Exploring Salesforce Application Lifecycles

Nikita R.

Media-savvy content creator, with a curiosity for all Salesforce experiences.

Updated: Jul 8th, 2024

“Integrate your ALM processes with Salesforce to Launch Software On Time!“

Are you missing feature releases and software deployments? Are your apps meeting the requirements of users or are they missing the mark? To ensure you are designing apps correctly and releasing them on time, you need to start managing them with a Salesforce and ALM process.

If you want to learn how to be in full control of your app development projects, follow us in the article below. We start with a definition of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), give you a few benefits of the methodology, and dive into some Salesforce native and third-party tools that streamline desktop or mobile app lifecycle management.

Let’s get started!

What is Application Lifecycle Management?

It’s a framework used in business operations to support the following tasks from start to finish when creating software applications:

• Planning of the project
• Developing the application
• Testing the software
• Deploying the application
• Maintaining all processes in the project

Application development lifecycle management is useful for businesses as it provides teams with guidelines on how to combine colleague efforts, processes, and tools in an optimized way.

Application Lifecycle Management Features and Benefits

There are many benefits that companies gain from ALM features. They all assist with supporting teams to launch high-quality applications and software to markets faster. Alongside this speed, ALM also ensures that teams have control over the creation and maintenance of their software products.

Let’s take a look at some features and benefits of application lifecycle management.

Gather Functional Requirements

The first part of ALM is administration. It covers the project management space and asks for the team to collect functional requirements from stakeholders or users who want the application. The project manager will use this phase of ALM to create a plan that includes the following project information:

• A breakdown of all the tasks needed to create the application.
• The timelines to deliver the application.
• A list of resources to complete the project.
• The goals that the team would like to achieve.

The team will also create a document displaying all the accumulated functional requirements for the application with a plan for managing the software’s creation.

The benefit of these rules to draft a plan and requirements is that all stakeholders understand the project and know when it will launch. This document can also serve as proof that everyone knows what the app can do.

Design the Application to Business Specifications

Now that there is a documented plan for all team members to follow, the project can kick off. At this point, the designers build user interfaces and mockup layouts or styles for the application.

These designs are given to developers so they have a plan to follow when building the app using code.

Designers and developers will work together and manage changes using software tools with version control capabilities, like Git.

Usage of Declarative Tools

While building the software app, developers use declarative tools to test what the product should do.

Declarative tools explain what the end product should look like and do, so they are used during the configuration, development, and deployment of software applications.

One benefit of using declarative tools in ALM is that they make complex processes easier to manage. By removing intricate implementation configurations, they give teams a chance to envision their high-level goals.

Unit Testing and Functional Testing

One of the phases of ALM is that Unit and Functional testing are required. These two testing methods check different parts of the software to ensure the app performs how it was designed. But what are the differences between these two testing approaches found in ALM?

Unit testing is just that, a process to examine the units or components of an application. Examples of units in software are:

• Functions
• Methods
• Classes

On the other hand, functional testing checks that the app works according to the requirements and business specs defined in the project plan. Additionally, functional testing is performed as proof that the app works without breaking.

Communication Plan and End User Training

With ALM, teams can create a communication plan documenting how team members can contact each other. This makes it easy to understand who to contact for a specific question or problem during the app’s creation.

ALM also requires teams engage in an end-user training phase. It’s important to have one to ensure that the app you created is adopted and used by the people who want and need it. In this phase, team members educate end users on how to use the app.

Release Features and Notify Users

Although there are many more features from ALM, the last one we will touch on in this article is the deployment of your software. Releasing a new app or feature requires the planning of deployment dates for testing and live environments. Developers will need to automate the build, test the app, and then deploy it.

The benefit of this phase in ALM is that the team can check that the software is free from bugs and works the way it was intended.

Next, users need to be alerted that there has been a software update or launch of a new application. Some ways that teams can notify users is via:

• Email
• Social Media
• Website Announcements using Blogs
• Pop-Up Messages within the App

Application Lifecycle Management Tools

As we can see, we only discussed a few phases in ALM. Managing the creation and maintenance of software is a long and complicated process. However, there are some tools that can optimize processes to speed up manual tasks in Salesforce and ALM workflows.

Let’s look at a few important ones below for Salesforce Web App Development.

Integrated Deployment Tools

These Salesforce tools support the movement of metadata and data between your environments. For example, an integrated deployment tool can transfer your data automatically from a development sandbox to a production org.

When it comes to ALM, these tools are super helpful. They give developers the power to perform the following tasks automatically:

• Continuous Integration
• Continuous Deployment
• Version Control
• Testing

Tools for Automation and Backup

Although integrated deployment tools have automation capabilities, there are other automation tools available to speed up other processes in ALM.

For example, automation and backup tools are often used throughout an ALM project to create secure and accurate workflows. Here are two tools you can use for automation and backup when creating software apps:

• Salesforce DX, also known as SFDX, is automation software. Developers use the tools from SFDX to improve Salesforce app development from start to finish. Some of the benefits of using SFDX include access to CLI for automation and Scratch orgs for developing or testing apps.
• OwnBackup is a cloud-to-cloud backup solution. Developers use it to recover software, which is essential for app creation. Some of the features from OwnBackup include the ability to back up work daily and restore code on a granular level.

Salesforce DevOps Toolkit

For a full solution, you should check out the Salesforce DevOps Toolkit to get all the features for building and maintaining software. It comes with a bunch of tools to support and speed up tasks in developing Salesforce apps, such as:

• Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment
• Automated Testing for Apps
• Version Control for Code
• Improved Collaboration Functionality for Colleagues

Using the Salesforce DevOps Toolkit for app development can improve your team’s efficiency and help them create reliable software that works.

We hope to see you soon!

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Disclaimer: The comparisons listed in this article are based on information provided by the companies online and online reviews from users. If you found a mistake, please contact us.