Fri, 22 December 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we have a big announcement: we’re changing things up! With the new year comes a new show and shorter, snackable episodes published twice a week. Gillian is flying solo but, don’t worry, Mike will still be a frequent guest and co-conspirator. Be sure to subscribe to keep up the new and exciting changes. We’re going to be using a few different formats, so here’s an overview of what we’re planning. Insights Episodes Insights episodes will be a roundtable discussion with experts on the Admin Evangelism team: Gillian, Mike, LeeAnne Rimel, and new team member Marc Baizman. We’ll take deep dives into specific topics, and we’ll be doing a different theme each month. Coming up for January, we’ll take a look at adoption, not just on the podcast but for everything you get on http://admin.salesforce.com including blogs and webinars. Interview Episodes Interview episodes will feature amazing guests coming talk to you about their expertise. We’ll talk with product experts from Salesforce, community leaders making a difference, and Awesome Admins making changes in new and exciting ways with Salesforce. For Adoption Month, we’ll be looking at people who have learned best practices and tools by driving adoption at their own organizations. The Same Great Segments Don’t worry, the Lightning Round isn’t going anywhere. We are, however, going to go with one question for each interview guest we have. The fun part is that we’re looking for ideas for great Lightning Round questions. If you have an idea, tweet at Gillian (@gilliankbruce) or the Salesforce Admins team (@salesforceadmns) so we can put your questions to some our guests. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. Love our podcasts?Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! |
Fri, 22 December 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re celebrating the history of the Salesforce Admins podcast before Mike signs off as host. We’re talking with Jared Miller, the first co-host of the then-named ButtonClick Admin podcast that launched in 2013. Join us to learn about the evolution of the podcast, hear fun stories about when Mike & Jared first started, and why hosting the podcast has been such a rewarding experience. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jared Miller. It All Comes Full Circle Five years ago, Mike launched the ButtonClick Admin podcast to bring a voice to the all of the blog posts and articles in the community. Jared joined as Mike’s first guest and helped him bring all this great content to life in a different medium. Now he’s joining as Mike’s final guest. Community is at the Core Back before there was an official online Salesforce community, Mike & Jared used their connections at Dreamforce to find people to talk to on the podcast. Sharing Salesforce stories over the podcast helped create a new kind of connection that is deeper and more direct than you can get in a blog post. Podcasts allow people to “peel themselves away from the desk and still be engaged,” explains Mike. Gillian adds that “the whole point” of the podcast is “to connect with others in the community and to make others feel welcome and inspired.” A Ripple Effect Mike & Jared proved that anyone could make a podcast. They helped inspire others in the community to try it as well, contributing to a whole slew of amazing Salesforce-focused podcasts across the globe. One of those podcasts is the OoTTpod (One of These Things Podcast) which Jared co-hosts with Becka Dente and Matt Bertuzzi. Jared explains that podcasting is a great way to have conversations with the community because “there are people out there that want to talk back to you,” so after listening to the podcast, they can let us know “if we’re right, if we’re wrong, or if we’re thinking about things the way we should be.” Using what Jared learned from Mike, he’s been able to share expertise about the mechanics and logistics of how to produce a podcast to others in the community. In fact, Mike’s probably talked to every other Salesforce podcast out there to help them in some way. He encourages others to get on the air: “People forget that they are interesting, and they need to remember that.” I Remember When… Mike reminisces about when he recorded episodes from a wooden TV tray that he covered with a towel (acoustics matter, right?), and late nights interviewing guests after their normal day jobs. They tried all kinds of ways to help run the interviews more smoothly, including silent facetime sessions. Fond memories of experiments along the way, including the dramatic SteveMo readings, drinking while recording, and unique on-location episodes involving alligators and Vegas parking lots gets everybody giggling in this episode. Mike, Jared, and Gillian have had a chance to meet hundreds of people through the podcast, and many of those guests have gone on to do all sorts of incredible things. One of Mike’s favorite moments that reflects this is during the Dreamforce 2017 main keynote, when he texted with Gillian that almost all the admins featured were previous podcast guests. “Probably one the most memorable podcast moments” Mike’s had in five years of podcasting was the Zac Otero podcast. Watch out for rainbows. Mike Drop For his final episode as host, Mike signs off with a very special goodbye and thanks to the community, Sarah Franklin for believing in him, and his podcast buddy Gillian. He ends with a Steve Jobs quote, “stay hungry, stay foolish.” Thank you, Mike, for inspiring a movement! You can follow Jared on Twitter @jaredemiller and Mike @mikegerholdt. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on Apple Podcasts! |
Fri, 15 December 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re continuing our discussion with guests from the Admin Keynote at Dreamforce. We’re talking with Bindu Jallabah, Operations Director of Girl Develop It. Join us to learn about why Mary Scotton is behind everything we do on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, what the amazing community of the Salesforce makes possible, and why silence can be the best option. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Bindu Jallabah. Making a Pivot to Engineering Like many children of immigrants, Bindu’s parents pushed her to be a doctor or a lawyer. She got through a bunch of prerequisites before she realized that she hated blood, giving shots, and pretty anything you’d need to do in order to be a good doctor. “The doctors have to chase me down even to this day to give me a shot,” Bindu says. With all of the math courses she had taken, however, she realized that it would be relatively easy to transition to Engineering. As Bindu began to gain experience, however, she encountered persistent problems. “Engineering was not conducive to me as far as the environment and how women are treated in the field,” Bindu says. She ran into difficulties as a woman, as a mom, and just as someone trying to fit into the community. “I had to take a break from engineering and go into social service.” Focusing on the Real Problem Bindu started a nonprofit, Karanso Africa, which initially was created to teach women literacy skills. “But when I got there, I realized it’s way beyond just literacy. In Africa, it’s way beyond just literacy— you can teach women how to read and write, but they’re not going to come to the classes because there are so many other issues there.” In looking at health and gender equity problems and starting to do that work, she realized that technology could do a lot to help. “I started this program called Docteur Mobile where we wanted to let women in remote villages use an app to access preventive prenatal care.” They found that many women were dying from preventable conditions, especially preeclampsia and eclampsia, so their goal was to develop a program to teach them to take their own blood pressure and report it to a doctor via the app, even if they’re illiterate. The Power of Girl Develop It Bindu returned to the US to get the technical skills she needed, which is where she encountered Girl Develop It. “Girl Develop It took all of my passions and merged them. It took the technology piece and the social justice piece and the gender equity and merged them so perfectly,” Bindu says. At its core, Girl Develop It teaches women how to code for web and software develop. “But beyond that, in the digital age, I like to say that Girl Develop It is a revolution,” Bindu says, because it teaches skills “that women are going to use in this century to be front and center of the technology program. They do that by teaching skills, but also by consciously cultivating a community. It started in 2010 in New York City and has grown from a single class to 58 chapters across the country and 98,000 members. The program doesn’t end with just a few classes— it’s about developing a pathway to leadership. You can come back and TA, and then once you’ve assisted you can teach that class. From there, you can become an instructor or even a Girl Develop It chapter leader. As Bindu says, “we’re not just teaching women how to code, we’re also teaching women to elevate themselves in the tech industry.” Live from the Dreamforce Stage Bindu’s main takeaway from Dreamforce was the amazing strength of the community. “I have to say I gained new respect for Salesforce as an organization, being in technology and being a woman of color. Salesforce’s commitment to equity and diversity was totally apparent in everything that was happening there.” It was Bindu’s first Dreamforce and she shared a stage in conversation with Parker Harris. “I have to ask you guys, when do you get off the Dreamforce high? Because I’m still on it.” For more insights, make sure to follow Bindu on Twitter (@its_bindu). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on Apple Podcasts!
Direct download: The_Amazing_Story_of_Girl_Develop_It_with_Bindu_Jallabah.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:21pm PDT |
Wed, 13 December 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re taking a post-Dreamforce journey back into the Admin Batcave: AppExchange. We’ll be talking with Connie Dea, Product Manager for the AppExchange at Salesforce. Join us to learn about the AppExchange relaunch, Salesforce Labs apps, and what to do if you’re struggling to move to Lightning because an app isn’t ready yet. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Connie Dea. AppExchange Reborn Connie is back after an earlier appearance this year to share all the cool things that AppExchange got up to at Dreamforce this year. “Our big news was that we launched a new AppExchange,” Connie says, “there’s a lot of things to show off about the new AppExchange so we covered that in our den and our breakout sessions.” It came out a couple weeks before Dreamforce, so there was a lot to cover about what’s new and what’s changed. The new launch has let them address a problem Connie hears a lot from customers: “It’s really amazing, you’ve got thousands of solutions on AppExchange, but often I have no idea where to start.” It can be sometimes overwhelming to sift through all of your options, so Connie’s team focused on how to make that process faster and easier for a customer. The first thing you’ll notice is that there are personalized recommendations on the homepage, based on who you are, what department you work in, and what’s already installed in your org. Another improvement is to search to make it more dynamic and powerful. There are new solution types as well, including Lightning Data and Bolt Solutions. Finally, they’ve added integrated trails and content throughout the entire site so you don’t need to have a million tabs open to learn about something. The Wonderful World of Salesforce Lab Apps If you haven’t checked out the Salesforce Lab apps, you should. “These are all free, unmanaged packages that are built by Salesforce employees,” Connie says. There are more than 300 solutions on AppExchange that cover a wide range of uses, including dashboards and reports, and offer a lot of customization to help meet your organization’s needs. Connie and her team recently had a contest to develop new apps around service. The winner was Fieldy, a technical assistant powered by Einstein that field service folks can take on the road with them and use to help get questions answered and troubleshoot any problems. The AppExchange Action at Dreamforce At Dreamforce, AppExchange had a Demo Jam in every theater. “The winners of each of the individual Demo Jams competed in a mega Demo Jam.” The winner (spoiler alert) of the big tomato was Conversica. All of the videos are up on the AppExchange, now that they have integrated content. We wanted to go over the most common questions that Connie got asked at Dreamforce, so if you weren’t able to go we still might have an answer for you. A lot of new users to the ecosystem were wondering who the best person to reach out to if they have questions, and the answer is to tap into Salesforce’s amazing community. We don’t think that we’ve ever done a Salesforce Admins Podcast where someone doesn’t talk about the community. It’s the first thing that everybody mentions, and there’s a reason for that. The other thing that Connie got asked a bunch at Dreamforce was how AppExchange can facilitate an organization’s transition over to Lightning. There are a bunch of Lightning-ready apps ready to go. Says Connie, “The simplest way to find those Lightning-ready solutions is to use the filters.” Transitioning to Lightning A lot of orgs are blocked from transitioning to Lightning because something in their package isn’t Lightning ready. Depending on what the App is trying to solve for, the first step is to reach out to the partner to see when they plan on making the app Lightning ready: “It’s great for partners to hear that there’s a continuing need for customers to migrate to Lightning.” All apps that are added to AppExchange have to be Lightning ready now, and Connie’s team is making a huge push to work with partners to get other apps transitioned. There’s so much out there that there also might be something complimentary you can add on to fill in while you’re waiting for your partner app to get updated. Sometimes simply making the switch to Lightning means that you don’t even need an old-school app anymore. For more insights, make sure to follow Connie on Twitter (@ConnieDea11). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on Apple Podcasts!
