Home /Blog/ How an Automated Code Review Tool Solves Data Issues

How an Automated Code Review Tool Solves Data Issues

Josh Rank
September 20, 2023

An automated code review tool can be critical to maintaining healthy and accurate data within an organization’s Salesforce environment.

Why It Matters: Inaccurate, outdated, or unreliable data negatively impacts business processes and team member productivity. Failing to maintain system data can have costly and damaging effects.

Bad data is estimated to cost the U.S. economy $3.1 trillion every year.
Missing or incomplete data causes 40% of businesses to fail to meet their goals.
Data issues are revolving problems that complicate other aspects of an organization’s IT environment.

Here are 9 ways an automated code review tool addresses data issues:

Detects Bugs + Defects
Real-Time Feedback
Technical Debt Assessment
Insights + Reports
Integrated Security Features
Compatible with Multiple Coding Environments
Increases Delivery Velocity
Promotes Learning
Increases Visibility

1. Detects Bugs + Defects

The code that makes up your applications and updates has a massive impact on the stability of your platform and the reliability of your data. An application that doesn’t function properly has the potential to route data to incorrect repositories, expose sensitive information, or accidentally delete data altogether.

Automated code reviews are much more reliable when compared to manual reviews because they offer consistent coverage no matter how much material is being reviewed.

Tools like static code analysis offer immediate alerts when errors are located. Early detection of bugs and defects enables developers to fix these issues long before they are deployed to production, preventing future data issues.

Back to top

2. Real-Time Feedback

Coding errors become increasingly expensive to fix the later they are found in the DevOps pipeline. Each line of code becomes entwined with other updates to the main repository, which must be untangled should something need to be reworked. This leads to redoing existing work, slowing down the progress of the project and occupying developer time.

Static code analysis provides real-time alerts when an error is detected, enabling developers to fix errors and get coding structures right the first time.

This immediate feedback enables developers to address issues when the update is still fresh in their mind, reducing confusion and allowing them to continue working in the original flow.

Back to top

3. Technical Debt Assessment

Sometimes speed is prioritized for an update or application. Quickly addressing an issue or trying to be the first to bring a new functionality to market can be very important to an organization. This can lead to mistakes that are left for later to be fixed. Sometimes, however, these errors aren’t addressed and lead to threats to system data.

An automated code review tool can scan an organization’s environment for technical debt to rectify these errors and further secure the platform.

Resolving the workarounds that result in technical debt makes your Salesforce environment more reliable and secure. Solving these issues will prevent future problems with data and end up saving your team time.

Back to top

4. Insights + Reports

Information is key to maintaining a current view of the health of Salesforce data. You can’t fix a problem you don’t know is there. And if there’s a systemic issue that continually has negative impacts on system data, the problems can be wide ranging. Tracking them can point to ways to support healthy data.

Code review tools produce reports on findings that can be used to locate ongoing issues. Fixing these problems will support healthy data.

Code complexity, security vulnerabilities, and performance inefficiencies can all be highlighted by the findings of an automated code review tool. These insights can be used to improve business processes and streamline operations.

Back to top

5. Integrated Security Features

In today’s ever-changing landscape, data security is a top concern. Cyberattacks are becoming more mature and frequent. The Salesforce DevOps tools you use need to support the essential security functions that can protect your data from these threats. And if your toolset doesn’t offer critical data security features, it’s time to look for another option to address those issues.

A static code analysis tool should offer features like single sign-on (SSO) and two-factor authentication to reduce the attack surface and safeguard your Salesforce environment.

These security features allow teams to focus on creating the most secure and reliable applications possible, protecting your data from the inside and out.

Back to top

6. Compatible with Multiple Coding Environments

Everybody has their own preferences when it comes to work styles. And not every team is going to use the same environment to write code. It’s important for DevOps tools to be flexible to meet people where they are most comfortable. Forcing someone to work in an unfamiliar environment leads to mistakes that can threaten data integrity.

CodeScan is compatible with Apex, Visualforce, Lightning Web Components, Metadata, flows, and process builders so developers can work where they are most comfortable.

This flexibility reduces confusion and puts everyone on the same page. The benefits of an automated code review tool are most apparent when everyone is in a comfortable working environment.

Back to top

7. Increases Delivery Velocity

Organizations that can quickly introduce reliable updates and applications are more flexible and able to address needs and cybersecurity threats as they arise. This enables them to strengthen data security measures while positioning themselves as leaders and innovators in their industry. But this is only possible if these releases are error-free.

Automated code reviews are much faster—and more reliable—than manual reviews. This enables teams to quickly move products through the DevOps cycle.

Quicker releases also enable teams to put out more releases per year. This increases their worth to their customers while also supporting a healthy environment in which to house their own data.

Back to top

8. Promotes Learning

Strong employees have a lot to offer. And employees who grow in their positions increase their value to the organization as a whole as well as every project they work on. However, this type of growth will only happen if the organization provides them with the tools they need to learn.

The immediate alerts and explanations of coding issues from automated code review tools offer insight into better coding practices so developers can learn from their mistakes.

These mistakes will become less likely over time, further streamlining development efforts and protecting system data.

Back to top

9. Increases Visibility

All of these benefits boil down to one major concern when it comes to DevOps: visibility. The processes and tools you use during the application lifecycle need to help you see and understand everything happening throughout the pipeline. Static code analysis is a huge part of this, but it isn’t the only part.

Your DevOps toolbox needs to include a series of automated tools to prevent data issues as well as find and fix existing issues.

Automated release management, data backups, and automated code reviews work together to provide a full overview of the successes and struggles within your DevOps pipeline. Increasing visibility into these processes also increases the stability and reliability of your updates.

Back to top

Next Step…

Now that you understand what can be gained from utilizing code review tools in Salesforce DevOps, let’s look a little deeper into how to choose the right tool for you.

Check out our blog, “The Problem with Generic Code Quality Tools In Salesforce,” to learn more.

Back to top

FAQs

What is an automated code review tool?

Even the best developers are liable to make an occasional mistake. These mistakes can become bugs that impact the functionality of an update or application. Misfires, damaged data, and even data security issues can result from coding mistakes. Manually reviewing these lines of code can be incredibly labor intensive—which leads to an increased chance of missing an error. An automated code review tool is a software application that analyzes source code to identify issues, improve code quality, and ensure adherence to coding standards. Maintaining healthy code with the help of an automated tool enables DevOps teams to quickly produce reliable code without wasting large amounts of team member time.

How does an automated code review tool fit within a DevSecOps pipeline?

Maintaining strong code is the only way to be sure you are consistently producing secure and reliable updates and applications. Static code analysis tools fit perfectly within a full DevSecOps approach and even make the other tools provide better results. Immediate alerts to coding issues allow teams to fix problems before they are pushed further down the DevSecOps pipeline. Knowing these errors are already fixed makes it much smoother when the update or application makes it to the deployment stage. More tests will be run, but an absence of coding errors will streamline the approval process and speed along the project.

What types of data issues exist in Salesforce?

For many organizations, Salesforce is their largest container of data. Any failures within this environment can have wide-ranging negative impacts on their business processes. The types of issues most commonly seen involve the way data is stored, managed, and handled. This could include duplicate or inaccurate records, which leads to confusion, wasted storage space, and misleading insights. Data silos can lead to fragmented processes, which create discrepancies between different teams. Data privacy and security issues threaten regulatory compliance as well as an organization’s reputation. An inability to protect sensitive information makes people less likely to trust an organization with their identifiable data. These problems can all be addressed with proper oversight, testing, and a continually updated data governance policy.