Force.com Sites Explained
Force.com Sites provides an all-in-one method for creating database driven, standard Web pages.
What are “database driven” pages? These are pages with a normal Web site look and feel, except that certain elements of the pages are retrieved from database tables rather than being maintained in the Web page as HTML text.
For example, ThomasNet uses anonymous Sites pages (no login required) to serve up pages that show available sales positions throughout the country. The ThomasNet careers page is actually a Force.com Sites page. Each position is a record in a Force.com object (table). This means that the positions listed on the site can be changed in real-time by a user simply adding or editing records in the Force.com object that’s behind these job postings — via the standard Force.com user interface.
Clicking on a job position brings up the details of that position – again, served up from the database. From the details of that position, a visitor can click on an Apply button which brings up a Web form, which is served up from Force.com.
Normally, when a someone in a company wants to develop a set of database driven Web pages, they need to assemble and coordinate several a number of different resources, including a database, a UI for maintaining the database and a Web site plus code that communicates with the database.
Force.com Sites provides these disparate components within a single platform. In fact, the same Force.com or Salesforce.com Org that users log into can also serve up Sites Web pages. Web page design begins with Pages and the Visualforce markup language. The standard and custom Apex controllers are called from the Visualforce pages for a variety of functions, including specifying what data to access and adding business rules. CSS style sheets are stored within the Force.com Org as Static Resources. Images can be simple record attachments.
There are many applications for Sites, including:
- Job postings
- Property listings
- Customer lists and success stories
- Contest registration Web forms
- Visitor Web forms
- Content management and blogs
- Collaboration
- Customer Support
- eCommerce
- Entire Web sites
To see a showcase of Sites, check out the Force.com Sites Gallery.
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Steve Chipman is the founder and president of Lexnet Consulting Group, based in San Francisco. Lexnet is a leading value added reseller for CRM (customer relationship management) solutions.
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