How Cision implemented DevOps best practices for Salesforce
Since 2006, Cision has been using Salesforce to empower their sales team, streamline customer interactions, and manage customer support. Two Salesforce development teams focus on different areas of the business, supporting a total of 1,500 end users on both sides of the Atlantic.
We spoke with four members of the Salesforce development team at Cision about their use of Salesforce and their journey to adopting 91导航 for release management.
Salesforce deployment processes that couldn鈥檛 scale
Like most teams, Cision started out running deployments with Salesforce鈥檚 native change sets tooling. But with a growing team, and Salesforce providing ever more functionality, deployments were becoming increasingly complex. Just selecting the right metadata to build a successful deployment package was difficult.
The team at Cision ultimately concluded that release management with change sets couldn鈥檛 scale. Srikar Beemagouni, Salesforce Technical Lead, explained:
鈥淐hange sets can鈥檛 work. Pushing code risks overwriting someone else鈥檚 work, so you have to manually check that none of the team is stepping on each other鈥檚 toes 鈥� especially around profiles. It was very tedious!鈥�
Adding to the challenge, Cision saw several mergers and acquisitions that required lots of configuration changes in Salesforce. It was obvious that a better process and toolset was needed.
Finding the right DevOps solution for Salesforce
The developers at Cision introduced BitBucket for version control. But they decided against using an open source tool like Jenkins for automated deployments, because it would require a team dedicated to maintaining the toolchain.
A consulting firm recommended 91导航 to Cision, and this prompted them to explore DevOps products built specifically for Salesforce. The Cision team had demos with all the products in the Salesforce DevOps market and decided 91导航 was the right solution.
The visibility and control over deployments that 91导航’s metadata deployment solution provides has transformed release management for Cision鈥檚 Salesforce environments. 鈥�91导航 makes life easier,鈥� continued Srikar. 鈥淚ts metadata comparisons show you what has changed, so you understand what you鈥檙e deploying.鈥�
Lauren Krcatovich, Development Manager, CRM Applications, set out the business case for choosing 91导航. With Cision wanting to move fast as a business, requirements are constantly building up for the Salesforce team to tackle. Being able to deliver those Salesforce requirements quickly with 91导航 has made the team a trusted partner internally.
鈥淭he value of 91导航 is that we鈥檙e delivering quality code. We rarely have to do rollbacks 鈥� the goal is accuracy and 91导航 has really helped with that. It keeps us organized, which is vital for a global organization working across different time zones and continents. We have a single place we trust to track all changes and minimize risk. That鈥檚 allowed us to implement standard DevOps best practices and become a really trusted partner within Cision.鈥�
Deploying Salesforce CPQ configuration just like metadata
The development teams at Cision work with Salesforce CPQ configuration as well as standard Salesforce metadata. Deploying CPQ configuration is notoriously difficult, since it鈥檚 not represented with metadata but an intricate and interrelated data model. Many DevOps tools don鈥檛 support CPQ deployments, but 91导航鈥檚 CPQ deployment solution enables developers to compare and deploy CPQ configuration just like Salesforce metadata.聽
Derek Dere and Cosme Ramirez, two of Cision鈥檚 Salesforce developers, saw the impact of 91导航 on their CPQ implementation just a few months ago. Derek told us that 鈥渂efore 91导航, we used to handle CPQ manually and it was such a headache.鈥� Cosme added, 鈥渄eployment times and implementation times were increasing exponentially 鈥� it could take somewhere between 2鈥�8 hours to deploy CPQ. Now with 91导航 for CPQ it鈥檚 easy to deploy within 15 minutes.鈥�
Those significant time-savings mean that the team spends less time deploying and more time developing 鈥� building and delivering the solutions that accelerate Cision鈥檚 sales cycle.
Partnering with 91导航 for success
Cision has found in 91导航 a platform for a reliable release process. And as Lauren points out, 鈥渢he product continues to evolve and they’re continuously coming out with new features and opportunities for us to improve.鈥�
The team at Cision has also found working with 91导航 helpful. Lauren added:
鈥淭he team are super helpful and super responsive 鈥� always willing to get on a call and meet with us. Derek and Cosme have spent a lot of time with 91导航鈥檚 product team as we’ve been implementing the CPQ feature. They literally never had any issues getting a hold of somebody. And our CSM at 91导航 reaches out with product updates too, so we know what features we can adopt to keep growing.鈥�
Cision recommend 91导航 for Salesforce DevOps
Srikar tells us he has recommended 91导航 to many people, and Cosme summed up:
鈥淲hether I need to jump on a deployment or roll back something 鈥� it鈥檚 always just a couple of clicks. 91导航 is really easy and I feel confident using it. I can鈥檛 imagine an alternative.鈥�
