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Salesforce Lightning App Builder: Building Custom Apps with Ease

Posted by Marbenz Antonio on June 1, 2023

When you think of “app building,” what’s the first mental image that comes to mind? Is it of programmers fueled by caffeine, working tirelessly to produce thousands of lines of code? Or perhaps a large team of developers gathered around a whiteboard? How about an inexperienced user effortlessly creating a complete salesforce lightning app in less than an hour?

The idea of building an app within minutes without any prior experience may seem overly optimistic, but this aspiration has become a reality thanks to Salesforce’s Lightning App Builder.

Salesforce is a robust cloud-based platform that specializes in providing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and unified content management. With its extensive range of tools, Salesforce has established itself as the leading CRM platform globally, and integrating your organization with Salesforce has never been easier, thanks to Rainmaker’s Salesforce managed services.

Lightning App Builder Overview

App building has traditionally been restricted to technical experts, leaving business generalists and amateurs on the sidelines. Salesforce addresses this limitation with its Lightning App Builder, an intuitive tool that empowers users to create applications with minimal or no coding required.

While the term “low-code” may suggest limitations, Salesforce’s apps built with the Lightning App Builder are anything but underpowered. They offer robust functionality by seamlessly integrating data from all areas of your company, forming what Salesforce refers to as a 360 View. This comprehensive perspective enables you to gain valuable insights and effectively organize data related to your customers and campaigns.

The Lightning App Builder consists of two essential elements: discrete components and pages. Components are reusable elements that form the building blocks of your app, while pages serve as collections of these components. By combining these ingredients, users can design and customize apps to suit their specific needs and preferences.

Creating a new app

Salesforce’s Lightning Experience encompasses two crucial elements: Lightning Pages and Lightning Components. To initiate the creation of a new app, locate and click the gear icon situated at the top right corner of the interface. If you are currently on a Lightning Page, you will find an option labeled “Edit Page” within the gear menu. However, if you are not currently on a Lightning Page, select the “Setup” menu option and perform a search for “Lightning App Builder” to access the Lightning Pages tool.

In the Salesforce Lightning App Builder interface, you will find various elements, including pages, components, a toolbar, and a properties pane.

The toolbar consists of familiar options such as save, undo, cut, copy, and paste, providing standard functionality for editing. However, the Lightning App Builder toolbar offers an additional feature: the ability to toggle between desktop and mobile views, ensuring your app’s compatibility across different devices.

The properties pane displays essential information about the page or component you are currently working on. This pane is dynamic and adjusts its content based on your current focus and the specific attributes of the page or component you are utilizing. It provides relevant details and settings that allow you to customize and configure the selected elements effectively.

Salesforce Lightning App Builder’s Pages

Lightning App Builder provides the capability to create four distinct types of pages.

• Home Page: The home page serves as a central landing page that offers users a comprehensive overview of information. It allows you to curate and present various elements such as charts, summarized data, to-do lists, news bulletins, and any other relevant content you wish your users to encounter upon opening your app.
• Add Page: The app page bears similarities to a home page in its functionality. It is specifically designed for single-page or third-party apps that require a dedicated landing page to showcase their content and features.
• Record Page: The record page grants users access to records of various objects within Salesforce, according to the permissions you define. It serves as the interface through which users can view and interact with these records, providing a seamless experience for navigating and exploring the relevant data.
• Embedded Service Page: The embedded service page is a unique page type specifically associated with the “service appointment” object in Salesforce. It is designed to cater specifically to the needs and functionalities related to service appointments, providing a tailored experience for managing and interacting with these appointments within your Salesforce platform.

Salesforce Lightning App Builder offers a remarkable capability to optimize the display of your pages for both desktop and mobile platforms, making it one of its most powerful features. This is achieved through the utilization of page templates, which define distinct regions within your page layout. By effortlessly dragging and dropping components into these regions, Salesforce automatically adjusts the layout based on the platform from which your users access the app.

Primarily functioning as a no-code tool, Lightning App Builder empowers users to create apps by simply utilizing drag-and-drop functionality. However, it also provides the flexibility to incorporate advanced features through simple coding when needed. For instance, if none of the pre-existing page templates offered by Salesforce align with your specific requirements, you have the ability to create custom templates and components using the Aura programming language. This allows for further customization and fine-tuning of your app’s appearance and functionalities.

Adding components

Lightning Pages enable you to organize and structure objects within your Salesforce app, while Lightning Components are the individual building blocks that constitute these objects.

When building your Salesforce app, you have the flexibility to incorporate three types of components: standard, custom, and third-party components. Each type serves a specific purpose and can be seamlessly integrated to enhance the functionality and user experience of your app.

• Standard Components: To address a wide range of general requirements, Salesforce offers standard components that are directly created by the platform. These components cover six broad categories: Organization, Productivity, Collaboration, Functionality, Objects, and Analytics/Automation/UI. The assortment of standard components is extensive and includes features such as Recommendations, Related Records, Report Charts, and Twitter integration. These components cater to diverse needs and provide versatile solutions for enhancing your Salesforce app.
• Custom Components are those developed either by yourself or someone within your organization to meet specific requirements. Designing custom components necessitates a comprehensive understanding of Salesforce and the Aura framework. It is worth noting that custom components should be utilized judiciously, as it is generally recommended to leverage standard components whenever possible to achieve desired functionalities. Using custom components should be reserved for situations where standard components cannot adequately fulfill the intended purpose.
• Third-Party Components: Custom components and third-party components share similarities, but their origins and purposes distinguish them from each other. While custom components are developed with your organization’s specific needs in mind, third-party components are created independently by others to serve general use cases that extend beyond a single organization. Custom components are tailored to address unique requirements within your organization, while third-party components offer broader applicability across different organizations and scenarios.

After adding the components of your choice, you have the freedom to arrange them within different regions defined by your page template, which will automatically adapt the layout based on the platform. Once you have completed the arrangement of components, it is crucial to save and activate your app manually, as Salesforce does not save your progress automatically. Taking this step ensures that your changes are preserved and the updated version of your app is ready for use.

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