The Low-Code

Playbook

Build AI apps and automations fast.

Introduction

Business success today depends on whether IT can provide seamless and

highly personalized connections with customers. Efficiency, productivity, and
cost savings are top priorities for IT leaders, and ultimately it’s these tech-
driven decisions that influence every facet of your company. Intense global
competition and increased cybersecurity threats re-emphasize the need to
deliver these powerful customer experiences quickly and securely.

Yet, new demands for helping business users automate workflows are putting
additional strain on IT teams. The rise of AI applications further underscores
the importance of having the right tools at your disposal. With the extra
demand for application development, it’s no surprise that IT departments
today are struggling to keep up. In fact, only about 26% of IT teams are able
to support all requests.* So, how can IT teams keep up and build secure, cost-
effective experiences and automate processes critical to your business? The
answer is low code.

Today, low-code platforms are essential for building apps efficiently, especially
as IT teams look to build AI apps. By leaning into low code, you can meet
these rising demands, continue to support your employees, and create better
customer experiences. And you can do this all while increasing efficiency and
realizing cost savings.

*Salesforce 3rd State of IT Report

Section 1

Build Multiexperience Apps Fast ............................................................................ 3

Section 2

Boost Productivity with Automation & AI ............................................................... 9

Section 3

Deploy with Security, Scale and Governance .....................................................12

 section 1

Build Multiexperience Apps Fast

Create apps that transform your organization.

A low-code app dev platform gives you a robust set of tools to help you build seamless digital
experiences across devices and touchpoints with clicks and minimal coding. Teams using low-code
tools work more efficiently, increase productivity, and realize cost savings.

Deliver AI apps for every employee faster.

30% 90% 80%

of custom apps
potential reduction of technology products
are built by employees with in development time with a will use low-code/no-code
either limited or no technical low-code/no-code solution. technologies by 2025.
development skills.

451 Research AI Multiple Gartner

The gap between the demand for apps and what IT can deliver makes it tough for teams to focus
on business-driving innovation. On top of this, in the rapidly-evolving world of AI, there is the
challenge of the growing skills gap. Today, only 1 in 10 global workers have in-demand AI skills.*
Driving customer success means reducing backlogs and long development cycles. Get ahead of
demand with a component-based app development architecture like low-code.
* Salesforce 2023 Generative AI Snapshot Research Series

In pursuit of more efficient development, today, 77% of IT teams are

using low- and no-code tools.

Salesforce 3rd State of IT Report

3 | The Low-Code PlayBook

How do I make my apps more dynamic?
Low-code apps platforms allow you to build reusable components so you don’t have to custom-
code an entire experience. A component can be a standard UI element, an automated business
process, or a custom extension. Component-based apps are compelling because they break up
experiences into modularized building blocks. You can quickly create new experiences that meet
the business goals, knowing that the reusable components provide the flexibility needed to adapt
to future changes.

Consider component-based apps for your business.

Reusable:
A component’s functionality is self-contained and can be reused
across multiple applications.

Extensible:
By breaking down custom-coded experiences into components, it’s easy
to extend the capability of your app by simply adding components for
additional functionality, instead of rewriting.

Maintainable:
Compartmentalized blocks can be efficiently maintained and debugged
by different developers.

Connected and clean data is also a prerequisite for low-code AI app development. When AI is
grounded in clean data, it provides stability, agility, and the ability to optimize AI-driven
functionalities, such as delivering personalized experiences and responding quickly to changing
conditions. Effective data governance, including AI governance, supports this by making sure
your data is well-managed, secure, and reliable — allowing AI apps to perform at their best.

Create fully branded AI apps to fit your business needs.

Build fast across one unified CRM platform with Salesforce’s low-code, component-based
architecture. Specifically, two tools can drive rich, dynamic app experiences. Lightning App
Builder provides point-and-click tools to quickly create custom apps for desktop and mobile.
Mobile Publisher makes it easy to distribute a branded version of the Salesforce mobile app
or Experience Cloud sites and list them in the Google Play and Apple App Stores.

