Duration

15 minutes

Goals

The goal of this lab is to register with Salesforce for a Developer Edition Environment account. The registration process will automatically create several Standard Objects (i.e. tables) and populate many of them with sample data; you will use the Salesforce web interface to explore this data.

Steps

Below are the step-by-step instructions to implement the exercise.

Register for an account

Here you will register for a Salesforce account. Note that the email address you use during registration becomes your Salesforce username. It is difficult to delete a Salesforce account/username once created so you might want to use a secondary email address to register while you are learning.

1. Open a web browser and navigate to the registration page.
2. Complete the registration form.
3. Check your email for the Salesforce confirmation message. Click the link in the email to complete the registration process.
4. Record your username and password for future use.

Examine the data in your account

Your goal is to work with the sample data that was automatically incorporated into your Environment when you registered for your account. You will view the records in an Object, modify the data in an existing record, and create a new record.

1. Open a web browser and login to your Salesforce account.
2. After login, you should be on the Setup page. This page contains the main navigation links in the left-hand column. In the upper-right corner of the page header there should be a link labeled "Setup" that you can use to return to this page from anywhere in your account.
3. The upper-right corner of the page header also contains the App Menu. By default, you are likely viewing the Sales app. If you are not, select the Sales app from the menu.
4. You should see a list of tabs arranged across the top of the main content area. Click on the Accounts tab. This tab provides a web UI for the Standard Object named Account, it was automatically created and populated with sample data when you registered with Salesforce. Note that "account" here means "customer" and not "user".
5. Use the drop-down list at the top of the Account page to select and view "All Accounts".
6. [Optional] Edit an account of your choice (e.g. change the number of employees). Save your changes.
7. [Optional] Click the New Account button near the top of the page to add a new record to the Account Object. Be sure to assign a value to the required Account Name field (the other fields are optional). Each record also has an Id that will act as the primary key. The Id value is generated automatically and is not shown in the web interface. Save your changes and then select the "All Accounts" view again to verify your new record is there.
8. [Optional] If you have time, continue to explore the Standard Objects. The Contacts and Products objects both contain sample data.

Summary

In this exercise, you registered with Salesforce and explored the data in your Environment. The Standard Objects and sample data help you get started as a developer since the table and field names are all standardized. This makes it easy to find sample code and discussions online because many other developers have written code to access that same data.