Change sets in Salesforce help simplify deploying metadata and customizations between connected Salesforce environments. They create a controlled and secure way to develop and implement changes in Salesforce without manual interventions. Change sets also help eliminate manual configuration between the environments to reduce human errors and allow for more efficient deployments.
Although they are native to Salesforce for deploying customizations from ‘org’ to another, change sets are bogged down by a variety of limitations. These limitations make Salesforce release management harder for users and businesses that rely on the platform.
As DevOps continues to become vital in Salesforce development, understanding the limitations of change sets and how to overcome them is vital to using Salesforce more efficiently.
In this blog post, we’ve curated a complete guide on Salesforce change sets and their limitations. We’ll also highlight how to overcome them without any hurdles!
What Is a Change Set in Salesforce?
A change set is a deployment tool native to Salesforce that enables the transfer of metadata changes and customizations between connected environments.
All developments in Salesforce happen in a developer sandbox or org. These changes are then pushed to a test org and then to production once the tests are successful.
This is crucial as these controlled deployments enable an automated and structured release process, better version control, and platform security.
Types of change sets
In Salesforce, there are two types of Change Sets.
Outbound change sets
An outbound change set is used to send changes from a source sandbox to a target sandbox or production environment.
For example, once the inbound Change Set is received in the production org, it must be validated and approved to deploy the customizations and make them available to users.
Inbound change sets
An inbound change set receives the outbound change set sent from another Salesforce org in the target org. These change sets allow users to review, validate, and approve changes to be deployed in the production environment.
For example, if you have received the changes to a feature as an inbound change set, you then validate and approve them to be deployed in the production org for these customizations in the feature to be available for users.
How Change Sets Work in Salesforce
Change sets offer an efficient way for administrators and developers to choose and bundle components for deployment. This helps keep the integrity of the changes and exercise overview to ensure everything works as planned.
Here is how change sets work in Salesforce.
Step #1: Set up deployment connections
Change sets can be sent between connected orgs only. So, the first step is to enable deployment connections between the orgs you want the change set to be sent.
Here is how to do it:
- Login to your target org and navigate to Setup
- Type Deployment in the Quick Find box
- Choose Deployment Settings from the search results
- Now, click the Edit button near the source org name
- A new window will open, and click Allow Inbound Change Sets and Save
Step #2:Create an outbound change set
Now, you can create an outbound change set in your source org. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to your source organization
- Go to Create an Outbound Change Set in Setup
- Click New to add a new outbound change set
- Name the change set, add a description (optional), and click Save
Step #3: Add components
In this stage, you need to add components to your change set. Here are the steps to do it.
- After creating the new change set, you will see the option Add
- Click Add in the Change Set Components section
- Select the Component Type (Custom Object, Apex Class, etc.)
- Choose the specific components from the list
- Click Add to Change Set
Step #4: Upload the change sets
After adding the components to the change set you are creating, it is time to upload the components.
- Click Upload to pick the target org
- Upload the change set
Step #5: Review the inbound change set
In this stage, you need to review and validate the change set before deploying it. Follow the steps below to do it.
- Log into your target org where the change set was sent to
- In Setup, go to View Inbound Change Sets
- Click the name of the change set to see its details
Step #6: Validate and deploy
After reviewing the change sets, it is time to validate and deploy them. Here are the steps to do it:
- Click Validate to review and same and wait for it to finish
- After the validation, click View Results to see if there was any error
- Click Deploy to apply changes set to your organization
- You can check errors or individual changes by clicking View Results
Limitations of Change Sets in Salesforce
Change sets are vital for efficient deployments and deployment management. Yet, the very limitations of change sets lead to inefficiencies in Salesforce development and deployments.
Understanding these limitations is critical to adopting relevant strategies and technologies to overcome them.
Limit #1: Limited to connected orgs only
Salesforce change sets can only work with connected orgs. Let’s say you have dev and test sandboxes from a single production instance. Once you make any customizations, you can use a change set to move the changes from dev to test to production.
If different organizations use the same app or product with custom production instances of their own, making a connection to one prod from another is impossible.
For each prod, you must create new change sets to bring in the changes, validate them, and deploy the change set for the changes to take effect.
This is counterintuitive considering the reasons which change sets are designed for.
This leads to a variety of concerns for businesses relying on Salesforce, such as:
- Increased chances of error with more human involvement
- Longer deployment cycles for changes in Salesforce
- Redundant work and lack of feasibility
Limit #2: No native built-in risk-analysis functions
Change sets lack built-in capabilities to conduct a risk analysis of deploying the suggested changes. This means that the developer team cannot communicate the risks of implementing the changes into the prod to the customers or other stakeholders.
