Integration-Architecture-Designer study - Salesforce Certified Integration Architecture Designer Updated: 2023

With the growing demand for Salesforce developers, more and more people are showing their interest in learning Salesforce. With its wide range of features and capabilities, Salesforce offers lucrative career opportunities for professionals looking to build successful careers as Salesforce developers.

However, to become a master in this field, it's important to hold a specific set of skills that will set you apart from the competition.

Here are the top five skills required to embark on a successful Salesforce development career:

1. Salesforce Platform Knowledge:

It's essential to have a thorough understanding of the Salesforce platform before you start your career as a Salesforce developer. Learn about the key elements and features provided by each Salesforce product, such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud. Learn about the objects, fields, workflows, and security models available in Salesforce. Also, recognize declarative development, which enables you to create applications without writing code, as well. A strong foundation in Salesforce platform knowledge will serve as the building block for your development expertise. Check out igmGuru’s Salesforce training to learn more about Salesforce.

2. Apex And Visualforce:

The programming language Apex was created expressly for customizing and expanding Salesforce. You need to get a solid grasp of Apex if you want to become a skilled Salesforce developer. Study the best practices for Apex development's syntax, data types, control structures, and other elements. Apex is essential for developing custom business logic and automation on the Salesforce platform. Learn Visualforce, a markup language used to create unique user experiences within Salesforce, in addition to Apex. Mastering Apex and Visualforce will empower you to create tailored solutions and enhance the functionality of Salesforce applications.

3. Lightning Component Framework:

Salesforce Lightning is a modern and dynamic framework that allows developers to build intuitive user interfaces. Lightning Components are reusable, modular units that can be combined to create seamless user experiences. As a Salesforce developer, it is essential to develop skills in building Lightning Components using the Aura framework and Lightning Web Components (LWC). Learn about the architecture, events, and data-binding mechanisms involved in Lightning Components. By mastering the Lightning Component Framework, you can craft visually appealing and highly interactive interfaces, elevating user satisfaction and productivity.

4. Integration and APIs:

Integration is a fundamental aspect of Salesforce development. Organizations often require Salesforce to communicate with external systems, such as payment gateways, ERP systems, or social media platforms. To meet these demands, you must possess a strong understanding of integration concepts and be proficient in working with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Familiarize yourself with REST and SOAP APIs, as well as authentication and authorization mechanisms. Additionally, explore integration tools like Salesforce Connect and Heroku that expand your capabilities further. With solid integration skills, you can seamlessly connect Salesforce with external systems, enabling data flow and system interoperability.

5. Problem-Solving and Analytical Thinking:

In addition to technical skills, Salesforce developers must excel in problem-solving and analytical thinking. As you work on projects, you will encounter complex business requirements and need to find creative and efficient solutions within the Salesforce platform's confines. Develop your ability to analyze problems, break them down into manageable components, and devise effective strategies to overcome them. Enhance your problem-solving skills by staying curious, seeking best practices, and actively engaging with the Salesforce developer community. By fostering your problem-solving and analytical thinking skills, you will tackle challenges with confidence and deliver innovative solutions.

Conclusion

Becoming a successful Salesforce developer requires a combination of technical expertise and soft skills. Acquiring Salesforce platform knowledge, mastering Apex and Visualforce, delving into the Lightning Component Framework, understanding integration and APIs, and nurturing problem-solving and analytical thinking abilities are essential for your development journey. Additionally, remember to stay updated with the latest Salesforce releases, certifications, and industry trends to stay at the forefront of the field. With determination, continuous learning, and a passion for Salesforce development, you can embark on a fulfilling and rewarding career as a Salesforce developer.

Author Bio

Ravikant loves pursuing excellence through writing and his dedication to technology clearly shows in any draft. He has published many articles in several technology magazines and websites. As a technical writer, he holds 8+ years of experience. He currently writes for igmGuru, a global ed-tech company that offers certification and training for diverse trending courses. He has covered many trending technologies like IoT, machine learning/artificial intelligence, data science with Python, cloud computing, business intelligence, IT, SAP, project management, and more.

Disclaimer: This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times does not endorse/subscribe to the content(s) of the article/advertisement and/or view(s) expressed herein. Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same. 

Updated: 30 May 2023, 06:20 PM IST

The operator of the gondola that services Salesforce Park, an oasis among the skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco, will tell you all about how the 5-acre (2-hectare) rooftop space you’re about to enter contains 1,600 plants, 600 trees and more than a dozen ecosystems.

From this far up the fortress walls, the city looks like a futuristic utopia, with office workers milling about in the sun and free yoga on Fridays.

