Setting Up Salesforce GitHub Integration: 4 Easy Steps

Salesforce makes easy-to-use Cloud-based business applications that help you stay connected to your Customers, Prospects, Partners, and more. You can enhance the features of Salesforce by setting up Salesforce GitHub Integration. GitHub makes it easy for multiple developers to work on a single project and track the changes in real-time.

GitHub also includes Project Organization and Management features. Now, Salesforce GitHub Integration enhances these very features and helps you and streamline your development process. This eventually boosts your business.

This article walks you through the 4 easy steps to successfully set up GitHub Salesforce Integration. It also introduces you to both these platforms individually and provides you the limitations/challenges involved in this integration. Furthermore, I will also cover the advantages of going with Salesforce GitHub Integration. Let’s get started!

Prerequisites

Listed below are the prerequisites of setting up Salesforce GitHub Integration:

• A Salesforce account.
• A GitHub account.
• Working knowledge of Git.

Introduction to Salesforce

Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that provides your the applications and tools to connect with your Customers, Prospects, Partners, etc. It is one of the best CRMs and enables your business to sell, service and market. With Salesforce, you can easily keep track of Prospects, Sales, and Customers with Leads, Opportunities, Accounts, and Contacts.

Business Cards, Websites, and other prospects that express your customer’s interest in learning more about your products and services are easily tracked in Salesforce as Leads. Salesforce helps you convert these into Opportunities. When you convert a Lead, Salesforce automatically creates an account that stores information about the company that you are doing business with.

Introduction to GitHub

GitHub is a Collaboration Platform that helps a developer connect with other developers or his team members to solve problems. With GitHub, developers can build software together as it allows them to make separate changes to their programs in real-time (without getting in each other’s way).

For example, let’s say Harry and Jack are working on a project website. Now, Harry wants to add a whole new ‘frequently asked question’ section to the website, while Jack needs to make some changes in the footer of the website. Now, they could both be making changes on their local computers and then GitHub allows them to submit those changes to the main branch. This allows them to work on their tasks without disturbing each other.

Steps to Set Up Manual Salesforce GitHub Integration

This method requires you to have the technical knowledge and experience in working with Salesforce and GitHub. It involves a couple of steps like retrieving content definition, etc that need to be performed manually. This includes manually integrating Salesforce and GitHub to track your Ad Campaigns and connect with your customers more easily. Follow the steps below to set up manual Salesforce GitHub Integration:

• Step 1: Log In to your GitHub Account
• Step 2: Clone the GitHub Repository
• Step 3: Retrieve Metadata Files from SFDC
• Step 4: Configure the Git Repository

Step 1: Log In to your GitHub Account

Log in to your GitHub account as shown in the image below and create a Project Repository (keep its access private). In case you don’t have one, click here to create a new account.

Step 2: Clone the GitHub Repository

Install Git on your local computer. Once done, clone the origin GitHub Repository as shown in the image below.

Step 3: Retrieve Metadata Files from SFDC

In this step, you need to retrieve all the necessary metadata files from Salesforce Dot Com (SFDC) using the “Package.XML” file. This can be done with the help of the Salesforce Migration Too or any existing Salesforce IDE. 

For more information on the Salesforce Migration tool, you can click on this link.

Step 4: Configure the Git Repository

Now, copy the metadata content to your local cloned Git Repository folder (Step 2). Once done, configure the folder as your Salesforce IDE’s Project Workspace. This can be achieved using Git Console or GitHub Plugin installed to your Salesforce IDE. You can use it to commit and push your changes or code to GitHub origin.

That’s it. You have successfully set up Salesforce GitHub Integration manually. You can use these steps to make other Repositories. Now, your team members can clone this GitHub Repository to their local computers and start making changes (after setting this Repository folder as their SFDC Project Workspace).

Challenges Involved in Setting Up Salesforce GitHub Integration Manually

Although you have now successfully set up Salesforce to GitHub Integration, this method involves various limitations. These are the challenges you might have to face while setting up this integration. Listed below are the limitations of setting up Salesforce GitHub Integration manually:

• Setting up manual Salesforce GitHub Integration requires technical expertise and experience in working with Salesforce IDE, Git Console, and GitHub Plugin for Salesforce.
• This method does not involve Continuous Integration. Every time you create a Repository for Salesforce, you will have to go through the same process. Even if you want to set this in Continuous Integration, you will have to use 3rd party platforms like Jenkins. Furthermore, setting up Salesforce GitHub Integration using Jenkins is itself a complex task and requires technical proficiency.

Benefits of Salesforce GitHub Integration

Now that you have a basic understanding of Salesforce & GitHub and have gone through different methods to set up Salesforce GitHub Integration, let’s talk about the advantages of this integration. Listed below are the advantages of Salesforce GitHub Integration:

• Directly Impacts the Market: Irrespective of what you are developing on Salesforce, it directly impacts your market. With Salesforce GitHub Integration, it becomes easier for your team members to collaborate and work on their projects. This speeds up the whole process and impacts the market.
• Increases Security: Salesforce and GitHub both provide robust security measures for your projects. With these 2 platforms integrated together, the security of your Database, Repositories, etc. increases.
• Rollback to a Specific Version: With Salesforce GitHub Integration, you get the ability to Version Control. This makes it easier to roll back any changes made by your team members. This way you can also keep track of all the changes made.

Conclusion

• This article introduced you to Salesforce and GitHub. It provided the method that you can use to set up Salesforce GitHub Integration.
• This method involves using Salesforce IDE or GitHub Plugin for Manual Integration of Salesforce and GitHub.
• Furthermore, this article also provided you the limitations of using Manual Integration and the advantages of using Hevo Data for this task.
• With the complexity involves in Manual Integration, businesses are leaning more towards Automated and Continous Integration.

This is not only hassle-free but also easy to operate and does not require any technical proficiency. In such a case, Hevo Data is the right choice for you! It will help simplify the Marketing Analysis. Hevo Data supports platforms like Salesforce, GitHub, etc., for free.

Share your experience of setting up Salesforce GitHub Integration in the comments section below!