4 | The Low-Code PlayBook


Drive users to take action fast.
Everyone in your organization needs different sources of information for their roles, but accessing
and managing this data can be challenging. For instance, sales reps need to see their new
opportunities to know which ones to pursue. Similarly, commerce teams need real-time inventory
and customer preference data to optimize sales strategies. If you can make it easy for teams to
access information and take action fast, you can improve employee and customer experiences.

Generative AI apps can enhance sales efforts by providing valuable insights and automating routine
tasks, like identifying trends, summarizing customer behavior, and generating personalized content
for leads. This enables sales reps to quickly access relevant information and respond to new
opportunities.

Consider AI apps in customer service: they can take prior customer interactions, purchasing
patterns, and your company knowledge base, and use all of this rich context to provide AI-
generated responses or outreach when an issue arises. By leveraging AI on your data, IT can
enhance the contact center with tools for resolving cases faster, automated processes that cut out
busy work, and AI in self-service portals to avoid common cases altogether. With less time spent on
repetitive work, customer care teams can focus on providing better care, and IT can work on more
differentiated and strategic projects.

Lightning App Builder makes it easy to create and customize apps so users across the organization
can surface the information they need. By adding component visibility and logic, you can transform
static data entry forms into dynamic experiences that are intuitive and easy to use. Simply drag and
drop fields and components to create responsive pages that update based on the user and device.
You can guide employees by controlling the next steps or actions they can take by setting rules
based on field values or user information. Now, teams see only the most relevant information and
services at the right place and time.

of enterprises have turned toward low code to reduce strain

on IT resources, increase speed-to-market, and involve the
84 %
business in digital asset development.
32 Low-Code Development Statistics to Know Before Adopting, g2.com

5 | The Low-Code PlayBook

Extend and update your apps as your business needs change.
Want to get more from your CRM? It's time for conversational AI
Einstein Copilot is your go-to AI assistant. With its intuitive, conversational interface, you can turn
workflows into back-and-forth conversations with trusted AI that understands your data and
workflows. And because it’s part of the Einstein 1 Platform, teams can extend its functionality
with just a few clicks, tailoring it to your specific needs. Any custom work you’ve done on the
platform, any flow, Apex class, or MuleSoft API, can become a new action that Einstein Copilot
can perform. Plus, with Prompt Builder, you can seamlessly integrate customized prompts into
Copilot or other parts of your app, enabling you to embed AI across every facet of the customer
and employee experience.

Have developer resources?

Extend your app with custom Lightning Web Components built by your developers. The best part is
that these components are reusable. And with Einstein for Developers, you can build, test, and ship
them faster than ever using AI that can generate Salesforce-specific code fast.

No developers? No worries.
There’s a marketplace of packages containing preconfigured, ready-to-use, third-party components
on AppExchange that work with Lightning App Builder.

Einstein Beta

Hi Emma, how can I help you?

Hi Emma, how can I help you?
Einstein Beta

Are the order items associated with this case available

What is my top opportunity today? from another shipping location?

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Trailhead Outfitters - Eco Gear distribution center in Portland, Oregon.

Account Name: Trailhead Supplies

Can I modify this active order to ship from another

Stage: Proposal / Quote

Amount: $100,000
 distribution center?

Close date: 10/29/23

Opportunity Owner: Elaine Benes

Edit Record

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Describe your task or ask a question...

6 | The Low-Code PlayBook

CUSTOMER STORY

T-Mobile revamps outdated business

practices to serve their customers.

In 2013, T-Mobile US disrupted the wireless industry with a major shift: giving customers exactly
what they wanted. 

Unlike its competitors at the time, T-Mobile dropped annual service contracts, overage fees, and
roaming fees, and focused on improving customer service and delivering more value. And today,
T-Mobile’s 5G network is the largest, fastest, and most-awarded 5G network in the country.* 

To streamline sales and service processes across more than 5,000 stores nationwide, T-Mobile
equipped its in-store employees with the sales tools they needed to serve customers faster.
Through a custom app, sales representatives can capture in-store consultation data to create a
unique profile for each prospect. With this single source of truth, other T-Mobile teams can
reference and update this data as prospects move through the sales funnel. 

With a more connected picture of its customers, T-Mobile had to put this data into action. The
company used the Salesforce Platform’s custom app-building features to help employees serve
customers more efficiently. For instance, sales representatives can now aggregate leads and
deliver more personalized customer care inside and outside of the store.

