Common Salesforce Development Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Salesforce is a powerful platform for building custom applications, but its complexity can lead to various development pitfalls. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced developer, avoiding common mistakes can save time, improve performance, and ensure the scalability and maintainability of your Salesforce solutions. In this blog post, we will explore some of the most common Salesforce development mistakes and provide practical tips on how to avoid them.

1. Ignoring Governor Limits

Mistake: One of the most frequent issues developers encounter is hitting Salesforce’s governor limits. These limits are in place to ensure efficient use of resources and fair usage across multiple tenants.

How to Avoid:

• Bulkify Your Code: Always design your Apex code to handle multiple records at once, rather than processing one record at a time.

• Optimize SOQL Queries: Reduce the number of SOQL queries by using relationships to query data in a single query.

• Use Collections: Use collections like lists, sets, and maps to store data and perform bulk operations.

2. Not Writing Test Classes Properly

Mistake: Poorly written test classes can result in low test coverage, unhandled exceptions, and deployment failures.

How to Avoid:

• Aim for High Coverage: Ensure your test classes cover at least 75% of your Apex code, as required by Salesforce.

• Test Both Positive and Negative Scenarios: Write tests that check for expected outcomes and handle unexpected input or edge cases.

• Use Test.startTest and Test.stopTest: These methods help simulate real-world scenarios and ensure your tests run within governor limits.

3. Hardcoding IDs

Mistake: Hardcoding record IDs in your code can lead to issues when deploying across different environments (e.g., sandbox to production).

How to Avoid:

• Use Custom Settings: Store IDs in custom settings or custom metadata types, which can be easily configured per environment.

• Query IDs Dynamically: Write SOQL queries to fetch IDs based on criteria, ensuring that your code is environment-agnostic.

4. Inefficient Data Queries

Mistake: Writing inefficient or unnecessary queries can severely impact the performance of your application.

How to Avoid:

• Selective SOQL Queries: Use selective filters to query only the records you need.

• Indexes: Make use of indexed fields to speed up query performance.

• *Avoid Select : Explicitly specify the fields you need in your queries to reduce data retrieval time.

5. Ignoring Trigger Best Practices

Mistake: Writing unoptimized or monolithic triggers can cause performance issues and make your code difficult to maintain.

How to Avoid:

• One Trigger Per Object: Use a single trigger per object and delegate logic to handler classes.

• Use Context Variables: Leverage context variables like Trigger.isInsert, Trigger.isUpdate, etc., to control your trigger logic.

• Bulkify Trigger Logic: Ensure your triggers can handle bulk operations efficiently.

6. Poor Error Handling

Mistake: Failing to handle errors properly can lead to uninformative error messages and poor user experience.

How to Avoid:

• Use Try-Catch Blocks: Implement try-catch blocks to handle exceptions gracefully and provide meaningful error messages.

• Logging: Use custom objects or logging frameworks to record errors for future analysis.

• User-Friendly Messages: Display clear and helpful error messages to users, avoiding technical jargon.

7. Not Leveraging Salesforce Automation Tools

Mistake: Over-relying on Apex code when declarative tools can achieve the same result can lead to unnecessary complexity.

How to Avoid:

• Use Declarative Tools: Leverage Process Builder, Flow, and Workflow Rules wherever possible. These tools are easier to maintain and require no coding.

Also Check Out this Blog : Process Builder Vs Flows – Become the Ultimate Admin

• Combine Approaches: Use a combination of declarative and programmatic tools to achieve the best results, adhering to Salesforce’s low-code philosophy.

8. Ignoring Security Best Practices

Mistake: Failing to implement proper security measures can expose sensitive data and leave your application vulnerable.

How to Avoid:

• Enforce Field-Level Security: Ensure your Apex code respects field-level security and sharing rules.

• Use With Sharing: Apply the with sharing keyword to enforce sharing rules when necessary.

• Validate Input: Always validate user input to prevent SQL injection and other security vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

Avoiding common Salesforce development mistakes can significantly enhance the performance, security, and maintainability of your applications. By following best practices such as respecting governor limits, writing efficient queries, and leveraging declarative tools, you can ensure a smooth development process and deliver robust solutions. Continuous learning and adhering to Salesforce’s guidelines will help you become a more effective and proficient Salesforce developer.

Happy coding!