Salesforce Features
Force.com Platform
Drag-and-drop Calendaring
Enhanced Calendar Views
All Editions
- Reduce the clicks required to reschedule events
- Improve the user experience in navigating and viewing calendars
Tasks and calendar events give managers and employees the power and flexibility to track and maintain their schedules using Salesforce. Drag-and-drop calendars and activity management, new in the Spring ’08 release, allow users to more quickly reschedule a meeting and perform other actions via a new streamlined, time-saving user interface.
API Session Auto Refresh
Constant API Sessions During Integrations
Developer, Enterprise, and Unlimited Edition
- Reduce Integration Complexity
- Increase developer Productivity
With Spring '08, API sessions automatically refresh themselves as long an API client is active. Sessions are subject to the session timeout policy set for your organization in the same way as the User Interface. API session auto refresh allows developers to simplify their coding and simply rely on the activity of their client to keep their sessions alive.
Apex Code in Enterprise Edition
Create Any Business Logic as a Service
Now Available in Enterprise Edition and Unlimited Edition
- Develop and customize applications on demand
- Create powerful business logic that runs on salesforce.com servers
- Use Apex code to publish new Web services
With Apex—the world’s first on-demand programming language—developers can use the Force.com platform to create and run any business logic and application. With Spring ’08, all Salesforce Enterprise Edition customers will have access to Apex code. All Enterprise Edition and Unlimited Edition customers will also receive a new Apex Sandbox for development and testing of Apex code.
Apex Code Packaging
Develop and Publish Apex-Powered Applications to the AppExchange
Developer, Enterprise, and Unlimited Edition
- Develop, package, and publish Apex-powered components or applications to the AppExchange
- Install Apex-powered components and applications from the AppExchange into any Salesforce edition
With Apex—the world’s first on-demand programming language—developers can create and run any business logic and application on the Force.com platform. And with Spring ’08, developers can package and deploy Apex code as unmanaged, managed, or certified packages. Now packaged applications can be deployed in editions that do not have the ability to author Apex Code and provide an upgrade path for applications with managed and certified packages.
Visualforce Custom Components
Reusable User Interface Components
Developer Preview
- Build a multi-step wizard
- Leverage data and logic in external systems
- Display related information from Salesforce or other systems on a single screen
A breakthrough for the Force.com platform, Visualforce is a new technology developers can use to create any type of user interface for Salesforce applications and Force.com custom applications. Visualforce has everything developers need to build rich, interactive applications and user experiences for a variety of audiences, applications, and devices. Developers are finally free to reinvent traditional Salesforce interfaces or create new interfaces for custom applications.
List View Builder
Improved Interface for Creating and Modifying List Views
All Editions
- Create and modify list views quickly and easily
- Track who creates and modifies list views
Creating and auditing list views has never been easier. A streamlined user interface makes it faster and more intuitive for administrators to create, modify, and keep track of list views.
Apex Email Services
Advanced Logic for Automated Email Processing
Developer, Enterprise, and Unlimited Editions
- Automate key sales, marketing, and support processes via email
- Manage email messages in a way that matches your business processes
Expand the power of email approvals with Apex email services. With this feature, developers can help their companies achieve new levels of process automation—activated by email. For example, they can create Apex code that processes inbound email messages to Salesforce or Force.com apps, so that users can use email to create or update records, mark tasks as completed, and much more.
Metadata API
More Power and Flexibility to Configure Salesforce
Developer, Enterprise, and Unlimited Edition
- Interact with setup configuration as XML metadata files
- Migrate configuration changes between Salesforce environments
- Create your own tools for managing Salesforce metadata
The Force.com Metadata API opens the door to new ways of interacting with setup and customization information, resulting in a better developer experiences, team development systems, and change management processes. Spring ’08 provides metadata access to a subset of platform features, including custom fields, custom objects, profiles, Apex code, Visualforce pages, and s-controls.
Force.com Toolkit for Eclipse
A Full-Featured, Integrated Development Environment for Force.com
Developer Edition
- Develop Force.com applications in a collaborative development environment
- Migrate configuration data between Salesforce instances
With the Force.com Toolkit for Eclipse, developers can use the popular Eclipse IDE (integrated development environment) to build and deploy on-demand applications. Using this powerful environment to manage collaborative development, multiple deployment environments, and source control, developers can work faster and more efficiently.
Force.com Metadata API enhancements
More Power and Flexibility in Configuring Salesforce
Developer Preview
- Use the Force.com metadata API to read setup configuration from any Salesforce instance
- Write setup changes to Developer Edition and Force.com Sandbox environments
The Force.com metadata API opens the door to new ways of interacting with setup and customization information for Force.com applications. This enables better developer tool experiences, team development systems, and change management processes. The Winter ’08 release offers metadata access to a subset of platform features including custom fields, custom objects, profiles, Apex code, Visualforce pages, and s-controls.