Direct download: Revisiting_the_AppExchange_with_Connie_Dea.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:04pm PDT |
Wed, 6 December 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re continuing our post-Dreamforce series with Shonnah Hughes, Salesforce Admin at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). Join us to learn about the power of the Salesforce community, why having drive is the most important quality for a Salesforce Admin, and why asking for help is the most powerful thing you can do. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shonnah Hughes. A Classic Accidental Admin Shonnah was featured in the Salesforce Admin Keynote at Dreamforce, where she answered some questions onstage. We wanted to bring her on the podcast to take a deeper dive into her story because there’s so much going on. Shonnah is the poster child for Accidental Admins. She worked for a DME Home Infusion company that purchased Salesforce back in 2006, to build their patient intake system on the Salesforce.com platform. She was tapped by her company to learn the new platform in order to train their end users: “I wasn’t the dedicated trainer at the time, but I did train all of the users who came into our department so that’s one of the main reasons why they chose me.” When it comes to how businesses can identify the next Shonnah Hughes, she has some advice: “When you’re looking for those Awesome Admins within your organization, you find the people who have tenacity and the aptitude to take on a new challenge and really just run with it.” The Evolution of Salesforce Training “When I first started out my Salesforce journey, help and training wasn’t as easy as it is now,” Shonnah says, “we didn’t have the Trailblazer community so it was hard to get the questions you had answered.” When her director let her know about these emails she was getting for something called a “user group,” Shonnah jumped at the chance to go and ended up at one of the most well-attended user groups around. “The amount of success that I have today is in large part due to the community.” When Shonnah has to train her own users, she takes a varied approach. “Every user learns differently, and every person has a different learning style.” She tries to incorporate a variety of approaches to make sure that it’s easy for anyone to follow along. “To be quite frank, with Trailhead and the new My Trailhead rolling out, Salesforce has made it so much more simple.” She uses a combo of in-classroom training, Trailhead, and user documentation to change things up and keep everyone engaged. The Power of Community “Creating community is one thing that this world needs right now, and I think that Salesforce has really honed in on doing that.” She’s looking at how to bring that spirit of community to her organization. They’ve built an Employee Resource Group at MIA to advocate for equity of change and change management. She’s working to reach out to the communities that they serve and open up the institution’s doors to a wider variety of people. Shonnah cofounded and sits on the board of the nonprofit PepUp Tech. “It’s a way to bring in underrepresented youth into the tech ecosystem.” They use their experience and connections within Salesforce to bring students in, not just to learn about technology but also soft skills like best business practices. It’s all about “creating a pathway or pipeline to employment.” The hope is that by making this community for these students, they’ll be able to build relationships that will last a lifetime. Their goal this year is to get 100 students to Dreamforce, and maybe someone out there is interested in helping making that happen. For more insights, make sure to follow Shonnah on Twitter (@Saasy_Sistah). To learn more about the article Mike mentioned - https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/at-one-high-school-lunch-is-a-feast-for-the-soul/ We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Wed, 29 November 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Erik Peterson, Awesome Admin at Tuff Shed. And Juan Ruiz CIO at Tuff Shed. Join us to learn about how to make time for yourself to keep on learning, how you can get conversations about Salesforce started, and using Trailhead to make code less intimidating and help you troubleshoot problems. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Scott Luikart. Plan, People, Process It takes all three. Tuffshed had a great rollout plan, they had great people, and management had a great process. The three were combined to help make their launch of Salesforce successful. With Lightning they could train once and have the same experience from mobile to desktop. It's all about Trailhead For Erik it all started with Trailhead and learning. Going to Trailhead to validate what they had done and where he can learn more about additional features they are looking to implement. The podcast also helped Erik get inspired about new features and hear inspiring stories about other admins and how they are rolling out Lightning. Curiosity was key As Erik would find features he would bring them to the attention of Juan for exec buy in and rollout. Which helped with adoption. It became a challenge for Erik to find new features they could rollout in Lightning. How does Erik make time for learning and exploring? Salesforce Saturday! It was a great way for Erik to find time when other family members were busy to stay learning and stay curious. To solve problems Erik takes a Lightning first approach. How do you hire another Erik? Erik has a heart for his customer. If you don't have a heart for the customer Juan thinks you will be a poor Admin. You have to be curious. Look for solutions that drive your motivations- like having a heart for the customer. If you are curious then the learning coming naturally. Links We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Mon, 20 November 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re taking a look back at some of the best Lightning Rounds of the past year. Join us to learn which mascot comes out on top, all the different things people keep on their desk to be productive, and all the different things that let us know when it’s time for… the Lightning Round! You should subscribe for the full episode, but here’s all the weird and interesting factoids we learned from taking a plunge into the Lightning Round. It’s Time for… the Lightning Round After interviewing guest after guest about their amazing stories and all the different ways that people have come to the Admin life and put their skills to good use. While these stories are always amazing, our favorite part of any interview has to be the Lightning Round, where three simple questions get to the heart of what makes someone tick. Here are some highlights from the past year:
Make sure to stick around to the end, where we have an extra special Super Mega Lightning Round within a Lightning Round (total lightning-ception) to learn all about Mike’s love for Crazy Aaron’s Super Thinking Putty. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Sat, 11 November 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re taking a look back at some of the best Salesforce Things segments we’ve done in past. Join us to learn about what the heck a WSDL is (and is not), why you should keep your Event Sink stocked with Ajax, and how many different ways Mike can segue into the same segment. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here’s all the wild and woolly Things that we cover. We Play the Hits We’ve gone over a lot of terms and had a lot of fun doing in Salesforce Things. Come for the learning, stay for the laughs (or vice versa) as we take you through the best segments of Salesforce Things.
We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Fri, 3 November 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Scott Luikart, Awesome Admin Award Winner for Dreamforce 2017. Join us to learn about how to make time for yourself to keep on learning, how you can get conversations about Salesforce started, and using Trailhead to make code less intimidating and help you troubleshoot problems. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Scott Luikart. Somehow It Always Starts at a Water Park Like a lot of our guests, Scott came to Salesforce in a roundabout way. In 2010 he was working for a water park (following in the footsteps of Marcus Torres), but after an acquisition left him without a job he decided to try to get into tech. Through his work with a nonprofit, he was able to land a position at a small startup in Philly, where he was in charge of deploying a new product demo team. They needed a support tool, and Scott implemented Service Cloud, Live Agent, and Communities. It was a huge job and, as Scott says, “Lack of sleep was definitely a thing that I excelled at during that time in my life.” At the time he was doing all of this, there wasn’t Trailhead the way we know it today. Instead, they had to do a lot of learning by trial and error, making guesses and then figuring out what went wrong. “Our agents were moving from copy and pasting emails into Salesforce cases to using email-to-case and how that changed their behavior.” Obviously, this made for some problems: “I had many wonderful times where I had to go sit down with the IT guy and be like, ‘Hey, can you break into their email? That person called out sick today and I need to know what’s going on with that ticket.’” When the startup was acquired by a large tech company, Scott’s new boss changed his title from Manager of Support to Products Manager for Salesforce to help him get out the Support organization. After a year of working on the transition, that position helped him apply for other Salesforce jobs and eventually landed him at LegalZoom as the Senior Admin for Salesforce. Giving Back to the Community For Scott, Salesforce is special: “I really believe that Salesforce is not just a company— I think that I cry almost everytime I see the 1-1-1 videos at Dreamforce because I think of Salesforce much more as a thing than as a product. They put time and effort into making the world a better place.” To do his part, Scott manages the Salesforce accounts of some nonprofits, helping to upload data, manage contacts, and more. His favorite work that he does is with Montrose Grace Place in Houston. They provide a drop-in service for homeless LGBT youth, where they started a GoFundMe to get computers. As Scott explains, “People who are homeless are typically not allowed in libraries, because they will be seen as trespassing or loitering and given citations, so I wanted to bring technology to them where they currently experience community.” Scott’s fundraiser was successful beyond his wildest dreams, so they were able to buy 10 computers and set up a monthly training over the summer spending an hour teaching Trailhead. “At first it was just me, but then I started to get random people from Twitter to volunteer and join me. The community really came together and started showing up to volunteer and help teach Trailhead to these really great kids.” Making Time for Yourself Scott has an interesting strategy to make sure that he has time to continue to expanding his knowledge and improving. “The way I continue learning is that I book two hours a week in a conference room in my office and I go sit in there and work on Trailhead. That way people think that I’m on a call and they don’t interrupt me.” To get others involved, Scott’s simple tip is to just wear Salesforce gear out and about and see who talks to you. If someone makes a comment about his nifty Trailblazer hoodie, he can tell them to check out Trailhead and get started. Like with his kids at Montrose Grace Place, you don’t need to be an Admin or a Dev to benefit from learning about a CRM and being able to put that on your resume. For more insights, make sure to follow Scott on Twitter (@SLuikartInfo). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Using_Salesforce_to_Make_a_Difference_with_Scott_Luikart.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:45pm PDT |
Sun, 29 October 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re finishing our two-part Dreamforce series, featuring the Admin Evangelist Team as we highlight resources at https://admin.salesforce.com/dreamforce17 Join us to learn about how you can keep up to date with Dreamforce if you can’t make it this year, and how you can stay connected after the party’s over. There’s so much going on and so many great resources that these tips will be useful even if you’re coming to San Francisco. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with the Admin Evangelist Team. The Keynote “You don’t have to physically be in San Francisco to enjoy all of the incredible content and things happening at Dreamforce,” says Gillian. And even if you do go to Dreamforce, you can’t be in two places at once so there’s plenty to catch up on once you get back. For Mike, the thing he always looks forward to is Marc’s keynote. It’s not always easy to get in the room, but whether you’re in San Francisco or at home, you can tune into Salesforce Live to catch the keynote and a lot of other great content. Actually, streaming is one of Gillian’s pro tips for people coming to Dreamforce, because it’s a lot more enjoyable than waiting in line for the main keynote room. If you want to know when a stream is starting, you should follow Salesforce Live on Twitter (@SalesforceLive) and keep up with the #DF17 and #AwesomeAdmin hashtags. The Salesforce Live team also does interviews and panels throughout the week that will help you get a behind-the-scenes look at everything that’s going on. Another great option is Periscope— check in with the SalesforceAdmns handle or even just other attendees to get in on the action. Keeping Up with all the Sessions Mike’s got a lot planned for the Admin track sessions, and the great news is that almost everything, except roadmap content, is being recorded. Both the talk track and the screen will be recorded, so you can get both the audio and visual components. They’ll be posted at http://salesforce.com/video, but allow a little time for the team to get everything together and posted. Even if you’re not coming to San Francisco, connecting locally is a great option. Look for your local user group, and chances are that someone went to Dreamforce and has some stories to tell. There’s also the Dreamforce Global Gatherings happening this November and December with a custom agenda for each group and (of course) swag. What to Do When You Can’t Be Everywhere at Once For LeeAnne, it’s all about making sure that you have something to follow up on once the hubbub has died down a little bit. “Whether or not I’m attending Dreamforce in person or remotely, I always like to jot down sessions that sound interesting to me or that someone tweeted about so I know to go find those later.” Checking in with the Dreamforce for Admins group is also a good idea, as it’s sure to be active with all sorts of interesting content. Whether you’re going or not, it’s a good idea to take the time to look at the Dreamforce site and make yourself an agenda of things to keep track of and catch up on. One important thing to remember is that there is just so much content that comes out that it’ll take you awhile to digest. It really is meant to last all year, so pace yourself. Each session has recommended Trailhead Badges, so you can listen to the session and then complete the badges each week. The Most Important App You Will Ever Download Finally, it doesn’t matter where you are but you must download Dreamoji today if you have an iOS device. All of your favorite characters are on it, from Cloudy the Goat to Astro. It also has location sharing and calendar integration to help make your Dreamforce experience great, and it also gives you the ability to watch Dreamforce live broadcasts straight from the app. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Get_Ready_for_Dreamforce_Part_2_with_the_Admin_Evangelist_Team.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:03am PDT |
Thu, 19 October 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re starting a two-part episode featuring the Admin Evangelist Team to help all the Admins going to Dreamforce get ready for what’s coming. Next week, we’ll focus on what you can do to keep up with what’s going on if you can’t make it out to San Francisco this year. Join us to learn about what to pack, where to go, and how to plan for your Dreamforce experience. Make sure to check out the end for a special bonus section on where to eat— after all, nobody wants to get hangry. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with the Admin Evangelist Team. The Packing List Dreamforce is just around the corner, so we wanted to get Mike, Gillian, and LeeAnne together to talk about the ins and outs of how to navigate this massive, amazing event. The first thing we go into is planning, and LeeAnne is a master: “If you spend time up front with planning for your trip then it gives you a lot more flexibility to enjoy your time when you’re there.” You don’t want to be thinking about your packing list once you’ve landed, you want to be there and part of what’s happening. LeeAnne’s top five tips:
Gillian lives about a mile from Moscone, so she has some local insight. Early November in San Francisco is actually summer there, and it’s been quite warm lately. Check the weather, because you might be surprised. Along with warm temperatures in the daytime, it can get quite chilly at night so layers are key. Also, obviously, a light raincoat is clutch. Plan for Swag When it comes to Dreamforce, you also need to have a plan for swag. LeeAnne’s goto is to bring a packable tote bag, so in case you want to bring a hundred T-shirts or a giant Astro doll home with you there’s an extra bag you can check or carry on. As Gillian puts it, “If you leave Dreamforce without a new piece of swag you did something wrong.” Some people even plan a particular day of Dreamforce to be their swag day. It can be helpful to strategize, as you’ll want to include time in your schedule to drop your new prizes off at the hotel before the evening events come around. This is especially key if you’ve been killing it in the Trailhead area. Discover the Admin Theater Mike managed and planned the entire Admin track this year— 130+ sessions of incredible content for Admins and by Admins. One element of the track this year is Admin Theater, masterminded by Gillian. It’ll be in Moscone West in the Trailhead area, right in the center of the action. The Admin Theater will have 62 individual sessions covering a range of topics from how to use Lightning Login to Process Automation Showdown and Trailhead Bingo. The content is grouped into different themes, so if you come to the theater and see something you’re interested in you should stick around because there’s more to come. The first day is going to be dedicated to discovering Lightning and extending Salesforce. Tuesday will be all about Security, Analytics, and Data Management, covering everything from best security practices to working with Einstein and tidying up your Org. Wednesday will be about rolling out and optimizing Lightning, where you can learn how to use Lightning Actions and hear stories about what a rollout is actually like. Finally, on Thursday, we’re bringing the Dreamforce theme of Personal Empowerment to life with an amazing lineup of content to develop your skills as a Salesforce Admin. Breakout Sessions One floor above the Admin Meadow, in Moscone West 2002, 2002, and 2006, are 70 breakout Admin sessions to complement what’s going on in the Theater. As you’re building your sessions, it’s important to remember that we always hold room for walk-ins. Not everyone who signs up can make it, so it’s worth it to show up and see if you can get in if it’s important to you. If a session is too full and it’s just not happening, Mike’s tip is to mark it as something to follow up on. Have a plan B so you still get the benefits of a live session. You can always watch the breakout sessions that you missed later, so this way you really get the best of both worlds. There’s so much great stuff to see at Dreamforce so you have to be OK with the fact that you probably won’t be able to make it to everything. When you’re going to a session, you want to take some time to figure out whether there is an opportunity since you’re live in the room with an expert. As Mike puts it, “You want to think about if there are specific questions you can ask the presenter that will be very helpful for everyone in the room.” Don’t Miss the Admin Keynote Finally, don’t miss the Admins Keynote featuring our own Gillian K. Bruce and LeeAnne Rimel. It’s the only keynote built entirely for Admins, and as LeeAnne says, “We really really think about you while we’re building it. What’s important for our Admins to see and what we want to do to involve them in our keynote.” Wednesday at 5pm in Mascone West in the Keynote Room on the top floor. See you there. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Wed, 18 October 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Kelly Walker, Senior Lightning Adoption Consultant at Salesforce. Join us to learn about the power of Salesforce Optimizer, why Console Apps are so important, and where to go to find out everything you need to know about Lightning at Dreamforce. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kelly Walker. Making the Grade Growing up, Kelly always thought she was going to follow in her aunt’s footsteps and become a teacher. She graded tests and papers and even taught her own fake class on holidays and snow days. “If you were bad in my real class you were definitely bad in my fake class and, let me tell you, your grades suffered.” These days, Kelly is a Lightning Adoption Consultant reporting to Salesforce Admins Podcast superstar Mike Orr. She works with customers to help them understand why they should move to Lightning, and what steps they need to take to implement a successful rollout. This means that she’s still teaching, just maybe in a way she didn’t envision when she was in 4th grade. She hits the road with the Lightning Now Tour, working with Admins to understand how the Lightning Experience changes things. She also does a fast track for sales, “It really helps you understand all of the great features that are available to you in Lightning Experience and how to customize those for your users.” A version for Service Cloud users is also on the way soon. The Secret of the Salesforce Optimizer Kelly is a big fan of the Salesforce Optimizer: “It’s the one tool that I feel is under-utilized because so many people just don’t know about it, so I try to recommend it everywhere I can.” Like the Lightning Readiness Report, you can run the Optimizer in your Salesforce instance to generate a report that gives you metrics on everything from usage and storage units to unassigned custom profiles and page layouts, helping you do some spring cleaning. The Salesforce Optimizer is also super helpful if you’re trying to move to Lightning, especially in you run it in conjunction with the Readiness Report. “You really get a good idea of where the gaps are that you’ll be encountering, as well as where you can spend some time cleaning up your org and really planning your rollout project.” You can see what’s there and what’s actually being used to get a great idea of how things are working and where there’s room for improvement. Lightning at Dreamforce Coming up at Dreamforce 2017 there will be a dedicated Lightning area where you can take advantage of one-on-one consultations with Lightning experts in Moscone West (just up the stairs from the Trailhead area), so if you’re looking for Kelly you can find here there. She’ll also be offering some broader-based sessions geared towards Lightning Experience. There are a ton of activities planned, so don’t miss it. If you can’t make it to Dreamforce, there are a lot of activities happening around Lightning that you might be able to check out. You can look up the schedule for the World Tours, as well as the Lightning Now Tour which has a lot of stops planned for Q4. There’s a free two-day workshop where you can hear from Product Managers about Lightning Experience and get some hands-on experience as well. As Kelly says, “We are trying to make Lightning everywhere.” Beyond that, you can use Lightning in a Box to make the case for your company to make the switch. Finally, when you run the Readiness Report you can sign up for a consultation, which lets you put your questions to an expert, almost like office hours. For more insights, make sure to follow Kelly on Twitter (@HeadInTheClowdz). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Be_Lightning_Successful_with_Kelly_Walker.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:13am PDT |
Thu, 5 October 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Jesse Grothaus, one of our newest Salesforce Admins from Vetforce. Join us to learn about how Jesse applied the skills he learned in the army to his role as a Salesforce consultant, how a newcomer thinks about the Salesforce Ohana, and some great tips for preparing for Certifications. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jesse Grothaus. A Made-for-TV Movie Journey to Salesforce From a young age, Jesse knew that he wanted to be a Special Operations Soldier and, “sure enough, on my 18th birthday I was in the recruiter’s office.” He spent the next eight years doing his childhood dream job while also getting his degree through the army, which led him to tech. He started in tech support and moved into sales, where he first encountered Salesforce. Jesse liked working Salesforce to build reports that could help his team, but his life changed drastically when he was involved in major car accident. He had to take two years off from work to recover, partially because of undiagnosed head trauma. His therapy for that required him to learn a new language and new skills, which is how he came across Vetforce and Trailhead. Learning Salesforce was actually therapy for Jesse, and helped him in his recovery. Part of his condition affected his memorization and abstract memory, so he had to break down for himself, “how do we as humans remember and memorize things?” A wiki site called ArtofMemory.com helped him learn the techniques of professional memorizers, people who can memorize the order of 50 decks of cards. With that help, he passed his Certification and Vetforce invited him to Trailhead DX, where he made the connections that eventually landed him a job in Salesforce consulting. If they were casting the movie, Jesse would love to be played by Hugh Jackman. Vetforce Vetforce came to Jesse’s attention via a friend on LinkedIn, he saw something offering free job training for veterans involving Salesforce, which he had already had experience with through his previous job. The program is a part of the Salesforce Ohana Group and links to veterans in the workforce. “I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but veterans have a big struggle in terms of getting good employment when they get out of the military. A lot of veterans get these awesome, amazing skills in the military but it turns out that ‘kicking down doors’ isn’t necessarily the best thing to put on your resume,” Jesse says. Salesforce wanted to help, so they started offering free training classes and curated Trailhead training courses to help vets get job placements. In Jesse’s military work, he would advise high-level commanders in a particular region on psychological warfare strategy and tactics, “and now as a Salesforce consultant I’m often meeting with high-level business executives and giving them guidance on what I think they should or should not be doing based on their Salesforce organizations to help their business grow.” For Jesse, the most useful skill is “sitting down with leadership, looking at the big picture, and figuring out how we can contribute to their big picture.” Trailhead DX “I had no clue what Trailhead DX was until I was invited to come out,” Jesse says. He didn’t know what to expect. He knew there’d be some great talks, but the surprise was that on day one the folks from Vetforce promised him that by the time he walked out of Trailhead DX he’d have a job. Being at a Salesforce event was so much more than Jesse thought it would be, “It was like drinking Kool-Aid out of a firehose.” The Ohana is a big part of that and is really what makes everything work so well. Jesse puts it well: “Salesforce doesn’t horde business for itself. It doesn’t try to hide its API or make it some big secret. Instead of competition, it encourages a family or gathering around it, and they’re very welcoming to everyone that wants to be a part of that.” Trailhead DX also gave him the push Jesse needed to get started and finish the Lightning Experience Special Superbadge, which took him about a week to get through. “After completing that, I was able to go pretty much directly into consulting positions for Lightning Rollout where I felt like an expert right off the bat.” For more insights, make sure to follow Jesse on Twitter (@GrothausJesse). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: All_About_Vetforce_with_Jesse_Grothaus.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:05pm PDT |
Thu, 5 October 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Evan Johnson, Principal Salesforce Administrator at Vivint Solar and the Salt Lake City User Group Leader. Join us to learn about the power of Integrated Email, why you shouldn’t assume you know how your users work with Salesforce, and why new users are a great opportunity to implement Lightning. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Evan Johnson. If at First You Don’t Succeed... “I got a random summer job working as a Customer Success Manager,” Evan says, which is how he came to Salesforce. He took the Certification course and failed it the first time, “but it was such a cool thing that I kept at it, did a lot of googling, and listened to your podcast.” Eventually, with the help of these resources and the Salesforce forums, he was able to pass the Certification and the rest is history. Evan’s consulting jobs turned into his full-time job, and he’s been at it for 10 years now. “It’s a tough test,” he says, so just keep at it and you’ll pass it and go on to bigger and better things, like implementing Lightning, which Evan has done more than a few times, both in side-jobs and in his main job at Vivint Solar. Discovering Lightning for Yourself Evan has a ton of experience with Classic, but obviously he’s been involved in several changeovers to Lightning. When asked why there’s still so much resistance to Lightning, even though it’s been out for a few years now, he comes up with an example everyone can relate to: “Whenever Facebook rolls out an update, everybody is just so angry about it,” Evan says, “and then two days later everybody forgets, and they can’t even imagine going back.” It’s natural to be afraid or hesitant about new things. To help himself make the transition, Evan started by implementing Lightning on his own, playing around with it in a sandbox to really get to know what it was all about. That was when he figured out how important Lightning will be to the future: “This isn’t just a new refresh of how it looks, this really is a fundamental shift for Salesforce in the right direction. This is a much more styling, but also the underlying technologies and platforms are moving in the right direction.” The bottom line is that if you don’t jump in now, you’re going to be left behind. Why Lightning is the Future Why switch to Lightning? Just look at the release notes: there are more and more Lightning changes and less and less for Classic. “If you want to start getting new functionality out of Salesforce, if you want to start using new features that are being released, I promise you this— Classic is not going to get you there,” Evan says. “There’s a reason why Salesforce is doing that, and it’s not because they want to make it look pretty. It’s because everything is going to work better.” There are so many features in Lightning that you just can’t get in Classic. Maybe people are content with what they have, but they need to realize that they’re passing up amazing functionalities like Integrated Email or the Kanban board. These kinds of features make you ask yourself, “how did I live without this?” For Admins, there are all these declarative things you can do in Lightning that weren’t possible before. For Evan, Lightning Components are such a game changer: “It’s almost like a brand new App Exchange.” Evan’s Process for Rolling Out Lightning For Evan, there are three phases to go through in rolling out Lightning. The first phase revolves around you: you need to learn everything there is to know about Lightning. Evan recommends taking a deep dive into Trailhead to learn how to migrate, learn about Lightning Features, and get comfortable. At this stage, it also makes sense to bring in some select users to figure out what their process actually is: “We pretend to know, as Admins, that we know how everyone uses the system but that’s simply not the case. You’re going to be amazed at how many different ways people are using the system and what kind of workaround they’ve got.” Phase two is to put together a group of folks who are ready to jump in, whether that’s a small pilot group or a division that’s ready to make the switch. The way Evan did it the first time was by making the transition for a new division that was coming in. Because they didn’t have any Salesforce processes to worry about they were a perfect way in. It could also be a team that wants a specific feature— for Evan it was a sales team that wanted Konbon. It’s also a good idea to get an executive involved at this stage, “If you have executives that are going to push their team to use Salesforce and Lightning, you’re going to have a lot better chance of success at the end of the project.” From there, phase three is a bigger rollout and also making sure you do the follow through to keep adoption up and everything running smoothly. You may need to force users to stick with Lightning, but the long-term payoff is what matters. Check in with your users constantly to see how things are going. For more insights, make sure to follow Evan on Twitter (@EvanSFDC). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Mastering_Lightning_Rollouts_with_Evan_Johnson.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:42am PDT |