“We’ve leveraged the low-code aspect to build secure and powerful products, which increases
agility,” Poppy Coutinho, Senior Manager of Digital Architecture, said. “For example, we’ve used
the out-of-the-box approval process to enable auto approvals. And the UI for our products is
built using Salesforce App Builder, which significantly reduces development time. We also used
screen flows to create a guided user experience for key business processes.”

The ability to build low-code and no-code workflows has transformed internal operations for sales
and service teams. With Einstein 1 Platform, the company continues to propel innovations built
around a unified view of customer — and employee — needs.

With Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform, T-Mobile’s teams can reduce duplicate

data entry and busywork, giving employees more time for personalized
customer support resulting in:

7 85
faster renewal
93
hrs reduction in weekly % fewer clicks in
%
work effort sales process process

7 | The Low-Code PlayBook

CUSTOMER STORY

BACA Systems doubles productivity with

one smart move using AI.

BACA Systems, a leading provider of state-of-the-art robotic and CNC-based machinery for the
worldwide stone industry, were facing challenges that turned their sales routine into a rocky road.

Their sales teams were spending most of their time on manual tasks, searching for information,
and lacked a system to identify at-risk opportunities. Meanwhile, developer teams were coding
manually, without using low-code tools, resulting in significant losses of time and money.

To address these challenges, BACA Systems migrated its resource planning system to Salesforce,
allowing sales teams to gain visibility into their performance and receive AI-driven
recommendations for new opportunities. With access to generative AI powered by Einstein 1
Platform, sales reps focused on deeper engagement, while AI automation handled tasks like call
summaries. Einstein Copilot also provided personalized guidance by leveraging case and email
data in Prompt Builder. This low-code based implementation resulted in higher open rates,
doubling sales productivity for BACA Systems.

“We’ve found combining Salesforce’s AI with the Einstein 1 Platform is a perfect recipe for
success. It’s boosted our productivity and we are committed to continuing to integrate AI into
our sales work because we see the results, both in sales growth and in how much the sales team
loves using it,” said Andrew Russo, Enterprise Architect of BACA Systems.

BACA Systems also used Salesforce Flow to automate tasks in accounting, inventory,
manufacturing, and service. Created with Flow Builder, these custom apps offered point-and-click
automation across the Salesforce platform, saving developers time and providing clear process
overviews. Looking ahead, BACA Systems plans to use generative AI to quickly build prototypes,
speeding up app development and improving coding efficiency for traditional developers.

Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform allows BACA Systems to run its business and
boost employee productivity in AI, along with other benefits:

renewal process
20 % reduction in
warranty costs 99 %
shipping accuracy 15 days freed up

per month

8 | The Low-Code PlayBook

 section 2

Boost Productivity with Automation & AI

Low-code automation tools deliver business value fast.

91% of organizations say they need solutions that automate processes so they can do more with less,

and 77% of workers say automation has provided them with the time to deepen relationships with

customers and stakeholders.

Building AI apps and automating processes are no longer two different worlds thanks to low-code

and multiexperience app development. Eager to accelerate productivity and deepen customer

relationships, business users, alongside IT, can now rely on low-code tools to help employees work

smarter, not harder. With real-time data from Data Cloud, you can have a 360-degree view of the

customer and make intelligent decisions based on in-the-moment customer behavior.

Salesforce Flow takes this a step further by enabling seamless automation across various functions.

When you embed screen flows into user prompts, you can lead your team through complex tasks,

providing them with real-time, step-by-step assistance. In particular, Einstein for Flow is an AI tool

for anyone new to Flow Builder. With it, you’ll be able to describe what you’d like to build using

natural language, and Einstein will create a flow with that criteria. This is a massive productivity

boost for those looking to automate workflows with AI.

As a result, wealth managers can focus on client outcomes by automating repetitive data entry and

streamlining data-heavy processes such as cash and stock reconciliation. Healthcare providers can

improve the patient experience by automating referral processes and billing management to get

patients the care they need quickly. Service agents can now automatically route work across global

teams and digital channels to deliver personalized service for high-value clients. And supply chain

managers can unify data and integrate disparate legacy systems to streamline order fulfillment and

vendor management.

