---
schema_version: "1"
id: 724dea412bec77df39d888b860cc4d987cd593a056f50ce28ae901130d47b438
title: Concepts, Products, and Services
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/xcloud/264-0-0/basics_sf_concepts_terms.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=xcloud.basics_sf_concepts_terms.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: db9439acf13471145dd37a2f4dd43eeaf327d06ab7c880014d829700d7b9667c
description: As you get started with Salesforce, it’s helpful to learn some key concepts and terms. They come up frequently when you interact with the product, our documentation, and our service professionals. The concepts and terms here help you understand how Salesforce works.
products:
  - Salesforce Platform
  - Cross Cloud
release: "264"
---
# Concepts, Products, and Services

As you get started with Salesforce, it’s helpful to learn some key concepts and terms. They come up frequently when you interact with the product, our documentation, and our service professionals. The concepts and terms here help you understand how Salesforce works.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: Salesforce Classic (<a href="https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=overview_edition_lex_only.htm&amp;type=5&amp;language=en_US" target="_blank">not available in all orgs</a>)</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>All Editions</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

## Concepts

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small ">
        <colgroup>
          <col style="width:21.73913043478261%">
          <col style="width:78.26086956521739%">
        </colgroup>
        <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
          <tr class="">
            <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d33760e67">Concept</th>
            <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d33760e70">Definition</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Concept" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e67 ">Cloud</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e70 ">A Salesforce name for a loose federation of features that help you accomplish
              certain types activities, such as selling products or supporting your customers. Two
              common examples are <em>Service Cloud</em> and <em>Sales Cloud</em>.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Concept" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e67 ">Cloud Computing</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e70 ">Technology that enables Internet-based services that let you sign up and log in
              through a browser. Salesforce delivers its service in the cloud. Other familiar
              cloud computing services include Google Apps and Amazon.com.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Concept" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e67 ">Software as a Service (SaaS)</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e70 ">Software delivered not by traditional means (such as on disk) but in the cloud,
              as a service. There’s nothing to download or install, and updates are
              automatic.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Concept" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e67 ">Trust</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e70 ">
              <p>A Salesforce term for its company-wide commitment to building and delivering
                the most secure, fast, and reliable cloud-based service
                available.</p>
              <p><samp class="filepath">trust.salesforce.com</samp> is a systems status
                website that provides Salesforce customers and the community access to real-time
                and historical system performance information and updates. It also lists incident
                reports and maintenance schedules across all its key system
                components.</p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;"><samp class="filepath">trust.salesforce.com</samp> is free to all
                members of the Salesforce community.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>

## Products and Services

Salesforce includes these products and services.

 
| Product or Service | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Salesforce Applications | Salesforce includes prebuilt applications (or “apps”) for customer relationship management (CRM) ranging from sales force automation to partner relationship management, marketing, and customer service. |
| Lightning Platform | The Lightning platform is the first platform as a service (PaaS). Developers can create and deliver any kind of business application entirely on demand and without software. The platform also includes easy to use point-and-click customization tools to help you create solutions for your unique business requirements, without any programming experience. |
| AppExchange | AppExchange is a marketplace featuring hundreds of cloud applications created by Salesforce customers, developers, and partners. Many of the applications are free and all of them are pre-integrated with Salesforce, enabling you to easily and efficiently add functionality. |
| Salesforce.com Community | Salesforce provides training, support, consulting, events, best practices, and discussion boards to help you be successful. Visit [Salesforce.com Community](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/trailblazer-community/feed/). |

## Terms

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small ">
        <colgroup>
          <col style="width:21.73913043478261%">
          <col style="width:78.26086956521739%">
        </colgroup>
        <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
          <tr class="">
            <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d33760e222">Term</th>
            <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d33760e225">Definition</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">App</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">Short for <em>application</em>. A collection of components such as tabs, reports,
              dashboards, and Visualforce pages that address specific business needs. Salesforce
              provides standard apps, which you can customize, such as Sales and Service. You can
              customize the standard apps to match the way you work. </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">Edition</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">One of several bundles of Salesforce products and services, each geared toward
              a different set of business needs. All Salesforce editions share the look and feel,
              but they vary by feature, functionality, and pricing.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">Object</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">
              <p>A definition of a specific type of information you can store in Salesforce. For
                example, the Case object lets you store information about customer inquiries. For
                each object, your organization has multiple, specific records.</p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">Salesforce comes
                with lots of standard objects, but you can create custom objects, as
                well.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">Organization</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">A deployment of Salesforce that has a defined set of licensed users. Your
              organization includes all your data and applications.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">Record</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">A collection of fields that store information about a specific item of a
              specific type. A record is an object, such as a contact, an account, or an
              opportunity. For example, you can have a contact record to store information about
              Joe Smith, and a case record store information about his training inquiry.</td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">Release</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">
              <p>Salesforce releases new products and features three times per year, and we
                identify releases by season—Winter, Spring, and Summer—along with the
                calendar year. <em>Example:</em> Winter ’15. </p>
              <p style="margin-bottom:0;">For every Salesforce release,
                the Salesforce release notes include new features and products that are generally
                available or in beta release. They also describe all changes to existing features
                and products. You can find the release notes when you search for “Release
                Notes” in the Salesforce Help.</p>
            </td>

          </tr>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="Term" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e222 ">Salesforce</td>

            <td data-label="Definition" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d33760e225 ">The name of the Salesforce cloud computing CRM service and the company
              name.</td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>