Mon, 25 September 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Davina Hanchuck, Senior CRMs Analyst at Instructure. Join us to learn about how to work on a team of Admins, using the Lightning Readiness Report as an opportunity to clean up your Org, and the case for switching to Lightning ASAP. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Davina Hanchuck. Working on a Team of Admins Salesforce Admins superfans may recognize Davina as a repeat guest. Since last we spoke, she has moved from being a solo Admin for a small company to a large Enterprise Org with a team of five Admins. “There are five different people making customizations constantly, so trying to communicate with each other and keep up with everybody else is doing as well as what you’re doing and making sure you’re communicating effectively is super important.” The team is divided into specialties that they each own, so Davina is in charge of Salesforce CPQ. Every year, however, they switch which department they support and which focus they have. This lets them learn the entire system while only focusing on one piece at a time. Davina has found this extremely useful: “As a solo Admin I dealt with so much of a broad spectrum that I wasn’t really a master of anything, whereas now it’s such a small part of the Salesforce instance that I’m focusing on that I get to master it even more.” As five people trying to coordinate their activities, Davina’s team relies a lot on effective communication. Slack is a favored tool that gets a lot of heavy usage, but their main tool for collaboration is decidedly low-fi: they all sit together in an open office. Getting feedback or bouncing ideas off of someone is as simple as turning to her neighbor. Or shooting them with a Nerf dart. Beyond that constant flow of communication, they also make sure to document all of the changes they’re making to Salesforce in Salesforce itself. Davina will be running a session at Dreamforce on just how Instructure does that, so come on by and learn all about it. Using the Readiness Report Davina’s team is implementing Lightning in a massive Org and they started by downloading their Lightning Readiness Report, which was “75 pages of awesomeness.” They also needed to dive into their third-party integrations, making sure that all the apps that they use would be compatible. After taking everything into account, they’ve decided for now to focus on just moving the Sales team to Lightning. The Readiness Report helped them get the leverage they needed to do some much-needed cleanup all over their Org, going through the Accounts, Opportunities, Quotes, and Contact Objects. At the end of the day, Davina had personally archived 580 fields and consolidated eight Page Layouts. “The whole Lightning rollout allowed us to give some focus to the cleanup that we’d been needing to do for some time,” Davina says. Rolling Out Lightning, Bit by Bit Now, Davina is focused on customizing Lightning Pages for each sales team, “It’s fun because there’s so much you can do with the Page Layouts now that you have to shift your mindset as an Admin over to thinking like a UI designer.” You have to put your marketing hat on to really look at how users are going to work with your implementation and what’s good for them. “You can get your users so excited about Lightning by just showing them what’s out of the box without even customizing it, so then once you get in and you start customizing it for their processes it’s like confetti.” For now, Davina is working with four beta users from the Sales team to perfect it: she turned them loose on a raw unaltered version of Lightning and set up a chatter group for them to leave feedback, “Post in here everything that’s weird, everything that hurts, whatever you love and whatever you hate.” She then used that feedback to customize the Pages to work for how her users are working. “Once we started working on the Lightning rollout and our marketing team got wind that the sales team had access to Lightning they got a little jealous,” Davina says, but marketing has been promised that they’ll be next in line and the support team is chomping at the bit as well. Going slowly, department by department, is the only way to get such a big Org transitioned, but “at some point Classic is going to be your old product,” Davina says, “why would you waste all that money on something that’s going to be old?” For more insights, make sure to follow Davina on Twitter (@davinahanchuck) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Thu, 14 September 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Marcus Torres, Senior Director of Product Management at Salesforce focused on Lightning Components. Join us to learn about the best way to use Components in Lightning, how to get executives on board with the transition, and the new features coming for Winter 18. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marcus Torres. The Magic of Components Marcus has had a lot of roles at Salesforce over the years, from Mobile to Force.com and now onto the Components area of Lightning: “I’m really trying to bring value to our customers and help them customize as easily as possible.” Classic Salesforce is a page-by-page model— as Marcus says it’s just “tab tab tab tab tab tab tab. For anyone that’s used Classic Salesforce, that’s what they know and, to some degree, love.” However, if you wanted to change one of those pages you needed to rewrite it and overwrite it and own that customization. With Lightning, however, everything is a Component, and you can combine those Base Components into an Experience Component. It’s like getting a set of Legos that you can put together to make bigger things. You don’t need to rewrite the whole page to get different functionality, you just put your own custom Component alongside the stock ones, and they can listen to each other and interact in ways that were never possible in Classic. “People have gotten past how they know Salesforce as a page with fields on it. Now what they’re doing is trying to put a lot more into a single view.” If they know that someone working on a page not only needs to see data but also interact with some Elements key to that role, they’re just placing it right on the page with custom Components that also give the Admin control of that flow. There’s even a custom Component implementation someone has made for tracking their craft cocktails. How to Drive Lightning Adoption When it comes to rolling out Lightning, Marcus notices a lot of commonalities between users. People are first of all excited about the new technology, the new UI, the features that are available, and how they’re going to use them. “But,” Marcus says, “there’s a Yin to that Yang: fear of change.” People learn Salesforce their way, and some have been using it for almost twenty years, so it can feel like a big risk to go away from what you know. To help with this transition, Marcus recommends starting by learning what’s new in Lightning. The Lightning Now tours offer two days in an immersive program that makes sure that everyone knows what’s in Lightning, what’s coming, and how to use it. “That advocacy that you need to create needs to be both top-down and bottom-up,” so you need to know how to pitch it to both groups. Showing the higher-ups a side-by-side of the Dashboard in Classic vs. Lightning makes the case pretty clear— as Marcus says, “executives love pretty pictures.” What’s New for Winter 18 For Winter 18, Marcus’ team is delivering over 25 new base Components. For comparison, the last couple of releases have had around four per release, so it’s a massive bump up. “These Components just work,” says Marcus, and they’re focused on giving Devs and Admins abilities that feel like magic. One Developer Component coming out is called the Lightning Picklist Path. It’s like the Path that you already know, but instead of having to go to setup to create a custom path with fields and help text you just make the visual of a path and base it on a Picklist and it’s done. The new Lightning Report Builder is also amazing. “From the day I walked into this company five years ago to three months ago, any time I had to create a Report I just hated it.” The new Report Builder, however is a joy to use, and Marcus actually finds himself looking forward to working with it. For more insights, make sure to follow Marcus on Twitter (@mtorres_tweet) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: The_Magic_of_Components_with_Marcus_Torres.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:54pm PDT |
Fri, 8 September 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with John Kucera, VP of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us to learn about the power of Console Apps, revamping Setup and Object Manager, and what’s coming up in the future. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with John Kucera. Becoming the Secret Alfred John started out building access databases in supply chain, “because my job was to figure out how to make sure we didn’t run out of 2,000 different brands of Pepsi.” Yes, with all the different sizes, brands, Kosher laws, and recycling laws, there are actually 2,000 different brands of Pepsi at any given time. John’s job was to negotiate pricing for the labels for all of these different brands, but the problem was they didn’t know how many they were buying at any given time. After that project, John ended going to business school, but after doing some consulting realized that he didn’t like doing that at all. What he really enjoyed was building software, and that’s how he ended up at Salesforce. “The company is just so innovative and so willing to take big bets,” and over 9 years he’s got to be there for everything from Chatter to mobile and Salesforce One. “Now, with Lightning and Einstein, it’s just continually fun and interesting opportunities to build tools that people care about and use.” John has 181 logins for Salesforce Orgs, and those are just the ones that he’s saved. As Mike says, he’s the secret Alfred for all the Salesforce Admin Batmans that are out there. He started with a free lead scoring app, back in the early days of marketing automation when that kind of thing cost at least $1,000 a month. The latest app is the Lightning Adoption Tracker (also free), which tells you how many people in your Org can use Lightning, and how many people are using Lightning and not switching back. The Power of Console Apps Being the Product Manager of them definitely influences his opinion, but John is a huge fan of Console Apps. “They’re the fastest way to work.” You used to have to pay for them, but in Lightning, they’re free. You also used to have to check a bunch of permissions boxes for each user, but now you just add profiles. John’s team adds a lot of polish to everything they do, and for Lightning Console Apps they’ve had the opportunity to rethink the little things. One example he brought up is tabs. In classic, when you had too many tabs open you had this weird scroller that you’d need wait on, but in Lightning they’ve created a popup menu and added keyboard controls. There’s no more right-click-new-tab necessary, either. If you left click it automatically opens a new tab, and both stay loaded. Why Lightning is Always Getting Better (and Faster) John is also on the Lightning Now Tour, so he’s had a lot of chances to talk to customers from all over. “Our customers are geniuses, they always have new and interesting ideas and new and different questions,” John says, and the one thing he’s come away with a new appreciation for just how many different ways that people use Salesforce. From those who dive deep into Translations to others who dig into the Data Model or Components. This diversity of uses and thinking is possible because, ultimately, Salesforce is a settings-driven platform. Instead of writing code, an Admin can just use Setup to make things happen, and they’ve tried to emphasize that in Lightning. As John says, “We give you the power so you don’t have to write code.” They’ve also added Aliasing in the Setup Tree, so you can find everything by its name from Classic: “You no longer have to speak Classic and Lightning.” The Winter Release also comes with new Trailhead styling, which even extends to Setup. They’ve also used the redo as an opportunity to tighten up the visual presentation of information, making things just a little bit better everywhere. But most importantly, it’s even faster: “In every single release there are hundreds of people whose who job is making Lightning faster.” For more insights, make sure to follow John on Twitter (@nothackedjk) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Tue, 5 September 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Michael Orr, the Senior Director in charge of Lightning Adoption at Salesforce. Join us to learn about why Lightning is all about action, the magic of quick actions, and the new excited changes that are coming down the pipe with the Winter release. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michael Orr. The Lightning Tour Michael became a Salesforce Admin twelve years ago, “and I’ve been administrating something ever since.” However, for the last two years he’s been working on Lightning, and now he’s focused on helping Salesforce customers get everything they can out of Lightning. “Building Lightning is like a rebirth of the product in many ways; we get to rethink and redesign all the pieces of the product that have been there for so long.” During the process of doing all that, Michael’s hit the road touring and talking to customers with the Lightning Tour. Getting feedback is an invaluable part of the process, and “some parts of it they almost know better than we do.” They’ve done over 40 cities so far, with more on the way. As Michael says, “we don’t have to guess what’s important to people, they tell us.” The Lightning Tour is especially useful when the local user group shows up, because they ask some of the best questions. The happy hours and other user group event are especially memorable and fun because “we get to meet all the people that we interact with virtually in the flesh in different cities around the world.” The Magic of Quick Actions When Michael was on tour on the East Coast, they were asking people whether they had used quick actions or created a global quick action, but to his surprise few had actually played around with that feature. It can save your users a lot of time, so it’s one of Michael’s biggest Lightning pro tips. In Lightning, quick actions are preconfigured actions, created declaratively, that let you do something like create a record with preset defaults. They were originally created for a feed-based design, “but in Lightning we’ve jailbroken that feature.” You can put a quick action in the header bar, or in the global header, so you can have access to quick actions no matter where you are. This lets you do an action while you’re working on something else, “which makes Salesforce a lot more like an operating system in the cloud.” So Why Lightning? If you have Classic and it’s working, why switch? Classic was amazing and innovative for it’s time, and as Michael says, “If we rewind the clock ten years, the idea of being able to just put data in the cloud and not worry about it was pretty revolutionary.” That was ten years ago, however, and it’s time for something new. The real shift from Classic to Lightning is a shift in mentality. Instead of being focused on record keeping, where it was all about the huge amounts of data you were saving to to the cloud where it will be safe, the focus in Lightning is on actions. The goal is to “allow the user to first of all really see and understand what’s most important about a particular thing that they’re working with, and then take action quickly and have those actions accessible to the end user.” Trying to enable action isn’t just about the end user, it’s also about the Admin. You can configure things that you could never touch before. As Michael says, “You can create experiences that are tailored to a specific role or profile in ways that you couldn’t in Classic.” With the new design changes coming in the Winter release, it’s a great time to switch. For more insights, make sure to follow Michael on Twitter (@orrdeal) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Mon, 28 August 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Courtney Buras, a graduate of the Salesforce Girl Develop It Program (GDI). Join us live from Midwest Dreaming to learn about how Courtney found her way to Salesforce, how GDI helped her learn to embrace challenges, and how she’s learning by giving back as a TA. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Courtney Buras. A Sweet Hoodie and a Path to Salesforce Courtney found her way to Salesforce through the Girl Develop It Program. She had been a part of GDI for a few years, and was checking MeetUp for upcoming events, and saw that they were offering a Salesforce Intro to App Building course. She had heard about Salesforce in a couple of GDI meetings and she wanted to learn more, so that’s how she ended up in a seminar with Rebe de la Paz. Courtney attended the seminar in February 2016 and quickly realized Salesforce was for her: “I love it, I realized that it was exactly what I liked about technology— organizing data and information and creating reports out of it.” She dove into Trailhead, prodded by a contest Rebe ran to see who could get the most trailhead badges in a month. This February, when Courtney came back as a TA she found out that she had won, and her that prize was a sweet Salesforce hoodie. Working in book publishing and writing had always been a dream for Courtney, but she got started with programming through her boyfriend, who encouraged her to get started with Ruby. “I learned it, I loved it because it was about problem solving, it was creative.” She did a Developer Boot Camp, but they were going through a transition that ultimately lead to them shutting down. The upside was that it put her in a place where she knew a lot about coding but was open to something adjacent, like Salesforce. The rest is history. The Admin of the Future Courtney is still chipping away at Trailhead, especially the 16 new trails that recently came out. “I was so close to being a report and dashboard specialist, and they added one more trail.” She’s looking at jobs to be a Salesforce Admin or Dev— she just had a phone interview and her skills have helped her move on to the next round. In five years, Courtney sees herself as a Salesforce Admin at a startup in charge of their CRM, “having an input in a real company that’s growing.” She already has one idea for a good business. “I have a lot of experience working in daycare, and boy is there room for improvement.” So much of childcare is just about having a body in the room to make sure that nobody dies. Getting good people is kind of a crap shoot, and managing the erratic schedules of infants is tough. Check back in with Courtney in a couple months to find out how Daycareforce is going. The Salesforce Community Effect Courtney’s been to two events, Midwest Dreamin' and a programming conference in Pittsburgh. Comparing the two, the difference is huge: “Everyone is so sociable here.” She found that everyone had tunnel vision at the programming event, “but here I entered the exhibition room and instantly Allison [Park] introduced to all these different people and everyone’s just super happy to meet me, it’s not inconvenient at all for them.” The community is a big separator for Salesforce, and one that we keep coming back to over and over again. Salesforce has a great partnership with Girl Develop It, doing courses all over the country. TAs have gone on to teach these seminars, including Rebe, who first TAed for Mary Scotton in Chicago, and Gillian taught one in LA. It’s an amazing ripple effect that makes the community stronger. For more insights, make sure to follow Courtney on Twitter (@courtburas) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: The_Salesforce_Admin_of_the_Future_with_Courtney_Buras.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:29am PDT |
