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Citizen Developer App

by Paul McCollum


  1. Whiteboard a list of skills for your potential citizen developers. If you need a framework, I used the Trailhead trails and modules to determine the right citizen developer levels at my company.

  2. Create a custom object for your potential citizen developers (“CD”). Make sure to turn on reporting! New to creating custom objects? Check out this trail.

  3. Add contact fields including first and last name, email, Salesforce ID, region, link to their Trailhead profile, and phone but also add a skill proficiency picklist. I use new, basic, and advanced for mine.

  4. Identify key Trailhead modules that will be important to your org and create a Trailmix (list of modules and projects) on Trailhead. I have 3 different trailmixes based on my skill picklist.

    Trailblazer Note

    Consider the levels of citizen developer that we identified in step 1 as a guide. To get you started, here is the first trail that I recommend for my new CDs.

  5. Using Process Builder, automate the process of messaging the CDs with the trails. The action should trigger when the combo box on the record changes. For example, when someone’s status is new, they should receive an introduction chatter or email and the first trailmix.

    Paul's process builder
  6. Build out the rest of the processes, messaging the CD based on each level of proficiency. You can also add tasks to remind yourself to follow up or create a sandbox when they are ready to build.

  7. Now when potential CDs approach you with an idea, you add them to the app, and their journey begins. Once you confirm they have completed the Trailmix (yes, manually), you can confidently grant them access to a sandbox.

  8. Remember enabling reporting in step 2? Your CD and their proficiencies are in the app so you can run reports to identify who can help coach or even co-develop larger CD app projects!

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