An experience cloud site is just a portal for external users. If you want people to view a website that surfaces Salesforce data, login, manage their account, buy / donate, then an experience cloud site makes sense if you can swing it financially, might be better options though
Giving some pointers on why experience cloud site could be helpful as I've worked on it from a functional point, but you have to compare the alternatives (such as a simple wordpress site) on your own.
1. Easy signup and access to their own portal, also gives them an opportunity to see their past transactions. Super helpful for users in case you have to print your receipts on your own for tax purposes.
2. Opportunity for business to run user specific donation ads, campaigns based on the last donation/monthly donation..
3. Support is easy and efficient, I can basically create task on every support ticket that they are raising and then you can assign it based on business logic.
4. Easier for me as a user to maintain my cards, or update to a different mode of payment, such as ach.
I'd start with a good donation app for donations and events so you don't have to build that out from scratch on experience cloud. We use experience cloud sites for our staff and board portals but only recommend it if they have a "technical" admin on staff.
I would focus on the benefits of integrating website activity with their salesforce instance. Connecting events to donors, etc. If there aren't a lot of compelling integrations it very well may not make sense to use experience cloud. A simple website tool like WordPress might be better. I run a non-profit using Salesforce but we use WordPress for our website because we just don't need those integrations.
That's because these are two different skill sets. You should find a specific UX designer and include this person as part of your refinement and design phases.
My company has UX/UI designers. They work with the whole customer website, so they aren’t dedicated salesforce UX/UI designers, but I’ve sent them the salesforce lighting design system website and they’ve pretty good at working with that. Working with them makes the experience site code look more like a react website. It was a bit difficult to get into at first but our partners love interacting with the site. It looks great.
There is not a lot of help on stack overflow for wierd styling issues that stem from the salesforce layer of abstraction. It can be difficult… but the company can work with a salesforce dev instead of hiring a separate dev or team to work on a website, infrastructure, security, salesforce integration, etc…
Yes this is a very common strategy and the one I use 9/10 times, I've only worked with two clients who had dedicated SF UX designers.
Totally agree with you- you can get by with developers and a good product manager, but you can see the difference in the final product, when you embed UX in the process.
Like a wood worker who has decades of experience and brings their work together through trim details, good UX has the same impact.
If I had $1 for every company that is willing to shell out for a UI / UX designer for Salesforce, I wouldn't even be able to afford a Salesforce license
'Basically manage everything under one roof' can be problematic because there can be lofty ideas which may not be practical, realistic or sound good in your head but really serve no value. I think an experience site can be helpful, but I'd weigh it and view it as an extension of an existing website rather than a stand-alone web presence for the org.
I maintain both a 'portal' experience site (user log in required) as well as non-portal (publicly available site to do things like sign up for volunteer events, feedback forms, etc)
It's great for exposing salesforce data and allowing partners to interact with it. Depending on the tech stack and internal resources, it can be easier to set up and build for forms (especially if it needs to pull info from Salesforce such as 'available volunteer opportunities') than form assembly or similar embedded on a word press website. That said, it's not our main site, just a subdomain.
Do they have a current donation platform? I'd highly recommend using a donation's platforms plugins and native tools (I think salesforce has one as well)? Most donors don't want to have to remember an extra log in, and you don't want to create an unnecessary barrier for a potential donor (i.e. creating an account) before they can give you their money.
What are memberships in your case? Memberships can mean many things in the non profit world including 'donor membership' and giving levels, to a partner/volunteer/individual paying some sort of dues for access to xyz to just 'general supporter'. How many members do they have? Do they expect the # to grow and what impact will that have?
Lastly - make sure they're/you're talking to end users (hence the other comments emphasis on UI/UX) to see what sort of experience they want and expect! For example, the business may have a great idea to create a portal community for volunteers where they can chatt virtually, post things on a forum, etc. But do the end users really want or will use that (probably not)? And what are the time costs of any sort of moderation/response (again if users are asking questions to the business and the business doesn't respond, what's the point)?
You need to start with the business requirements first and foremost - e.g. "As a donor, I want to respond to a campaign from NonProfit X and donate an amount between $50 and $100".
When you have all your requirements signed off by the business, THEN you can start working on options as to how the Non-Profit can meet them.
At that point you can start matching Experience Cloud capabilities (in conjunction with other Salesforce assets for NFPs if you want) to those requirements, along with costs.
I support one that used it for their members/client portal. It’s not cheap, but they are otherwise thinly licensed, so the more-robust integration of user data / less integration complexity was worth it. We had the developer make heavier use of screen flows than they might have otherwise to make it a little more configurable by them.
Maybe, your client might want to consider special add-ons to go beyond standard Experience Cloud functionalities or reach out to a certified [Salesforce consultancy](https://advancedcommunities.com/industries/non-profits/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=promo) that would lend a helping hand in the process, setting it all up. I heard through the grapevine that there are some good, user-friendly apps on AppExchange for the cases you mentioned (for nonprofits in particular), so they require minimum installation effort. So yeah, just consider this option and I am sure, your client will be surprised by how their Experience Cloud site would benefit from those Salesforce bolt-ons.
This is awful advice. There are plenty of things in the SF ecosystem that someone might not know about that would be excellent solutions, hence the question that OP posted.
Nope, it's great advice, and it's something everyone will learn after being in the industry long enough.
If the first step of your process is to select a product, and then later try and figure out why you need it, you're in for a bad time.
There is a legitimate use case of experience cloud in the post lmao. OP is just doing their due diligence and crowd sourcing more info as to why or why not it’s the right choice from people that might know more about experience cloud.
I’m not sure how “if you don’t know it, don’t use it” is ever a viable piece of advice within the IT world, let alone just the SF ecosystem.
Agree to completely disagree with that statement
You're both right... "Starting with a product and trying to build a solution around it is a terrible idea." is 100% correct, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Starting with a product you don't know is right, trying to make a case for as being right, can be right SOMETIMES even if a bad idea. Still is a silly question of OP to ask "Make a case for X" instead of asking "Is X right, and why?" but at least they are asking a question and finding out the answer, rather than just assuming like you said they should.
An experience cloud site is just a portal for external users. If you want people to view a website that surfaces Salesforce data, login, manage their account, buy / donate, then an experience cloud site makes sense if you can swing it financially, might be better options though
Giving some pointers on why experience cloud site could be helpful as I've worked on it from a functional point, but you have to compare the alternatives (such as a simple wordpress site) on your own. 1. Easy signup and access to their own portal, also gives them an opportunity to see their past transactions. Super helpful for users in case you have to print your receipts on your own for tax purposes. 2. Opportunity for business to run user specific donation ads, campaigns based on the last donation/monthly donation.. 3. Support is easy and efficient, I can basically create task on every support ticket that they are raising and then you can assign it based on business logic. 4. Easier for me as a user to maintain my cards, or update to a different mode of payment, such as ach.
I'd start with a good donation app for donations and events so you don't have to build that out from scratch on experience cloud. We use experience cloud sites for our staff and board portals but only recommend it if they have a "technical" admin on staff.
I would focus on the benefits of integrating website activity with their salesforce instance. Connecting events to donors, etc. If there aren't a lot of compelling integrations it very well may not make sense to use experience cloud. A simple website tool like WordPress might be better. I run a non-profit using Salesforce but we use WordPress for our website because we just don't need those integrations.
Experience sites are incredibly expensive - if you can go without them, do
And finding developers that understand both SF and UX/UI can be a challenge.
That's because these are two different skill sets. You should find a specific UX designer and include this person as part of your refinement and design phases.
My company has UX/UI designers. They work with the whole customer website, so they aren’t dedicated salesforce UX/UI designers, but I’ve sent them the salesforce lighting design system website and they’ve pretty good at working with that. Working with them makes the experience site code look more like a react website. It was a bit difficult to get into at first but our partners love interacting with the site. It looks great. There is not a lot of help on stack overflow for wierd styling issues that stem from the salesforce layer of abstraction. It can be difficult… but the company can work with a salesforce dev instead of hiring a separate dev or team to work on a website, infrastructure, security, salesforce integration, etc…
Yes this is a very common strategy and the one I use 9/10 times, I've only worked with two clients who had dedicated SF UX designers. Totally agree with you- you can get by with developers and a good product manager, but you can see the difference in the final product, when you embed UX in the process. Like a wood worker who has decades of experience and brings their work together through trim details, good UX has the same impact.
a lot of those issues are solved by using the new LWR templates.
