynamic graph of real-time customer data. If your Salesforce implementation includes Data Cloud, check out the solutions on AppExchange: they are easy-to-install apps that help you activate, extend, enhance, and enrich your Data Cloud environment.

In the product collection, Data Cloud solutions are organized into three groups:

• Data Enrichment Apps help you connect, enrich, and harmonize your data in Data Cloud.
• Data Activation Apps send audiences to advertising platforms, including social media.
• Data Strategy Experts offer a wide variety of advice and services utilizing their Data Cloud expertise.

Want to learn more? Take the Data Cloud Solutions on AppExchange: Quick Look.

Tableau Accelerators

Tableau is Salesforce’s first-in-class visual analytics platform that transforms the way you use data to meet–and exceed–your business needs. Customize your Tableau implementation with products such as dashboard extensions, connectors, and accelerators, available on the Tableau Exchange and in Tableau Desktop.

However, the easiest way to enhance your Tableau implementation is by exploring the Tableau Accelerators product collection on AppExchange.

Tableau Accelerators are pre-built dashboards and workbooks that include sample data that you can swap out for your own data. Tableau Accelerators allow you to discover insights with minimal setup. They’re available for different industries, like healthcare and financial services, and a variety of business functions, like sales, marketing, and finance. 

Complete the Tableau Accelerators on AppExchange: Quick Look to learn more.

Consultants

There’s another type of help you can find on AppExchange: 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

AppExchange solutions are the fast and easy way to extend core Salesforce functionality. 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 AppExchange to get more out of Salesforce and their business. 

Resources

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