What is an SFCC Cartridge?

Our ecommerce development team is always working on new projects, including custom apps and integrations for ecommerce platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC.)  In fact, we've noticed an increased demand for SFCC cartridge development. With many years of cartridge development experience under our belt, we're excited to provide insight into our process for creating projects with Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a highly flexible and customizable B2B + B2C commerce platform. Much like most modern platforms, SFCC provides for extensions and third-party integrations via plug-ins called a "cartridge." A cartridge is a container for packaging and deploying program code and data. It's typically used to extend functionality or to provide third-party integration. Think of it like any standard platform or mobile app. It adds functionality to Salesforce Commerce Cloud via the installation of the app. A cartridge however provides a deeper framework by installing structured folders and subfolders to deliver code and efficiency.

Developing the Cartridge

A cartridge is used to extend business functionality or to integrate with external platforms. Large service providers like Avalara, Stripe and more have avaiable cartridges for their services. Every cartridge is built independently and added to the cartridge stack of a storefront. Salesforce has a handy store where merchants can browse for new apps.

Creating a custom cartridge requires code development and testing to meet the Salesforce Commerce Cloud certification standards. When our team designs the core application, we follow the guidelines of Storefront Reference Architecture (SFRA). This provides us with the official guidelines from Salesforce for developing a successful cartridge.

Using SFRA

Salesforce Commerce provides a framework called SiteGenesis, which was developed back in 2009. This was traditionally how developers would code the architecture. In a desire to provide a more modern approach, Salesforce has created the new Storefront Reference Architecture (SFRA).

SFRA is a modern architecture with speed and performance improvements. SFRA was designed with a mobile-first approach in mind, is fully responsive and provides an optimized experience on any screen. Our development team appreciates the MVC architecture of SFRA and modern tech-stack like JavaScript controllers, HTML5 and CSS3. It allows us to keep the modern design patterns of today's apps. SFRA is the latest, and now preferred method for developing new SFCC cartridges.

Using SFRA and the cartridge stack, we can develop services and customizations from the bottom up. The cartridge path determines the order in which SFCC loads the server-side code. Items that are earlier in the path override the functionality of code later in the path. With this paradigm in mind, we can determine where the low-level cartridge functionality needs to exist to take full advantage of the site features. With SFRA, every store will have a base set of cartridges that handle the storefront and modules. The new custom cartridge code is added to this stack.

Getting it Approved

Getting a cartridge approved and certified by Salesforce can be a bit challenging. SFCC has a strict certification process and requirements to ensure the code (and workflow) follows the best practices as set forth by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Thankfully our team has experience with navigating this process. We are happy to work with your business to get your application approved and certified. This may require additional steps to certify your business (so the cartridge is certified with your company.) Our development process includes steps for this certification process with Salesforce.

Does Your Business Need an SFCC Cartridge?

If your business is looking to expand your services into Salesforce Commerce Cloud with an enterprise cartridge, then you need an experienced development partner to launch your project up and running. Let our SFCC experts work their magic!