Let’s face it, salesforce.com’s UI for creating or editing Apex, VisualForce, or other code is pretty sparse. There’s really no support for development from within the standard UI… Luckily, there are a plethora of tools out there to make development easier.

Here are some of the tools we’ve found useful:

Force.com IDE - Built on Eclipse

A full-fledged IDE based on the open source Eclipse platform, the Force.com IDE is generally the choice for developers working in Apex, VisualForce, or on S-Controls. It has many great features, including the ability to deploy not just code, but also things like page layouts, workflows, and reports between orgs.

It could use a bit more development, as the syntax highlighting and code auto-complete features are scant at best, but overall is a great tool for anyone working with salesforce.com on a more technical level.

Data Loader

The Apex Data Loader is a tool for mass manipulation (creation, updating, deletion) of records in salesforce.com. While things like the PHP Workbench (see below) can also be used for data manipulation, the Data Loader has the advantage of creating success and error files for each operation, allowing you to more easily keep track of the records you are dealing with.

The Data Loader is not actually available from the page above, but must be downloaded from within an org. From the Setup menu, go to Administration Setup -> Data Management -> Data Loader. This tool is only available for Unlimited, Enterprise, or Developer orgs.

PHP Workbench

The PHP Workbench is an invaluable tool for quickly investigating the schema of an org, running once-off queries on data, or executing anonymous Apex blocks without the hassle of creating a new Eclipse project for an org.

There is functionality for Insert/Update/Delete of records, but I would be a bit hesitant to do so for anything important. The logging features (success and error files) of the Data Loader are a bit more robust than the Workbench.

Next in this series: we explore some of the various toolkits used to interact with salesforce.com

Often, salesforce.com lookup fields return too many results- narrowing it down to what you’re actually looking for can involve hitting the ‘Next Page’ link over and over and over again.  By enabling the Lookup Filter feature, you can filter your search on almost any field, making it much easier to find what you’re looking for.

Improve productivity and efficiency by suggesting matching records as you enter data in a lookup field. As you type, Salesforce will suggest a list of matching entries, saving you time and keeping your data quality high.

View the screencast or follow the steps below to turn on this great, built-in feature of Salesforce.com!

1. Select Setup -> Customize -> Search from the Salesforce.com menu.
2. Select the checkbox for the objects you would like to enable Lookup Auto-Complete for.
3. Click ‘Save’.