Mon, 21 August 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Nicolas Grant, a graduate of the PepUp Tech Salesforce Boot Camp. Join us to hear about how he went from signing up for an internship knowing nothing about Salesforce to speaking at Midwest Dreaming, with the help of a program called PepUp Tech, and how you can take Salesforce things to Twitter. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Nicolas Grant. The PepUp Tech Salesforce Bootcamp Nicolas got into Salesforce through the PepUp Tech Salesforce Bootcamp at Monroe College. Alum Selina Suarez is one of the founders (along with Amy Buccifero, Rebe De La Paz, Shonnah Hughes, and Stephanie Herrera), so she came back to do a organize it there last year. “On the flier the professor handed out to me it said outstanding students get an internship so I said, ‘Well, I’ve just got to be outstanding.’” When Nicolas was volunteering for Meals on Wheels in New Rochelle doing their website, he heard that one of the things they wanted was a database. Since he had just learned Salesforce, he volunteered to build it for them, with help from Selena as his mentor. From there, Selena introduced Nicolas to David Giller, the owner of Brainiate Consulting, where he was able to work as an intern on several different projects. “I learned a lot about the ecosystem and the different roles there are as a Salesforce professional.” He graduated from college on August 3rd, and passed his certification test the next day. From Jamaica to Chicago Nicolas was born and raised in Jamaica, and came to the US for school on an F1 visa. “I googled Salesforce because I had never heard of it,” and after doing some research he decided “it was big, it was fast, it was innovative, and I knew I wanted to get in there.” There was a bit of hesitation, however: “I was afraid that I didn’t know the right people because of my background.” Instead, Nicolas found a vibrant community waiting to help him grow and learn. From a young age, Nicolas was drawn to problem solving. He wanted to be a design engineer when he was growing up, because he wanted to figure out solutions that would make everyone’s life better. “For me, it’s understanding, before I can go in and solve I have to understand the problem,” Nicolas says, “you need to know what you don’t know so you know what you need to learn.” When it comes to Salesforce, Nicolas knows he’s aiming to be a Dev: “I have a passion for development, but I really want to start off as a Salesforce Admin.” Nicolas is looking ahead to what’s next, and he’d like to go to a consulting firm and “drink from the firehose.” He’s trying to get as much experience as he can on the platform, because he wants to still be client-facing even as a Dev. How You Can Make a Difference Mike and Gillian are meeting Nicolas live at Midwest Dreaming, at the Palmer House in Chicago, but it’s not his first Salesforce event. Beyond User Groups, he’s been to World Tour in New York twice already, and he spoke on diversity in tech with Mary Scotten and Selina. If you’re looking to help a Nicolas near you, PepUp tech is trying to expand their reach and they need your help. There’s a lot of ways to get involved, and you can really make a big impact on someone. You can reach out to Amy Buccifero (@ifitfloats), Rebe De La Paz (@rabedela), Shonnah Hughes (@SaaSy_Sistah), Stephanie Herrera (@steph_herrera_), and Selina Suarez (@selinaSFDC) on Twitter or through the Success Community. This is the second PepUp Tech Boot Camp, and they’re also adding a summer camp where they teach kids to code. Nicolas volunteers there, and his sisters are going there too. For more insights, make sure to follow Nicolas on Twitter (@versatgrant) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. If you tweet us a Salesforce thing, Mike will reply with a special GIF, just for you. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Learn_about_PepUp_Tech_with_Nicolas_Grant.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:00am PDT |
Tue, 15 August 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Connie Dea, the Manager of Product Marketing for the AppExchange at Salesforce. Join us to hear about how to develop an AppExchange strategy, manage things from the Lightning App Builder, and keep in the know with what’s going on with AppExchange. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Connie Dea. The Rise of Appy As the Product Marketing Manager on the AppExchange Team, Connie says that “I am purely focused on customers.” She needs to think through the strategy of what themes the team wants to highlight each quarter but also needs to get tactical in terms of actually executing those marketing plans. Connie just recently celebrated her one year anniversary at Salesforce. Before that, she worked in a very different job as a consultant for financial services companies with Pricewaterhouse Coopers. “It was a great chance for me to master the skill of wearing different hats, which prepared me for Salesforce where there’s a lot of exciting things happening and we want to do it all at once.” Before you ask, yes, Connie was involved with launching Appy. She’s been delighted by the response that they’ve gotten, and there’s more to come soon. As Connie put it, “Dreamforce is coming up in a couple months.” Stay tuned. The Admin Batcave As a Salesforce Admin, Mike liked to think of AppExchange as his Admin Batcave, “I could always go in and get some really cool apps, it really made me a rockstar in my organization.” From what Connie has seen, the community plays a major role in helping to propel people forward and put them in a position to learn and grow in their career. Providing a light framework for how to be more thoughtful for picking the right AppExchange install to solve the business problems that you have at hand. “A lot of times an Admin’s job is to put out the fire that’s right in front of you, and so there’s time pressure to just pick something to solve it.” With that in mind, Connie and Mike discussed how to develop an AppExchange strategy, touching back on the webinar they did earlier. The idea is to take a few steps back and think about some two key questions:
With that in mind, you can browse the over 3,000 apps that are on AppExchange and pick out some options. From there, Connie says that “one of the biggest things that we recommend as a part of this process is to install the app in a sandbox or developer org so you can see how the app will operate in your org without having to deploy it in production.” Once you have that running, go back to your business criteria and evaluate your options based on those requirements. How to Stay Up-to-Date with AppExchange There’s a lot of different ways to both get content that the AppExchange team has already produced and stay in know going forward. The easiest thing is to sign up for their newsletter, which you can do via a link on AppExchange.com. It’s a lightweight way to keep up-to-date with everything that’s going on. If you’re looking to dig a little deeper, you’ll want to check out the AppExchange Content Collection at appExchangecontent.com. It’s the central place for all content, so there’s eBooks, blog posts, and even demo jam videos and recordings. For more insights, make sure to follow Connie on Twitter (@ConnieDea11) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Learning_About_the_Appexchange_with_Connie_Dea.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:18am PDT |
Tue, 8 August 2017
For the 200th episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re digging through the archives and taking a look back at some highlights from our journey. We’ve talked to so many amazing people, recorded in some amazing places, and we thought that our 200th episode would be a great time to look back on the highs (and lows). Salesforce Admins Podcast: this is your life! You should subscribe for the full episode, but here’s a quick summary. A Slightly Bumpy Start Before it was the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we started out as the ButtonClick Admin Podcast. Unfortunately, we goofed right from the start by mispronouncing Gillian Madill’s name as Gillian MA-dill. We had to get that intro re-recorded, and then we were off to the races. You might not know it just by listening, but most of our episodes are recorded on Skype. Mike’s in Iowa and Gillian’s in San Francisco, and our guests are from all over the world. That’s why we love doing live events. Getting that live energy is really fun, whether it’s at a World Tour, Dreamforce, or even just at a bar sipping Manhattans and chowing down on charcuterie with Marc Baizman. A favorite of Mike’s was the live show at a Salesforce Admin London User Group Meeting, where we learned that some words have very different meanings across the pond. It was a rather good time. Long Live the Co-Hosts We also took some time to look back at the interesting co-hosts we’ve had during the times that Gillian has had to step out for reasons of life, scuba diving, and the four other jobs she juggles. Even when she can’t be there, Gillian gives Mike some behind-the-scenes tips to surprise our guests. When Mike and LeeAnn Templeman were recording with Zac Otero, Gillian sent Mike a cryptic text: “Ask Zac about rainbows.” Instead of a quick little funny story, the answer Zac gave was actually powerful, inspiring, and surprising. Other great co-hosts we’ve had along the way include Mary Scotton, Kris Lande, Rebecca Saar, most of whom are on our team. We love our co-hosts because they can help get different things out of our guests, and variety is the spice of life. Spoofs and Goofs - Theme Episodes Beyond co-hosts, we have also done some special holiday episodes around specific themes. Who can forget the classic poem, “‘’Twas the night before Dreamforce?” Many more followed, including a Halloween episode that spoofed The Big Lebowski with the help of a Salesforce customer who uses the platform to manage voice talent. During the Serial craze, we chronicled crimes against the cloud with our own mystery show called “Implementation.” We have a diverse audience comprising audiences all over the world, so we decided to experiment with other languages. After we learned how to say “in the cloud” en español, which is en la lube, we decided to give multilingual podcasting a try. Rebecca Saar is fluent in German, so we did eine ganze Episode auf Deutsch. Before there was Salesforce Things, there were many other segments: The Community Spotlight, highlighting the best weekly posts in the community; The Admin Buzz, answering call-in questions and comments; The Too Long Didn’t Listen episode summarizing each month’s worth of podcasts; and finally the fan favorite Lightning Round we all know and love. It’s been a long road to 200 episodes, and we’re glad that you’ve been along for the ride. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Episode_200_-_Salesforce_Admins_Podcast_This_is_Your_Life.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:11am PDT |
Mon, 31 July 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Cari Aves, the Director of Product Management for Accounts at Salesforce. Join us to hear about Account Teams, Person Accounts, Account Hierarchies, and Contacts to multiple Accounts. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Cari Aves. When You Should Use Personal Accounts Traditionally, Salesforce is setup to track customers as companies, but if you work with individuals, you can use Person Accounts to track the way they interact with individuals across your organization. The first example most think of is retail, but you can also use Person Accounts to understand other relationships with people who work with your company, like accountants or doctors or lawyers, who tend to cross different companies and locations. If your business does any kind of selling to individuals, it’s worth it to consider Person Accounts. Cari runs across DIY solutions all the time: “We have customers who want to model these relationships and they do backbends to create their own version of a Person Account.” These solutions don’t really let you take advantage of everything that Salesforce has to offer, but Person Accounts let you model this relationship and leverage everything the platform has to offer. Multiple Accounts and Account Hierarchies If you think about the standard Salesforce model, you have an account record and you have contacts who are related to that account. “But in the real world,” as Cari puts it, “you are dealing with contacts who often have relationships to multiple accounts.” This could be someone who owns multiple franchises of a restaurant, or a physician who has a private practice, a relationship to a hospital, and a relationship to a clinic. Contacts for Multiple Accounts builds on the Salesforce data model and allows you to create these relationships so you don’t have to duplicate the contact. Relationships between Accounts are another key area that Cari’s team works on: “I think the challenge with Account Hierarchies in Salesforce is that we have a very basic representation of what that is.” We often think about it as just a parent-child relationship, but from a customer perspective they need to be able to have multiple Hierarchies, so “right now we’ve been very focused on improving the visualization around the Hierarchy,” with new additions like tree view and hovers. “I really want to hear from customers and learn more about what Hierarchies you want to maintain,” Cari says, “I want the Hierarchy to be a place of action and not just visualization.” Going on the Road with the Lightning Now Tour Cari was in Austin for this recording as part of the Lightning Now tour— so what is her view on the move to Lightning? “It’s been a great experience from my perspective as a Product Manager to see how people are approaching this project of moving into Lightning,” Cari says, “some are taking it as an opportunity to reimagine their implementation and I think that that’s awesome.” She sees a lot of people taking a moment to step back and rethink what they’ve been doing with their page layouts, customizations, and more. For Cari, the Lightning Now tour has been valuable for that face-to-face time with customers, getting to share the new features that are coming and see how they’re thinking of applying it to their projects. Things like tabbed layouts, or individual related lists on different parts of the page. People are using these features to drive adoption with their salespeople to get folks using the application more extensively. “Oftentimes we get to interact with customers at Dreamforce on a call or webinar here and there, but it’s nice to be in-person talking through a very specific topic like moving to Lightning.” For more insights, make sure to follow Cari on Twitter (@CFAves) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Tue, 25 July 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Melissa Prcic, a Developer at Stand for Children. Join us to hear about how she builds the technology behind Stand for Children’s anti-bullying efforts, as well as her work on the steering committee for Rad Women, and her unique path to becoming a Dev. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Melissa Prcic. Jumping Into Salesforce Melissa’s undergrad degrees were in Political Science, International Relations, and Critical Gender Studies, so not exactly the path you picture when you think about someone who makes their living in tech. When she started working at her first nonprofit, however, she was astonished to find that they didn’t have a database. This led her to take a class and eventually build her first database in Access. Melissa quickly realized that she had a passion for data and tech, which lead her first to a database administrator position and later to Stand for Children, where they were starting to adopt Salesforce. “I dove into the deep end and learned as fast as I could because we did a really quick migration, and I fell in love with the platform.” They started by treating it like a regular business migration, targeting the core business processes that they needed to get working by January 1st. “I did a lot of jumping in and playing around—the idea of having a sandbox was totally new to me and exciting once I figured out what that meant.” With the help of both a back end and front end developer, they were able to get everything working, and Melissa quickly realized that being a Salesforce Dev was the perfect fit. Rad Women and Stand for Children Melissa works with two great organizations to use her tech skills for social good. She’s on the steering committee for Rad Women, an all-volunteer organization that hosts 10-week sessions for women who have at least 2 years of experience on the platform but want to learn how to code. “For me the special sauce there is that you’re with a small group,” which positions the volunteer coaches to act as mentors, Melissa says. Setting up that relationship is key to getting more women involved in tech, because there’s someone you can go to when you have questions. Professionally, she works with Stand for Children, an education advocacy nonprofit that works to improve the quality of public education. One of the ways they do that is through community organizing. They constantly have staff out in the field working with parents, teachers, and trying to get people involved both in their schools and politically in order to improve education. The problem was that even though these organizers needed a database, they weren’t exactly the ideal users for out-of-the-box Salesforce. Using Salesforce as an Organizing Platform Melissa’s team ended up building something called the Organizer App to solve their problem. They created an HTML5 custom front end that sits on top of Salesforce to make it more mobile-friendly. As Melissa put it, “It puts that data in the hands of the people who are actually doing the work.” Salesforce helped give Stand for Children a common definition of success: what the goals were and how well they were doing. They could look at metrics across several states and really get an idea of whether or not they were moving the needle the way they wanted to. Melissa’s team’s initial success has led the organization to look for new ways to use tech to help them do what they do better. Up until now their tech projects have been inward-facing, but their next project is about branching into communities. It’s called the Kind Schools Project, and it’s about getting research-based curriculum support to teachers who want to foster an environment of kindness. As Melissa says, “Teaching is about empathy, both having empathy towards each other in the classroom and throughout the school.” Their first major push for this project is to get at least half of all teachers at participating middle schools to sign up, which means that they need a place to go to register, log in, have access to a custom dashboard, be able to select activities, rate those activities, talk to other educators about what’s working, and more. Melissa is building all of that in Lightning with custom components, “I love that get to work some place that marries my passion for mission-based organizations with my passion for technology.” For more insights, make sure to follow Melissa on Twitter (@MelissaPrcic) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t, head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Using_Salesforce_for_Social_Good_with_Melissa_Prcic.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:48am PDT |
