SnapShot Help & Reference

Key SnapShot Features

SnapShot has three key capabilities:

Comparing Account Changes: SnapShot can be used to take periodic pictures of an account archived by date. This provides an important level of security by documenting all account modifications and changes at the schema level.

Side-by-Side Account Comparison: SnapShot will let you log into any account and take a picture. This feature provides important feedback for System Integrators about the exact differences between the accounts that they are working on.

Inspect Security Settings: The security settings for each user profile can be inspected inside a given account. Change the profile for a test user and take a SnapShot. Then compare the object permissions, security settings, and field visibility between different user profiles and the account administrator.

SnapShot Views

Salesforce administration can be a complex task. SnapShot simplifies the task by providing administrators with multiple views of their account and user profile information.

Single account view - See all account entities, both standard and custom. Drill into any object or field to see property detail. Export property information in Excel format. Color coding shows standard versus custom objects.

Side-by-side Comparison - View two snapshots side-by-side. Compare two or more accounts, drill in to see detail differences. Compare account changes over time. Differences - objects added, fields deleted, properties changed - are immediately apparent.

SnapShot Entities

Within SnapShot, there is a single key entity:

Snapshot - A snapshot is an XML document that contains all of the metadata representing an account. Snapshots can be imported and exported, and they are stored locally. No actual account data or personal information is recorded.

SnapShot Activities

Within SnapShot you can

Create, delete, import and export snapshots.
Drill into a snapshot to see object, field and property detail.
Compare two or more snapshots side-by-side.

The following sections will walk you through the steps required to work with SnapShot.

Creating A New Snapshot

Creating a snapshot is a simple process. Click the Create SnapShot button and the Create SnapShot dialog pops up.

Simply give your SnapShot a name and click Create. SnapShot creation may take a few seconds. The Progress bar will indicate creation status.

Selecting a Snapshot

To view any individual SnapShot, simply select the desired SnapShot from the Select SnapShot list on the left. Within a SnapShot, click on any object to expand and view its fields. If you click on a field, the View Field Attributes dialog will appear, allowing you to see all attributes associated with a field.

Comparing Multiple Snapshots

To compare multiple SnapShots, click the Compare SnapShots button and the Compare Multiple SnapShots dialog pops up.

Select each of the SnapShots you want to compare in the Available SnapShots list on the left. Click the top arrow to move SnapShots into the Selected Comparison list on the right, then click the Compare button.

The SnapShots you have selected will appear side-by-side. If an object does not exist in a particular SnapShot, then the cell corresponding to that object will be blank in that SnapShot. Objects and/or fields that differ between SnapShots will appear in red.

From here, if you click on a field, the Compare Field Attributes dialog will appear, allowing you to see the attributes associated with a field across all of the SnapShots.