Knowing when to go beyond declarative features

Throughout this book, we have highlighted a range of scenarios that might mean you can't—or shouldn't—go forward with a standard or even a declarative solution. Whether for compliance or goodness of fit, or due to a need for detailed algorithmic control, a third-party or custom solution can in many cases be the right decision. Just because you have good features on a platform, this doesn't mean these features can solve every requirement well.

First, it is worth noting that Einstein Platform Services, while developed by Salesforce, is actually from an architectural point of view more or less equivalent to a third-party API solution just with a bit of additional tooling added to make your life easier. You should therefore evaluate these alongside other third-party APIs in most cases.

Third-party API solutions in general can add substantial value if they are a close fit to business requirements. They are...