Tips for Establishing your App on Salesforce AppExchange Successfully

AppExchange is actually a marketplace for all types of Salesforce products like Salesforce applications, flow solutions, lightning components, etc. It is considered the largest business application marketplace for app development and around 80% of Salesforce users utilize the valuable ecosystem that it offers for connecting with the key stakeholders and installing the applications in just a couple of clicks.

As the Salesforce implementation partners, some of the biggest and most successful SMEs and Fortune companies use the AppExchange marketplace for effectively integrating everything into just one system. It is quite useful in solving issues that are linked to building solutions from the beginning with a short time and third-party services that the users ask for integrating or any different problems that can be solved through Salesforce components.

It is best to consider Salesforce AppExchange as a community where the Salesforce partners, brands, or clients can interact and form solutions as different services. As for the lighting platform developers and consultants are concerned, the AppExchange helps in helping customers reach business solutions. On the other hand, the Salesforce AppExchange is used as a hub of talent and tools for uncovering maximum productivity.

After understanding what is Salesforce AppExchange, we will look at different ways in which the AppExchange works, you can use it and publish an application with it successfully. So let’s begin:

The Working of Salesforce AppExchange

For anyone who is looking for a marketing tool to establish and promote an app, the Salesforce AppExchange can be highly reliable. It enables a person to describe solutions, support, other details, and pricing which can then be used by the customers to find out if the services being offered are correct for them or not.

In addition, one can also be used to upload photos, videos, and different types of content for making it clear for the customers to nicely understand what is being delivered. On the basis of the information that is provided, the AppExchange is capable of organizing businesses into different areas such as sales, marketing, and analytics.

How to Create a Listing?

You can create a listing right after you have created a provider profile and uploaded the package in a rightful manner. You are also allowed to make just one listing per application or component. This is because having just one listing makes it simple to maintain and upgrade the offerings over a lifecycle.

It also assists in achieving a high rank because the metrics used by the AppExchange for ranking applications and components are not diluted all across the listings. Furthermore, this also proves to be beneficial for the customers because they can easily find your services and the reviews in one place only without having to get lost in multiple other listings.

It must also be remembered that the listings and components can be browsed by anybody who needs the services that are mentioned already. For installing the applications and components, it is best that one has the “Download Packages” information. For creating the package, you have to get the due permission to “Create Package” and for uploading that package to the Partner Community, you must get the permission to “Upload Package”.

Building an App for Salesforce AppExchange

There are five major steps involved in changing an idea into the Salesforce application development

1. Join the Partner Community

The primary step for the app development process needed for AppExchange is to join the Salesforce Partner Community. For that, you have to follow the simple steps given in the ISV Basics Trailhead to become a part of the Partner Community.

An amazing and reliable source for collaborating within the Salesforce ecosystems with the help of groups, joining the Partner Community offers some great resources to learn the best practices. One can ask questions, stay updated with new features and tools for the partners, and also register for webinars and other events.

After joining the Partner Community, you will be receiving a free Partner Business Org that includes the business technology for growing and building with Salesforce. Within this Partner Business Org, there will also be access to the Channel Order App (COA), Environment Hub, License Management App, etc.

The LMA is very helpful in managing the leads and license for the AppExchange offerings and the COA allows one to create, submit, and track various orders with the help of Salesforce. The environment hub on the other hand gives access to a special kind of Development Org called a “Partner Development Org” only available to the partners with better limits and more permissions.

2. Building an App

After joining the Salesforce Partner Community, it is time to start building the application with the help of the Salesforce application development. Before a person starts building anything, it is important to think about security. When you read ahead to the final step which the Security Review, you will understand that all apps on AppExchange are supposed to meet some standards before they can get listed.

For the Salesforce application development process to be successful, it is necessary to include the Security Review best practice into an application right from day one. Building an application while keeping security in mind enhances the process and enables them to get an app through the security review standards very quickly.

There might be a need to spin some of the different Orgs utilizing the Environment Hub which means moving on to the next step. The trailhead unit helps in walking through different Orgs you will wish to create. Irrespective of what you might be creating, it can make sense to change at least Orgs before starting, one for development and another for packaging. For signing up for a new org, you just have to click on the “Create Org” button in the Environment Hub application.

One of the handy tips is to earn the ISV app development module because this trailhead module covers the ISV development lifecycle, the detailed method of managing and creating Orgs, and following the correct approach for packaging and testing an application. In addition, it is also a great time to check out the Developer intermediate trail, expand the Salesforce developer skills and check out the lightning experience trail for learning about the lightning experience.

