Publish date:

• 15th May, 2025

Salesforce is a flexible Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that helps companies improve sales and marketing, manage customer relationships, and enhance customer service.

One of its main strengths is its ability to be tailored to fit each organization's needs. However, decision-makers need to understand the difference between configuring and customizing Salesforce. This knowledge will help them choose the best way to modify the platform, maximize its capabilities, and increase return on investment (ROI).

According to the Salesforce Relationship Survey, using Salesforce can increase your chances of winning deals by up to 24% and boost sales productivity by up to 25%. Customizing Salesforce for your needs can make even better improvements.

When used correctly, Salesforce can automate tedious tasks, help teams work together, and give a complete view of customers, which increases productivity. However, if you don’t customize Salesforce, it can become an expensive and ineffective CRM platform.

To avoid problems with your CRM customization project, first, understand all the processes in your business. If you need help, consider working with professional Salesforce customization companies.

Salesforce Configuration vs. Salesforce Customization: Key Difference

A study by Nucleus Research shows that 86% of consumers believe personalization is essential for their buying choices. Customers want to ensure that all CRM processes and integrations are well-tuned so that communication is efficient and personalized.

Salesforce is a strong customer relationship management (CRM) platform that lets you customize and configure it in many ways. With Salesforce, you can go beyond the platform's limits, create new features, and tailor them to fit your organization's needs. However, customizing Salesforce can be more complex and often costs more than simply configuring it.

That’s why you need to know the main differences between Salesforce customization and configuration if you are trying to decide between them. This will help you avoid wasting your money and time.

What Is Salesforce Configuration?

Salesforce configuration means adding new features and functions to a Salesforce Org using a formula or a specific rule. This process helps change default features, organize metadata, and improve components. By doing this, businesses can create better strategies to boost return on investment (ROI) and increase sales productivity.

Using Salesforce configuration helps you develop applications easily using the User Interface (UI). If you want to change the UI, data model, or business logic of your Salesforce solution, you can use simple point-and-click tools.

What Salesforce Configuration is Used for

The list of possible configurations includes creating:

• Sales paths,

• Reports and dashboards,

• Workflows and data validation rules,

• Page layouts,

• Permission sets,

• Tabs and apps (collections of tabs grouped to present them to users).

You can build or improve them using the standard functions in Salesforce, the Lightning Process Builder, or apps from AppExchange.

You can configure Salesforce without adding new features. You can do it yourself or ask a professional Salesforce administrator for help.

This person plays a vital role in setting up your on-demand CRM and providing ongoing maintenance and support for your organization after each Salesforce release.

Salesforce configuration can be complicated. Hiring the right Salesforce consulting partner can make it easier.

What is Customization in Salesforce?

Customizing Salesforce means adding new features or functions unavailable in the standard CRM system through custom coding.

This process does not focus on changing the platform's current interface. Instead, it aims to enhance its overall functionality and make the most of the platform to gain extra benefits.

Salesforce Customization Tools

You can customize Salesforce using tools made by Salesforce or by its partners. Here are some standard tools for customizing Salesforce:

• Visualforce is a programming language that looks similar to HTML. It is used to create user interface pages and components.

• Apex is a programming language used for back-end development, similar to Java and C#. It helps developers effectively work with user actions and objects.

• SOQL, or Salesforce Object Query Language, is a programming language that helps you search for data in Salesforce. It works similarly to SQL, which is used for databases.

• Lightning Components is a JavaScript framework. It helps you create reusable components for Salesforce.

• Salesforce Connect lets users access and use data from other systems as if that data were in Salesforce. It uses the OData protocol to make this connection easy.

This complex approach usually requires a partnership with a Salesforce customization company to manage the optimization process.

What Can Be Customized in Salesforce?

Salesforce is a highly customizable platform; you can modify almost any element. All customizable items can fall into such categories:

• UI (User Interface),

• Functionality

• Integrations.