But the transit center underneath – the newly built hub that was announced before the pandemic with great fanfare and was supposed to ferry in workers from all over the region to downtown – is quiet, save for the metaphorical tumbleweeds. The city’s main public transport systems are collapsing under the weight of their own emptiness. The number of riders on the Bart system is around 40% of what it was before the pandemic, and only 30% for riders who exit in downtown San Francisco. Without a $5bn bailout, service cuts to some of the city’s transit lines could start as soon as this summer.

Once home to some of the most expensive and sought-after office space in the world, San Francisco today is suffering from one of the most hollowed-out downtowns in North America.

Along Market Street, the main thoroughfare, “office space available” and “for sale or lease” signs solicit new businesses. Office vacancy in the first quarter of 2023 ranged between 26.4% and 29.4%, depending on the tally. It’s a steep increase from the historic low vacancy rate of 4% in early 2020. Pinterest, Meta, Reddit, Salesforce, Slack, Uber and Twitter have all vacated or reduced their office space as remote or hybrid work has prevailed.

The emptiness has made some of the city’s other problems – an enduring homelessness emergency, open-air drug use in some neighborhoods and high rates of property crime – seem more visible. And it has sparked speculation that the city is at the verge of a so-called “doom loop”, a spiral down into debt that will force it to cut social and transportation services, which will in turn perpetuate more disinvestment.

San Francisco’s chief economist, Ted Egan, thinks that label is probably premature. “To me, a doom loop is Detroit in the 1970s. There’s nothing you can do to bring auto plants back – every auto plant that closes makes the next one want to close, and a cycle of disinvestment makes people want to disinvest more.”

Despite layoffs in past months, the tech economy of the Bay Area is strong, argued Egan, with more tech jobs in the city now than at the start of the pandemic. Unemployment in the city is the second lowest in the state, he said.

But he admitted the city faces significant challenges. “It’s everything but tech that hasn’t recovered,” he said – and without businesses downtown, why would anyone go there?

Downtown businesses suffer, city coffers dwindle

Tech workers in the Bay Area built the tools for working remotely and then embraced remote work more than any other region in the US, according to the US Census Bureau. For the restaurants, cafes and bars that serviced those workers, and the small businesses and retail that depended on workers’ foot traffic, the consequences were stark.

A study out of the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto comparing mobile phone data across 62 downtowns in North America found that San Francisco’s recovery is dead last, with only 31% of the activity it had pre-pandemic.

“Before [the pandemic] it was always very busy, but now it’s very slow,” said Lydia Wong, who has been serving to-go comfort food at Yo-Yo’s, a Japanese mom-and-pop lunch shop in the financial district, since 1988. “We can watch Netflix now,” her husband, Joseph Lee, joked.

The Old Ship Saloon, a bar that serves craft beer and pub grub and has been open since 1851, is lucky to still be around. “A lot of bars and restaurants have gone out of business,” said Eric Rogers, a bartender who was working solo through a mini lunch rush.

The Old Ship Saloon was originally converted from a 19th-century sailing ship, the Arkansas, which is still buried in the bar’s foundations. Since the pandemic, the bar’s owners have had to pare down staff in order to make any money. “We just count ourselves lucky that we’re still able to be open. You have to work harder,” said Rogers while pouring drinks, taking orders, serving food and working the cash register.

At the moment, it’s mostly businesses downtown that are feeling the squeeze. But that slowdown is affecting city coffers, which in turn could spark cuts that will affect the entire city. More than 75% of the city’s total GDP is generated downtown, and the businesses there account for nearly half the city’s sales tax revenue and 95% of its business tax revenue. The city is staring down a $780m budget deficit over the coming two years due to rising costs and plummeting business, sales and transfer tax revenues, jeopardizing funding for essential services from public safety and cleaning to transportation.

“San Francisco really placed a bet on huge commercial office development, more than anywhere else maybe in the world,” said California assembly member Matt Haney. “They placed the biggest possible bet on something that went bottom-up. They lost. So now we have to adapt and adapt quickly.”

According to Haney, part of the solution lies in downtown’s emptiness.

With high-rises full of empty office space, many artists and low- and middle-income residents priced out, and the most disadvantaged residents of the city housing themselves on its sidewalks, could this vacancy crisis be an opportunity to tackle this emergency in housing and homelessness?

Haney is proposing a state bill that would circumvent some of the notorious red tape that hinders the construction of new housing by fast-tracking the permitting process to convert offices into housing in empty downtowns.

“If we’ve already approved an office building, we shouldn’t treat it as though it’s a new housing development and force it to go from square one with all the hearings, appeals and fees,” said Haney. “It’s in the public interest to get housing in a building that would otherwise be an empty office, and so we’re going to essentially waive everything to make that happen.”