9 | T h e L o w- C o d e P l ay B o o k
 Old Way new way

Legacy systems
Real-time, integrated systems bring teams
and siloed data together faster

Employees have tools to streamline processes and

Broken, manual processes
deliver value to customers faster

Fragmented customer Personalized customer experiences are connected

experiences across channels

Improve both employee and customer experiences.

Flow can also integrate intelligence into automated experiences from the first moment the
customer engages. Make your customers’ experience more seamless with AI-powered chatbots and
provide critical insights to your employees – all of which leads to increased revenue. Incorporate
low-code tools, such as Einstein Next Best Action and Model Builder, into your apps to create better,
faster, personalized service to customers. With Einstein and Salesforce Flow, you can create
intelligent, streamlined workflows across the entire Einstein 1 Platform, all while improving the day-
to-day experience for everyone.

of IT leaders report increased operational efficiency

(56%), improved employee productivity (52%), and

93 % improved customer satisfaction (49%) as a result of

their automation initiatives.
Salesforce 3rd State of IT Report

10 | The Low-Code PlayBook

CUSTOMER STORY

RBC Wealth Management reimagines personalized

service by creating custom digital experiences for
wealth management.

The wealth management industry’s traditional process-driven approach to business hasn’t always
resulted in the best client experiences. Onboarding is a prime example when new clients typically
receive a 100-page physical document with sticky notes indicating where to sign. 

RBC Wealth Management wanted to remove that friction. So, using low-code automation, extending
it with custom functionality, and pairing it with a customer-first digital experience, the company was
able to automate its case management workflows for a better client onboarding experience. As a
result, onboarding time has been reduced from weeks to just 24 minutes on average.

A powerful platform strategy elevates advisors and clients.

With the new customer-first digital experience, RBC Wealth Management was able to create a new
portal for clients that gives them full visibility of all their accounts. In addition, it gave financial
advisors access to an analytics dashboard, allowing them to quickly view their portfolio and cases
on their own time. Now financial advisors have the flexibility and freedom to create their own
“secret sauce” and manage client relationships within Salesforce. The platform has enabled a
connected advisor-client experience so that with a click of a single button, advisors are able to
integrate and gather all data in one shot. Advisors can quickly prepare for client meetings and
always know the real-time status of any portfolio.

The scalability of the platform helps our admins and developers

build the automations and tools that really help the advisors
serve their clients’ needs.
Rohit Gupta, Director, RBC Wealth Management – U.S.

RBC Wealth Management continues to reimagine financial solutions.

The firm is just getting started on its wealth management transformation journey. The company is
using Tableau to build a data culture that connects analytics to the next best action to take. Advisors
can now spot trends, predict outcomes, and give end-user clients next-level service with enhanced
capabilities. RBC Wealth Management has embraced the industry’s digital imperative and is poised
to innovate for what’s next in financial services.

11 | The Low-Code PlayBook

 section 3

Deploy with Security, Scale, & Governance

Build AI apps and automation on a foundation of trust.

Your business needs to move fast while keeping customer trust and cost-savings top of mind.

Overlooking either could lead to a costly detour — failing to comply with data privacy regulations

averages $14.8 million, according to the 3rd State of IT Report. Meanwhile, data breaches now cost

up to $4.45 million on average.* With Data Cloud and Einstein 1 Platform, you have built-in privacy

and compliance to help you protect sensitive data, prevent unauthorized access, and keep

sandboxes secure.

As companies rapidly innovate and deploy AI apps, the need to proactively protect customer data is

paramount – now more than ever. This is especially true given the additional layer of complexity

introduced by AI around security and governance considerations. 80% of IT professionals say they

face business pressures to implement AI and more than 80% of workers believe having trusted

data is key to accomplishing that — but nearly half of IT professionals worry their security

infrastructure won’t be able to keep up with AI development demands.**

In light of these concerns, data governance is another vital aspect to consider in this trust

landscape. It involves how organizations manage their data, such as collection, storage, usage, and

security, particularly in the context of AI implementation. For instance, wealth management

companies, which operate in a highly regulated industry, can use Shield and Privacy Center to

detect sensitive financial data and tailor data retention policies to AI. These tools, along with

Security Center, allow companies to define and enforce data access policies to ensure only

customer-approved data is used in AI models. 

