Accelerate discovery
Salesforce Org Discovery & Impact Assessment
Salesforce orgs can become complex. Having a well-documented, complete overview of your org aids planning and analysis, making implementing changes easier.
Pulling this information together takes time. Elements.cloud solves this challenge, automating the process of documenting your Salesforce org and then providing tools for analyzing the impact of planned changes.
Being able to drill into the metadata changes with one click has been a lifesaver as we are a multi Admin org.
Gina Marques – Director CRM And Business Systems & Salesforce MVP
Taming complexity
Automated system and manual documentation
With Elements, you can rest easy knowing that it will keep your Prod and Sandbox metadata dictionaries updated and perform the impact and dependency analysis every night which is an almost impossible task to do manually or with free utilities.
This will free up your time for adding or linking manually created documentation that builds a more complete picture of what you built and why.
Automated analysis saves days of work
Elements analyzes metadata impact and dependencies that is impossible to do manually.
800 hours was allocated to CPQ manual analysis, but it took just 1 hour.
Metadata dictionary aggregates information
The power is the combination of metadata documentation, impact and dependency analysis, event log data and manual documentation.
A single metadata dictionary replaces dozens of spreadsheets, documents and webpages.
Visualize the impact of change
Pulling together all the documentation and analysis makes it easy to see and report on the impact of changes.
What took 8 hours of analysis on Flow was reduced to 10 mins.
Monitoring and notification
The automated change log with daily notifications of what has changed keeps you ahead of the game.
What used to be a 40 hour task to check on changes now takes 17 seconds.
Knowledge is power
Automate your Salesforce org analysis
The Elements platform gets you up to speed quickly. Whether you are a Salesforce consultant, architect business analyst, admin, or developer, we provide the tools to get the complete picture of how your Salesforce org has been configured. Ultimately, we help you get to the truth of what’s gone before and get a snapshot of the org’s present state.
What used to be a 40-hour task, now takes 17 seconds due to Elements.
Accelerate discovery, understand the current reality
Salesforce documentation is key to a company’s agility
Over time, Salesforce orgs adapt as new business requirements and processes are implemented. Keeping on top of these changes can be a full-time job, and companies rarely document their Salesforce orgs effectively, and using a patchwork of free apps and utilities does not give the whole picture.
Using Elements to perform your upfront discovery and analysis, you can easily infer information about a company’s processes and upstream and downstream infrastructure.
Armed with this information, you can confidently work on an implementation plan.
Elements enables a rapid, very tight, fact-based analysis of the client’s instance. As a result, we have seen a 25-30 % reduction in rework. Elements allows us to realize your investment in Salesforce by helping you make the right choices, solving the right problems in the right way and time.
Metadata dictionary for every Salesforce org
More powerful than a spreadsheet
Once Elements is connected to your Salesforce org, we analyze every aspect and build a metadata dictionary, mapping out the connections and customizations. We then give you the insights to make changes effectively.
- Impact analysis
- Dependency analytics
- Field population analytics
- Technical debt recommendations
- Automated documentation
- Picklist population
Dependency analysis
Visualise change impact
Explore your Salesforce orgs in ways you’ve never seen before. Then, understand the impact of any change with multi-level, multi-cloud dependency analysis.
Dependency tree diagrams are dynamically created from the metadata information in your Salesforce org. The dependency diagrams represent everything in your org, including upstream and downstream dependencies. They are interactive and packed with relevant and related information allowing you to understand utilization and the impact of changes at a glance.
Automated documentation
No-one has time for documentation
The nightly sync of your orgs updates the automatic documentation in the metadata dictionaries: metadata info, versioning, help text, descriptions, field and picklist population, impact analysis, dependency analysis, tech debt clean-up recommendations, change logs, and more. Every night. Without fail.
And you can add any manual documentation; diagrams, specifications, videos, photographs, notes, and URL links.
Ongoing org analysis
Constant monitoring of your orgs
Elements Salesforce analysis and discovery is not a one-time process. Once connected, we performed daily synchronization of your orgs, including production and staging instances – this means your org documentation always stays up-to-date.
After every synchronization, we email you anything that has changed. Dig into the change log to see the history and the related documentation. Eliminate surprises and time-consuming detective work.
Reporting and analytics
Slice and dice to get the insights you need
The Salesforce org analysis report provides a comprehensive overview of your org. The analytics reports update over time, so you can observe trends and focus on the progress and pace of changes – which is essential for your org.
The Elements reporting suite provides information on every aspect of the metadata and analysis of the information contained in the metadata dictionaries;
- Field population
- Change
- Production and sandbox comparisons
- Managed package usage
Frequently asked questions
What is Salesforce impact analysis?
Salesforce impact analysis identifies and assesses the potential consequences of making changes to a Salesforce system or implementing new features. It is typically used to understand the potential impact of these changes on the system’s performance, reliability, and overall functionality, as well as on the system’s users. Impact analysis can help identify potential issues that may arise as a result of a change and for developing plans to mitigate any negative impacts. It is essential in managing and maintaining a Salesforce system, as it can help ensure that changes are implemented smoothly and without disrupting the system’s operation.
What is a Salesforce metadata dictionary?
In Salesforce, metadata describes the org’s structure and configuration. The metadata dictionary lists all of the available metadata types in Salesforce and their properties and usage. It is used to understand the implications of making changes and by any stakeholders working with the platform. Some examples of metadata that might be listed in a metadata dictionary include custom objects, fields, picklist values, and Apex classes.
Does Salesforce provide a metadata dictionary?
No. Salesforce has the Metadata API, which can access most metadata to build a dictionary. But then sophisticated code needs to be developed to provide the dependency and impact analysis.
Doesn’t the Salesforce “Where Used” button provide analysis?
The “Where Used” button gives limited analysis to custom fields. Relying on just this analysis introduces a very high level of risk.
What about free apps like Field Trip, Field Spy, HappySoup and OrgCheck?
These apps provide limited analysis for a subset of metadata, which introduces risk by relying on this narrow analysis, and you may spend more time gathering information from multiple apps. A complete picture of the impact and dependency analysis, automated documentation, and your manually added documentation enable you to make decisions on changes more quickly and with far greater confidence.
Can I combine the free apps and Metadata API to replicate Elements?
Yes, of course. You need to consider the cost of development, the effort to aggregate the results from the different apps, the gaps in analysis, and the maintenance effort to keep up with each new Salesforce release of the Metadata API.
Can I trial Elements?
Yes. Talk to us.
