Salesforce: Mobile Apps Development Approaches

After a gap of over 6 months, i’m back to blogging 🙂 and this time on Salesforce Mobile apps development approaches.

These days it is difficult to find a person without holding a mobile phone in their hand. People of every stripe create and consume data on an ever-increasing variety of connected devices.

Considering the rapid growth story of the mobile devices, businesses are investing on mobile app development to promote, advertise, sell, service, deal with client/partner, etc. from the mobile apps. This trend is evident in CRM space as well. Going mobile has become a key business requirement in most Salesforce implementations nowadays.

The Mobile apps can broadly be classified into two categories,

• Consumer apps: developed for Customers
• Business apps: developed for business users (Employees/Partners -> Sales, Marketing, Service & Operational users)

To meet the challenge of running businesses on mobile devices, Salesforce provides the Salesforce Platform (App Cloud Mobile).

As part of this article, I intend to cover the following two approaches/options provided by Salesforce for building & deploying mobile apps and considerations to be applied to choose the right approach.

1) The Salesforce1 App:

• This is the fastest way to deliver mobile app for employees
• Already built and made available in Apple App Store & Google Play Store by Salesforce
• Offers simple point-and-click tools for administrators and the Lightning web development platform for advanced developers to customize & extend the Salesforce1 app

2) Salesforce Mobile SDK:

• Gives developers the tools to build the customized user experiences
• Native & Hybrid custom mobile apps can be developed with this option
• These apps can target employees, customers, or partners
• Custom Apps can be built using Device Native or web technologies (HTML 5, JavaScript frameworks like React Native, Cordova, Ionic and Polymer)
• Provides same grade of reliability and security found in Salesforce1

Comparison & Considerations:

Comparison Parameter	Salesforce 1	Mobile SDK – Native	Mobile SDK – Hybrid
Development effort/cost	Medium	Very High	High
Maintenance/changes	Easy	Very Complex	Complex
Branding	Very Minimal	Customizable	Customizable
User Friendliness	Less Intuitive	Intuitive	Intuitive
Navigation	Fixed	Customizable	Customizable
Offline	Available	To be Custom built	To be Custom built
Access to app using Web browser	Not available	Not available	Available
Platforms Support	iOS, Android & Windows	iOS & Android	iOS & Android
App/Play Store Subscription	Not Required	Paid Subscription	Paid Subscription

 

Conclusion:

With Salesforce1 approach, mobile solution can be deployed faster on all the three popular mobile platforms with minimal effort. But downside with this approach is limited support for app customization to meet Corporate branding needs (such as UI themes, Navigation, User Friendliness & also users end up downloading Salesforce app not the company app from the Play Stores, App Store & Windows Market place)

Mobile SDK – Native approach, Native apps typically have better performance with rendering and animations & also “feels right”. Look and feel is consistent with most of the other native apps on the device and end user can pick up the app navigation & use the app faster. The major disadvantage with this option is, a separate code base has to be created & maintained for each platform. Also, native apps can’t be made available on browser.

Mobile SDK – Hybrid approach, hybrid apps are platform agnostic & this is one of the main appeals of a hybrid app: you build it once and then you release it across multiple platforms. We have a complete flexibility to design the app meeting corporate branding needs. Moreover, we just have to maintain a single code base. And these apps can also be made accessible on browser for the users who don’t have access to Smartphones.

I hope these inputs helps you to better understand various Mobile app development approaches, the merits & demerits and the parameters to be considered to choose the right approach

.. Prashanth N ..