What are objects in Salesforce?
As you know, Salesforce is a database where you capture and store customer data. An object is a table in the database where you can capture the data.
For example, Lead is an object where you capture lead-related data.
There are two types of objects in Salesforce- Standard objects and Custom objects.
Salesforce provides many standard objects by default. If you find standard objects are not enough, then custom objects can be created by admins. However, you have to check if the standard objects can be leveraged or not. If not, create custom objects as Salesforce allows you to create only a limited number of custom objects.
What are Tabs in Salesforce?
A Tab is a user interface that helps you access the objects. It allows you to view, edit, create and delete the records of the object. If the object name is opportunity, then the tab name will be opportunities.
Salesforce has three types of tabs- custom object tab, visualforce tab and web tab.
In the image, opportunities, leads, tasks etc are tabs that help in viewing the objects opportunity, lead, task etc.
What is an App in Salesforce?
An Application is a collection of needed tabs.
Salesforce consists of hundreds of objects. As a result, there are hundreds of tabs. Not all tabs are required by all the users. An App consists of only the required tabs of app-specific objects. Salesforce allows you add or remove the tabs from an applications based on the requirements of your business.
For example, the Sales app will have sales-specific tabs inside it like- leads, account, campaign etc.
Service app will have service specific tabs like accounts, cases, reports etc.
What are the types of users in Salesforce?
A business User is an employee of the business who captures the customer data in Salesforce applications.
Role of an admin in Salesforce
Admin is the user who configures the Salesforce applications as per business requirements. Only an Admin can access Setup in Salesforce. A business user cannot access Setup. An admin can also access the platform force.com to code and extend the standard features of Salesforce.
A business has different categories of employees like HR executives, finance executives, sales executives, customer support executives etc. Not all employees have access to all the customer data. When an employee logs in, he will be able to see only his field related application. An admin grants access to business users based on their field of work. For example, HR executives can access and view only HR related applications.
How to access Setup and configure?
Click on the gearbox near the notification icon on the salesforce user Interface.
Then, click on Setup in the dropdown menu.
You will land on the Setup home page. This page is exclusive to Salesforce administrators.
For objects
Click on the object manager. It has all the standard and custom objects. An admin can create and customize objects from there.
An admin can land on the object detail page by clicking on the particular object. All the configuration can be done from the object detail page.
Object detail page of account object
For Tabs
You will find a small search bar on the top left on the Setup home page. The search tab is known as quick fins.
Search for Tabs in the quick find.
By clicking on Tabs, he can access, create and configure the tabs.
For Applications
Search and click on App manager in the quick find.
App manager consists of all the apps. An admin can create and configure apps from the app manager.
I hope this article/video helped you in understanding objects, tabs and apps in Salesforce. We will discuss how to create and configure objects, tabs and apps in further articles/videos.