Salesforce is well-known for its cloud database model and architecture, making it one of the most popular platforms for building the next generation of apps for non-profit organizations. With the forth-coming Spring 13 release, developers will receive a late holiday present:  the new Salesforce Tooling API.

One of the challenges that developers have had during the past few years is easily sharing their code and best practices with other organizations to help create an open source ecosystem around Salesforce. This is often due to barriers to entry that make it a bit difficult to easily export/import code into your Salesforce instance, especially for those of us supporting the Nonprofit Starter Pack.

In short, it's not easy to collaborate within the Salesforce developer community as it is in other software communities.

With the new Salesforce Tooling API, however, developers in the community can start to build tools for other developers that might make it a lot easier to share code and ideas.  The Tooling API allows for access to key building blocks of Force.com development, including Apex classes, triggers, and VisualForce pages.  This means that our developer community could effectively create tools that makes it easier to share their code, thereby increasing the flow of best practices within our community.

It's enough to make this open source supporter giddy with ideas for the future.

We PICnetters are lucky to get a firsthand glimpse into the inner workings of social change agents in action. Our non-profit clients are why we exist in the first place ... what can I say, we love our clients! We feel even more fortunate to know that the feeling is mutual. We thought we’d share some recent praise for one PICnetter in particular, Amber Manning, our newest project manager.

Amber had the pleasure of working with Groundswell (née DC Project), an organization dedicated to combating both economic inequality and environmental decline by promoting clean energy in local communities. Groundswell underwent a rebranding and needed a new website to match their new face to the world.