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vlrvlr 

Estimate salesforce project (custom object, controller, sites)

We are planning to hire a consultant for a Salesforce development project. I am struggling to estimate time for the following project. I think that it should take no longer than 10 hours, but I am not sure. And I would appreciate some insight on how to estimate SF projects.

Project:

Final product description:

Name: Dynamic table of events.

The table should include the following fields: "Event", "Location", "Week Day", "Date", "Time". The table should be updated every time there is new event added in Salesforce, or if old event is turned to inactive, then this event should be removed. The web page with the table of events should be dynamic: if there are more events than one window can contain, then the webpage should be dynamically scrolling the table back and forth. The website should be publically accessible.

Implementation components:

1. Salesforce Custom Object with the following fields: Event name, Event Type (student, staff, faculty and all), Location Campus, Location Building and room, Display Location (what campuses this should be displayed: it will probably require different web pages), WeekDay, Date,Time,PublicView (checkbox indicates if event visible to public). The object will be used in Controller to present data in Visualforce page. Records will be updated and entered directly through Salesforce.

2. Controller object to operate and provide data for Sites. Records are sorted by dates in ascending order.
Visualforce page with dynamic back and forth scrolling when there are more events than one screen can display. The page should have public access. Visualforce

3. Sites for three different display locations: 3 campuses. Each campus will use its own Site to display events related to that campus.

VF page:
User-added image
Best Answer chosen by vlr
NagendraNagendra (Salesforce Developers) 
Hi VLR,

First and foremost sincerely regret the inconvenience for the delayed reply.
  • Unfortunately, there's a lot of variables that go into development, so the best you'll likely get here is an estimate that's 25%-400% of what you'll actually end up being billed for.
  • I'll say this, though. The data model should take 30 minutes to 2 hours, the controller about 1 to 2 hours, the unit tests about 1 to 2 hours, and the Visualforce might be between 2 hours and 6 hours (the UX is usually the largest cost in any project).
  • So, my estimates are about 4 hours and 30 minutes to 12 hours for a reasonable consultant, with the average being closer to about 8-10 hours. I'd say that your expectations are reasonable.
  • Keep in mind that if you're not too picky on the styles/design of the page, you can keep your costs down to a minimum and then find a website designer to finish the styling at a lower cost than a developer (many developers are terrible at designs, and many web designers are terrible at programming).
  • It's hard for a non-developer to even grasp how developers estimate their time. Even many developers with a decade of experience (I won't name names, but their alias rhymes with xfdcfox) tend to miss their mark by as much as 100% of their original estimate. There's simply too many variables to be 100% accurate in most cases.
  • Your best bet is to get a second opinion (or four). Usually, if you average all the estimates out, you'll find that that's approximately how long it would take.

Kindly mark this post as solved so that it gets removed from the unanswered queue and becomes a proper solution which results in helping others who are really in need of it.

Best Regards,
Nagendra.P