What is CRMGearbox?
CRMGearbox is Windows Desktop application that enables users to capture, review, and compare data models of their Salesforce instances.
Why would I want to use CRMGearbox?
If you are a developer, architect, project manager, or work in a role where the Salesforce data model is important to you, CRMGearbox will enable you to view the data model in an easy to use interface.
What are some of the reasons why data model changes to my Salesforce instance(s) may be important to me?
As a developer, you may want to view the list of objects and fields that you have created or modified prior to a release, in a sandbox environment, or after a release to a production environment. The ability to see model changes can help you prepare change sets or communicate changes to other business stakeholders. It can also be a great way to see who is doing what to analyze productivity or perform risk and impact assessment of changes to your environment.
CRMGearbox lets me see my data models, why not just use a free tool to do this?
Certainly, there are other tools that will enable you to view the data models. Eclipse/Force.com IDE, Developer Console, FieldTrip, and other tools do some of this, but they do not allow users to easily capture and report on the information. Most of this data would then need to be consolidated from those sources, and the time and effort involved to do that makes CRMGearbox a great option for those who do not have time to manually capture the information. Also, with the Model Snapshot features, you can easily see what changes have been made on a granular level between different points in time.
Does CRMGearbox require Salesforce API access?
Yes, you will need an Enterprise or Unlimited edition, or a Professional edition with API access enabled.
Is CRMGearbox API intensive, will it consume all my API calls?
Not really, and that is highly unlikely. Salesforce can send an alert if you are approaching your API call quota, and it is advised that you review you limits in Salesforce before using CRMGearbox if you have any concerns about your API usage. CRMGearbox does not track its API usage, but most Enterprise and Unlimited edition customers have more API calls available per day than they would realistically need.
I’ve taken a snapshot and can view my data models, and I still don’t know what to do with it?
Sometimes, the amount of data in a snapshot can be overwhelming. CRMGearbox has created Object Categories for you to understand the origin of objects, including Standard and Custom objects, so that you can filter the information down to a level that makes sense. Often, an analyst will only be concerned about custom objects and fields that they created, or were created at a point in time. Another use case include exporting the data model of a specific object, including its fields, data types, and sizes, so that it can be reviewed before performing a data integration with an external system.
I am starting to get it, CRMGearbox will allow me to sort, filter, and group data elements that are important to me. What else can I do with this information?
If you are like other organizations, your Salesforce environment has grown over time and the data model changes have been made by several individuals. Often, some individuals may have made changes that are no longer needed, or require analysis to determine if they are still relevant. By reviewing the information, you can review those changes and decide if they need to be eliminated or re-worked to meet your current business objectives.
CRMGearbox seems like a great tool to use before and after data model cleanup events, but what about the code, workflow rules, and other metadata?
Performing cleanup of your Salesforce environment can be a serious undertaking, and CRMGearbox definitely helps the process, but it cannot do a full impact analysis on every level. We want users of CRMGearbox to have an entry point for discovery of elements that may require cleanup or optimization.
CRMGearbox is really focused on the data model, and does not provide analysis on the code or other levels. What about data cleanup?
CRMGearbox is an entry point to find out what exists and what has changed in your Salesforce environment. We plan to provide additional features related to field and object utilization, but for now we want to make sure the data model analysis is as accurate as possible as it is the starting point for optimization of your environment.
I took a few snapshots and have performed a model comparison, but why do I see either too little or too much information in the Model Changes results grid?
Comparisons are tricky because every object or field in Salesforce can contain several properties. If we expose every property, users are likely to get overloaded with information. We also want to make sure that there is enough information to see what changes have occurred, but for the detail you may need to log in to the environment and look at the UI, or switch back over to the Model Explorer to see the current detail.
I see changes to Field Permissions and other objects that I do not recall touching. Why is CRMGearbox reporting such changes to me?
Under the hood, when you add an object, field, or even a picklist value, Salesforce creates or updates an accompanying record in other objects as part of its system metadata. We were surprised to see this too, but it is enlightening to see what is happening within the entire environmental data model. Those changes can be removed using the auto-filters at the top of each row.
It looks like the Field Permissions and some other Changed/Modified dates and user information is incorrect. Why is this not accurate?
Well, the APIs in Salesforce do not always provide the audit information and we have tried to correlate what is missing by using other sources. For example, a picklist value does not have any change audit information, so that is taken from the audit information provided on the field level. We may also take your environment create date, or the actual snapshot date, if nothing else is available. For managed packages (third party applications sold in the App Exchange), we need the logged in user to have a license for the audit information to be returned. We’ve tried to do our best to fill in some of the blanks, but we’re not perfect (and Salesforce isn’t perfect either).
There is a lot to like in CRMGearbox, but I want more features added. Do you have a roadmap for this project?
We are working on other features but we are not going to publicly announce a roadmap at this point. We definitely want user feedback to get ideas, but we don’t want to set unrealistic expectations. The best thing for users to do is to purchase the application after the trial and tell a friend. The more users we have, the more resources we can dedicate to delivering our roadmap, and any other ideas provided by our customers.
