While working on my current project, I got the opportunity to implement Salesforce Shield’s Platform Encryption for my customer. I thought of sharing my experience and learning here. So I will be publishing a few blog posts in the next couple of days covering my findings. 

Today’s blog post is the first one where I will be covering some of the basic information about Shield implementation.

How Salesforce Shield works?

The above picture will show you how the Salesforce Shield work. If you want to know more,  you can always read the Salesforce documentation here – Behind the scenes: The Shield Process Encryption Process. 

How to get Salesforce Shield?

Since Salesforce Shield is a new feature you will be implementing, it is highly recommended to create a sandbox first and test the impact of implementing Shield on your existing data as well as any existing implementation which includes your configuration and customization both.
To activate Shield, you need to contact Salesforce first and then they will activate it in the production org. Once it is activated, you can go to Setup -> Company Information (Screenshot below). Then click on “Match Production Licenses” and this will activate Shield in your Sandbox as well. [Note – If you are creating a brand new sandbox after Shield is activated in Production, then you do not require to perform the above step].

Enable Shield