Wed, 19 July 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Matheus Goncalves, a Senior Salesforce Developer at eVestment. Join us to hear about how Salesforce brought Matheus from Brazil to Atlanta, his philosophy of combining troubleshooting with learning, and how he approaches the Admin side of Salesforce as a Senior Dev. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Matheus Goncalves. How Matheus Had to Fake It to Make It Matheus got his start on Salesforce when his manager at a tech company asked him if he could work with it, and then started talking up his great in-house Salesforce Dev. “I had to learn really quick, so Trailhead was my savior.” Beyond that, the Dev community blew him away with their support: “The sense of community we have is completely different than any other technology I work with.” Moving from Brazil to Atlanta to start a job as a Senior Salesforce Developer, Matheus has many more badges, super badges, and certifications under his belt and his future is looking bright. Turning Challenges into Opportunities with Trailhead At Matheus’ office, “Trailhead fever is in the air,” and there’s a healthy competition going to see who can get the most badges and points by the end of the year. It’s a major difference maker compared to other platforms, because “when you get a badge you get a sense of fulfillment that you don’t get with other learning platforms.” As he’s gone along, Matheus has started collecting several super badges, including Apex, Integration, and Security. He has a unique approach to combining his learning journey with bumps that come up in his everyday work: “Every time I face a challenge related to Salesforce, I search for a Trailhead related to that.” Growing with the Community In Atlanta, community members take part in Salesforce Saturdays, which are casual events members can attend to discuss issues related to Salesforce and help each other out with common problems. When it comes to reaching out to other Devs online, Matheus likes to keep active on StackExchange and Twitter. Matheus is looking forward to Salesforce DX because it will simplify the process of developing new solutions on the platform and reduce the time you need for deployment. “A lot of amazing things that we’ve been waiting for, Salesforce DX is going to provide.” Instead of going out and partying after the event, Matheus spent four hours the night before this interview just talking with others at Trailhead DX about all the changes that are coming down the line. Why Technology is About Creativity Matheus got started on a really old computer his dad brought home one day, and one of the ways he learned English was from programming books. For him, programming is “the empirical meaning of creating things,” you are making something new that does what you want it to do. You design it, you implement it, and you need to use your creativity to make it work. This is why Matheus is so passionate about Salesforce — it enables people without coding skills can get so much done. “I love declarative development because you can provide non-developers a possibility to improve the application, improve the system, and be helpful.” His approach as a Dev is that if he needs to do something, he always checks first to see if it’s possible to go with a declarative solution first. For more insights, make sure to follow Matheus on Twitter (@toadgeek). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Bringing_Creativity_to_Salesforce_with_Matheus_Goncalves.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:58am PDT |
Thu, 6 July 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with John Schaaf, Salesforce Admin at MDLIVE. Join us to hear John’s amazing story about learning a new career after a significant injury and the program that made it all happen. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with John Schaaf. John’s Amazing Story John had a life-altering motorcycle accident in 2006 in San Francisco. He wasn’t at fault, but his injuries left him on disability until 2013, when he was finally well enough to be able to go back to work. He started driving for Lyft while trying to find a new job in tech, but after seven years his skills were out of date. John realized he needed help, and after a couple of years of being ignored by employers, he found Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) of the Bay Area. He initially came in to do basic things— update his resume, update his Microsoft Office skills, etc.— but within months he found out about a special Salesforce Admin training program. “When I heard that, the hair on the back of my neck went up,” John says, “because the more I found out about what a Salesforce Administrator did, the more it seemed to be who I could become and what I could become.” At JVS, John was enrolled in a 3-month program with full time, instructor-led training. All 20 people in his class took the certification test and passed with flying colors. The success of this first class has carried over into the next four classes as well. The program was funded through a Department of Labor job training initiative, which made everything possible. A Business Analyst for Business Analysts “Being able to look under the hood of any system is a privilege,” John says. As an Admin, you get to make an impact by bridging the gap between business analysis and technology, and that means you get to make big contributions that have a major impact on how things get done. John’s experience in Financial Services and the Healthcare Industry have been incredibly helpful when it comes to helping his users refine their specifications. “Part of the job is being a Business Analyst to our Business Analysts,” he says, “one of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we get a request to modify Salesforce is “Why is this request being made?” Admins need to think about the overall architecture of Salesforce, and how a request will affect everything in the long term. Salesforce as an Equalizer Looking to the future, John is clear about his vision: “I want to be an advocate for the idea that Salesforce can be an equalizer for people who may have been in a position like mine.” There are so many tools available to help people help themselves by learning Salesforce, and it’s so in-demand that it can really change lives. John sees Salesforce as a powerful agent for social good, a way to give people who may be marginalized and unable to get hired for any number of reasons the means to lift themselves up. His story is proof that it’s possible, and he’s looking for ways to share it with the world. For more insights, make sure to follow John on Twitter (@johncschaaf). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: How_Salesforce_is_an_Equalizer_with_John_Schaaf.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:06pm PDT |
Wed, 5 July 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Kiran Manyala, a Senior Developer Advocate with Salesforce India and Gillian’s co-host for the Trailhead DX Preshow. Join us to hear about how Kiran’s three-point strategy of running Salesforce workshops with students while they’re still in school, bringing new people into the community to learn more, and working with businesses has helped India face an engineering crisis. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kiran Manyala. Salesforce India Kiran works for the India Developer Relations Team, a small team of four that supports Trailhead customers all over the world. He joined Salesforce as a support engineer in the CSG block, then moved to Admin, and then Feature Activation. As he put it, “I always had this goal in my mind to do some coding in my career.” The massive Salesforce Community in India is Kiran’s main responsibility: 40 Developer Groups and around 25,000 Salesforce Engineers. Three of the five largest Dev Groups in the world are in India including Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai; with Pune and Jaipur not far behind. Kiran’s job is to create awareness among them on how powerful the platform is and show them the path to both build their careers and create applications on it. This was one of the major draws that initially drew Kiran to Salesforce: “If you really perform well and if you know what you’re doing, you’re really rewarded and appreciated in this organization.” India’s Changing Market “There is a crisis in India,” Kiran says, “customers have changed: they want solutions faster and in a better way.” Once upon a time, when a customer had a use-case, System Integrators would propose solutions based on the resources and technologies they had available, mainly in Java and .NET, which would often take a long time to build. The problem is that “customers aren’t anything like that right now,” Kiran says, “they want it faster.” They no longer want to wait around for the year it would take to build an implementation in Java. This is where Salesforce comes in because it can shrink that time down to two months. The crisis comes from some folks who are struggling to adopt new technologies and losing jobs because of it: 100,000 engineers have already lost their jobs, and another 600,000 will follow in the next three years. However, as Kiran puts it, “there is opportunity in crisis.” Kiran sees it as his mission to seek out these engineers and give them new skills by helping them learn a new platform. To tackle his job, Kiran tries to connect three dots: outreach that begins with workshops at colleges and university, meetups and other tactics to strengthen the community, and target job placement to get people with skills in positions where they can make a difference. Working with Schools Kiran runs Salesforce workshops at colleges, demonstrating what a CRM is and how you can build these types of applications on Force.com. In the last one and a half years Kiran has taken his workshop to over 8,000 students in India. The students go on to collect Badges, Super Badges, and Certifications, so they know their stuff but don’t necessarily have the experience of a seasoned Dev. “That’s why we created a platform for them to showcase their skills,” says Kiran, which has led to around 100 students getting placed (and counting). Tightening up that ramp time is “a win situation for the Organizations, it’s a win situation for us (because they’re coming into our community), and it’s a win situation for them because they’re coming into a job.” The Power of Communities Kiran has done a lot to make sure that the Salesforce Communities throughout India are active and vibrant. For example, if you’re new to the Community in Hyderabad, you can just go to go to MeetUp.com and you’ll be able to find at least one event happening every month nearby. Getting people involved quickly allows for people to share experiences and makes the community stronger. A cool idea came up when Mike, Gillian, and Kiran started discussing ways for Communities to connect across the globe— could we pair “sister” Groups together? As Kiran put it, “there’s nothing we cannot do virtually these days.” If they could find a sweet spot that works for both time zones, it could be an amazing way to share knowledge and grow even more connections. Bringing More Skills into the Workforce The third dot for Kiran is about connecting with the people who are already working in Salesforce right now. In India, there are around 35,000 System Integrators on the platform right now, and that’s not even taking into account the mid-segment and small-segment companies. Between working with engineers who have coding ability but might not know the Salesforce platform, and new graduates who have a lot of training but not a lot of experience, there are a lot of ways that Kiran can bring even more talent into his Communities. The future is promising, and this work is a big reason why. For more insights, make sure to follow Kiran on Twitter (@sfdckiran). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Growing_Community_in_India_with_Kiran_Manyala.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:39am PDT |
Mon, 26 June 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Daniel Peter, Lead Engineer at Kenandy and Salesforce MVP. If you’ve looked at anything Salesforce-related on Twitter, you’ve probably come across something Daniel posted, and we got a chance to talk about how you can build your community presence. Join us to hear about how Daniel approaches Twitter and uses that to really be a leader in the Salesforce community, as well as how he bridges the Admin and Dev divide. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Daniel Peter. The Power of Community Daniel started with Twitter and Salesforce around the same time, in 2009, when he was working for Safari Books Online as both their Salesforce Admin and Dev. In the beginning, it was just about engaging and sharing, “There’s not really any other community that’s as fun as Salesforce,” Daniel says, which makes Twitter especially useful “both to learn and stay on top of new information, and also spread that information to other people.” For Daniel, using Twitter is about staying actively engaged with new ideas. You keep reading and learning, and a week (or a month, or a year) later you connect some dots and get somewhere new. He carves out an hour every day to stay up on the industry because it moves so fast. “There are some network effects about how doing this over time builds and synergizes and you get a new understanding you can share with other people.” Approaching Twitter as an Experiment Daniel cops to having a Twitter strategy, even though he hasn’t put it into words before now. He compares evaluating what he’s going to post to art class, where you look at your work to see if it’s visually balanced: “I take a quick look at everything I post to make sure that it’s not rubbing me the wrong way.” The default on Twitter is to be repetitive and consistent, but Daniel thinks that “you need to fight that default and always be looking for new ways to do things.” Instead, you should approach Twitter with a spirit of curiosity and experimentation, finding what sticks and continually tweaking your approach. Admins from a Dev’s Perspective Daniel started on the platform as both a Dev and an Admin, and he was drawn to Salesforce because of how quickly spending your time with it can translate into impact. “It’s the really the ability to build cool things very quickly: nobody likes to feel like they’re wasting their time with non-value-added activities, but with Salesforce a very high percentage of every hour you spend building something is value-added.” As someone who is more on the Developer side of things, a big difference he sees is that even though Devs do a lot of Admin activities, they don’t have to play the role of the Business Analyst or Internal Champion within their companies. When he was playing the role of both Admin at Dev at Safari Books Online he still had to know who within the company was going to get the requirements and champion it. At the end of the day, “You can configure and develop things all day long, but if nobody’s using them what’s the point?” For more insights, make sure to follow Daniel on Twitter (@danieljpeter) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Mon, 19 June 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Rod Dixon, Senior Manager for the Setup Platform, and Shane McLaughlin, Principal Demo Engineer for App Cloud Product Marketing. On this episode, we’re focusing on what you can do to be successful “under the gear” in the setup menu. Join us to hear about all about the Setup Platform and how it makes life easier, better, and more efficient for Admins everywhere. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Rod Dixon and Shane McLaughlin. What Lead Rob and Shane Under the Gear Shane’s been at Salesforce for about three years, coming from Solution Engineering where he worked with large energy companies around the Houston area. With Salesforce, he builds the marketing demos. So anytime you see things for the Salesforce platform at a World Tour or Dreamforce he either built it or is running it. He’s the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. Rod is a Senior Product Manager at Salesforce, primarily responsible for the Setup Experience— everything under the gear menu, and everything regarding setup and configuration of the overall platform. They’re in charge of the Object Manager that’s in the Summer 17 Release, which he’s really excited about. “All the Objects are unified the way that Classic never was,” says Rod, which helps eliminate moments of asking yourself, “Do need to I scroll up or down to get where I want to go?” What the Object Manager Can Do for You The Summer Release and Object Manager are a game changer. They’re focused on streamlining the process, making it faster and more efficient while also cleaning up the interface. Where you used to have one page with a large number of subsections, the Object Details, and related lists are now broken up into individual pages. Object Manager also has a dedicated tab, which allows you to get back to where you were much faster, letting you look at your work and quickly make adjustments. Another huge change they’ve made is to replace pagination with infinite scroll. It might not seem like a big change at first but, combined with the Find in Page feature, you can find anything that would’ve normally appeared on another page, simply by typing it in. Combined with new, more powerful sorting feature, Rod says these changes “provide the ability to quickly filter and locate exactly what you’re looking for.” A Power User’s Experience with Object Manager Shane has a lot of experience under the gear in his job making demos, so he can speak to how these changes impact his day-to-day. “This job tends to be churning out a lot of things, more than any regular admin would be doing in terms of creating Objects.” In the past, even though he tries not to use Classic, he’s had to go back and forth a lot in order to get things done quickly, but switching back and forth was still time-consuming. With the Object Manager, the workflow is so much smoother— he can make a few Fields, look at what he’s made to figure out what to build next, and it’s easy to get back and do that. Collecting Feedback How does the Setup Team continue making improvements that they know will have a big impact? “For us getting out and interacting with Admins is extremely important,” Rod says, “We want to hear from and interact with Admins as much as possible to see how we can improve the overall experience.” They use everything they can to try to and capture anything that might be helpful: Chatter, Twitter, Idea Exchange, Communities, and more. As Rod puts it, “All roads come into the Setup Organization and provide us input to figure out what direction we need to take.” Everything under the Gear is really focused on convenience, so they’re always looking for new ideas for what can help Admins do things easier and faster. For more insights, make sure to follow Shane on Twitter (@mshanemc), or find him and Rod on the Success Community. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Under_the_Gear_with_Rod_Dixon_and_Shane_McLaughlin.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:23am PDT |
