Definition
Sites is part of the broader Salesforce platform offering that provides specific tools or services for building and running applications. It contributes to the extensibility and flexibility that make Salesforce adaptable to diverse business needs.
Real-World Example
Consider a scenario where a platform engineer at NovaScale is working with Sites to enhance the organization's Salesforce footprint with additional functionality. By leveraging Sites, the team avoids building a custom solution from scratch, saving months of development time while gaining enterprise-grade features out of the box.
Why Sites Matters
Salesforce Sites (also known as Force.com Sites) allows organizations to create public-facing web pages hosted directly on the Salesforce platform without requiring users to log in. It solves the problem of exposing select Salesforce data and functionality to unauthenticated external visitors. Using Visualforce pages or Lightning components, developers can build custom landing pages, forms, and data displays that interact with Salesforce data through a guest user profile. Sites provides its own URL namespace and handles request routing, caching, and bandwidth management.
As organizations need to collect information from external audiences or display public data, Sites becomes a cost-effective alternative to building and hosting separate web applications. Without Sites, organizations must build middleware layers, manage separate hosting infrastructure, and maintain API integrations just to let someone fill out a contact form that creates a Lead. However, the guest user profile that powers Sites requires careful security configuration because it has access to Salesforce data. Organizations that do not properly restrict guest user permissions have experienced data exposure incidents, making security review of Sites configurations a critical governance activity.
How Organizations Use Sites
- Summit Community Foundation — Summit Community Foundation uses Salesforce Sites to host their public grant application form. Nonprofit organizations submit applications through a Visualforce page that creates custom Grant Application records in Salesforce. No login is required, and the form includes field validation and file upload for supporting documents.
- Velocity Auto Parts — Velocity Auto Parts deploys a Sites-powered parts lookup tool where customers enter their vehicle model and year to see compatible parts from the Salesforce Product catalog. The page uses a guest user profile with read-only access to Product2 records, ensuring customers can search but not modify inventory data.
- Nexus Research Institute — Nexus Research Institute creates a public research publication directory using Sites. Visitors can browse and filter published studies stored as custom records in Salesforce, while the guest user profile is locked down to provide read-only access to only the Publications custom object with status equal to Published.