Public sector has unique requirements: compliance, transparency, accountability, accessibility.
Compliance:
- FedRAMP High — for US federal.
- CJIS — Criminal Justice Information.
- IL5 / IL6 — defense.
- State-specific — varies.
- GDPR equivalent — international.
Salesforce options:
- Government Cloud Plus — FedRAMP High.
- Government Cloud — FedRAMP Moderate.
- Health Cloud / Industries for vertical features.
Architectural considerations:
1. Data residency.
- Federal data must stay in US.
- Government Cloud uses dedicated infrastructure.
2. Authentication.
- PIV / CAC card support for federal employees.
- MFA mandatory.
- SSO to government IdPs (typically Okta or Azure AD federated).
3. Audit and accountability.
- Comprehensive audit logs.
- Long retention.
- FOIA-compatible records.
4. Transparency.
- Public-facing portals (e.g., DOL, IRS, etc.).
- Self-service for citizens.
- Multi-language often.
5. Accessibility.
- WCAG 2.1 AA minimum — sometimes AAA.
- Section 508 compliance for federal.
6. Procurement.
- Government procurement is its own world.
- GSA Schedule contracts.
- Public RFP processes.
7. Integration with legacy systems.
- Many government legacy systems (decades old).
- Mainframe integration sometimes.
8. Citizen vs employee experience.
- Different UI requirements.
- Communities for citizen-facing.
9. Scale.
- Often very high (millions of citizens).
- Performance critical.
Specific Salesforce products:
- Government Cloud Plus for FedRAMP High.
- Public Sector Solutions (industry-specific apps).
- Health Cloud Public Sector for healthcare-related agencies.
Architectural pitfalls:
- Standard Salesforce edition for federal — not compliant.
- Underestimating accessibility — Section 508 required.
- Slow procurement — plan for it.
- Underestimating data integration with legacy.
Senior architect insight: public sector is its own architectural specialty. Standard Salesforce architecture doesn't translate directly.
The senior framing: engage compliance / legal early. Federal compliance is binary; getting it wrong is project-killing.
Specialised expertise: Salesforce architects for federal are a smaller market with deeper compliance knowledge. Plan accordingly.