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A Flexible Foundation for Digital Platforms
Organizations with complex digital needs—training, onboarding, partner portals, data collection—often reach a point where out-of-the-box tools aren’t enough. That’s where Heroku comes in.
When combined with Salesforce, Heroku gives teams the ability to build applications that are both flexible in design and tightly integrated with enterprise data systems. It works well for front-end development, API creation, and background data processing. The result is a platform setup that supports both user-facing experiences and backend operations without compromising security or performance.
Real Use Cases: How Teams Are Using Heroku
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
A Learning Management System is a digital platform used to deliver and manage training and education programs. Organizations use LMS solutions for onboarding, compliance training, customer education, or internal skill development. These systems must often support multiple content types, personalized learning paths, and user progress tracking.
For organizations managing training programs—internal or external—Heroku supports:
- Custom learning portals: Built from scratch with React or Vue, these front-ends connect to Salesforce for user data, progress tracking, and content storage.
- Gamification features: Developers can introduce point systems, interactive quizzes, or branching scenarios.
- Integration with Salesforce CMS: Training content is created and managed inside Salesforce, while Heroku delivers it through a polished interface.
- User access via Salesforce SSO: Training platforms support different permission levels depending on the user’s role in the organization.
This is common in healthcare (HIPAA compliance), retail (product education), and public institutions (mandatory training).
Partner Relationship Management (PRM)
A Partner Relationship Management system helps businesses manage communication, collaboration, and transactions with their partner networks—this could include distributors, resellers, service providers, or investors. A PRM platform often includes tools like deal registration, partner onboarding, training modules, and shared marketing resources.
For organizations managing partner networks:
- Custom partner dashboards: Built with Heroku for flexibility beyond what Experience Cloud offers.
- Partner-specific workflows: Apps can include deal registration forms, certification tracking, or co-branded marketing tools.
- Data APIs: Used to show Salesforce CRM data to partners without exposing internal records.
- Role-based access: Partners only see what they need, using Salesforce’s identity system.
In financial services, this setup supports investor portals or limited-access reporting tools. In education, it supports student or alumni engagement platforms.
What Heroku Solutions Make Possible
Extend What Salesforce Does
Not all business logic belongs inside Salesforce. With Heroku, teams can build APIs, background workers, or full applications that process data separately from the CRM. This helps reduce the load on Salesforce while giving developers room to handle more complex or niche functionality.
More Control Over Data Flow
Heroku’s database and queueing systems allow your organization to perform optimized data operations. Instead of performing expensive read/write operations directly in Salesforce, Heroku apps can store data temporarily, validate it, clean it, and sync only what’s needed. This is especially useful for high-volume systems like lead capture forms, learning modules, or mobile apps.
Custom Interfaces with Direct Control
Heroku lets developers build applications in any language (Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, etc.). This flexibility allows teams to design completely custom user interfaces tailored to their audience—something not always achievable in Salesforce’s native UI.
Identity and Access Managed by Salesforce
Applications built on Heroku can use Salesforce Identity and Single Sign-On (SSO). This means users log in once and access both Salesforce-native apps and external Heroku apps with the same credentials. The security is centralized, and there’s no need to manage multiple user systems.
Executive Summary:
Heroku offers a middle ground between custom software development and native Salesforce tools. It supports rapid experimentation, scalable infrastructure, and integration with both Salesforce and external platforms.
For teams that need more than just a standard CRM interface, Heroku Solutions provide a flexible way to extend Salesforce and build tailored applications that scale.
If you’re trying to figure out whether to use Salesforce, Heroku, or both, we can help assess the best architecture for your goals. Want to explore your options with Heroku and Salesforce? Let’s start a conversation.
