GIT is great for Salesforce DevOps, but it is not without constraints!
Arguably the world’s most powerful distributed control system, GIT is designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. It is faster to commit and one of GIT’s biggest advantages is its branching capabilities. Initially, created to handle Linux development for developers of Linux Kernel in 2005 GIT is the leading version control in today’s time.
However, today the role of a version control system in Salesforce is not limited to just helping you have backups, but also enable Salesforce developers to accelerate their deployment with enhanced efficiency and agility. And especially for big projects, where lack of versioning and code history, the multiple sources of truth and code overwrites, or the inability to roll back changes can be a major headache, it may do well for developers to look beyond GIT to address the issues.
In fact, GIT was invented to solve one problem but ended up solving a different problem along the way. Although an industry-standard in Salesforce development, GIT can at times become extremely complex. So, for instance, while most version control systems can wrap up the list of commands in a page or two, the Pro GIT book is a mammoth 700+ long. So why should you, as a Salesforce developer consider going beyond GIT and look towards Flosum?
Salesforce has unique needs for release management and since GIT is not an integrated solution for Salesforce, the process is complex and has to be carefully managed. Moreover, since GIT is an external repository, processes like deployment become difficult to carry. A common complaint with GIT is that it can be slow since it requires many additional steps as compared to a native Salesforce version control, which can otherwise do it in minutes, not hours or days.
GIT is incredibly powerful and as such, it is very flexible, but also idiosyncratic. Organizations often make it hard by thinking that complex branching solves poor team organization and poor-quality processes. The arcane command syntax further makes it easy to mess things up as well as the obtuse error handling that makes it extremely difficult to recover from, once things mess up. With GIT, you also need to understand the index, local repository, remote repository, treeishes and as it evolves, it is only getting more commands and documentation. Thus, instead of being a more approachable tool, it is actually making people more frustrated and has people asking where is the next better version control for Salesforce DevOps.
A common criticism around GIT often centers on the ease of use, especially of the latest UI. While it looks modern and fancy, the GIT UI is focused more on the open-source community rather than the regular Salesforce developers who have a more ‘Click and Deploy’ approach. This when matched with a native version control like Flosum, which is 100% native Salesforce and features the simple, Salesforce’s Lightning UI, certainly makes a more compelling choice for Salesforce developers. Thus, when navigating around branches, releases, commits, etc., it can be frustrating and difficult to navigate because the commands are extremely complicated, inconsistent, and difficult to understand.
Although GIT is not overcomplicated, it requires experts to manage and maintain it. GIT command was intended to be a low-level layer that would be used as a middleman to other more developer-friendly programs. It does most operations with an over-reliance on the branch and merge, with little support for migration, file locking, or composite release as well as building, testing, promoting, and releasing.
Today, the need of the hour is a version control system that is specifically designed to be used by the wider Salesforce community, a version control system that is built for and on Salesforce. It should be designed keeping the broader Salesforce users such as Salesforce admins, citizen developers too in mind who prefer the ‘Click and Deploy’ approach rather than just be designed for a slice of the user population who are already comfortable with their terminals and coding.
A fully native version designed and developed with Salesforce in mind provides a fully integrated and secure repository within Salesforce. Flosum offers that and much more.
While Flosum is fully integrated with GIT, it also offers a 100% native version control system, built specifically for Salesforce development, which smoothly handles the merging of declarative, programmatic, and complex components. It offers the same level of robust security, certification, and compliance that you would expect from the Salesforce platform. It further allows you to leverage the strengths of the Salesforce platform as well as controlling the source code better.
Declarative Version Control with Intuitive UX
Flosum allows a lot of declarative configurations that include everything from Workflow, Formulas, Page Layouts, Profiles, RecordTypes, thus all the changes and processes can be put in place simply using ‘Clicks not Code’. As a native application, Flosum version control leverages Salesforce’s familiar UI for all actions which allows any salesforce developers to learn to manage it in no time.
Robust Architecture
Flosum’s fully native Salesforce version control allows multiple Salesforce developers to collaborate as well as eliminates the complexities of installation and maintenance of external tools. This makes managing multiple streams of development easier as compared to working with GIT
Compliance and Secure Repository
Flosum version control is built on Salesforce, thus, it adheres to the highest level of security and compliance that is synonymous with Salesforce. Moreover, since all storage is maintained and managed within Salesforce, it offers a secured repository. And that’s not all, it integrates seamlessly with other features of Flosum, like continuous integration and patch deployment for a comprehensive release management solution.
Salesforce must have version control and choosing a fully native version control such as Flosum ensures you meet compliance, eliminate the baggage of GIT, and achieve faster deployment. This is especially true for large enterprise teams that have many teams of Salesforce developers.
While GIT reduces performance and productivity as developers push and pull reports, Flosum allows Salesforce developers, administrators, and business analysts ease of use for full adoption. Flosum version control was built for speed, scale, and security. This translates into a faster feedback loop and helps developers, release managers, and the DevOps team save time and deploy faster.