(Snowpal Podcast: Part 1/N) Salesforce: Anypoint Design Center, Anypoint Code Builder IDE
In this podcast episode, Krish explores Salesforce and its low code, no code tools. He starts by introducing Salesforce and its potential as a low code platform. Krish then dives into exploring various Salesforce products and their features. He focuses on Salesforce Sales and MuleSoft Integration API Management, discussing their functionalities and potential use cases. Krish also provides a hands-on demonstration of signing up for MuleSoft and using the Anypoint Code Builder to design an API. The episode concludes with a summary of the topics covered and an invitation to continue learning together in future episodes.
Part 1
Transcript
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (00:02.346)
Hey folks, welcome to Snowpal software development and architecture podcast. In today’s podcast, we’re going to take a look at Salesforce. Now I’ve not done a lot of work on Salesforce. I’ve done a couple of projects, some time ago. So very little, I have very little experience and that experience is also limited to integrating Salesforce into whatever it was that I was doing at the time. But you know, a few of you have asked me.
you know, to do this podcast on these low code, no code tools. And I believe Salesforce, hopefully, you know, it’s classified or it comes under the category of low code tools. Let me actually make sure. I think I wanna say it probably is. Let’s see. I’m just Googling Salesforce low code, no code. Yep. And I think I see some articles that say why low code, no code in Salesforce is the way forward. So I don’t know if they were…
Originally, they came under the category of a low code platform, but they probably are after I reckon they are right. So given the advent of AI this year, I mean, there is also a lot of talk about, you know, low code, no code tools and what future might hold for those tools. So I’m going to just take a stab at Salesforce. And if you’ve done plenty of work in that space, maybe you’ll learn one or two things from this podcast. Maybe not. I’m not sure.
but you might still want to give it a watch if you have like a half hour. But if you are somebody like I who’s done some work but not much or hasn’t done any work at all in the space of Salesforce, maybe this initial exploration might help you. I hope it does, right? So without further ado, let’s get started. What are we gonna do here? Is literally going to start as a new user because I’m truly am a new user. And then we’re gonna check out how
the documentation looks, how we can actually sign up maybe for a free service, and, you know, sort of pick a random product, one of the products that they have. I’m sure they have a suite of products. We’ll pick one for no particular reason or no good reason, and then just, you know, do a bit of exploration, if you will, right? So let’s get started. Let me share my screen.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (02:30.574)
Okay, hopefully, yep, hopefully you see this. I’m gonna pull my machine a little bit closer.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (02:40.046)
That’s actually, okay. So I’m on salesforce.com. I’m just gonna, I’ve been here, trust me, like one or two times before. That’s it, right? No more than that. So let’s go look at products, but you know, I was gonna say something else, but I think that’s all right. So they have, as you know, as I suspected, they have a number of products here. So, you know, depending on how this first one, first podcast goes, maybe,
depending on the interest, I can do more of these as well and dig into different products. If you have one of interest, certainly let me know. And you know, I’m happy to explore that. Okay, so let’s see. They have, it says customer 360 AI. Surely we want to take a look at this one, but I might not start there. Let’s keep going. Actually, I’m curious as I see it here. It says talk to an expert.
I don’t know if there’s a free, I don’t see a try for free here. So I’m gonna have to look at that one a bit more carefully. Let’s see, but I know for the other ones, like if I go to sales and they have a number of products under sales and we see a try for free, right? So we’re gonna pick one of these products that we can try for free and then we’ll go from there. So, okay, let’s go back here. There’s a number of sales products and then there’s service marketing.
Commerce, data cloud, that should be interesting as well. We could possibly look at it alongside AI. Tableau, I thought Tableau is a different company, maybe not, or maybe Salesforce purchased it. MuleSoft, I’m pretty sure, I’m actually now curious, let me see, Salesforce, MuleSoft.
acquisition. Yeah, that’s what I thought. And probably the same thing with Tableau as well. LAU acquisition. Okay. So that tells you how little I know about this platform. So it looks like they did purchase MuleSoft, Tableau. And we do know that they did purchase Slack. We can look at that as well. Einstein One Platform, Net Zero, small business. This might be of specific interest to us as a…
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (05:04.962)
company startup at Snowpal, partner apps and experts in customer success. Right. So there’s, there’s plenty to explore here. Obviously they’re like, aren’t they like a $300 billion company? So I’m sure there’s plenty. Uh, but you know, we got to crawl, then walk, then run, and then fly. Um, let’s just start with, I don’t know, since I’m talking to myself here, uh, at least, you know, uh, unlike the other collaborative podcast, which I’m super enjoying by the way. So if you have an interest in having a conversation with me about something.
don’t hesitate to hit me up, all right? In this case, I’m just gonna have to go back to relying on looking at the phone or the camera. Let’s see. I just wanna at least kick this podcast off by doing some things initially, right? More than just talking here. Maybe sales. The last week or so I’ve been spending a bit more time on sales B2B and socializing our APIs, SaaS products and backends as services.
