ISV App - Test Drive TrialForce Etc

If you have applied to be part of the UI Alliance  - we would consider your Test Drive and TrialForce orgs to be developer orgs and would grant you licenses in those spaces, in the same way that Salesforce grants that kind of org to ISV partners for the purpose of packaging up your app.  You should sign up! 

Hi ddeveaux, we’ve just been through that exact process and the Skuid guys have been awesome the whole way. We have a test org, trial template org, and at least one dev org all running Skuid developer licences. The path has been laid out with Salesforce by PractiFi and a few others so there is no issue developing an ISV/OEM app with Skuid.

Yep, I can highly recommend using Skuid for your ISV app. It works just fine with Trialforce and the end-to-end provisioning process.

How does this process work for customers who install our managed package? Do we have to first install Skuid on their new Org and then our package? Or are we able to package Skuid inside of our managed package so that it is one install?

You can choose. Salesforce has always had the option of extension packages. So if you want to REQUIRE that the users also have Skuid, then you would create a dependency in your org by referencing Skuid in your Development org. (i.e. some page overrides, etc.)

Preferably, and more safely though, you’d do your package in one DE org, install it into another org and create your Skuid dependencies there…just in case you change your mind at some point you still have a package without Skuid. That process is spelled out for creating extensions in ISV guide.

Unfortunately Salesforce does not yet have the ability to enable people to install it all as 1 package though so Yes, you would have to install one then the other. Skuid may/may not have to be first depending on what’s in your package.

With this said, one of the Skuid team members will probably pipe in here with some uber creative solution to install both in 1 install 🙂  I’m kind of kidding here because the licensing is all separate so I don’t think this is the case. For the Skuid Superbank though, you can at least auto assign the licenses after your package is installed saving 1 step.

The one somewhat clunky piece, and this is true for ANY extension you have, is that you have to keep requesting Skuid for your different orgs. Trialforce, Developer, Beta Testing, Etc.  Again, that’s not a function of Skuid though.

Installing a package that leverages Skuid into an existing org has always been problematic.  You really need to have your users install Skuid at some point in the process,  It might even work if they install after you install your package - as long as you don’t attempt to unpack pages from static resources etc.  Salesforce just doesn’t give us good tools for automating or enforcing multi package dependencies in the package installation process.  And then of course there is the licensing issue.  Your customer has to become our customer.  Again Salesforce doesn’t have a good way for making OEM third party packages. 

Installing into a new org is a breeze.  Trialforce installs work really well and walk your users through all the packages needed.  But it doesn’t sound like that is you… 

Not sure where you are in the process or your app but we have an OEM app. So that includes an Admin license to their org for us. So we install this for them, assign the licenses, etc so they see none of that.

Still a hassle but at least for us and not the customer…and they don’t know Skuid exists (sorry).

Thanks for the info, everyone. For a little more background, we are building our first OEM app that is white labeled. The goal would be for the user to never see Salesforce and not Skuid either, just our app. I tried creating our first managed package for beta testing and was given the error that Skuid was not installed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like we would have to install Skuid in a customer’s new org, then install our app. We would definitely not want the customer to go through those steps. Is there anything I’m missing? Is this process streamlined for trialforce?

For Trialforce yes because it’s just creating a clone of whatever is there. So you will have both apps installed and the permissions assigned to the TF users. When a Lead installs Trialforce then Skuid and your app are included along with any data and permissions.

So there is no user work to install other items when using TF. In fact, if there is, Salesforce will not approve the app during the (separate) TF Security Review. They want to ensure the user can just install and see/do something.

Great, that’s what I wanted to hear for the Trialforce side of things. What about when they become a paying customer, is that when we would need to install Skuid on their Org? How does that process work? 

Well, not if they went through Trialforce. Then you just convert. The Trialforce becomes their org. If they add users to your app then you either do have to have someone assign Skuid licenses or, new with the latest Superbank release. tell it to auto grant licenses to new users (based on profiles).

But if you are White label OEM it might be possible that users aren’t installing via TF? If not, then you have to install for them yes.

If TF installs the whole package and converts it, then I would imagine we would be fine. I dont think any customers will not start through the trial. Thank you so much for the help. Last question (for now) where do we go about requesting Skuid on test/demo accounts? Would we register them as developer accounts?

The Skuid license process is/will be part of your partner agreement with Skuid. So I’ll bump you to them for that if you haven’t already become a partner with them.

We have a partner agreement. Just didn’t discuss specifics on how that process works. I’ll reach out to them directly for that. Thanks again for your help!

Ok. Basically then you just have to keep sending them the Org ID and what kind of org it is and they enable it for you. Since sometimes you don’t know the orgs up front, (i.e. you might not have created your TF org yet) it’s iterative.

Have to allow for some lead time but so far we get most of ours in 24 hrs. What they currently have you do is to install the Trial, so you can get going on that, and then do the above and the convert it on the backend. They actually said you have to install the trial as there isnt’ a way currently to just give you a production link. But Trial is same thing anyway.

Can I check if this still is the case?