Our main product is a CI/CD platform designed to automate Salesforce deployments through a connected workflow. In this workflow, user stories serve as containers for code changes and metadata that move between environments, which represent different Salesforce orgs (e.g., dev, QA, prod).
All environments can be part of pipelines that define the promotion path, including quality gates and automations, guiding user stories through the deployment process. However, setup and configuration are traditionally time- and resource-intensive.
To minimize time to value, a major initiative—led by product design and architects—delivered a series of features aimed at improving ease of use for first-time users, like Quick Start, Pipeline Builder, and Pipeline Manager.
After a year, time to value was reduced to 16 days—an 8x improvement compared to Q3 of the previous year—despite only some features being generally available.
Copado is the #1 Native DevOps Platform for Salesforce and the Market Leader in Low-Code CI/CD and AI-Driven Test Automation for Enterprise Clouds. Backed by Salesforce Ventures and Insight Venture Partners, Copado powers end-to-end digital transformation for 1,200+ global enterprises like Coca-Cola, Ebay, Medtronic and Volkswagen.
In recent years, the product has become the leading DevOps tool for Salesforce, recognized for its ability to streamline development and ensure quality throughout the entire process—from planning to testing.
Many companies, including Google, Coca-Cola, Shell, Accenture, T-Mobile, JLR, Siemens, and Fox, along with over 1,200 others, have chosen Copado. Many of these are large tech organizations that, with the support of professional services, have successfully set up their pipelines and workflows.
We engaged various customer-facing roles across the company in a cross-departmental effort, gaining valuable insights. One key finding was that many deals were lost because mid-sized companies couldn’t afford professional services like large enterprise accounts. Additionally, even when deals were closed, the first few months of implementation were often difficult and challenging.
The workshop resulted in the development of several key features, including Quick Start with Pipeline Initializer, Persona Management, Pipeline Builder, and Pipeline Manager.
Additionally, a side initiative was launched to introduce an AI agent specialized in Copado, designed to assist new users with setup and configuration.
One particularly eye-opening activity took me out of my comfort zone—sitting with architects in a room to set up Copado for a fictitious organization. The process took seven hours, filled with both nervous laughter and serious concerns.
This experience sparked a major initiative focused on significantly reducing time to value for first-time organizations.
We defined the time to value to the number of days from the date of installation of the package until the moment where the customer is using it actively. Using it actively is defined as the moment when the customer is promoting double the amount of user stories than the seats they purchased.
As mentioned, a series of features aimed at improving the first-time user experience have been defined, designed, and delivered.
• A quick start guide that walks new users through a step-by-step onboarding flow, allowing them to configure their organizations with environments and users.
• A pipeline initializer that helps organizations set up the right ecosystem to run Copado optimally—even with existing environments—without losing any pending work.
• Persona management, enabling the creation of different roles with distinct credentials and permissions.
• A feature toggle to enable or disable specific features as needed.
• A pipeline builder that allows users to configure pipelines, set up quality gates, and automate workflows.
While designing this, we realized that one of the most critical issues was also one of Copado’s core features, present since the beginning and difficult to rethink or rework for various reasons. Recognizing its importance, we dedicated an entire research effort to the Pipeline Manager.
We initiated a series of recurring meetings with key customers such as Volvo, Wolters Kluwer, Jaguar Land Rover, Accenture and Capgemini. During these sessions, we presented our work in progress, showcasing the current developments and milestones. In return, our customers shared insights into their upcoming pipelines and future plans, fostering a collaborative exchange of ideas and ensuring alignment on ongoing and upcoming projects. This has created a strong foundation for continued partnership and effective planning.
Along with the research we created a compelling concept video for stakeholders. This video will serve as a key tool to get buy-in for contractors for this front-end-heavy feature, ensuring alignment with project goals and expectations.
Before, information was scattered across multiple systems, making it difficult for Release Managers to control and manage the pipeline effectively. The new Pipeline Manager offers a centralized platform that brings organization and consistency, integrating a design system to ensure uniformity with other product lines.
It provides real-time updates across multiple environments, giving visibility into user stories per environment. Release Managers can now easily promote and deploy directly from the pipeline manager, view metadata changes, and track change flows.
The revamped Pipeline Manager experience enhances productivity by streamlining tasks, reducing context-switching, and consolidating all the necessary elements to successfully manage pipelines, such as automations, quality gates, and more.
This experience supports both Release Managers and Developers in their workflows, helping them release changes with quality, all while acting as a central control pane.
The five core principles driving this success include scalability, ensuring the system adapts as needs grow; reliability, offering consistent performance; responsiveness, reacting quickly and improving efficiency; simplicity, allowing for intuitive use with complexity added organically; and transparency, providing clear insight into the system’s actions across environments.
Above all, the Pipeline Manager must be highly functional, fast, and visually modern, ensuring a seamless experience for its users as they manage and orchestrate changes within their CI/CD processes using Copado.
The significant reduction in time to value - an 8x improvement - demonstrates the impact of our efforts in simplifying the onboarding experience. By making Copado more accessible and easier to configure, we have not only accelerated customer adoption but also expanded our reach to mid-sized companies that previously struggled with implementation.
Faster time to value means customers can realize the benefits of automation, quality control, and streamlined workflows much sooner, leading to increased efficiency, higher ROI, and greater overall satisfaction.
As we continue to refine and enhance our platform, this achievement serves as a foundation for future innovation, ensuring that Copado remains the go-to DevOps solution for Salesforce enterprises of all sizes.