User Interface (UI)

You can change the look and feel of the original Salesforce interface by using your company’s colors, logos, and style. You can also customize the Salesforce Lightning home page layouts to improve your Salesforce account's user experience.

Functionality

Salesforce customization allows the development and transformation of system entities like:

• Objects,

• Fields,

• Reports,

• Dashboards,

• Tabs,

• Templates,

• Notifications,

• Workflows, etc.

Sometimes, changing these entities isn't enough. You may need to create large, custom processes in Salesforce or build custom apps to improve the system's functioning.

Integrations

You can connect Salesforce with any other third-party system, such as:

• ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems

• CMS (Content Management System)

• Project management software

• Social media

• Email marketing tools

• Report generation tools

• E-commerce platforms

• Accounting solutions

• Computer telephony software

Many of these can connect to Salesforce through AppExchange plugins, an API, or a pre-built connector. Additionally, Salesforce provides some strong integration tools.

• MuleSoft Anypoint: a platform for app integration

• Heroku: a platform for developing your apps and integrating them with Salesforce

Sometimes, you must create custom code to connect different systems, especially when using multiple solutions.

If your team is new to Salesforce or unsure which approach to take, consider consulting with Salesforce experts at the start of your project. They can help you create a better rollout plan, suggest the right subscription for your company, and guide you on effectively customizing your Salesforce account.

Salesforce Customization Benefits: Why Does Your Org Need It?

Customization Makes the User Interface More Intuitive

The Salesforce user interface is easy to use and automated, making it simple for developers to customize and scale it for their clients' needs. 

Developers can integrate Salesforce and add features without using complex coding.

Ultimately, Personalized User Experience

With customization, you can build and customize:

• Apex classes/triggers,

• Page layout by applying CSS

• Visual Force pages/components/emails,

• Lead capture forms,

• Third-party integrations,

• Lightning components,

• Secure partner portals.

And this is just a shortlist of what can be configured or built!

Faster App Development

Salesforce helps developers create apps faster by using simple drag-and-drop tools. While you may not build a complete, complex app in just a few hours, you can still set up specific actions and prepare a basic framework.

Many ready-to-use applications are available.

AppExchange is Salesforce's app marketplace, offering over 4,000 ready-made third-party applications for nearly any industry, including commercial real estate.

These applications allow you to customize the global search in Salesforce using solutions. You can connect your Salesforce account with these products through a single interface.

Seamless Integration with Third-Party Systems

You can connect your CRM to any external system, such as ERP, e-commerce solutions, social media, and email. This connection is essential for your business. You can use various built-in tools from Salesforce, low-code tools, or create custom tools from scratch.

Advanced Data Management

If you have many data and complex business rules that the default Salesforce tools can't handle, you can turn on bulk processing. This is the best way to manage tasks like updating records at once or handling weekly leads.

Real-Time Personalized Reporting

Default or set reports and dashboards might not show all the essential data about your business processes. In Salesforce, you can build custom reports and dashboards for sales, marketing, and service teams to give them better visibility into specific numbers when needed.

Custom Email Templates

A good email is essential for a successful email campaign. Through Salesforce, you can create custom email templates and design them to match your preferences.

5 Salesforce Customization Risks

Using a CRM system can be challenging, leading to problems with keeping users on board. If the system is not set up correctly, it can cost money and result in expensive solutions that don’t work well. 

Salesforce Consultants like Codleo help you customize Salesforce effectively, making it easier for your teams to use. You can trust us with this task to avoid these risks:

1. Buying a Salesforce Edition That Cannot Be Customized

Before you buy a Salesforce license, you should know that you cannot customize any edition of Salesforce. For instance, Salesforce Sales Cloud limits what you can change in its features.

To avoid the problems of using an unfinished solution, it's best to talk to a Salesforce expert. They can suggest options that have many features while still being affordable.

2. Over-customization

To maximize Salesforce, clear customization goals are essential. Without them, you might waste time and money on unnecessary features, which can make the system complicated and complex, resulting in low adoption rates and decreased productivity.

