Start with Clear, Consistent Communication Rolling out Salesforce? It’s a big step—and strong...
Deploying changes in Salesforce can feel tricky. Between testing, timing, and hoping everything goes off without a hitch, it can get stressful. However, with a solid strategy, the right tools, and a little planning, you can actually make deployments smooth (and dare we say, easy?).
When deployments go right, everyone wins: users stay happy, data stays clean, and your business runs faster and smarter. So let’s walk through some real-world, battle-tested tips to help make your Salesforce deployments smoother, more efficient, and maybe even a little fun.
Start with Environment Setup & the Right Tools
Play It Safe with Sandboxes
Before you even think about touching production, make sure you’ve got a solid sandbox setup. Think of sandboxes as your practice field—where you can try things out without putting live data at risk.
A full sandbox is ideal since it mimics your actual environment. If you don’t have one, a partial will do, but even a developer sandbox is better than flying blind. Remember, a good DevOps tool (discussed below) will help you keep these environments in sync. This is critical because if you test in a sandbox that does not match production, it will likely fail when you deploy it.
Your smart flow should look like this: build your changes in a Sandbox, test thoroughly, and only after everything looks good, move into production. Simple, effective—and a lot less stressful.
Pick Tools That Actually Help You
Salesforce gives you a few different ways to move stuff between environments. For small updates, Change Sets usually get the job done.
Managing lots of changes or want to automate the process? In that case, tools like Gearset, Copado, or Jenkins are great DevOps-friendly options.
And here's a big one that often gets overlooked: back up your metadata before you deploy. Salesforce doesn’t offer automatic rollbacks, so having a snapshot of your environment can save your day if anything goes wrong. Fortunately, many of the DevOps tools, like Copado, include metadata backups as a standard feature.
You’ll keep hearing about both data and metadata—so what’s the difference? In Salesforce, records are your data, while metadata is everything behind the scenes that makes those records possible.
Think of it this way: the data is the actual stuff your team enters—like a contact’s name, a lead’s email, or a sales opportunity. That’s what lives in Salesforce.
Metadata is all the setup and structure around that data. It includes things like:
- The objects and fields that hold your records
- Page layouts that decide how everything looks
- Automations like workflows and flows
- Apex code, validation rules, and Lightning components
Basically, metadata is what shapes how Salesforce works for your business, but it doesn’t include the actual values users input. It’s the blueprint; the data is the special sauce.
Plan Your Releases Like a Pro
Smooth deployments are planned deployments. That means scheduling them during off-hours—early mornings, late evenings, or weekends)—when fewer users are online and there’s less pressure (especially if you’re pushing out big changes). Deployments under pressure = BAD. And, as an added bonus, you’ll have more breathing room to catch any potential issues.
Change Sets are your friends here—they help you move metadata safely between environments. Just don’t forget to double-check dependencies between features before you move anything. It’s painful to realize after deployment that you missed a related field, automation, or permission set.
That said, Change Sets do have their limitations, and at DSG, we encourage folks to lean towards a bona fide DevOps tool early—like Gearset—for long-term stability. And while there’s an up-front investment cost, third-party tools provide so much more, including data backup and peace of mind that you’ll have smoother and more precise deployments.
Always Have a Backup Plan
Hope for the best, but plan for the unexpected. A solid rollback plan means you can undo changes if something goes sideways post-deployment. Salesforce’s Audit Trail is a great tool to track what changed and who made those changes. However, investing in a third-party DevOps tool—again, Gearset, Copado, or Jenkins—most of which have complex audit trails, including the ability to add your work to the packages as you go, is super helpful if you ever need to reverse-engineer an issue
Manage Changes Like a Team Sport
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Deployments aren’t just about code—they’re about people. Keeping everyone informed about what’s changing, when it’s happening, and how it’ll impact them builds trust and reduces confusion. A simple Slack message, a pop-up notice, or a short email update goes a long way.
And don’t skip one last round of testing in your sandbox—it’s not just good practice, it’s a best practice.
Test Like You Mean It
Testing is the unsung hero of successful deployments. You don’t need to go overboard, but you definitely want to build detailed test scripts that cover the basics (unit tests) and the bigger-picture stuff (system integration). And definitely run load testing and performance testing to make sure your system can handle real-world traffic.
Want an extra layer of protection? Use the Validate Only option during deployment to simulate what would happen without actually pushing the changes live. It’s an easy way to catch problems early.
Get Real Users Involved (UAT)
And when it’s time for User Acceptance Testing (UAT), bring real users into the mix. Let them click around, run their usual workflows, and give you honest feedback. This is really where the rubber hits the road, because their insights will help you polish the final release—and when they feel heard, they’re much more likely to adopt new changes quickly.
Nail the Post-Deployment Process
Deployment isn’t the end of the journey—meaning, once your changes are live, don’t go dark. After you go live:
- Follow up with a quick summary of what's new.
- Offer short training sessions or drop-in office hours for questions.
- Update your documentation so people can help themselves if they get stuck.
Also, take a few minutes to double-check your Salesforce customizations—things like picklist values, profiles, and automation rules—to make sure they still fit your business needs. A little post-deployment review can save a lot of cleanup later.
And over the next week or so, keep an eye on system performance, email deliverability, and any unexpected behaviors. Regular maintenance like data backups and permission reviews, will help keep everything running smoothly.
And as we’ve shared many times before, keep an eye on things like email deliverability. Good communication is the heart of a strong Salesforce system.
Final Thoughts
Salesforce deployments don’t have to feel like holding your breath and hoping for the best. With a clear plan, good testing, the right tools, and strong communication, you can roll out changes confidently—and make every deployment a win—for your users, your business, and your sanity.
When in doubt: test more, talk often, and always back things up. You’ve got this!
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