Nov 22, 2010

Ramping up for Dreamforce - Overview of Winter '11

Sorry I've been absent so long, it's been crazy getting ready for Dreamforce.

My app has cleared the security review and is now on sale in the AppExchange.  We're seeing a ton of customer interest, and we're planning  on making a ton of new friends at Dreamforce in a couple weeks.

One thing that has kept me busy is exploring and planning app features to take advantage of the great stuff that Salesforce is rolling out in their Winter 11 release.  One of my favorites is the Chatter integration being taken to data objects...now users can follow the feeds generated by any object theyre interested in, in addition to people.

Here's a video webinar from Salesforce.com going through all of the good stuff in Winter '11 release.

Oct 18, 2010

Dreamforce 2010 - Top Five Things To Be Excited About

Like most Salesforce.com users, I am pumped for Dreamforce.  Dreamforce is the annual Salesforce.com user and developer conference, and it's being held Dec 6-9 in San Francisco this year.  Why is it in the deadzone between Thanksgiving and Christmas?  Good question...my guess is that with 20,000 expected attendees this was only time that Salesforce.com could reserve the entire Moscone center to host it.

Regardless, of the less than optimal timing, there's plenty to be psyched about at Dreamforce 2010.  After the jump, the top five things I am looking forward to.


Oct 15, 2010

The AppExchange Security Review Process Is An Opaque Mess

As a developer working on the Force.com platform, I've eagerly anticipated submitting my paid application to AppExchange and selling it to customers.  I've recently completed the product, packaged it up as an AppExchange application, and now I'm ready to go right?



Before being listed as a paid app, I need to complete the AppExchange security review process.  This is a relatively new roughly 3 year old process, implemented by Salesforce to prevent malicious applications from entering the AppExchange.  Last fall they started charging $5000 for the review, so it was probably also a profit maker for SFDC, but in spring 2010 they reduced the price to $300 which is obviously much more palatable.

I fill out a questionnaire with obvious risk vector questions (do I load material from servers outside of force.com? do I store user credentials outside of force.com?) and hit submit. Then I get this long-winded, overwritten explanation of how they have put my package through a heuristic threat detector, and a report about everything it found wrong.  And they also say they'll be in touch within 2 days.

So have I failed the review? Can I appeal what the automated heuristics (notorious for false positive results) reported? What happens in 2 days?

How about telling me what I need to do next Salesforce?

(edited 18 Oct 2010 with clarification re: age of process)