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9 Salesforce Scanner Must-Haves for Financial Companies

Josh Rank
February 22, 2023

A Salesforce scanner enables an organization to produce stronger, more secure products—if it has the right features.

Why It Matters: The finance industry faces strict data security requirements because of the level of importance of the services provided.

Financial companies handle their customers’ most sensitive data.
Regulatory requirements stipulate how this information must be protected.
Failure to properly address these considerations can result in fines, penalties, and exposure of sensitive data.

Here are 9 features every financial company needs in a Salesforce scanner:

Automated Code Reviews
Visibility Into Permissions
Inventory Management
Governance and Oversight
Metadata Awareness
Intuitive Interface
Support for Regulatory Compliance
Robust Coverage
Scheduled Reports and Dashboards

1. Automated Code Reviews

The past few years have seen a large number of financial companies pursue digital transformations. These businesses have updated their IT infrastructure, introduced new services and functionalities, and released updates and applications. But if those updates aren’t error-free, these companies run the risk of introducing data security vulnerabilities to their Salesforce environment.

Utilizing an automated code quality scanner empowers financial companies to rapidly produce high-quality releases that also support data security.

Static code analysis is an essential aspect of an optimized Salesforce DevSecOps pipeline. Automating code reviews saves your team from spending massive amounts of time digging through thousands of lines of code—eliminating the threat of human error.

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2. Visibility into Permissions

Accidental deletions continue to be one of the largest threats to data security. A simple slip of the finger or misinterpretation of data can lead to incredibly costly data losses. The possibility of this outcome increases commensurately with the number of people able to access the data.

It’s critical that Salesforce profiles and permissions are properly configured to ensure that the only people able to access system data are those who need it to perform their job functions.

A policy scanner is used to review current permissions given to team members in your Salesforce environment and ensure they are not granted the ability to view, edit, or delete data unless it is necessary for their role. This is a critical capability for financial companies. A single deletion of data can lead to falling out of compliance with important data security regulations.

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3. Inventory Management

You’ll never secure your Salesforce environment if you don’t understand everything it contains. Unseen sets of data, lack of visibility into settings, and hidden vulnerabilities can all come to the surface and cause widespread damage.

A Salesforce scanner that can find and highlight irregularities while sorting through legacy settings enables financial companies to implement a proper data security strategy.

Understanding your Salesforce org enables your team to fix outlying issues and enact a comprehensive approach to data security.

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4. Governance and Oversight

Finding the data in your system is only the first step when establishing a data governance plan. Maintaining a high-level view of how the data is processed and stored within your system is an essential element of maintaining compliance.

Frequent system scans for proper settings enable financial companies to ensure their data is properly processed and protected.

An organization can set standards for permissions and how data is handled through internal rules. A policy scanner will then analyze the Salesforce environment to find and flag anything that doesn’t adhere to these rules. This level of insight is crucial to maintaining consistent oversight.

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5. Metadata Awareness

It is very easy to overlook Salesforce metadata. It exists in the background of your environment. Protected data is much easier to find. However, your Salesforce environment won’t function properly—or at all—if your metadata is not preserved, protected, and backed up with as much enthusiasm as your other types of data.

Metadata in these essential areas of your Salesforce environment can be scanned for proper configuration:

Profiles
Permission sets
User settings
Session settings

Proper handling of metadata preserves essential functionality and supports data security considerations.

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6. Intuitive Interface

A tool isn’t providing much of a benefit if your team members aren’t using it. When it comes to Salesforce applications, the UI isn’t always the main consideration. Fortunately, the value of a Salesforce scanner rests in its usability.

An easy-to-understand interface reduces the amount of requisite training needed to use a Salesforce scanner and ensures your team is able to utilize every potential functionality.

A no-code approach to a Salesforce scanner opens the benefits up to Salesforce administrators and other team members who don’t have a programming background. Many Salesforce scanners help developers, but they aren’t the only members of the team who benefit from the use of automation.

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7. Support for Regulatory Compliance

Data security regulations need to be a constant concern for the financial industry. Failure to adhere to these regulations—and be able to document compliance—will result in expensive fines and penalties. Beyond that, failing to properly protect sensitive information leads to an erosion of public trust, which is crucial to the success of a financial company.

The ability to scan your Salesforce environment for compliance considerations drastically increases an organization’s ability to maintain proper adherence to these critical stipulations.

OrgScan empowers Salesforce administrators to program automated scans of their environment without touching a line of code. Regulatory compliance requires a comprehensive approach, and a Salesforce scanner is the best way to achieve this.

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8. Robust Coverage

The benefits provided by a Salesforce scanner are only useful if the tool address the entirety of your instance. This includes the existing infrastructure and legacy settings that make up your profiles as well as the code that goes into new updates and applications.

A static code analysis tool with an extensive ruleset covering multiple languages and metadata alongside a policy scanner provides the coverage you need to maintain a stable Salesforce environment.

Salesforce developers and administrators who gain insight from scanning tools are better able to support a successful data security strategy. And for financial companies, this is essential.

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9. Scheduled Reports and Dashboards

A comprehensive analysis of your Salesforce environment requires frequently updated looks into the health of your org. A Salesforce scanner gathers this type of information and must be able to clearly convey the important points.

Reports and dashboards should be leveraged to track successes and opportunities for improvement over time.

Financial companies have strict requirements for how their data is handled. This is dictated both by data security regulations as well as the internal directives aimed at achieving goals. A Salesforce scanner will help your organization accomplish its goals, but only if it has those key features.

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Next Step…

Now that you understand the importance of a Salesforce scanner, let’s look at how it can work within a larger CI/CD pipeline.

Learn more in our blog How Does a Salesforce Code Analysis Tool Work With CI/CD?

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FAQs

What are some examples of a Salesforce scanner?

A static code analysis tool is an essential scanner that improves the quality of your products, supports data security, and increases your team’s ability to quickly produce products. This tool scans an application’s code as a developer is writing it, providing immediate alerts, enabling them to fix any issues as they arise. A policy scanner is another scanner that saves on manual processes and increases an administrator’s ability to maintain consistent oversight of a Salesforce environment. This can be used to check proper permissions and profile settings and enforce compliance standards. Internal rules can be programmed into the scanner and used to ensure team members are adhering to best practices.

Why use automation when manual processes can accomplish the same thing?

Human error is unavoidable. The likelihood of a team member making a mistake drastically increases when they are performing a task that is lengthy and repetitive. And while it might be tempting to continue using manual processes because that’s how things have been done for a long time, there is a much better way to accomplish large-scale quality checks. Automation not only speeds along these processes, but it also increases the reliability of the results. For instance, scanning thousands of lines of code for errors would take an incredibly long time when done manually. Automation can accomplish this in a fraction of the time without the risk of missing errors.

How can I find a Salesforce scanner that meets my needs?

Financial companies have different requirements than organizations in other industries. However, the benefits listed in this article extend to every organization, regardless of whether their motivation for securing their Salesforce environment is to achieve regulatory compliance or simply protect their data. The first step to finding a scanner that meets your needs is to identify what your needs actually are. Be sure to consider how your needs will grow as your company evolves over time. A scalable toolset provides the greatest benefits. Once your needs are identified, it’s time to compare available tools. Remember, it’s best to find a full-stack solution like the AutoRABIT platform to ensure all of your tools work together and don’t leave unnecessary gaps in coverage.