Metadata Explorer: Untangle Org Complexity

The Metadata Explorer pulls together the different Elements.cloud impact analysis capabilities, turning complex tasks into straightforward, manageable processes in even the most complex systems and complex adaptive systems. It gives a huge productivity improvement, but also enables admins to answer questions that would normally require developer skills.

Why Impact Assessment

We hear from customers and consultants every day that they struggle with complex Orgs, high levels of technical debt, and a lack of good documentation. This makes the analysis of any change to Salesforce, time-consuming, especially given the nonlinear dynamics where small changes can have disproportionate impacts. Sometimes the analysis is so difficult and lengthy, it feels easier to “make the change and take the risk”. This stops you from following best practices and makes your job stressful. Configuring Salesforce so that it makes your users productive and effective, becomes much harder.

We’ve designed the Elements.cloud impact analysis capabilities so that you can:

• See what you need: A filtered view of your metadata, so that you can drill into what you are interested in now. 
• Analyze what you see: Analyze dependencies across multiple metadata items at once.
• Document what you find: Document what your analysis uncovers and take action.

What is Metadata Explorer?

Elements.cloud has been winning demo jams and customer accolades for great impact analysis capabilities, like Dependency Trees for example. But the capabilities now go far beyond that. So, it made sense to bring them together under one heading; akin to the suite of security and permissions capabilities, that compose Permissions Explorer.

This is about awareness and ease of use. It is not about product pricing or an expensive add-on. Metadata Explorer is delivered as part of the core Elements.cloud Change Intelligence platform, because it is critical to managing complexity.

Metadata Explorer is a unique combination of capabilities, driven around the Metadata Dictionary, which syncs and analyzes your Org metadata nightly.  The 4 core capabilities are:

• Custom Metadata Views
• Dependency Trees 
• Dependency Grids
• Metadata Search

Custom Metadata Views

Given the uniqueness of Salesforce Orgs, there is no one view of the metadata dictionary that will satisfy every team member or consultant – until now. Custom Metadata Views provide a dynamic, quick way to analyze your Org’s metadata structure and characteristics.

This functionality, lets you quickly set up different views of the Metadata Dictionary. It is just like building a Salesforce Page Layout List View or a Salesforce Report. You pick which types of metadata and which attributes to see in the Metadata Dictionary, giving you a view that’s tailored to your current project needs.

For example, create a Custom Metadata View so that you can quickly discover and track:

• What are the inactive automations in your Org.
• What profiles have no users assigned.
• What fields are required.
• Automation on outdated API version.
• What metadata comes from a managed package.

With this new view, you can now take action. That could be creating user stories or classifying metadata for review. Custom Metadata Views make this transition seamless. To do a deep dive into the impact of changes you need dependency analysis.

Dependency Trees

The Dependency Trees and Grids show how different metadata types are connected. These are connections inside your Salesforce Org, but also between your Org and other Clouds, such as Data Cloud, Mulesoft, and Marketing Cloud. It can also be connected to 3rd party systems like ServiceNow.

Dependency tree diagrams are dynamically created from the metadata information in your Salesforce Org. They are so visual. This visualisation helps teams understand the nonlinear dynamics at play, where a change to one component can trigger unexpected cascades through the system. You can quickly see the impact of changes. It allows you to quickly assess downstream dependencies from a single metadata component. As you expand the dependencies for any metadata, it can quickly become overwhelming due to the complexity of your Org. To help you cut through the complexity, you can collapse and expand the types of dependencies.

Dependency Grids

Once an initial dependency assessment is done, switch from the Dependency Tree to the Dependency Grid View, to begin a more detailed investigation. This move from a visual view to a spreadsheet-style view. In the grid view, all the metadata attributes are available at scale with an option to sort, filter, and export the results.

The Dependency Grid offers much more than dependency reporting. A Dependency Grid view you can make it easier to answer questions like:

• Is the field used in a Report a grouping, filter or just a column? 
• Does this Lightning Page Field have filtering and what metadata filters its visibility? 
• How is the Page layout using this Field, is it read-only or required?
• Is this field data population automated?
• Where in this Flows is this Picklist value used?
• How does this Page Layout use this field?

Metadata Search

The Metadata Search enables users to easily identify all hardcoded IDs, email addresses, labels, and API names, transforming search results into manageable tasks or categories, through tagging. By removing the need for developers to write queries, we significantly shorten the time for analysis from weeks to minutes.

Search for all hardcoded IDs

You are only a few clicks away, from finding all hardcoded metadata IDs in an entire Org. What would normally require a developer to write code for every metadata type, becomes child’s play.

Query for a particular string

We know it is not best practice, but Orgs often have hardcoded usernames, email addresses, error messages, and even ‘insert’ or ‘delete’ commands in Apex and other automation. Now this is a simple search that anyone can perform to help you identify and resolve this technical debt and security risk.

Analyse metadata cross-references

Benefit from the ability to query references to one metadata item, in another. This search is by metadata Label, API name and ID simultaneously. This not only speeds up the process of impact analysis but also significantly improves how you can approach dependency analysis.

Final Word

In conclusion, the Metadata Explorer is a game-changer. It brings together powerful analysis capabilities and makes them available to any user in the Salesforce ecosystem. Addressing the specific challenges faced by Salesforce professionals, not only enhances efficiency but also ensures that projects are delivered on time and meet user expectations. With this tool, we are not just keeping up with the evolving demands of the Salesforce landscape; we are setting a new standard for impact assessment and analysis.

The true power of Metadata Explorer unfolds when you see it in action, tailored to your unique organizational needs. Are you struggling with complex Orgs, tech debt, or the challenge of making informed changes in Salesforce? The Elements.cloud team is on standby to discuss your specific challenges and how our Change Intelligence platform can address them.

Ready to transform your complex system into a manageable, documented environment? See how Metadata Explorer brings clarity to Salesforce complexity.