In the first four chapters, we have seen the MVC architecture of Force.com. Then we learned the security model of the Force.com application. We also explored the analytics part provided by the service. The MVC model helps us separate the business logic from the display and data. In this chapter we will be completing the journey to build a complete application using point-and-click by learning the administrative capabilities of Force.com.
We will be covering the following points in this chapter:
- Managing access control
- Overview of Force.com licenses
- Restricting data access
- Understanding actors
- Understanding the security pyramid
- Managing profiles
- Setting up roles
- Sharing settings
This chapter explains the functional aspect of building a Force.com application and the things to consider before developing the application.
Let's begin.
Before we build any enterprise application we must first consider the users who will be using the application. In any business organization there are many users who will be using many different aspect of the Force.com application.
For example, in a big enterprise application, there will be service centre users who use cases and solution objects regularly. They should not be able to access opportunity objects. Similarly, the account leaders do not need access to all cases, but only cases for their account.
In the Library Management System, the librarian has complete access to the entire library database, but the clerks who are dealing with check-in and checkout do not need to access the books table to modify.
There should also be a consideration as to which users can customize this application and what parts of the systems they should be given access to customize.
To summarize, we need to think of the following factors before starting to develop the application on Force.com:
- Which users will be using what parts of the application?
- Is there sensitive data that need special privileges?
- Is there any data restriction, such as should peers see each other's data?
- Who are the power users who can customize this app? What level of customization can we provide for the app?