3. Package Your Application

After the application has been built finally, it is time to package your application. A package can be described as a bundle of components that help in composing the application. The managed package provides intellectual property protection and enables the delivery of seamless upgrades while offering support for license enforcement features.

It is also only responsible to distribute the managed packages on the AppExchange and not the unmanaged packages. If you wish to get instructions on creating and uploading a managed package, you can log into your packaging org and reference the steps mentioned in the ISV force guide.

It is important to test your application before creating a managed package because many attributes of your components are locked once they are put in a managed released package. The trailhead unit helps in walking through packaging and testing an application as well.

4. Design

It is possible to attract the prospects after the app development with a compelling AppExchange listing that assists the customers to understand the values that you can offer with the help of screenshots, pricing, demos, and on the spot trails and installations.

You can also include an attractive header image, a screenshot, and a description rich with SEO keywords. This particular page of the ISVforce guide explains how to create and edit an AppExchange listing.

Begin this step by linking the managed package to your listing then go to the organization tab in the publishing console and click on “Connect Organization”. Follow the step given below of the ISVforce guide helps in connecting a packaging org to your AppExchange listing.

• After linking your packaging to a listing, skip to the next step and submit for the security review. Submitting the security review, come back and complete the design of your listing. The steps 4 and 5 can be completed simultaneously.

5. Review

Protecting the customer data and maintaining trust is both a part of the Salesforce core values. The Security Review helps in establishing a reliability factor between you and your customers. All the apps that are published on the AppExchange have to go through a mandatory review so that assessing the app’s security posture is done in the right way.

You can prepare for it early right in your development process. What’s more is that Salesforce offers multiple free security resources for assisting you with the education, design, and development of applications.

Taking the advice of a Salesforce consultant can help a great deal in having a practical and a hands-on experience with the fundamentals of application security, testing tools and following instructions on submitting for Security Review. After you pass the security review, it will become possible to publish the app on AppExchange which will make it possible for the complete Salesforce ecosystem to see and interact with the listing that you have created.

Now that you have published the app, it is now time to market and promote it correctly. To do that, follow the steps mentioned below

1. Target Audience: We all know that the first step in marketing any product is to have a good knowledge of the audience that we are targeting. Go ahead and conduct appropriate client interviews to understand the needs much better and assess all functionalities that can be best implemented for the application.

Create a strategically strong marketing plan to target and attract an audience. When you know your customer needs and what attracts them the most, framing the app in a way that it attracts the audience also becomes easy.

2. Promoting the App: For promoting the application, you can take many routes. Begin by posting on social media accounts for promoting your app and reaching a wide audience. On the other hand, you can also create Salesforce specific events that can help in connecting face to face with the Salesforce customers and leaders. Staying updated with the Salesforce events pages will help you advertise with the right events.

Salesforce also provides funds for industry events and the promotion of these products through the conferences can be highly valuable. Build a network with the help of social media and events so that you can promote the app at an exponential rate.

3. Make a Demo and Collect Reviews: Making a demo for your customers can help greatly in increasing the sales process by answering an increasingly more number of questions that the customers may have about the functioning of an app. More information about a product helps a customer to become comfortable with it.

When you build more reviews, it will become possible to garner a good reputation and attract in future customers for your application. In addition, the leads will be able to receive valuable feedback for improving your services. Customer reviews are always important for the success of an application and help in increasing the sales of a product.

4. Striving for Continuous Improvement: After an application gets launched, the work does not get over. There will be important updates to release, problems to fix and taking care of the maintenance problems as well.

You will also be required to take the necessary steps that can help in preparing for any issues or changes that might come ahead. It can be a good idea to have a post implementation plan that can help a company in foreseeing any expected problems ahead while ensuring that you are prepared to face those problems.

Conclusion

All the steps that are mentioned above can help a great deal in ensuring the building, publishing and promotion of an application on the Salesforce AppExchange. Should you need any more help with the processes then the team of Encaptechno can be of immense help to you.

Irrespective of the fact if you are a customer or you are just looking to learn more about building on the AppExchange, our team dedicates to the goal of building the best for you. In case you wish to learn more about how to start building for achieving success on the AppExchange, feel free to get in touch with us. We will offer an in-depth session on how to start or where to go next.