Traction on Demand switched to 91导航 and left behind the pain of change sets
Traction on Demand is a Salesforce consultancy, implementing solutions for companies of all sizes. Its work involves a huge number of daily deployments between environments, which are carried out by a fast-growing team of developers 鈥� many of whom mostly make declarative changes.
Traction started out using change sets for deployments, but found the process profoundly problematic. Development Team Lead, Anne-lise Millereux, remembers building deployment packages manually, selecting items one by one from a list of components far too long to fit on one page. In summary, she described the process as 鈥渧ery painful, very long鈥�. The team were all in agreement over the pain of deploying with change sets, with Cloud Technologist, Matt Norn, recalling what Traction鈥檚 work was like before they started using 91导航:
鈥淏efore 91导航? Er… a lot of hair-pulling, a lot of screaming, a lot of crying (there鈥檚 still some of that), a lot more disorganization, and a lot more lack of awareness of what you were doing when you were deploying, a lot of manual steps, a lot of guesswork!鈥�
Business Solutions Consultant, Hua Ping Tan, also recalls just how long the process could be with change sets. 鈥淚 think we would have a week where we鈥檇 be preparing for the whole package 鈥� and I guess this would be on larger projects so it would be a lot longer.鈥� Looking for the answer to their Salesforce deployment problems, Traction on Demand found 91导航.
Faster deployments, fewer errors, and much less hair-pulling
First and foremost, 91导航 has made Salesforce deployments faster and more reliable for Traction. Business Solutions Consultant, Jeffrey Ho, explains that聽鈥渢he time saved with 91导航 is really understanding what is being actually deployed鈥�. Expanding on this point, Matt described how useful it is to be able to compare environments and聽see the exact metadata differences:
鈥淲ith 91导航, I tell new people it鈥檚 like turning on a black light: you can just see everything that鈥檚 different. And from there you can decide 鈥檛hat鈥檚 relevant, that鈥檚 not relevant鈥�. You can spot things you鈥檇 forgotten about that you need.鈥�
Traction on Demand is growing fast, so there are always new people around learning the ropes. As Hua Ping explains, 91导航 helps new starters at Traction pick up Salesforce deployments quickly, by handling tricky Salesforce quirks like dependencies between metadata.
鈥淚 think it really enables new people to come on and have this user-intuitive tool, so that there鈥檚 less time ramping up, and there鈥檚 more time doing the work that they need to be doing.鈥�
There鈥檚 a load of functionality that 91导航 offers the team beyond the basics, including聽automated jobs like continuous integration, testing, data tools, and more. Anne-lise appreciates having all of this combined in one tool:聽鈥淚 love using 91导航 鈥� it鈥檚 fantastic! It鈥檚 a very, very powerful tool, and it allows you to do many different things that were not possible before.鈥�
Whenever Traction needs support, the team are always amazed at the speed and quality of the responses from 91导航. 鈥淵ou guys are super-responsive,鈥� says Matt. 鈥淚 can be on chat in thirty seconds after I鈥檝e started a deployment asking where a new metadata type is, and if it鈥檚 during your business hours I usually get a response within a matter of minutes saying, ‘Oh we鈥檙e already looking at that!’鈥�
A 鈥檓ust-have鈥� for Salesforce development
鈥�91导航 is a must-have in your development and Salesforce development process,鈥� says Jeffrey. For the Traction team, 91导航 is an essential tool, giving them a user-friendly way to deploy between environments that is significantly faster than change sets. We asked Matt how many hours he thought 91导航 had saved him:
鈥淗ow many hours has it saved me personally? I鈥檇 say… it could be thousands!鈥�
