What is the difference between Salesforce and Jobscience?
If your company is using JobScience you probably know that it is a Salesforce-based tool. That may sound cool, but what does it really mean and how does it affect your ability to configure and modify the system?
Salesforce vs. Salesforce Platform Basics
On a high level, JobScience is a Salesforce Platform AppExchange tool. The "Salesforce Platform" license is different than standard Salesforce licenses in the following ways:
Standard Salesforce licenses give users access to all standard Salesforce object and unlimited custom objects. Standard objects have a lot of logic built into them for sales people or customer service. Example of standard objects include Leads, Opportunities, Forecasts, Cases, and Solutions. JobScience will not have any of these objects.
Salesforce Platform licenses give access to a more basic set of standard objects like Account and Contacts and unlimited custom objects. This is where JobScience fills in the void left by the absence of the standard Salesforce objects. They have created a set of custom objects like Job Orders, Applications, and Placements that are more useful to consulting firms and placement agencies than Leads and Opportunities.
As a side note, Salesforce Platform licenses cost a fraction of the cost that a standard Salesforce license, so JobScience pays Salesforce for the right to use their platform, and then they make their money on the difference between the Salesforce Platform cost and the amount they charge their customers per license.
Even though JobScience adds on their licensing cost, it still ends up costing quite a bit less than the standard Salesforce licensing overall. So, it is still cheaper than buying Salesforce and then customizing it for your recruiting process.
Administration of SalesForce vs. Salesforce Platform
The other big difference between a Salesforce Platform license and a Salesforce license is the ability to assign all access levels. This has a couple implications, but most significantly it means that a Salesforce Platform license does not allow a user to perform system admin functions. This is why there can only be one admin in your company (if you have less than 50 users). The admin needs to have a standard Salesforce license in order to act as an admin. Most organizations will elect to purchase only one standard license since the standard Salesforce license costs a lot more than a Platform license. You will notice that JobScience support also has a Salesforce license so that they can act as an admin in the organization.
Are your admin powers limited as a JobScience admin? Yes and no. Let me explain.
On one hand, you have the ability to do everything that your standard Salesforce admin cousins can do. You can access all users, app, and data management tools. You can add apex code, perform deployments, manage sandboxes, and build workflows.
On the other hand, there are certain workflows, dependencies, fields, and data validations that are hidden or un-editable due to the JobScience custom objects. A good example is the Application workflow. As an admin you can control certain parts of the workflow through their "AMS Settings" object, but you can't really control what is happening behind the scenes. Most of the time this doesn't matter, but it does limit your ability to customize these objects at times. If you are consistently running into hurdles with a JobScience object (e.g. Applications) it may make sense to create your own custom object(s) to give your users the tools they need.
Wrapping it all up
Hopefully this has helped shed light on a subject that was very confusing to me when I was first introduced to JobScience.
One of the main take aways I want to convey is that JobScience is VERY customizable since it is built on the Salesforce platform. If something is not working for your team you can probably find a way to customize it so it works better. You have a ton of tools at your disposal as an admin.
Feel free to post a comment below if you have questions or thoughts on this topic.