What does a Salesforce Professional Do? Exploring Salesforce Roles and Profiles

The role of a Salesforce Developer

Ideally, the roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Developer would consist of the following:

1. Create the functionality, mainly Application Logic, which would include the writing of the Apex code. This list may also include the creation of Visualforce pages based on the employee or customer requirements.

2. Help with enhanced integration of the Salesforce APIs with the existing systems or data – these processes are integrated in both the directions to ensure an efficient communication between the two systems.

3. Testing of development within a staging Sandbox before the final submission.

4. With the assistance of a Salesforce Admin, perform bug fixing.

5. Perform ongoing documentation throughout the development process.

6. Communicate with Salesforce Admins constantly as a means to prepare themselves for customer interaction or support issues.  

The role of a Salesforce Administrator

Salesforce Admins are the go-to people in the organization and are expected to have in-depth understanding of the Salesforce customization.

Ideally, the roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Administrator would consist of the following:

1. User maintenance: Adding new users, checking the system permissions of the users to restrict or to provide data access, and to modify the existing accounts.

2. Engage in a clean-up process: Removal of duplicate contacts and accounts by merging them or mass updating.

3. Customization and development of the setup menu by modifying the page layouts, creation of assignment rules, and picking out the list values.

4. Using the data stored in the Salesforce CRM to create reports and dashboard as well as produce information assets that will in turn help boost business revenue.

5. Provide ongoing documentation to colleagues and customers by updating the existing documentation so that they are on track with the novel Salesforce enhancements and releases.

6. Provide enhanced support for Developers and clients which include communicating with the customers, clients, and developers about the new developments as well as the support functionalities.  

In short, the basic difference in roles between a Salesforce Developer and a Salesforce Administrator is:

- A Salesforce developer typically builds the functionality including Apex/ Visualforce in a sandbox before handing it over to the administrator to schedule deployment.

- A Salesforce admin, however, will manage and administer the production. The admins usually carry out minor declarative changes and have the responsibility to manage releases into the production.

So, there you have it. The roles and responsibilities of Salesforce Administrators and Salesforce Developers. Do they seem intriguing to you? Is this where you want to be?

Well, then take up the Salesforce certification, today!