This often leads to increased deployment vulnerability with each change set sent for deployment. Most customers now need to rely on third-party applications to understand the risks of deploying these changes and how to handle the risk.
A reliable option is to go with Flosum. Simply put, Flosum is a Salesforce-native reliable deployment tool that offers you profound insights into deployment risks and their impacts.
A lack of built-in risk analysis features in Salesforce change sets can lead to the following issues:
- Data security issues with using third-party apps
- Deployment risks leading to system failures
- Failure to carry out dependency analysis
Limit #3: Absence of roll-back capability
Deploying change sets into your destination org is permanent. It is impossible to undo the changes if something goes wrong. Although you can do it manually, it takes a lot of time and effort.
This implies that customers must adapt to the changes until the dev team can roll back the updates in the testing org, create a new change set, and manually undo the changes in production.
This means that the customers need to make do with the changes made until the dev team can call back all the changes in the testing org, create a new change set, and then reverse all the changes made in prod manually.
These deployment downtimes and failures can block the core functionalities of the Salesforce system, leading to numerous challenges for businesses:
- Operational disruption
- Revenue loss
- Data loss
Limit #4: Lack of integration with VC systems
In Salesforce development, dev teams often use Git or SVN as the "source of truth" to track and manage code changes, collaborate, and maintain version history. As Change Sets in Salesforce don’t integrate directly with version control systems like Git or SVN, developers must manually select components when creating them.
Unlike Git/SVN, which tracks changes using revision numbers, Change Sets lack automatic detection of code changes. This further requires extra effort from developers to ensure that all relevant components are included during deployments.
Furthermore, it also needs more effort from the dev team to check what changes have been done and push each change set manually. The best way to avoid this challenge is to use a Salesforce-native tool like Flosum.
A lack of version control in change sets often leads to:
- Deployments that are inefficient and error-prone
- More efforts from the dev team to create change sets
- Higher chances of error due to more human interventions
Limit #5: Complicated element management
Salesforce change sets make it hard to create large change sets. Often, large change sets include hundreds of components, and you need to go through several pages to manually add each component.
That’s painful for development teams who have deadlines to meet and projects to deliver. And what’s even worse is if you add components and need to remove them, you need to do it one by one.
It can lead to slow deployment and inefficient processes that may create bottlenecks when you want to avoid them.
While many developers use workarounds like browser extensions to speed things up and add/remove components faster, several challenges can come up:
- Extensions get access to your code and data
- Increased chances of security vulnerability
- Failing to meet compliance requirements
Limit #6: Lack of reusability across different environments
Salesforce Change Sets are designed for deployments between connected orgs (e.g., sandbox to production). However, they cannot be reused across multiple environments. This requires the administrators to create a new change set for every other environment.
Deployment to multiple environments (e.g., from development to staging, then to production) requires recreating the change set in each stage.This is inefficient, a lot of work, and can lead to less productivity in an organization.
Here are a few vital challenges this can create for the organization:
- This makes deployment processes unnecessarily lengthy
- Repeated configurations delay releases in complex projects
- Human involvement leads to more errors and challenges
Limit #7: Lack of automated processes
Salesforce Change Sets require manual creation and deployment, making automation impossible. This limits deployment efficiency and prevents enforcing best practices consistently.
Without automation, deployments become error-prone and vulnerable to security risks.
Some of the challenges of this limitation are given below:
- Manual processes increase the chances of mistakes and errors
- Limited security due to no built-in compliance or oversight tools
- Repeated manual steps slow down deployment and development
Limit #8: Change sets don’t support all Salesforce components
Change sets don’t support all Salesforce components. Manual intervention is necessary for a variety of components, including picklist values, standard org-wide email addresses, sales processes, etc. This limitation further leads to added deployment time and inefficiencies.
Further, with more manual involvement comes the chance of errors, which can make deployments late and more time-consuming.
Inefficient deployments can:
- Compromise system performance
- Affect operations and business support
- Reduce the team's performance and productivity
Limit #9: Inability to track deployment users
Change sets in Salesforce do not allow tracking of who deployed the change sets. Any developer with access to create and deploy change sets can do it. As there are no functions to oversee or review deployments, inefficient or poorly created customizations can be deployed.
The lack of a feature to trace the deployment users or developers who deployed the customization makes it even harder to ensure accountability, bringing in challenges like:
- Low accountability by teams
- System compromises
- Data security
Limit #10: Failure to handle component dependencies
Failure to handle dependencies between components is a common limitation of Salesforce change sets. It means that when deploying components (custom objects, fields, Apex classes, and workflows), Salesforce does not automatically manage dependencies between these components.