By complying with regulations and prioritizing security protocols throughout development and

testing, businesses can ensure that the integrity of customer data remains intact, and also mitigate

risks associated with data breaches and non-compliance.

*2023 IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report

**2024 “Your Data, Your AI” Salesforce Study

12 | T h e L o w- C o d e P l ay B o o k
 Using Salesforce Platform keeps your apps secure while providing
your customers with productive, powerful, and reliable experiences.
An effective app development process meets these requirements:

 Strict measures for guarding privacy

 Permission sets for appropriate access

 A secure development environment for testing

 Governance processes and policies supported by tools that make app

management easy

Security and Privacy Products Expected Outcome

Data Mask Protect sensitive data as you build in your sandboxes.

Monitor threats and automatically encrypt data to keep

Salesforce Shield
apps compliant and prevent data loss.

Security Center View all of your security permissions in one place.

Control privacy management to ensure always-on

Privacy Center
compliance.

13 | The Low-Code PlayBook

Customize, build, and test while protecting personal information.
More customer data is available than ever before, whether that data is coming in through your
apps or third-party systems. Misuse of customer data is one of the biggest challenges faced by
companies working to protect their systems from internal or external threats. To compound this
challenge, more third parties are being utilized by companies to build cost-effective solutions
that add value back to their customers. 

Protecting personal information is vital to maintaining trust. Organizations need to be sure

sensitive information isn’t seen by the wrong parties (employees included) and doesn't leave
their platform during the testing process. Salesforce Data Mask addresses data privacy and
confidentiality while letting you develop with the power of sandboxes. Additionally, the Einstein
Trust Layer ensures that as your teams begin testing generative AI applications, your data
remains secure and compliant. Automatic guardrails including secure data retrieval, prompt
masking, toxicity detection models that run against the outputs of large language models
(LLMs), and a customer-owned audit trail and feedback store – hosted in your Data Cloud
instance – all work together to make generative AI with your data safe.

Improve the customer experience by testing before pushing apps to production. Sandboxes
empower teams by democratizing app development, allowing multiple stakeholders to
collaborate without disrupting live operations. Our secure, standards-based tools keep your
development environment safe and compliant, so you can build with trust and protect sensitive
data when testing apps.

Customer, company, and outcome data Models

Prompt Secure Data
Dynamic
Data
Prompt

Hosted models

Retrieval Grounding Masking Defense in Salesforce

Zero
Trust Boundary
Retention
CRM
Data
Toxicity

Apps
Audit Trail Response Bring your own
Demasking Detection
models, your own
infrastructure

External models

Einstein Trust Layer with Shared

Trust Boundary

14 | The Low-Code PlayBook

Take trust and compliance to a new level.
With more sensitive data in the cloud, security and compliance requirements also become
increasingly complex. Salesforce Shield helps address these requirements while allowing you to
monitor user activity and enforce security policies. Protect your enterprise with point­-and-click
tools that enhance trust, transparency, compliance, and governance across all of your business-
critical apps.

Platform Encryption

Natively encrypt your most sensitive data while retaining critical app functionality,
including search, workflow, and validation rules.

Event Monitoring

Build flexible, customizable security policies that give IT the power to identify and prevent
malicious activity in real time.

Field Audit Trail

Track changes to your data for up to 10 years. Report on its value for forensic-level
compliance and more significant operational insights into your business.

Data Detect

Find and classify your sensitive data quickly with pattern matching that detects,
categorizes, and flags data for swift action.

Have the full picture at all times.

Salesforce Security Center helps you manage all of your security controls across multiple orgs in one
place so that you can gain visibility into key security metrics everywhere. This data helps drive
critical business decisions and faster responses to threats and anomalies.

Security Center Dashboard

Summary Authentication by Type Configuration

Permission User

15 | The Low-Code PlayBook

CUSTOMER STORY

Humana takes on security and privacy so customers

can achieve their best health.