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and one of the first economists to sound the alarm on the housing bubble that exploded into the 2008 financial crisis, thinks the move makes sense. “The city is set up to serve a large commuting population. That population is gone and not coming back. It will be a doom loop if the city doesn’t make it a top priority to convert commercial to residential,” he said.

Gensler, one of the largest architecture firms in the world, has a metric for assessing buildings’ suitability for conversion, and in a report published earlier this year by the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, it found that converting downtown offices in San Francisco could physically accommodate around 11,200 housing units. But these conversions are not financially feasible given the current challenges to building in the city, the firm said.

“I think it would make a lot of conversions more possible,” said Holly Arnold, an architect who leads Gensler’s residential practice in the Bay Area, when asked about the proposed bill. A lot of developers stay away from San Francisco because they “just don’t have the stomach or the tolerance to be able to go through the process”.

Egan, the city’s chief economist, is skeptical that office-to-housing conversions are going to change the dynamics of downtown in time to save any small businesses. “It’s not going to be the horse that pulls the cart. It might be the cart. But I tend to think that the return of office workers, one way or the other, is going to be the thing that does it.”

Owners prop up teetering real estate values

For the city’s property taxes and for property investors, the real crisis will hit in the coming years if office leases start to expire with no one willing to sign on. The office availability rate is currently at 35%. But rents aren’t budging as much as you’d expect in a market with such little demand and so much availability.

“My guess as to why office rents have not fallen more is that the owners are worried about the impact on appraisals for either new loans or sales,” said Dean Baker. “If you cut the rent by 50%, that will quickly be reflected in an appraisal.”

Sitting in Salesforce Park was Chris Carlsson, a local historian and co-director of Shaping San Francisco, which provides walking, biking and bay cruise history tours of the city. He gestured to the soaring towers around.

He thinks their value is about to crater. “The people holding that value will lose it. And they will be sad, and they’ll be jumping off buildings, and they’ll be freaking out,” said Carlsson, who sheds no tears for property investors. “That’s fine. That’s capitalism, right?”

“What does a de-worked downtown look like?” Carlsson mused. He thinks converting as many buildings to residences is one answer. But there’s another option. “Deconstruction is a possibility,” he said. “Start taking stuff down. Why have these towers here if there’s no use for them?

“Maybe there will end up being waterslides in there,” he added, only half joking. “Five stories of waterslides and amusement parks. Why not make giant pinball arcades?”

Some 175 years ago, there was a gold rush that brought hundreds of ships from all over the world, down the road from where Salesforce Park is now located. Prospectors dreaming of riches couldn’t wait to anchor in San Francisco Bay before jumping ship, hundreds of which jammed the bay.

Some entrepreneurial folks found ways of staking claim to prime real estate by running ships aground in the shallows of the bay. There are dozens of ships that make up the foundations of downtown San Francisco. Some folks will no doubt find a way to strike gold if and when this city’s commercial office market collapses too.

Everywhere you go in the city, ruins of a former economy and culture now thrive in a completely new incarnation. A navy shipyard is repurposed as studios for hundreds of artists; an armory becomes an adult movie studio and then an event space; a church becomes a space for a roller skating disco party; the old federal penitentiary on Alcatraz island is one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations; a furniture shop becomes Twitter’s HQ.

If the city could convert four blocks of downtown into a surreal rooftop garden, maybe – just maybe – it can transform these downtown offices into something better suited to the future.

The online architecture program’s studies explore subjects such as integrated building systems, urban planning, industrial ecology, and more. Students can also select electives based on their interests and career goals.

Standard Pathway Courses

The Standard M.Arch. is 105 credits and can be completed in 44 months. This pathway is for students who have a bachelor’s degree in an area other than architecture.

During the first year of the Standard pathway, you will develop an understanding of the basics of architecture in foundation courses. After completing foundation courses, you will take a more in-depth look at architecture, exploring syllabus such as architectural theory, integrated building systems, urban planning, and industrial ecology.

View a demo course schedule and learn more about the Standard M.Arch.

Request Information

Advanced Standing Pathway Courses

The Advanced Standing M.Arch. is 78 credits and can be completed in 32 months. This pathway is for students who have a bachelor's degree in architecture or a related field.

You will follow a curriculum similar to that of the Standard pathway, but will skip the first year of foundational course work and dive right into in-depth syllabus such as integrated building systems, urban planning, and industrial ecology.

View a demo course schedule and learn more about the Advanced Standing M.Arch.

Request Information

Numerous courses in the architecture curriculum require students to purchase supplies for use in class. Please review the Supply List for required supplies prior to starting the Master of Architecture program. For additional information, visit our Accreditation and Support page.