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Home: NPSF > Nonprofit Starter Pack

Packaging and the Nonprofit Starter Pack

The Salesforce.com platform allows you to package up pieces of functionality and allow it to be easily installed in other Salesforce.com environments. In the Nonprofit Starter Pack we use packaging to make the functionality available to nonprofits.

Regular packages vs. managed packages

Most packages in the Salesforce world are "regular":

• easy installation and uninstallation
• lots of different Salesforce "things" can be packaged - objects, code, reports, fields, etc.
• packaged elements can be changed or deleted individually after you install them

Some packages are "managed." These are like "regular" packages but have some special properties:

• package can be upgraded after it is installed
• packaged elements can't all be changed after they are installed
• packaged elements can't be deleted after they are installed
• code included in the package is obfuscated--you can't see the source code

Upgradability is the feature that compelled us to use managed packages. To be able to install the package and then get a newer version or bug fixes at a later date with only a few clicks is very valuable.

Should I use managed or unmanaged?

If you want to play with the Nonprofit Starter Pack and see how the code works in detail, use the unmanaged packages. If you plan to run the Nonprofit Starter Pack in production, and rely on it over time, you should really run the managed packages.

We strongly advise against running the unmanaged packages in production.