Wed, 14 June 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Matt Bertuzzi, Salesforce MVP, author of Lightning Sales Ops, and host of the One of These Things podcast. We caught up with Matt at the Salesforce World Tour in Boston and had a great conversation about Lightning and why you should jump in and make the switch. Join us to hear about how Matt gained insights into how to own the front end of the funnel by focusing on reducing friction. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Matt Bertuzzi. Writing the Book on Lightning Matt does an extraordinary amount of things, from being a Salesforce MVP to hosting a great podcast to authoring a new book, Lightning Sales Ops. Still, and the end of the day, “I’m a Salesforce Admin number one, and the other stuff is things I do after six o’clock.” When Matt started his book in May 2016, he sat down with a neat arrangement of index cards that outlined everything he wanted to say. Originally he had planned for just one chapter on Lightning, but when he started to get his Lightning material together, he realized he was onto something. He started showing Reps his demo Org, and they demanded that he make the switch. As Matt says, “The Reps are the ones who convinced me that it was a legitimate game changer. They pulled me into Lightning.” The Key Journey of the Book As Matt puts it, “The book is the story of making Salesforce work for Sales Development Reps.” In writing it, Matt tried to think like a Business Analysis person, so he organized it in order of a Rep’s workflow. He feels that Devs, in general, don’t spend enough time thinking about how to really optimize the workflow for their frontline users. “How can we as the tinkerers behind the scenes, as Admins, support reps with automation, customization, and UX?” With Lightning App Pages, we can start to think like a UX designer and make a big impact on what people do every day. For Matt, the reason to add Lightning is not to make your job easier, but to make your actual users’ lives better. “In my experience, users are contently unhappy,” so to get started he asked a bunch of Sales Reps to describe what a day in the life of using Salesforce is like. They’d say “it’s miserable, it’s clicky, and it’s tedious.” Matt realized that those Reps never got any mindshare from the Admin team: “What ‘perfectly happy’ sounds like to an Admin is actually just that they’re not complaining.” The truth is that absence of complaints is actually not a sentiment— it’s not the same thing as the presence of happiness. Focus on Reducing Friction When we’re Admins, we often think about how we can make all ten things that a user needs to do easier. However, what we don’t realize is that there’s one or two of those things that they need to do 80% of the time. Matt realized that we need to take the top things that people do and make them incredibly easy. If the other things are a little clicky, that’s OK because we’ve reduced friction. It might be the difference between 70 clicks and 40 clicks but, in the long-run, making the things that you do 60 times a day more efficient will do great things for adoption and perception. People worry about adoption when they think about switching over to Lightning, but the truth of the matter is that your users will go with whatever helps them get things done faster. Lightning’s features can be a big help with that because the interface is more “3D.” If you get an inbound lead, wouldn’t you, as the Rep, want to know if this lead is already a contact? Wouldn’t you want to know if their email address is associated with a current customer, so you don’t approach them as if they don’t know you? You can do all of this with one tab open in Lightning, but, as Matt says, “I’ve never seen a Salesforce Classic user with one tab open— it just doesn’t happen.” Matt’s Own Transition to Lightning Matt’s company is relatively small, so the usability acceptance testing is pretty informal, “but really I tried to pull a Mike Gerholdt: bring a cup of coffee, close my mouth, and open eyes, and watch how users use Salesforce.” A turning point came when he realized that nobody was using the great button hack he had made because his users only needed to do that action once a month, if that. Instead, he realized that he needed to focus on cutting clicks in half on the other 29 days. For Matt, “You should judge your Admins by how much friction they can take away from their users.” Instead of looking at capabilities or performance, it’s about focusing on efficiency: “How can they make the process bend around the user?” Salesforce is a tool to make sales and do business smarter and not an end unto itself. For more insights, make sure to follow Matt on Twitter (@mattbertuzzi) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Lightning_Sales_Ops_with_Matt_Bertuzzi.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:31am PDT |
Tue, 6 June 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Barry Roberts, the co-leader of the North England User Group. Barry has an amazing story about how he began his learning journey with Salesforce, and how the Salesforce Admins Podcast helped him find his community. Join us to hear about how Barry approaches learning, explains what an Admin actually does, and what he’s working on for the future. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Barry Roberts. What to Do with a Two Hour Commute Barry walked up to Mike at the 2015 Salesforce World Tour to tell him about how he listened to the Salesforce Admins Podcast every day on his 2-hour (!) commute, and now he’s a guest on the show. Barry comes from a construction background, “Where if you want to learn something, you get told, ‘Go and learn it yourself.’” Barry started out by learning from the videos that came with the initial package they bought from Salesforce, but when those ran out, he couldn’t figure out how to find out more since this was before Trailhead existed. Instead, he lucked out when he discovered the Salesforce Admins Podcast, which lead him to more podcasts and eventually to an entire community: “All of the sudden I wasn’t this single person trying to learn a system.” Now he spends his time as a co-leader of the North England User Group to try and give back to that community. He is dedicated to helping other Admins get started with Trailhead at Salesforce World Tour 2017. Giving Back Through The Salesforce Community The Community Answer Board is a great place to get started trying to give back, but it can be tough to contribute if you can’t set the speed record for getting the perfect screenshots. Instead, Barry suggests trying to get involved with your local User Group. “I find that when you answer a question, it normally generates more questions,” which makes the experience more social. The real magic happens when you’re helping someone, and another person with even more experience steps in to take your own knowledge even further. This social approach also helps with the Answers Community. For Barry, “It started off as the Google of Salesforce— if I had any question I would ask it there,” but it has become more than that. “As an English person, it’s quite hard to say the word ‘awesome,’ but I’ll throw it out there.” It’s now a great way to make friends and connect over common interests with people across the globe, whether it’s about finding someone to answer a question or finding someone to chat about baseball. Explaining What an Admin Does Barry has a bit of a reputation for getting his friends and family started with Trailhead. “One of the hardest things to explain is what a Salesforce Admin does,” so his solution is to get the people in his life to do the “What is the CRM” badge. When we pressed him about it, he defined the job of an Admin pretty succinctly: “To define business knowledge and implement that into a software solution.” At Salesforce World 2017 we found that almost half of the attendees were first-year Admins. If you’re looking for a secret sauce for how to get more badges and certifications, it comes down to curiosity and persistence. Barry does most of his learning at night and on weekends. “It’s a little embarrassing, but it’s become my hobby.” If you’re looking to become more involved and work towards being an MVP or a User Group Leader, you just need to jump in and get started. People undervalue what they know, but you’d be surprised how much you can help. As Barry says, “The Admins I meet tend not to have IT backgrounds,” and those varied viewpoints are incredibly valuable to the industry. For more insights, make sure to follow Barry on Twitter (@sfdc_beard). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
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Tue, 30 May 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Jacinta Burke, the Senior Manager of Product Readiness at Salesforce. Jacinta is the first person you should go to if you have questions about what’s coming up in the next release that will impact your org and improve what you do. Join us to hear about how Jacinta and her team help Admins get ready for each new release, and where you can go to learn about all the new features that make Salesforce even better. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jacinta Burke. Diving into Release Readiness Jacinta is in charge of Release Readiness, but she’s also an ex-Admin, so she knows what it’s like to run an org. “Usually you’re doing it in addition to whatever your day job is,” and she understands that, as Salesforce has evolved, there are so many features in each release that staying on top of it is a tall task. The job of Release Readiness is to put together tools, content, webinars, and more to help you sort out what’s in each release and what might apply to you. With so much going on in each release, deciding what to look at can be tough, so Jacinta says, “a lot of what we try to do is help you filter through all that information.” Paradoxically, they do this by producing material that is not curated, because they want everyone to be able to decide for themselves what they need. However, by using a variety of formats, they try to make it easy for people with different learning styles to digest the material. For more visual learners, for example, they produce slideshows and videos. Making a Release Strategy Releases just happen in your org. “That’s part of the beauty of Salesforce: there are no upgrades, no being out of date with the software.” However, that means that you need to have an actual strategy around releases because your users are going to come in on Monday morning and see some new features. To help with this, the Release Readiness team offers webinars with MVPs around how you can manage your release strategy. Releases are so heavily tested by Salesforce that there’s no risk to you and your instance, but being aware of what new features are auto-enabled will help you give your users a heads up. How to Keep Up with Releases Six weeks before each release, Jacinta and her team publish a Milestones Doc on the Success Community. “That’s the really the first step for any Admin because you want to know what’s coming and when.” In it, you can find things like when the release notes are coming, and when the Sandbox preview will be available. As it gets closer, the team will also make pre-release orgs available so you can play around. As Jacinta puts it, “It’s kind of like a little playground for the new release.” As for where to go to keep up with what’s going on, Jacinta says that “if you’re not already, join the Success Community, and join the Release Readiness and Feature Adoption Group.” The community is very active, and with every release, there’s something called the Treasure Hunt, where people go in and see what great little features they can dig up in the new release. “I was an Admin by myself, with no money, no resourcing,” Jacinta says, “and the community was great for me.” Staying on Top of Release Notes When it comes to how you should approach release notes, Jacinta has some advice: “Don’t eat the elephant all in one bite.” The Documentation Team at Salesforce is continually improving, and they’ve made release notes that are filled with screenshots and easily searchable. There are filters by edition, UI, classic features, and even mobile-only features. A great place to go for more information is the Feature Impact Table, which is where you can see the features that your users are going to see automatically after the release, as well as the features that you need to set up as an Admin. The team also sends out emails to all Admins from Technology Communications, and of course, there’s a lot of communication on the Success Community group, Twitter, and even in-app notifications. If you have an idea for how to make the release more consumable get in touch with Jacinta and her team, “We’re all ears.” For more insights, make sure to follow Jacinta on Twitter (@jessburkesfdc). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Mon, 22 May 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Michael Drzewiecki, a Salesforce Admin who, as a career changer, has worked hard to advance his knowledge of Salesforce as a platform. Michael has an astounding 14 certifications since Dreamforce 2016, and as of this recording has 92 Trailhead badges. Join us to hear about how Michael got started with Salesforce, navigated a career change, and what he thinks it takes to build sustained and lasting success. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michael Drzewiecki. From Auto Mechanic to Admin When Michael was growing up, he dreamed of being an auto mechanic. He did it for a year, and even though he’s still into cars, he realized it wasn’t for him. After a stint in retail, Michael began the journey that would put him on the path to becoming a Salesforce Admin in 2015 by breaking into the IT world five years earlier. As of this show, Michael has 14 Salesforce certifications. The astounding thing is that he started his first certification at Dreamforce 2016, this past October. His first introduction to Salesforce came at Dreamforce 2015: “I went there as a total newbie. I knew nothing about Salesforce other than that my boss said, ‘Go check out this Salesforce thing.’” Michael took his first Admin certification the day before Dreamforce 2016, but didn’t pass the first time he tried. “I refuse to call it a failure, anytime you sit for an exam that’s success in itself.” When he compared the section-level feedback with his own results, he was able to figure out what he needed to study. At 8 am the next morning, he was back in the exam room and passed. The Power of Determination As someone with a lot of certifications, Michael has some great advice about thinking through problems on the platform. When he gets an unusual or difficult requirement or feature, he has developed his own unique approach. “You have to think like Salesforce,” Michael says. Because he didn’t come from a programming background, he doesn’t try to solve things from Apex first. Instead, Michael tries to solve problems declaratively first and, from there, he moves on to the Success Community and Answers. As Michael puts it, “There’s no secret sauce here, just determination.” Building a Learning Journey in Trailhead With 92 Trailhead Badges (and probably more since this podcast was recorded), Michael has forged his own path through Trailhead. His approach was incredibly practical: he’d study for a certification, take the exam, and if he didn’t succeed he would learn what he needed to work on from the feedback provided. Instead of focusing on badges, he would learn everything he could find that was related to those keywords. This approach took him to all sorts of places, but after Destination Success, he noticed, “I have 48 badges in progress, maybe I should clean this up a bit.” He’s working towards becoming a Ranger, but his practical approach is what has taken him so far so quickly. How You Can Start Adding Certifications Michael’s advice for people who want to achieve what he’s achieved is pretty simple: “When it comes to certifications, just do it.” He talks to a lot of people who wait and wait to take the Admin certification, “All you’re doing is building a bunch of negative energy up inside yourself about that exam.” The entire reason that Michael has been able to make incredible progress in such a short time is that he’s not afraid of failure. He views it as an opportunity to learn, and that’s what has helped him to gain so many certifications so quickly. For more insights, make sure to follow Michael on Twitter (@drzewiecki). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Mastering_Certifications_with_Michael_Drzewiecki.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:45am PDT |
