How to create an App in Salesforce

Understanding of an App:

Before giving the introduction to an App, I just wanted to let you know guys – why we are creating an App in Salesforce.

So, here I’m comparing Salesforce‘s Apps with other technologies projects like Java or .Net or Php.

In the above defined technologies (Java or .Net or Php) we create a project, in a similar manner if we are working on cloud computing i.e. salesforce.com, here we create an application (App) rather than a project.

Note:

What is a project: A project (either developed in Java or.Net or Php) is collection of related modules e.g if I’m talking about Finance project; we have Invoice module, Collection module and etc.

Similarlly an App is a collection of related tabs e.g. if I’m talking about Finance App, we have Invoice tab, Collection tab and etc.

So bottom line story is an App to equivalent to Project and tab is equivalent to module of and project.

Introduction to an App:

An App is a group of related tabs that works as a unit to provide application functionality. Salesforce provides standard apps such as Sales, Services, Marketing and etc. You can customize these standard apps to match the way you work based on the requirements. You can also build your own on-demand applications by grouping custom and standard tabs (based on the need) into new custom apps.

How to create an App :

Here for the demo purpose we are creating an App named as Warehouse and this application must have 3 objects named as given below:

Merchandise
LineItem
Invoice

Let’s discuss what is the purpose of these 3 objects in the application one by one:

Merchandise – Using this object we will buy the items into our Warehouse.
LineItem – Using this object we will sell our items from the Warehouse to our customer.
Invoice – Whenever we will sell an item from LineItem Object correspondingly we will raise an Invoice too for that purposes we are creating this object into our warehouse application.

Let’s create an application with the name Warehouse as below:

Step 1. Click Setup, right top side in your screen.

setup

Step 2. Once you’re in the Setup area, you’ll see the menu on the left side of the page. From that menu, click Create > Apps.

build

Step 3. Click new button to create a new App.

create a new app

Step 4. Select the type of an App; here we are selecting a custom app and click Next button

select-type

Step 5. Specify a label for an App. The label can have a max of 40 characters, including spaces. This label is an App’s name in the Force.com App tab/menu.
Optionally, enter a description of an App and Click Next.

enter-details

Step 6. Optionally, specify a custom logo for an App. Click Insert an image to choose an image file from the document library and Click Next.

Note:

You need to consider these below requirements when choosing a custom App logo from the document library.

The image must be either in GIF or JPEG format and less than 20 KB in its size.
Let’s take an example, if the image is larger than 300 pixels wide by 55 pixels high, then it will be scaled to fit.
For the best on the screen display, we recommend you to use an image with a transparent background.
The Externally Available checkbox mandatory to be selected on the document’s properties so that users can view the image externally.

Step 7. Choose the which tabs you want to include with your App and click Next button.
Click the Add and Remove arrow buttons to add or remove tabs from the App.
Click the up and down arrow buttons to define in which order you want the tabs to display in the App.

Also you can set the default landing tab for your newly created App using the Default Landing Tab drop-down menu below the list of selected tabs. This determines the first tab a user sees when logging into this Salesforce App.

choose-the-tab

Step 8. Check the Visible checkbox for choosing the user profile for which you want the App will be available.
Check the default box for setting the App as that profile’s default App. This means that new users who have the same profile will see this App when they log in for the first time.

Finally, Click Save to finish the wizard and then your application got created successfully.