Change Tracking Instead of Memory
Sandbox change tracking lists what you touched, so a work item is assembled from what actually changed rather than from an admin's notes. Components that used to get left out of a change set stop getting left out.
Automation & Workflow
Salesforce DevOps Center: Release Management Without Change Sets
A practical look at Salesforce DevOps Center for admins who ship changes and the leaders who sign them off. Written by a team that is 100% Salesforce™ Certified.
If your releases still travel by change set, and the list of components is rebuilt by hand every time one fails, this page explains what the alternative looks like and what it asks of you in return.
The Short Answer
What Is Salesforce DevOps Center, and What Does It Replace?
Salesforce DevOps Center is a tool from Salesforce for moving changes between environments. It installs into your production org as a managed package and gives admins a click based way to pick up what they changed in a sandbox and promote it along a pipeline, with a source control repository doing the record keeping underneath.
The shift is that every change becomes a commit. An admin picks components from a list of detected changes rather than typing a component list from memory, attaches them to a work item, and moves that work item through the environments you defined. Developers working in code and admins working in Setup end up contributing to the same repository.
It is a delivery tool, not a process. It records what changed and moves it safely. Deciding what is ready, who reviews it, and when it goes to production is still a decision your team has to make and stick to.
Backed by a Git repository, without asking admins to use Git
Changes are picked from detected metadata, not typed by hand
A work item carries a change through the whole pipeline
Installed into production as a managed package from Salesforce
Inside the Tool
What Salesforce DevOps Center Changes About Shipping Work
Three differences matter more than the interface, and they are the reasons teams move across.
A Pipeline You Define Once
Environments are set up once as stages in order, so promotion is the same route every time. The next release does not depend on whoever built the last one remembering the sequence.
A Trail You Can Show Someone
Because promotions are commits against a repository, there is a history of what went to production, when, and attached to which piece of work. That is the answer to most audit questions and to most arguments about who changed a field.
Two Ways To Get It
Run Releases In House, or Bring In a Certified Team
Adopting Salesforce DevOps Center is a small install and a large habit change. Teams either grow that habit internally or borrow it. Here is how the two compare.
| Consideration | Doing it in house | Fractional Admin Team |
|---|---|---|
| Time to useful work | Someone learns the tool, sets up the repository and untangles the first failed promotion while releases queue behind it. | We can begin immediately, with no lengthy onboarding. |
| Cost shape | A full time salary and benefits, carried whether the backlog is full or empty. | Monthly hour packages from $2,200, with a 10% discount on annual plans. |
| Range of skills | One person holding release management, metadata knowledge and the source control setup at the same time. | Certified administrators plus a dedicated business analyst, project manager and trainer. |
| Continuity | Leave, illness and resignation all stop the work. | A dedicated team acting as an extension of your business, with a single point of contact. |
| Commitment | A permanent hire, decided before you know the size of the backlog. | No long term contracts. Change tier or stop as your needs change. |
Being Straight With You
We Do Not Sell DevOps Center. We Set It Up and Run It With You.
Salesforce DevOps Center comes from Salesforce, not from us, and Salesforce publishes the current availability and edition requirements on its own product pages. Check there rather than trusting a figure in an article.
What we do is the surrounding work: connecting the repository, defining the pipeline to match your real environments, agreeing what a work item covers, and training the people who will use it every week. Our team is 100% Salesforce™ Certified with over 25 years of combined Salesforce™ expertise. Before a release that touches records rather than metadata, it is worth reading our page on salesforce data export, and salesforce admin certification covers the platform knowledge this work assumes.
Get In TouchPlatform Assessment
A discovery driven audit of your existing org: configuration, automation, user management and support. Outcome: a prioritized roadmap of improvements to drive faster ROI.
New Implementation
A scalable org built from scratch: objects, page layouts, flows, security, dashboards, Lightning apps and Field Service. Outcome: a fit for purpose Salesforce built to support the business from day one.
Platform Enhancement
Adjusting an existing org as the business changes: new features, interface changes, better automation, role updates and advanced training. Outcome: a refined Salesforce that scales with the business.
Fractional Admin Team
Ongoing administration on flexible monthly hour packages: reports and dashboards, quick fixes, Flow edits, user support and training. Outcome: continuous improvement and uptime without full time cost.
How It Works
Three Steps From First Call to Shipped Work
1
Choose Your Package
Pick the monthly hour package that matches the size of your backlog. Move up or down later as the work changes.
2
Onboard With Your Expert
Discovery, an org review, then a prioritized backlog and roadmap so you can see what is being fixed and in what order.
3
We Get It Done
Build, test and launch in short predictable cycles, with enablement, documentation and post go live support.
Fractional Admin Team Plans
Certified Admin Hours for Release Work, Priced by the Month
Monthly rates below. Annual plans carry a 10% discount, shown in brackets. Platform Assessment, New Implementation and Platform Enhancement are quoted custom.
Starter
10 hrs, $2,200/mo ($2,000/mo annual)
Perfect for small businesses getting started with Salesforce.
Growth
20 hrs, $3,850/mo ($3,500/mo annual)
Ideal for expanding businesses with more Salesforce needs.
Professional
40 hrs, $6,600/mo ($6,000/mo annual)
For established businesses with advanced Salesforce requirements.
Enterprise
60 hrs, $8,250/mo ($7,500/mo annual)
For larger organizations with complex Salesforce needs.
Questions
Salesforce DevOps Center FAQ
What is Salesforce DevOps Center?
It is a release management tool from Salesforce, installed into your production org as a managed package. It connects to a source control repository, lets admins select changes detected in a sandbox, groups them into work items, and promotes those work items through a pipeline of environments you define.
Does DevOps Center replace change sets?
For most teams that is the point of adopting it. Change sets are manual, easy to build incompletely, and leave no useful history. DevOps Center assembles the change list from tracked metadata and records each promotion against a repository. Salesforce is clear that DevOps Center is the direction of travel for declarative release management.
Do I need to know Git to use it?
No. That is the design. Admins work in a Salesforce interface, selecting components and moving work items, while commits and branches happen underneath. Someone on the project does need to understand the repository well enough to set it up and to sort out a conflict when two people change the same thing.
What does Salesforce DevOps Center cost?
Salesforce provides it as part of the platform rather than as a separately priced product, but availability depends on your edition and on the version Salesforce currently ships. Check the Salesforce product and release documentation for the current position before planning around it.
Can The Mercury Collective set up and run DevOps Center for us?
Yes. Connecting the repository, defining a pipeline that matches your sandboxes, and establishing what a work item means sits inside Platform Enhancement. Running releases week to week sits inside our Fractional Admin Team, on flexible monthly hour packages with no long term contracts.
Tired of Rebuilding the Same Change Set?
Tell us how your changes reach production today and we will tell you honestly whether DevOps Center helps, or whether the fix is somewhere else.
Talk to the Team
We Make Salesforce™ Simple. Ask us anything about running your org, including the questions you think are too small to ask.
Office
300 St Peters Centre Blvd, Suite 250, St Peters, MO 63376
Office Hours
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 9AM to 5PM. Closed Saturday and Sunday.