A complete step-by-step tutorial series for Salesforce Admins
Every Salesforce team has the same problem. People get trained once, then forget. Process documentation lives somewhere outside Salesforce — in SharePoint, in Confluence, in someone’s head — and nobody looks at it when they actually need it.
This tutorial series walks you through building a solution entirely inside Salesforce, using Claude as your AI coding assistant. By the end you’ll have a fully working internal guide application: a searchable library, contextual help on record pages, a quick action button, an approval workflow, and a clean reading experience — all built on custom objects and Lightning Web Components, with no AppExchange licence required.
You don’t need to be a developer. You need to be a Salesforce Admin who’s willing to learn how to use AI to write code.
What you’ll build
- A searchable, filterable guide library with a card grid layout
- A rich text guide editor with video support and a draft/publish workflow
- A queue-based approval process before guides go live
- A contextual sidebar on Account, Opportunity, and Case record pages showing relevant guides automatically
- A quick action modal button on record pages with object-specific and functionality guides
- A clean standalone article reader with no Salesforce record chrome
- An admin-only guide library for internal Salesforce documentation
- Salesforce Knowledge article integration — existing articles surfaced in the same library
- A full permission model: Viewer, Admin, and Approver roles
What you’ll learn
- How to design a data model with AI before writing any code
- How to write Apex service classes using Claude as your coding assistant
- How to build Lightning Web Components through prompting — not typing
- How to debug deployment errors by describing them precisely to AI
- How to avoid the most common mistakes when using AI for Salesforce development
- How to deploy code from your computer to Salesforce using the CLI
The series
Work through the pages in order. Each one builds on the last and ends with a check your work section so you know you’re on solid ground before moving on.
Page 0 — Prerequisites: Setting Up Your Development Environment
Install VS Code, the Salesforce CLI, and connect them to your org. Start here if you’ve never used SFDX before. If you already have the tools set up, skip straight to Page 1. Time: 20–30 minutes
Page 1 — What We’re Building
A walkthrough of the finished app — what it looks like, what it does, and where AI fits in. Read this before committing to the build so you know exactly what you’re working towards. Time: 5 minutes
Page 2 — Designing the Data Model with AI
How to have the architecture conversation with Claude before writing any code. Then the manual Setup work: four custom objects, all their fields, picklist values, and sharing settings. Time: 45–60 minutes
Page 3 — The Approval Process
Build a queue-based publishing workflow. Guides go through a designated approver before becoming visible. Admin-audience guides bypass it entirely. Time: 20–30 minutes
Page 4 — Writing Apex with AI Assistance
The centrepiece of the AI-assisted approach. Step-by-step prompts to generate the full Apex service class, a common SOQL error explained and fixed, and how to get Claude to write a test class that actually passes. Time: 30–45 minutes
Page 5 — Building the Core LWC Components
Five Lightning Web Components generated through prompting: the card, the library, the article reader, the video block, and the guide editor. Includes the context-setting prompt that makes everything work better. Time: 60–90 minutes
Page 6 — Wiring It Together in Lightning App Builder
Create the Lightning pages, build the Guide Hub app, and run your first end-to-end test — author a guide, approve it, and read it. Time: 20–30 minutes
Page 7 — Contextual Sidebar and Quick Action Modal
Build the two contextual entry points: a sidebar on record pages that surfaces relevant guides automatically, and an Open Guides action button with object-specific and functionality tabs. Time: 30–40 minutes
Page 8 — Video Support and the Visualforce Bridge
Add YouTube, Vimeo, external links, and Salesforce File video support to guides. Includes the CSP Trusted Sites setup and the Visualforce bridge for native file streaming. Time: 30–40 minutes
Page 9 — Permissions and the Security Model
Build three permission sets — Viewer, Admin, Approver — and wire them to the approval queue. The Modify All decision explained. Field-level security covered. Time: 20–30 minutes
Page 10 — Knowledge Integration and Polish
Surface existing Salesforce Knowledge articles in the guide library alongside your custom guides. Add the Show In Guide Hub checkbox, update the Apex, and handle the standalone article reader for Knowledge content. Time: 20–30 minutes
Bonus — Prompting Patterns for Salesforce Development
The meta-skills this series teaches, distilled into reusable patterns. How to give AI context, describe errors precisely, recognise when Claude is guessing, and know when not to use AI at all. This page stands alone — share it independently.
Before you start
You need a Salesforce org to build in. A free Trailhead Developer Edition org is perfect — sign up at developer.salesforce.com/signup.
You need a Claude account at claude.ai. The free tier works for most of this series. The Pro tier gives you longer conversations which helps during the larger phases.
Total time for the full series is around 6–8 hours spread across as many sessions as you like. Each page is self-contained — you can stop and come back without losing your place.
Ready? Start with Page 0 — Prerequisites or jump straight to Page 1 if your tools are already set up.