So I had conversations about sales with more than a couple of people. So maybe we can look at sales. It says sales force automation, sales engagement, sales team productivity, sales AI, partner relationship management. Let’s see, service, sales experience, contact center, service process management. I wanna pick one I have almost like.
absolutely no idea about like MuleSoft and Tableau have done some work over time on MuleSoft says no code integration and automation. Oh, integration API management. Actually, let’s go to the other one. MuleSoft integration API management. Is there like, oh, there’s a drive for free. Let’s give this a shot.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (06:58.798)
Actually, it opened in a different window. So let me actually copy that and put it here so you can see it. OK. Let me go back here. Sign up for the platform. OK, I’m going to stop sharing for a minute while I actually do the sign up. Don’t know if this tool actually lets me pause. You know what? Let me actually.
Continue talking while I do this. It’s not gonna take me long. My apologies that, you know, I did not wanna prepare, do any of the work upfront because I wanted the experience to be completely transparent essentially. So I think it’s not gonna take much time. Just give me another 20 seconds. Then I should be done here. Signing up, agreeing to the service, accept.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (08:05.166)
Please confirm your email address. I’m gonna do that as well. It’s just no one is see me do that, but I’m just doing it here.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (08:17.454)
I haven’t actually gotten the code yet so I’m waiting.
I’m waiting for it.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (08:28.194)
And this is all part of the experience. So I guess I could argue or justify the two minutes that we are spending here.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (08:41.506)
It still hasn’t actually come through. That’s interesting. That’s taking a lot longer than one might expect.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (08:56.046)
This is a bit awkward. Oh, you know what? I actually had to send, it popped up a second question. My bad, it popped up a second question. It’s before it actually send the email. It sent me a verification code. I am entering the verification code and my email has been verified. Now we’re good to go. Apologies that it took that extra second there. Now let’s see if you’re…
Yep, you’re seeing my screen. Good evening, Krish. Let’s explore this. It looks quite interesting. Code builder, design, develop and deploy APIs and integrations, it’s beta. Design center, get started creating Mule applications and APIs. Okay, let’s look at what is a Mule application. Let’s actually see that Mule application versus API.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (10:00.522)
Okay, I guess we’ll find out more than reading the theory here. We’ll just, why don’t we just actually do some things hands-on and then, you know, give ourselves an opportunity to explore this, right? Create visual flows. I’m just curious to know what the actual difference between a Mule application was. You know, of course we know what an API is. We have like plenty of them published, but you know, probably it’s something specific to Mule.
They have an IDE, can be downloaded as well, for testing APIs integrations for the Anypoint platform. Okay, I wish there was a human to ask where we could start, but given that there isn’t anybody I’m looking at here, why don’t we start at the code builder?
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (10:52.47)
Okay, blah blah, I’m gonna accept the agreement.
axis.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (11:03.374)
Okay, I think we’re here. We’re gonna close this. Any point code builder for desktop. I guess I can even install a desktop version, but let’s just go with the cloud ID. Or since I’ve shared only one tab, I’m gonna actually, maybe, is there a way for me to share multiple tabs? You know what, I’m gonna actually stop sharing and I’m gonna try and see if I can share the entire screen, desktop.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (11:35.762)
Okay, hopefully, it’s a little bit tricky, but you know what, let me just do this. Let me just share.
different screen. Okay, cool. Now see we see the code it says we are preparing ID, attaching load balancer, blah blah. I guess it’s still not ready. It’s preparing it. I don’t know how long this might take. So let me actually go back and what else? Let’s go back here. Let me stop sharing and share the other window.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (12:16.222)
Okay, let’s do a little bit of reading, right? We’re gonna explore this as we go, right? So if you’re an expert, you know what the whole thing is. Again, my apologies, but if you’re new, you’re just getting started, we can just learn together. I’m gonna pretend like you’re sitting in front of me. It says design, implement and integrate. It talks about RAML, is three API spec, testing it, auto-generated interactive documentation, the API console, implement and scaffold APIs for implementation.
real-time synchronization between the spec and implementation. That looks, we can actually do these two things for sure. Create integrations via event schedulers. And then there’s a few more by way of integration, right? Okay, it’s still preparing that ID. So let’s look at overview, setup, getting started. You know what, I’m just gonna share my entire screen. I think it’s probably much easier, my entire desktop.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (13:18.702)
Just wanna make sure that it’s actually, I haven’t used this tool to do this desktop sharing before. So I wanna make, I just don’t know how it’s recording this. It looks a little bit, I can see myself in a concentric fashion here. So it just worries me if actually it’s gonna show up that way. Why, okay. Let’s actually.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (13:50.226)
Okay, I think it is ready at this point. Welcome to Anypoint Code Builder.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (13:59.062)
Control plane can be changed in the web environment. Oops.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (14:08.374)
Okay, so this is the web-based, hopefully it’s still sharing, right? Okay, Anypoint Code Builder. It’s the idea to design, implement, and deploy APIs and integrations. So designing an API, implementing it, and developing an integration. We should actually take some real use cases, manufactured real use cases, if you will, to get the whole feel of how this is. Okay, let me see. Designing an API.
Where do I start here? If I click designing an API.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (14:50.058)
Well, you know what? I’m going to have to share the whole desktop. Let me do this. I want to make sure that it is actually.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (14:59.566)
Okay, let’s see.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (15:03.166)
Okay, we’re back here. It’d be more convenient if I actually was able to share the entire desktop. I just don’t know how exactly the tool’s gonna record it. That’s my only concern, yeah. Okay, I had a name for your project. Again, I came to this as unprepared as I usually am for these podcasts. My idea is to share the knowledge as I know it from work. We do at Snowpal and other places, for instance, like pretty much building our solutions and products.
And when I’m exploring something new, I want to explore it with you, essentially. So you get the whole experience, not trying to come here prepared, one, because honestly, I don’t have as much time to do all of the preparation, and two, this is more fun and spontaneous. So designing an API project name. Well, what do we want to design? Given that I’ve been working on podcasting recently, maybe let’s just call it podcasting or podcast.
I’m just gonna call it Snowpal podcast.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (16:05.926)
I’m just going to leave it be API specification language. Okay. OAS must be open API specification, right? Let’s just confirm. OAS.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (16:26.248)
API.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (16:31.89)
open API specification, I just want to be accurate because sometimes you could have the acronyms, you can say it a little bit differently and they might still sound, mean the exact same thing. I’ve seen it more than once, I just want to be careful. So it is open API specification. Whether we go the YAML or JSON, it doesn’t make a difference to me. I like each of them and we use both of them just as much but maybe JSON is easier for having a conversation.
Okay, I’m just gonna say create project.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (17:05.086)
It’s creating the specification at this point.
see that it’s doing something at the bottom here.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (17:18.71)
Okay, I’m gonna say trust, Snowpal podcast. Okay, let’s see what do we do next year. I’ve never seen this.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (17:32.878)
before, well, it looks like VS code. I want to believe that this probably is VS code. Okay. Yeah, this is VS code. I’m pretty sure it is. What does it have? Any point code builder, design an API. I’m trying to think, what is the first thing you want to do here in designing the API? Do we create an application? Actually, let’s do some reading. Maybe this is the time.
to actually do a little bit of reading. I’m gonna share the other screen now.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (18:10.69)
Okay, which is the one, any point tutorial, overview, set up, getting started, right? I’m gonna go to getting started.
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (18:21.038)
Let me actually copy it and paste it here.
Getting started with the Anypoint code builder. It’s built from extension back for VS code, blah, blah. Share these extensions before you begin the setup, installing the Anypoint extension pack. Find Anypoint extension pack, okay. I’m gonna have to share the entire desktop. This is becoming quite painful. Let me do this, right? So it’s been a little bit of a…
shaky start if you will to this podcast. It’s because it’s literally I hit record and then I went to salesforce.com, right? So I’m literally the last 15 minutes exploring this with you as I speak here, but that’s all right. I think it seems like a bit more fun because the last hundreds of podcasts are about items that we’ve done at Snowpail and do the podcast after I’ve solved a problem, fixed a bug, added an enhancement.
implemented a new feature or built a new app or deployed something new, kind of solve the problem. And then I come and share the experience. That is, you know, that’s fun too, but more useful to the listener than to the talker, if you will, or more interesting, whatever the right word is. This actually is quite interesting to me. I don’t know how it is watching it from the other side. Might look like, does Krishna know what he’s doing? But it’s actually, he’s getting me a little bit more excited. So let me…
try to see if the screen share works as I’m expecting for it to work. And then, you know, I promise you, I’m not going to do any of this. We’re going to start literally from where this is highlighted in this next podcast. So maybe this one is not even like one of N, like I usually say, this one might be like zero of N literally, right? Because it’s preparing to get started, but zero of N may not make sense. I might still call it like one of N. So if…
Krish (aws.snowpal.com) (20:20.69)
If this chaos doesn’t put you off and you feel like there is an opportunity to learn something here, please come back and let’s learn this together. And thanks for humoring me and a bit of the sloppiness here. It’s much appreciated. I’ll see you in the next one. Thanks.
Go to Part 2.
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