3. No Clearly Set Timelines

A common problem is planning without a clear end goal. Before you start your customization project, think about:

• The result you want to achieve,

• The tools you need for this,

• How will your end users use these new features?

If you have an extended customization plan, it's better to release important features step by step so users can get used to them.

4. Steep Learning Curve

Salesforce can be overwhelming for everyone involved. It’s essential to include users from the start, during the prototyping stage, and to train them consistently until you see positive results. 

Also, provide ongoing support to users who need more knowledge about Salesforce or face technical issues. 

To address common questions, you can create user guides, self-service portals, or video tutorials. Hiring Salesforce admins can help manage specific inquiries.

5. Technical Challenges

Before launching your project, keep these technical challenges in mind:

• Technical incompatibilities: Some integrated solutions may not work well with Salesforce. This could mean that you must customize them either at the start or later.

• Seasonal releases: Salesforce updates its system three times a year, and these updates cannot be delayed or canceled. It means you do not own the system, regardless of how customized it is. Even though Salesforce updates can bring new features to your organization, you do not get to decide whether you want these updates.

After these updates, you must change the user interface or functionality, which may require extra effort.

How Long Can Salesforce Customization Take?

To estimate the time it will take to customize Salesforce, first identify your project's technical needs and priorities. Generally, Salesforce customization can take anywhere from eight hours to over eight months.

If you lack the hands-on experience to handle the project yourself or are short on time, that's okay.

As a certified Salesforce consultant and AppExchange partner, our team has the skills and experience to manage any Salesforce customization challenge for you. Contact our experts to see how we can help.

Salesforce Customization Cost Estimates

The total cost of customizing Salesforce includes several factors. These factors are the Salesforce products and editions you choose, the number of users, the cost of consulting services, CRM setup and customization, user training, and system support. Overall, customizing Salesforce can cost between $6,000 and $50,000.

What Expertise is Required for Salesforce Customization?

Salesforce configuration is easier than customization because many features are ready to use immediately. However, you need a clear understanding of these features and how to use them effectively.

If you lack the resources to manage Salesforce configuration internally, you can hire outside Salesforce experts such as:

• Salesforce Administrators

• Experience (Community) Cloud Consultants

• Sales Cloud Consultants

• Service Cloud Consultants

Customizing Salesforce may require a Salesforce Platform Developer and a Salesforce App Builder.

If you're unsure who to hire, find a trustworthy Salesforce customization company to help you. They can advise you on the best ways to manage your customization and configuration projects. They will also answer key questions to help you through the process effectively.

Detailed SFDC Customization Plan

To customize Salesforce effectively, you should follow a straightforward process. This guide will walk you through 12 steps to ensure your project's success.

1. Prepare Ahead

Customizing Salesforce can be complicated. To ensure everything works well together, you should plan this process carefully, organize your tasks, and set priorities.

First, consider whether your business truly needs to customize or configure Salesforce.

Once you identify the gaps only Salesforce customization can fill, you can make the necessary changes.

2. Survey the Users

The main goal of customizing Salesforce is to make it user-friendly and scalable for everyone.

Start by talking to the end-users to find out what they need for their Salesforce customization.

When you talk to them, ask about the problems they face when using the system, the features they wish they had, and any tools in Salesforce that they no longer use.

3. Consult a Salesforce Customization Company

Before you start your Salesforce customization project, talk to Salesforce professionals. It will help you make the right decisions and avoid mistakes early on. Salesforce experts can also recommend tools and methods to make customization easier.

4. Prioritize Features You Want to Create

Once you have gathered the list of features your end-users want to add to their Salesforce org, you need to sort out the unnecessary ones and prioritize the rest.  

Unnecessary features can extend the customization project and significantly increase your budget. So, focus on developing the features that will benefit end users the most and provide the highest return on investment (ROI).

