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Business customization platform
The Business Customization Platform (PaaS) provides unified capabilities for business modeling, interface design, process automation, access control, and application release. Enterprises can quickly adapt standard CRM applications to their own business through visual configuration. They can also use low-code or pro-code capabilities for more complex extensions.
Platform purpose
Standard business applications address common sales, marketing, and service scenarios. The Business Customization Platform addresses an enterprise's specific requirements for objects, pages, processes, permissions, and data rules. The two work together: standard applications provide ready-to-use business capabilities, while PaaS provides the foundation for continuously adapting and extending them.
The Business Customization Platform is suitable for the following requirements:
- Standard objects cannot represent new business data, so you need custom objects such as delivery records, equipment ledgers, or inspection records.
- Different roles need different fields, pages, menus, homepages, or mobile entry points.
- Access to data must be controlled by role, department, owner, Related Teams, or sharing rules.
- Approvals, collaborative tasks, and status changes must flow online or run automatically.
- Data must be imported or exported in bulk, cleansed, audited, migrated, or archived.
- Global organizations need Language Support, Time Zones, Regional Formats, Multi-Currency Management, and localized address formats.
- Configuration must be tested in an isolated environment before it is released to production.
Platform capability architecture
The Business Customization Platform is built on the object model. Interfaces and processes support business operations, while permissions and data governance protect operations. Development and environment capabilities support continuous extension and release.
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Business applications and user entry points
+-- Platform applications, application views, menus, homepages, and navigation
+-- Web pages, mobile pages, layouts, and components
+-- Business output such as printing, email, online documents, and e-signatures
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Business customization capabilities
+-- Data model: objects, fields, relationships, and record types
+-- Business rules: layouts, validation, deduplication, mapping, conversion, and scoring
+-- Process automation: approval processes, workflows, business processes, pipelines, and flows
+-- Access control: organizations, roles, functional permissions, field permissions, and data permissions
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Platform governance capabilities
+-- Data governance: import and export, bulk processing, cleansing, audits, and archiving
+-- Globalization: languages, time zones, regional formats, currencies, countries and regions, and address formats
+-- Release operations: sandboxes, change sets, and deployment monitoring
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Development and extension capabilities
+-- APL, PWC, custom components, plugins, and third-party capabilitiesAdministrators usually start with visual configuration. When standard configuration cannot support complex interactions, backend logic, or system integrations, they can extend the platform with APL, PWC, or plugins. Capability availability depends on the enterprise edition, enabled features, and the actual options in Setup.
Core capabilities
| Capability area | Question addressed | Main content |
|---|---|---|
| Object customization | What data does the business manage? | Standard objects, custom objects, fields, object relationships, record types, layouts, validation rules, and duplicate rules |
| Interface customization | Where do users enter the application, and how do they view and process data? | Platform applications, application views, menus, homepages, navigation, custom pages, components, and branding |
| Process customization | How does work move forward and run automatically? | Approval processes, workflows, business processes, pipelines, flows, the To-Do Center, and operations monitoring |
| Organizations and permissions | Who can use features, view fields, and access data? | Organizations, users, business roles, administrative roles, functional permissions, field permissions, data permissions, and sharing |
| General business rules | How can business rules be reused across scenarios? | Object changes, object plugins, mapping, conversion, scoring, Smart Forms, and tags |
| Data and operations | How is business data migrated, governed, and maintained? | Import and export, bulk processing, data migration, cleansing, auditing, archiving, Global Option Sets, and global variables |
| Internationalization Settings | How can the system support business across countries and regions? | Language Support, Time Zones, Regional Formats, Multi-Currency Management, countries and regions, administrative divisions, and address formats |
| Templates and plugins | How are documents produced and external business capabilities connected? | PDF, Excel, Word, email templates, online documents, e-signatures, SMS, and the app marketplace |
| Environment management | How can configuration change and release risks be reduced? | Sandboxes, outbound change sets, inbound change sets, validation, deployment, and release monitoring |
How a business application comes together
A usable business application consists of data, experience, controls, and automation, rather than a single object or page.
- Define the data: Determine the business scope. Select a standard object or create a custom object, and then configure fields and object relationships.
- Organize pages: Configure form, details, and list layouts. Then create the application, menus, homepage, and mobile entry points.
- Set rules: Use required fields, layout rules, validation rules, duplicate rules, and other controls to maintain data-entry quality.
- Configure permissions: First define access to features and fields. Then configure record-level data permissions and any required sharing methods.
- Orchestrate processes: Select the appropriate process capability for manual approvals, automatic actions, multi-user collaboration, or pipeline progression.
- Prepare data: Import initial data as needed, configure common options, and complete cleansing, auditing, or migration.
- Validate the experience: Use test accounts with different roles to validate the complete workflow on the Web and mobile clients.
- Release and operate: Validate high-risk changes in a sandbox, release them through change sets, and continue monitoring permissions, data quality, and process operations.
This path is not a fixed template. A simple scenario might require only an object, layouts, and permissions. A cross-departmental, integrated, or global scenario might also require processes, integrations, internationalization, and environment governance.
Choose a configuration method
| Requirement | Recommended method |
|---|---|
| Adjust fields, layouts, menus, permissions, or standard processes | Start with visual configuration |
| Reuse rules across objects or orchestrate more complex automation | Use platform rules, processes, or flows |
| Create custom interactions, page components, or frontend plugins | Use frontend extension capabilities such as PWC |
| Implement complex backend logic, functions, or third-party capabilities | Use backend extension capabilities such as APL |
| Make a broad change with many dependencies or production impact | Develop and validate in a sandbox, and then release through a change set |
Primary roles
| Role | Primary responsibilities |
|---|---|
| Business owner | Defines business goals, process boundaries, data definitions, and acceptance criteria |
| System administrator | Configures objects, interfaces, permissions, processes, rules, and enterprise settings |
| Implementation consultant | Converts business requirements into platform configuration and organizes testing and rollout |
| Developer | Uses API Names, APL, PWC, components, or plugins to implement extensions |
| Data and release administrator | Manages data migration, quality governance, environments, and production releases |
| Business user | Enters, views, and processes business data, completes process tasks, and reports usability issues |
Recommendations
- Define the business problem and data boundaries before creating objects and fields.
- Reuse standard objects and native platform capabilities whenever possible to avoid duplicate modeling.
- Design permissions together with organizational responsibilities. Do not leave permissions until immediately before rollout.
- Complete a minimum viable workflow before adding complex rules, processes, and development extensions.
- Use a standard business account for acceptance testing. Confirming that a setting was saved in Setup is not sufficient.
- Create separate migration and rollback plans when a change affects historical data, the permission model, processes, or internationalization.
Next steps
- Read Core terms to establish a shared conceptual foundation.
- Follow Build a custom business app in 30 minutes to complete your first minimum business workflow.