Force.com Platform Fundamentals

Preface
Introducing the Force.com Platform
About the Sample Recruiting App
Reviewing Database Concepts
Building a Simple App
Becoming Familiar with the Setup Area
Introducing Apps
Introducing Objects
Introducing Tabs
Becoming Familiar with Setup Detail Pages and Related Lists
Introducing Fields
Look at What We've Done
Taking Our Simple App Mobile
Enhancing the Simple App with Advanced Fields, Data Validation, and Page Layouts
Expanding the Simple App Using Relationships
Securing and Sharing Data
Collaborating with Chatter
Using Custom Workflow and Approval Processes
Analyzing Data with Reports and Dashboards
Moving Beyond Point-and-Click App Development
Learning More
Glossary
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Becoming Familiar with the Setup Area

Since we’re going to spend most of our time working in the Setup area of the platform, let’s first become familiar with what it is and how to navigate to it.

The Setup area is a place to build and customize applications and to administer and monitor organizations and users, all in one. We perform almost every task we need to create our app in the Setup area, so most of the “Try It Out” sections of the book are going to start with an instruction like “From Setup, click Create | Apps.” This is a short way of saying:
  1. Depending on your organization settings, you’ll access the Setup area in one of two ways. Look at the header at the top of the page.

    If you see Setup in the header, click it.

    The Setup link in the user interface header

    If you don’t see Setup in the header, click your name, then select Setup.

    The username menu, with Setup highlighted

  2. Once you’re in the Setup area, you’ll see a menu on the left side of the page. From that menu, click Create | Apps.

The final link that you click (in this example, Apps) will change depending on the task you’re performing, but you get the general idea.

The Setup Area The Setup menu
Similar to the other parts of the application, the Setup area consists of a tab bar, a navigational sidebar, and a main window.
  • The tab bar is made up of the same tabs that appear in the regular application. Just click on any one of the tabs to exit the Setup area and go to that tab in the main application.
  • The navigational sidebar includes expandable lists of all the tools that are available in the Setup area. The tools include options for setting up, maintaining, and customizing your organization, as well as building, extending, and managing apps.
  • The main window is where the navigational links or a selected setup tool are actually displayed.

Since you’ll be developing apps in Force.com, you might want to make the Setup area your default landing page when you log in. To do this:

  1. At the top of the page, click the down arrow next to your name. From the menu under your name, select My Settings or Setup—whichever one appears.
  2. From the left panel, select one of the following:
  3. Select Make Setup My Default Landing Page.
  4. Click Save.
  • If you clicked My Settings, select Display & Layout | Customize My Pages.
  • If you clicked Setup, select My Personal Information | Personal Information, then click Edit.

Tip

Now that we know what we’re looking at, let’s start creating our simple app.