5. Use Sandbox Before Customization

Before customizing Salesforce, choose the right sandbox to test your changes. This step is crucial because you do not want to risk damaging your system without a way to recover.

A sandbox provides a safe space to test your customizations without affecting your live system. Salesforce offers three types of sandboxes, each with a different purpose that you can use.

Developer Sandbox

This type of sandbox is designed to create and test new customizations. It starts empty, so you can work in a clean system without any old data cluttering it up. You can then add new data as you go.

Partial Sandbox

With this sandbox option, you can enter a sample data set into your system. This lets you try customization and see how it affects your existing data.

Full Sandbox

This is a complete copy of your organization, called a sandbox version. You can use it to test new customizations and see how they will function in your system.

People usually use a full sandbox for final testing before making changes to the live system, so it should be updated regularly to match the production organization.

Additionally, you can create different sandbox versions to explore various development tools, such as Force.com, Heroku Enterprise, and Lightning. This way, app designers can choose the best tool for their work.

6. Decide on Key CRM Terms for Simplified Communication

Using clear, simple, organized names and terms is essential for good communication between end-users, admins, and developers.

While there is no official naming convention for Salesforce, three effective methods can work for any organization:

Make Naming Conversion Structured

Use a consistent naming pattern across your organization. It will help everyone easily understand and define each feature, object, or process.

Make Naming Conversion Concise

It's easier to add a new feature and get people to use it if the name is simple. The name should include only essential information.

Make Naming Conversion Consistent

To avoid confusion and disorder, all Salesforce users should follow the same naming conventions.

7. Conduct Tests Regularly

Make sure to test all deployments properly before you roll out any customizations. Testing helps catch new errors that may come up due to data changes or updates to validation rules or triggers. Aim for code coverage of at least 75%.

8. Train the End-users

Once all the developments are finished, user training will be provided to help everyone feel comfortable with the new features and tools. You can create practice environments to teach them without damaging the live organization and its data.

It's a good idea to conduct short surveys throughout the process to determine what works well and what needs improvement.

9. Keep Documentation and Notes

Proper documentation is crucial for your Salesforce customization project.

Start by writing down all the business requirements and goals you want to achieve with the new technology. Include any implementation details discussed in meetings.

Accurate documentation of the customized features helps other developers and future employees understand your changes. It also prevents unnecessary alterations or duplicates in the customizations.

10. Add Customization Details

After customizing Salesforce, describe the new features in a designated area. This will help other admins and developers understand the changes.

You should also log all feature updates in this area. It makes it easier to track changes that affect other features.

Salesforce allows you to display messages on various fields and features, like validation rules or Apex. These messages can alert users if they make mistakes or guide them through using new customizations, ensuring that users use the customizations correctly.

Salesforce Customization and Configuration Best Practices

These easy Salesforce updates boost productivity without taking much time to set up.

1. Field Utilization Reports

This Salesforce setup helps you find new sources that might mess up your system data. You can easily manage this by deleting blank fields 30% of the time. Also, check blank fields more than 90% of the time. However, you might not need to delete those fields from Salesforce completely.

2. In-time Clean-Up and Optimization

To improve productivity and security in Salesforce, access must be limited to users who no longer need it or have left the company. To make better use of Salesforce, delete any custom profiles that are not used and turn off unnecessary APIs for security reasons. Keep your role hierarchy simple to avoid complications in organizing roles.

3. Correct Validation Rules

To improve your use of Salesforce, follow these steps: first, reduce the number of rules and delete any that are inactive, as well as any hardcoded IDs in the Validation Rules. Next, update existing records that do not meet the added Validation Rule. Use Validation Rules to create fields that meet specific criteria.

4. Well-Organized Triggers

To optimize Salesforce, follow these general rules: 

• Use only one trigger for each object. 

• Avoid hardcoding IDs. 

• Keep the logic in triggers simple. 

• Limit nested for loops when possible. 

• Enable context-specific helper methods in your triggers.

