Salesforce App Builder for Beginners: Build an App No Coding

Set up your free Salesforce developer account and start building your first custom app—the Book Tracker—creating a central home for all tabs, objects, and data in this chapter.

Think of a lightning app as a smart folder that organizes tabs, custom objects, dashboards, and reports in a clean, professional workspace that's easy to navigate.

Create a book tracker app in Salesforce by opening setup, using app manager, and launching the Lightning App wizard to configure name, branding, navigation tabs, and access.

Review the Book Tracker App creation, branding, and navigation setup within the lightning app using the system administrator profile; prepare to create the first book object in the next chapter.

Create the book object as the main piece of your book tracker app, using custom objects as rooms to model the app like a house.

Define a custom object as a user-designed table named book to store data, with records like The Hobbit and fields such as title, ISBN, and genre, backbone of Salesforce app.

Create a custom book object in object manager; set label book, and text record name; enable reports, activities, and chatter, then launch the tab wizard to add books tab.

Create a custom object named book, enable reporting and chatter, and add a custom tab to preview it in the app, setting the stage for storing book records in crm.

Add fields to the book object to turn it from an empty table into a fully structured database table, with columns for title, genre, and pages, ready to collect data.

Define a field as a data column that stores a specific type, such as text, numbers, dates, or pick lists; each book record holds values for all fields.

Add five key fields to the book object, including title as text, ISBN as text, publish date as date, genre as picklist, and pages as number.

Add a title field to the book object. Create a text field length 80 labeled title, provide help text, set visibility to all profiles, and add to the page layout.

Add an ISBN field as a text labeled ISBN, provide help text to enter book's ISBN 13, add to page layout, and set field level security visible to all.

Add a publish date field, labeled publish date, with help text 'Select the book's publication date,' set field level security visible to all, and add to the page layout.

Add a genre picklist field labeled genre with values fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci fi, romance. Set field-level security to visible to all and add it to the page layout.

Add a pages field as a number with zero decimals, labeled pages, with help text 'enter the total number of pages', visible to all, added to page layout, and save.

Preview the book form in the book tracker app by opening the app, selecting the books tab, and creating a new entry with title, ISBN, published date, genre, and pages.

Learn to create fields in Salesforce by adding five fields to the book object (text, date, number, picklist), test the app, and prepare to build and connect the author object.

Create an author object with key fields to organize information about authors and prepare for connecting with books in the next chapter.

Create a separate author object and link books to it, reducing typos and data duplication, and enabling reuse across multiple books.

Create a separate author object to link books to their authors, preventing repeated author names and typos, and keeping data cleaner and reusable across multiple books.

Create the author object in setup via object manager, set label and plural label, set author name as text, enable reports, activities, history, and add a tab with the wizard.

Create a country picklist on the author object using object manager, define country values; add help text, set field-level security, and include on the page layout.

Create date of birth field for author object by using Object Manager, adding a date field labeled date of birth with helptext, enabling field level security for all, then save.

Test the author tab in the Book Tracker app by opening the app, selecting authors, and creating a new record with fields for author name, country, and date of birth.

Create a custom object author with country and date of birth fields, preview changes in the Book Tracker app, and prepare to link books to authors with a lookup relationship.

Connect book and author objects with relationships to link data and make fields and tabs navigable, building relational data structures in a no-code Salesforce app.

Explore how Salesforce relationships link objects, enabling a one-to-many connection between authors and books, so you can select an author in a book and view all their books.

Explore lookup and master-detail relationships in Salesforce, noting independent ownership in lookup and the master-detail dependency where deleting the master deletes the child. This app uses lookup relationships for flexibility.

Create a one-to-many lookup relationship from book to author by navigating setup, object manager, book fields, and selecting a lookup relationship to connect books to authors.

Test the lookup relationship by creating a new book in the book tracker app and selecting an author from the lookup field.

Learn Salesforce relationships, compare lookup and master-detail types, and create a one-to-many link from author to book, with related records verified in the Lightning app.

Create a book review object, add useful fields, and link each review back to a specific book.

Create a separate book review object linked to the book, allowing multiple reviews per book while ensuring every review belongs to only one book, keeping data clean and scalable.

Learn to create a custom Salesforce object named Book Review in Object Manager, configure labels and the record name, enable reports and activities, and set up the Book Review tab.

Create the rating field by navigating to object manager for Bookreview, select picklist, set label to rating with values 1 to 5, enable field level security for all, and save.

Create a review text field as a long text area labeled 'Review', with a 32768 character limit, visible to all page layouts, then add it to the layout and save.

Create a related book lookup field by going to fields and relationships, clicking new, selecting the field type lookup relationship related to book, labeling it related book, and saving.

Explore the book review object by opening the Book Tracker app and viewing the book review tab with all fields, as you begin testing the review interface.

Create a new custom object book review, add rating and review text fields, and establish a lookup to the related book, forming authors to books to book reviews.

Launch the Book Tracker app, add sample data, and verify that all relationships come to life by testing the app step by step.

Launch the book tracker app, explore books, authors, and book reviews tabs, and add JK Rowling along with Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone, plus a rating five linked review.

Explore end-to-end app testing in Salesforce app builder by simulating real user interactions, entering sample author, book, and review data, and validating lookup relationships and related lists.

Recap the journey from zero to a fully functional Salesforce app built without code, including the Book Tracker app with three custom objects, lookup relationships, and tab navigation.