Over the decades, Humana has undergone a culture change from focusing on nursing homes,
hospitals, and insurance to primary care services. But one aspect continues to be front and center —
keeping its customer data safe and secure. 

Previously, Humana stored its data on-premises, but a shifting workforce and increased demand for
services required the company to accelerate its cloud adoption journey. With Salesforce as a key
partner, Humana could scale infrastructure quickly to meet its commitments.

Humana’s digital transformation included building out a continuous improvement process

regarding developers, security operations, data security, and IT support and monitoring. Hendy
Wiebe, Cloud Services Management Fellow at Humana, explained, “Continuous improvement in
monitoring is at the center of everything we do,” and “We leverage every piece of data we get from
Salesforce.” An integrated model makes sure that across all Salesforce event monitor logs, Heroku,
MuleSoft, and even Tableau are captured and leveraged.

Similarly, data security is handled through Salesforce Shield.

Humana built encryption and introduced bring your own key
(BYOK) solutions to help the company move away from
costly middleware and opened it to new compliance
capabilities. “We don’t just buy a product with Salesforce. Humana

We have a partner, who is like our extended support team Forecasts

and monitoring team,” said Wiebe.

By partnering with Salesforce on Shield, Humana was able to

save $6 million a year in overall costs, while still meeting its
needs. As Humana takes leaps and bounds in its cloud
adoption journey, Salesforce is there every step of the way to
help Humana deliver not just healthcare, but human care.

Governance is vital, so it should be

easy to enforce.
Low-code platforms are appealing because they allow admins
and developers to quickly push secure applications into
production without impacting IT’s enterprise projects. But to
ensure data security and proper use of IT’s assistance, you’ll need
a governance plan tailored to your organization.

16 | The Low-Code PlayBook

Use these tips to build a governance framework that works for you.
 Define a training and certification process for your developers and admins with opportunities
to be certified as experts in anything from automating business processes to creating helpful
reporting dashboards.
 Set up standard workflow protocols for low-code development: sandboxes, testing, validation,
audit, integration, and deployment.
 Determine who the approvers are for each of the steps in the development cycle.
 Create an evaluation process for admitting projects into either the IT backlog or the low-code
backlog.
 If using a low-code backlog, create a standard set of requirements that apply to any project
to ensure each app aligns with compliance and security measures outlined in your
governance policies.

 Centralize how teams work together and manage change in sandbox environments by using
low-code DevOps tools such as DevOps Center, centralizing and governing the development
lifecycle while integrating into your team’s source control solutions.

 N o need to reinvent the wheel. If you already have a general governance model in place, use
that as a starting point, making adjustments to provide IT oversight or an approval workflow.

Create a complete privacy compliance solution.

M anage your sensitive data and protect privacy with a suite of simple, easy-to-use tools that provide
everything you need to take control of your privacy management.

Improve data protection. B uild trust with customers. G ain insights and
track changes.

Anonymize and minimize Q uickly create policies to Visualize how customer data is

sensitive data in your org with compile and securely transfer 
 being used, who has access to
ease. Use masking to keep data all PII from your org to your data, and the amount and status
secure and further protect it by customer. Monitor the progress of requests. Receive notifications
moving it to storage and or see a history of a customer's about changes to consent or
keeping only what is required. past and ongoing requests. contact information.

17 | The Low-Code PlayBook

 The bottom line: Low code is secure and agile.
While business challenges can be increasingly complex, the solutions are actually simple. Process
automation is essential because you need to work as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Empower your team with smart and dynamic apps that boost efficiency, increase productivity, and
provide cost savings. And since trust is more important than ever, you can take every measure to
preserve that trust as you scale app development with confidence.

Ready to start building the AI Sign up for a free trial, or learn more in our
apps and automation you need guided tour.
fast on Salesforce?
Try for free

Take guided tour

or call 1-800-667-6389.

Resources:
section 1 section 2 section 3
App Building for Salesforce Admins

Salesforce Flow Press Release

Salesforce Shield Trail

Lightning App Builder Trail

Salesforce Flow Trail

Security Center Datasheet

Learn More About Low Code

Learn More About Einstein

Sandbox Datasheet

AppExchange Components
Learn More About Salesforce Flow
Learn More About Security

18 | The Low-Code PlayBook