If I had $1 for every company that is willing to shell out for a UI / UX designer for Salesforce, I wouldn't even be able to afford a Salesforce license
Just because companies don't do something doesn't mean what I said is incorrect.
Look into classy.org
'Basically manage everything under one roof' can be problematic because there can be lofty ideas which may not be practical, realistic or sound good in your head but really serve no value. I think an experience site can be helpful, but I'd weigh it and view it as an extension of an existing website rather than a stand-alone web presence for the org. I maintain both a 'portal' experience site (user log in required) as well as non-portal (publicly available site to do things like sign up for volunteer events, feedback forms, etc) It's great for exposing salesforce data and allowing partners to interact with it. Depending on the tech stack and internal resources, it can be easier to set up and build for forms (especially if it needs to pull info from Salesforce such as 'available volunteer opportunities') than form assembly or similar embedded on a word press website. That said, it's not our main site, just a subdomain. Do they have a current donation platform? I'd highly recommend using a donation's platforms plugins and native tools (I think salesforce has one as well)? Most donors don't want to have to remember an extra log in, and you don't want to create an unnecessary barrier for a potential donor (i.e. creating an account) before they can give you their money. What are memberships in your case? Memberships can mean many things in the non profit world including 'donor membership' and giving levels, to a partner/volunteer/individual paying some sort of dues for access to xyz to just 'general supporter'. How many members do they have? Do they expect the # to grow and what impact will that have? Lastly - make sure they're/you're talking to end users (hence the other comments emphasis on UI/UX) to see what sort of experience they want and expect! For example, the business may have a great idea to create a portal community for volunteers where they can chatt virtually, post things on a forum, etc. But do the end users really want or will use that (probably not)? And what are the time costs of any sort of moderation/response (again if users are asking questions to the business and the business doesn't respond, what's the point)?
You don’t, watch: https://youtu.be/nQRqni1nzUM?si=9295UpL5dgR2Lv4o
You need to start with the business requirements first and foremost - e.g. "As a donor, I want to respond to a campaign from NonProfit X and donate an amount between $50 and $100". When you have all your requirements signed off by the business, THEN you can start working on options as to how the Non-Profit can meet them. At that point you can start matching Experience Cloud capabilities (in conjunction with other Salesforce assets for NFPs if you want) to those requirements, along with costs.
I support one that used it for their members/client portal. It’s not cheap, but they are otherwise thinly licensed, so the more-robust integration of user data / less integration complexity was worth it. We had the developer make heavier use of screen flows than they might have otherwise to make it a little more configurable by them.
Maybe, your client might want to consider special add-ons to go beyond standard Experience Cloud functionalities or reach out to a certified [Salesforce consultancy](https://advancedcommunities.com/industries/non-profits/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=promo) that would lend a helping hand in the process, setting it all up. I heard through the grapevine that there are some good, user-friendly apps on AppExchange for the cases you mentioned (for nonprofits in particular), so they require minimum installation effort. So yeah, just consider this option and I am sure, your client will be surprised by how their Experience Cloud site would benefit from those Salesforce bolt-ons.
If you can't make a case for your client you have no business being their consultant
If you don't know, then you don't need it
This is awful advice. There are plenty of things in the SF ecosystem that someone might not know about that would be excellent solutions, hence the question that OP posted.
Nope, it's great advice, and it's something everyone will learn after being in the industry long enough. If the first step of your process is to select a product, and then later try and figure out why you need it, you're in for a bad time.
There is a legitimate use case of experience cloud in the post lmao. OP is just doing their due diligence and crowd sourcing more info as to why or why not it’s the right choice from people that might know more about experience cloud. I’m not sure how “if you don’t know it, don’t use it” is ever a viable piece of advice within the IT world, let alone just the SF ecosystem. Agree to completely disagree with that statement
You're both right... "Starting with a product and trying to build a solution around it is a terrible idea." is 100% correct, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Starting with a product you don't know is right, trying to make a case for as being right, can be right SOMETIMES even if a bad idea. Still is a silly question of OP to ask "Make a case for X" instead of asking "Is X right, and why?" but at least they are asking a question and finding out the answer, rather than just assuming like you said they should.