The development team can only add direct dependencies. The administrators need to configure these elements manually in the target audience for the deployment to work.
If dependent components are missing, deployments may fail, leading to more work, inefficiencies, and less productivity.
Limit #11: Not ideal for large, enterprise-level deployments
While Salesforce change sets are great for deploying smaller, manageable changes, they are unsuitable for large-scale or enterprise-level projects. This limitation differs from a few others, such as a lack of version control to track changes.
Change sets also make it hard to deploy enterprise-level deployments as they need histories, rollbacks, and full dependency knowledge, all of which are not available with Salesforce’s change sets.
Another challenge with change sets is that when large deployments fail, it calls for extensive manual interventions, increased chances of errors, and higher system failure possibility.
How to Overcome Change Sets Limitations in Salesforce
There are three different strategies to overcome the limitations of Salesforce change sets, such as:
Strategy #1: Plan deployments in advance
Planning and scheduling deployments in advance is crucial for reducing errors and improving efficiency. While management may pressure teams for quicker releases, rushing deployments often lead to missed components, configuration errors, and project delays.
Effective release management practices ensure all critical components are included, deployment tasks are well-coordinated, and the impact on users is minimized. With a well-structured plan, teams can better manage timelines, anticipate risks, and avoid last-minute surprises
Having a strategic plan can also:
- Ensure essential components are deployed
- Help communicate changes to stakeholders
- Allow teams to navigate deployments strategically
This reduces deployment stress and creates a controlled, predictable environment where releases happen smoothly and reliably.
Strategy #2: Document changes you make manually
Salesforce does not track changes automatically, making audits and troubleshooting difficult. This is especially problematic for teams managing frequent updates or large projects.
To overcome this, teams must maintain a detailed log of changes made manually, including customizations, component modifications, and configuration adjustments. Documentation acts as a centralized reference for resolving issues, performing audits, and ensuring project transparency.
An efficient and intelligent documentation strategy can also help with:
- Faster troubleshooting and issue resolution
- Ensuring better project accountability and control
- Creating a centralized record of all changes in the system
This proactive approach prevents missing components and simplifies deployments, leading to better deployment management and project efficiency.
Strategy #3: Use a third-party solution
A third-party DevOps solution can fill these gaps of Salesforce change sets limitations by offering advanced deployment features.
One such platform is Flosum which provides complete visibility into deployments, automated change tracking, and seamless rollback features. Flosum also supporst a broader range of metadata types, ensuring nothing is missed.
Flosum being a Salesforce-native DevOps tool,can help with better deployment control and management.
Using Flosum can help you in a variety of ways, such as:
- Offering complete visibility into deployments
- Saving your team’s time with quick rollback capabilities
- Fewer deployment failures through effective metadata management
- Tailored handling for different metadata types
- Built-in compliance and security features
We also offers built-in security, compliance tracking, and intelligent dependency management, effectively eliminating deployment failures and streamlining complex release processes.
Key Takeaways
Change sets are a vital part of Salesforce development. They help create customizations, validate, and deploy them in Salesforce. However, they are also come with certain limitations that affect Salesforce development teams, users, and businesses. Being able to make and deploy changes in Salesforce efficiently is essential for effective Salesforce development and deployment management.
It is also paramount to ensure data security and continued use of the platform by customers, which are not possible inherently with the change sets offered in Salesforce. That’s where tools like Flosum can help. Flosum streamlines Salesforce deployment with built-in version control, automated deployments, and compliance checks. It ensures secure releases with change tracking and rollback capabilities, minimizing errors and maximizing deployment efficiency.
If you would like to know more about Flosum and how it can revolutionize Salesforce DevOps, speak to our experts for a free consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are change sets in Salesforce?
Change sets are a deployment tool that allows administrators to bundle metadata changes and customizations and push them from one environment to another connected environment in Salesforce.
2. What are the limitations of change sets?
Change sets have numerous limitations, from lack of rollbacks to automation, security control, version control, and more. Change sets do not support all Salesforce components, and they are unsuitable to create and push enterprise-level changes.
3. What is the difference between a change set and a package in Salesforce?
Change sets are tools to deploy components between connected Salesforce orgs without versioning. At the same time, a Package distributes applications with version control and supports complex metadata. The Package works across multiple unconnected Salesforce environments, as well.
4. How do I open a change set in Salesforce?
You can open change sets in Salesforce by going to Setup and typing change sets in the Search box. From the search results, you can click on your preferred change set and view its details.
