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How Experience Cloud Uses Lightning
There’s lots of Lightning striking Salesforce these days and it can be tricky to know how it all works together. Here's the rundown.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
What is Salesforce Lightning?
Lightning includes a new experience, framework, and environment. Lightning makes it easier to build responsive applications for any device.
Lightning includes these technologies:
- Lightning Component Framework, which gives you a UI development framework that accelerates development and app performance.
- Lightning App Builder lets you build Lightning pages visually, without code, using standard and custom Lightning components. You can make your Lightning components available in the Lightning App Builder, so admins can build custom user interfaces without code.
- Experience Builder is like the Lightning App Builder, except that it’s used to design and build Experience Builder sites using Lightning components. Just like Lightning App Builder, you can use standard or custom components so admins can create Experience Builder pages with point-and-click customization.
Some Salesforce products built with the Lightning framework include Lightning Experience, the Salesforce mobile app, and the various Experience Builder site templates (like Customer Service, Partner Central, and Help Center) and Lightning Bolt Solutions.
What is Lightning Experience?
Lightning Experience is the name of for the desktop user experience, intended for internal Salesforce users only. For more information, see the Lightning Experience section in Salesforce Help.
When people talk about “Lightning sites”, what do they mean?
Lightning in the context of Experience Cloud means the use of Lightning components to build communities, sites, and portals. Build using templates, such as Customer Service, Partner Central, or Lightning Bolt Solutions.
How is the Lightning framework used in Experience Cloud sites?
Experience Cloud sites and Lightning Experience use the same underlying Lightning framework technology—but it isn’t necessary to enable Lightning Experience to use Experience Cloud sites.
Think of it this way: You have a dishwasher and a washing machine in your house. Can you turn one on without the other? Yes. Sure, they have a few things in common: They both need electricity to work, they both live in your house, and have the word “wash” in their names. But they run independently of one another.
Do I first turn on Lightning Experience in my internal org to use Experience Builder sites?
No. It’s not required that you enable Lightning Experience to use Experience Builder sites, such as Customer Service, Partner Central, and Lightning Bolt Solutions. Experience Cloud sites use the same underlying technology as Lightning Experience, but are independent of one another
If I turn on Lightning Experience in my internal org, can I still use the Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce template for a site?
Yes! Turning on Lightning Experience for your internal users has no impact on what templates you use in our external-facing sites.
You can build your site with the Lightning framework or with Visualforce. The UI enabled in your internal Salesforce org makes no difference to what UI technology you use for your external-facing site.
If I build a custom Lightning component for the Lightning App Builder, can I use it in Experience Builder?
Yes! See the Experience Cloud Developer Guide for more information.
Can I enable Lightning Experience for my Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce sites?
No. By definition, a Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce site uses Visualforce technology under the hood. There's no button in a Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce site that allows you to switch to Lightning technology. Also, remember that Lightning Experience is a user experience that’s for internal Salesforce users only.
If you want a site with the Lightning look and feel, create one with a template that uses Lightning technology.
If I turn on Lightning Experience in my internal Salesforce org, are there Experience Cloud features that I can't use?
Switch to Salesforce Classic for the following functionality.
| Feature or Setting | Available with Differences | Not Available | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global header |
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To switch between your org and Experience Cloud sites in Lightning Experience orgs, use the App Launcher. | |
| Cloning or creating email templates as a Partner Community or Customer Community Plus user |
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| Enabling WDC Thanks to use Mission Badges in Experience Builder sites |
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