5. Fine-Tuned Email Templates

When creating email templates in Salesforce, follow these best practices: 

• Use tables to organize your email layouts. 

• Consider using nested tables with defined cell widths.

• Design your emails to be around 600 pixels wide. 

• Avoid using CSS in your emails. 

• Include basic text formatting styles by default.

6. Login History Check-up

This SFDC setup helps identify user lockouts and prevents too many login errors.

7. Consistent Salesforce Audit

This method for configuring Salesforce checks for changes, additions, or removals made in the past week. Document or comment on these changes in the original place where they occurred.

Regularly check Salesforce for errors to avoid unexpected problems with the CRM system.

Things to Keep in Mind About Salesforce Customization

Salesforce is a flexible platform, but there are limits on how many changes you can make. For instance, the Salesforce Essentials Edition allows only two custom profiles. Regardless of your Salesforce edition, your organization can have 3,000 custom objects and 900 custom fields for each object.

• Companies should also recognize the problems that come with too much customization.

• Companies should also recognize the problems that come with too much customization.

• Adding too many features can lead to a disorganized system with unnecessary parts that users won't adopt.

• Too much customization can increase development and maintenance costs, slow down operations, and reduce staff productivity.

How to Choose Between Customization and Configuration?

Now is the time to choose your development approach. This decision depends on your needs, budget, project complexity, and timeline.

If Salesforce's standard features don’t meet your needs, customize them. You should choose the configuration if it mostly fits your needs and only minor changes are required.

Do you need specific features or processes in Salesforce? Or do you want to simplify long or unnecessary procedures? Customization can help with this. If you can't integrate a third-party service using Salesforce APIs, you can use custom integration for better data mapping.

If you are new to Salesforce and want to understand its features while adapting it to your needs for quick setup, consider configuration. Look for existing options that can customize your Salesforce setup to some extent.

If you have limited resources or your team isn’t very technical, Salesforce configuration is the best choice.

If you are unsure which option to pick, consider consulting Salesforce experts for help.

Why Partnering With Salesforce Experts Matters

Salesforce experts work closely with you to understand your business needs, processes, and challenges. They look at your system to see how complex it is. Based on their analysis, they recommend the best development approach to give your business the best results.

At Codleo, our team has over 400 Salesforce experts who provide many development services, including customization and configuration.

Sometimes, a mix of configuration and customization is the best solution. Our experts help you find the right balance between the two. They also explain the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and review different scenarios that fit your business needs.

Our Salesforce experts discuss ongoing maintenance and support needs for configuration and customization, including updates and bug fixes. With their guidance, you can make informed choices about customizing or configuring, ensuring your investment offers excellent value and aligns with your long-term business goals.

Summary

Customizing and configuring Salesforce helps you tailor the platform to meet your needs and boosts its value for your business. Each method works best in specific situations and requires skill in using Salesforce and its technology.
You can talk to a sales expert to ensure your sales enhancement goes smoothly. They can help you decide whether to customize, configure, or use both. They will also recommend the most cost-effective way to make the changes and guide you.

Salesforce offers great customization options, allowing you to create a system that feels like it was developed in-house. It helps users manage complex business processes within the platform and can grow with your needs, all while keeping your data secure. You can adjust the Salesforce CRM to fit your requirements and automate data-related tasks using easy point-and-click tools.

Companies like Codleo provide flexible Salesforce customization services and can customize various Salesforce products.

• Sales Cloud

• Service Cloud

• Marketing Cloud

• Pardot

• Experience Cloud

Our Salesforce experts will help you with:

• A comprehensive Salesforce health check

• Create a plan for customizing Salesforce that meets the customer’s needs.

• We create custom integration solutions and code to help different systems work together smoothly.

• Developing apps for AppExchange and creating Lightning Web Components and Flows.

• Ongoing customizations to ensure Salesforce solution scalability.

• User training and support.

• Regular system monitoring and performance checks

Do you need help customizing Salesforce? Ask our experts for advice on the best way to do it.