Environments
- Production (prod) — the real, live system real users work in. Mistakes here are visible to the client immediately.
- Sandbox — a safe copy of an org for building and testing. You break things here so you never break prod. Work happens in a sandbox; finished work is moved to production.
- Deploy / migrate — moving work from a sandbox into production.
How things get built
- Declarative (“clicks”) — building with point-and-click configuration, no code. Most Salesforce work is declarative.
- Code — Apex is Salesforce's programming language, used for what clicks cannot do.
- “Clicks, not code” — a guiding preference: do it with configuration if you can, code only when you must.
How work is described and shipped
- Requirement — something the client needs the system to do.
- User story — a requirement written from the user's view: “As a sales rep, I want X so that Y.”
- Scope — the agreed list of what the project will (and will not) deliver. “Out of scope” means not in this project.
- UAT — user acceptance testing; the client confirms the work before launch.
- Go-live — the moment it is turned on for real.
- Hypercare — the extra-attentive support window right after go-live.
Using them without faking it
If a term flies by that you do not know, write it down and look it up afterward — do not let a fog of unknown words build up. Nobody expects fluency in week one; everyone expects you to close the gap fast.