Fri, 12 May 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Michael Gonzalez, a Director of Product Management at Salesforce working on App Builder. Michael is an expert in how App Builder is changing the way Admins can customize their pages and user experience. Join us to hear about the Lightning App Builder, the magic of Components, and what improvements are coming up in the Summer ‘17 release. We talk about how the App Builder team continues to make tweaks to give Admins more powerful tools, and more flexibility. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michael Gonzalez. The Magic of Components Michael fell into the tech industry. Out of college, he went into the family retail business. But then he got bit by the tech bug and moved from marketing into building products. This kind of journey is perfect for working on App Builder because he’s also the target audience, which gives him a passion for components. “Components are magic,” Michael says, “they’re the building blocks of all of our pages that end users are going to see.” You can kick off processes through them, and they give Admins a lot of control: you can rearrange the layout of the page, update the properties, and more. Michael’s favorite standard component is Path. With the ability to add it to custom objects, “it’s a great way to visualize the life cycle of a particular process,” and it keeps getting better from release to release. The Future is Lightning If you’re a longtime Admin who is concerned that all of the time you’ve invested in Record Types and Page Layouts will get thrown out in the move to Lightning, Michael thinks you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Everything will render and look great, but beyond that a new feature in the Spring Release allows you to create custom pages and assign them to specific Record Types and Profiles. As Michael says, “if you’ve pre-created a lot in classic, this gives you another layer to leverage the work that you’ve done to be able to build tailored experiences.” The Powers of the Lightning App Builder Right off the bat, the great thing about App Builder in Lightning is that it’s a WYSIWYG tool. “When you open up a page you see real data in there. It takes all the guesswork out of knowing exactly what your end user sees as you go through and you customize it.” This helps you keep focused on what will work best, and not whether it will work at all. In addition to that, you have a library of Components: Standard Components, Custom Components that a developer would build for your org, and custom managed ones that come directly from the App Exchange. Once you’re familiar with those two things, you can jump right in and start dragging and dropping. It’s easy to make adjustments through the Component Properties feature. You can edit details, update properties, and see how they change in real time. As Michael puts it, “you know exactly how your page is changing as you’re going through and modifying it.” Looking Forward to the Summer ‘17 Release Coming through the pipeline is a pilot feature in the Summer ‘17 Release, which allows you to control the visibility of a Component on a page. Instead of going through and recreating different custom Lightning pages by Record Type and by Profile, you can just control the visibility of an individual Component. “Having a dynamic page control is something that our customers and users have been asking for quite awhile,” and something that Michael is excited to deliver. If you’re interested in experimenting, reach out to your account teams to get ahold of it. For more insights, make sure to follow Michael in the Salesforce Success Community. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Exploring_Lightning_App_Builder_with_Michael_Gonzalez.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:25am PDT |
Mon, 8 May 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Geoff Flynn, Salesforce Community MVP. Geoff is a prolific leader of the Salesforce Answers community, with expertise in cross filters and formulas. Join us to hear about Geoff’s best practices and tips for conquering our fears about presenting — how he tackled it to go up twice (so far) on the Dreamforce stage. We talk about how he solves problems on the Answers community and look at how he’s using his developer’s edition to migrate to Lightning. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Geoff Flynn. Breaking into Salesforce Geoff’s first job was guiding his company’s implementation of Cognos from a business perspective, as opposed to an IT perspective, and from there he was quickly put in charge of implementing Salesforce. As Geoff says, “I was always that bridge between the business users, who get paid to sell stuff, and the IT users. Those two don’t always talk well together, and I was the one who tried to bridge the gap and talk the common language.” Because of Geoff’s broad skillset and because finding the balance between business and IT is key, Salesforce made sense for him. From Answers to Dreamforce Presenter “Growing up, I was petrified of speaking,” Geoff says, but when his boss surprised him by putting him up in front of a town hall, he came to an important realization, “you’re a lot more nervous than you come off.” The bottom line is that practice makes perfect. Another thing that helps is to make sure you’re talking about something you know well. If you go up there and talk about something you’ve just implemented or are really enthusiastic about, that passion and insight will come through. Formulas in Salesforce Geoff gravitated to formulas because of a need for more powerful reporting options, even importing data from other sources into the Salesforce dashboards to get the reports he needed. Spending a lot of time trying to get the reports to do what he needed them to do naturally lead Geoff to an expertise in cross filters and other formulas. Geoff explains that a key to getting formulas to add value is to figure out “how to make your data work for you.” Solving Problems and Finding Answers “You always want to try and break it down into little pieces, and really understand what the need is, and not what’s been put in front of you.” Geoff keeps focused by continually asking why someone is asking for something, and using those answers to pull the problem apart. For complicated problems, Geoff looks at the documentation and pulls out his Swiss Army Knife full of developer editions: “I’ve got so many developer editions that I need a password manager just to manage my Salesforce passwords.” Another rich source of answers is the wide variety of blogs that are out there. Using Developer Editions as a Scratch Pad Another great use of multiple developer editions is as a scratch pad because it lets you show prototypes as you go. You don’t need to track all the changes that you make, which means that you can iterate faster and show the different ways that things can look, especially in Lightning versus Classic. Each time Geoff gets started he makes an edition called “The Playground,” and on the homepage of that org he puts in big red text: “Do not expect this org to be right in any way, shape, or form.” Acknowledging that it should never be part of the development stream gives him the freedom to treat it as a whiteboarding session using the client’s own software. Being able to show, rather than tell, makes a big difference in finding the best solution to the problem at hand. For more insights, make sure to follow Geoff on Twitter (@geoffreyflynn2). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Sun, 30 April 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re talking to Salesforce Developer Evangelist, Greg Rewis. Greg has been a developer for a long time, spending fifteen years with Adobe before joining the Salesforce developer team a year and a half ago. Greg has been a great asset to the Lightning Now Tour by teaching developers how to make cool ideas come to life on top of the Salesforce platform. Join us as we discuss how Admins can work together with developers to build new and interesting Lightning components. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Greg Rewis. Learn by doing. Greg believes that if you’re not being challenged, you’re not really trying. As he explains, “I always go back to learning by doing,” He says that when you fall, you learn, and that developers should just take that leap. “Next time you’ve got a task, you have to think about it as ‘there is no time like the present. Let’s just dive in and let’s try to do this.” He advises developers to turn on Lightning in a sandbox and to try and develop it that way. “Even if you’re not over on Lightning yet, maybe you’re able to struggle your way through and get something going. Don’t be scared. You’re in a sandbox so you can’t blow anything up.” Take advantage of the Lightning Experience through the Lightning Now Tour. As Greg explains, the Lightning Now Tour allows developers the opportunity to be exposed to the Admin experience of Lightning in order to make them more aware of what Admins actually do and vice versa. The tour teaches developers what it takes to build a Lightning component. The tour also encourages the transition from Classic to Lightning by teaching developers how to put Lightning components into Visual Force to display on Classic. “You don’t have to dive into the deep end of Lightning component development,” says Greg. “You can keep using Visual Force to develop on Lightning. When you come to the workshop, you’ll learn how to make it look like Lightning so that it won’t look like the old Classic pages,” he says. Greg explains that the tour will show you how to take advantage of the whole Lightning experience. Step out of your comfort zone. When asked why developers need to attend the tour, Greg replies, “there are a lot of advantages to stepping out of your comfort zone, to walking away from the Visual Force playing field for a little while, and playing over in the Lightning component arena.” “All new features are being done on Lightning, so you’re going to be able to leverage new features more easily when you’re doing ‘native Lightning component development,’” he says. You, too, can be a developer. Greg believes that there are a lot of Salesforce developers out there, but that there aren’t enough who are qualified to do Lightning development. “Everywhere we go people are showing up in every city that we go to, to learn how we’re doing this. This tells us that there is a demand.” Greg says that there are lots of opportunities if you are a really skilled developer. “You can be one of the few who is pushing the envelope and moving this forward in your own organization.” Many Admins and business owners think that they don’t have any developers who are skilled in Lightning development. Greg says, “First of all, your developers can get up to speed, it’s not rocket science. Second of all, if you need it fast, you have a wide-open playing field of available talent, and they are called web developers. They already own the skills of HTML, CSS, and Javascript and all they need to learn is the server-side Apex aspect so they can pull the data out of Salesforce and put it back in.” Greg believes that the framework is there. If you have a web background and an affinity for learning, you can teach yourself how to be a Salesforce developer. For more insights, make sure to follow Greg on Twitter (@garazi). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Mon, 24 April 2017
Today we’re at the Lightning Now Tour in Houston to talk about Salesforce project managers, and we had a quick opportunity to speak with Eric Jacobson between his many presentations. Eric is the Senior Director of Platform Product Management at Salesforce and his mission is to bring Lightning to Admins. He will share with us what the Lightning Now Tour is all about, he’ll explain how easy the transition to Lightning is, and he’ll also give tips to help you prepare to roll it out to your organization. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Eric Jacobson. What is the Lightning Now Tour? The Lightning Now Tour is not so much about marketing information, but more about helping customers understand Lightning. The idea is to discuss in-depth what the philosophy behind Lightning is. Admins will get an opportunity to see the road map of where Lightning is at right now, to where it will be going in the future. “We decided to create an event to get hands-on with our customers to help them take that big step,” Eric says. A lot of Salesforce customers had heard about Lightning, they had seen pictures, and they knew what Lightning was, but they were missing the necessary steps to enable themselves to go from being aware of Lightning to actually turning it on in their organizations. Eric explains that the event goes deep into the hands-on experience of going from Classic to Lightning. “We talk about all the great capabilities that you have now in Lightning, that you’ve never had in classic. We also discuss techniques and strategies for moving from Classic into Lightning.” He goes on to describe that they “ask you to bring your laptops and we give you an organization where you can start to bring that organization from Classic into Lightning.” Don’t be afraid of Lightning. “This is one of the few opportunities where you get to have hands-on experience with the Lightning product and evangelist team. You’re getting a close connection with us and are then able not just to hear where we’re going from a roadmap perspective, but also to ask the questions that are burning in the back of your mind. You’ll also get to try it with the support of a team ready to look over your shoulder to help you through those questions,” says Eric. A lot of people attend the Lightning Now Tour, and it is a wonderful networking event. “Every participant that comes is doing an exercise. You are doing the equivalent of a Trailhead trail live with us in the room, so you’ll earn a Trailhead badge that is only available if you come to the Lightning tour.” Run the Lightning Readiness Check. Before coming to the tour, Eric encourages everyone to assess the organization that they have right now. “We have a great tool for that. Not everyone knows this, but we have a Lightning Readiness Check. Even if you haven’t moved to Lightning yet, from setup, there is a tool there that will basically let you assess your readiness to move to Lightning. It gives you a nice PDF report. Run that report, read through it, and it will give you some idea as to where you are today and things that you might need to look at. There’s a variety of modules that we’ll encourage you to look at, but ideally, everyone will go on to do the whole migrating to Lightning trail — that’s the real way to do it!” For more insights, make sure to follow Eric on Twitter (@esjacob). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Fri, 14 April 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Jean Velonis, Senior Salesforce Admin and Women in Tech (WIT) Leader. Jean has over ten years of experience as an Admin and recently has joined the planning team for WITness Success, a conference for women, by women. Join us to hear about Jean’s experiences transitioning from marketing into an Admin role, and how that led to a unique process of trial and error. We discuss the importance of learning to code, the difference between being on an Admin team vs. going at it solo, and Jean’s plans for the upcoming WITness Success conference. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jean Velonis. Love at first login. Jean came to the Salesforce Admin world as a marketer, originally working with leads for a finance company. As Jean puts it, “I fell in love at first login with Salesforce back in 2006.” Opportunity knocked when Jean got to move into a more technical role by taking over Salesforce reporting, opening up a whole new world of possibilities. The difference Trailhead makes. Jean and Mike met at Dreamforce 2009, which brought up the difference between learning Salesforce pre-Trailhead compared to learning it today. There was no certification test, everything was self-taught, and you couldn’t Google everything. In order to troubleshoot, you had to sift through documentation and try to patch together a solution on your own. Luckily, things have come a long way since the days of the tiny help box in the corner. Learn something new every day. At the end of the day, being a Salesforce Admin means connecting people, not just in your business organization, but in your community to help each other out. “Where I work, we’re lucky enough to have an internal development team. I work with the agents downstairs, the sales reps upstairs, the engineers are on my floor, the product team’s there. So it’s about connecting all those people and being able to build out something really awesome.” Jean’s goal is to learn something new every day. A new challenge for her for this year is learning to code, or at least to better understand how to copy and paste. Jean has a lot of experience as a solo admin, including a company with over 800 users and overseas vendors. Recently she’s had the opportunity to be part of a team, saying, “it’s nice to have somebody who understands the trials and tribulations of being an Admin.” Empower women in technology. Jean is on the steering committee for the the WITness Success Conference, a one-day event coming soon to Chicago. “It gives ladies an opportunity to learn, network, grow, and get inspired, possibly find a mentor if that’s something that they’re looking for. We just want to be able to help all of the women in tech, in Salesforce excel at their careers and be recognized for what they do.” If you want to find out more information about Women in Tech and WITness Success, you can visit their website, follow them on Twitter, or follow the core planning team: Jean, Kyla Longe, Jocelyn Fennewald, Melinda Smith, and Melissa Hill-Dees. For more insights, make sure to follow Jean on Twitter (@jeanvelonis) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Fri, 7 April 2017
Certification is a big part of success and today we’re talking to Sophie Westbrook, senior marketing manager at Salesforce University, who says that there are twenty-three possible Salesforce certifications you can master. Her marketing team is about two years old, and Sophie’s role revolves around brand, messaging, and evangelism for Salesforce University. She is all about building Salesforce fans and believes that there are endless opportunities out there for Admins. We are excited to pick Sophie’s brain about all the different qualifications you can acquire as a Salesforce Admin and technical architect. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Sophie Westbrook. What Salesforce University means. Salesforce University is the official training program of Salesforce. It focuses on in-depth instructor-led training where a customer can come into a physical or virtual classroom to interact with students, peers, and a certified Salesforce instructor who walks them through various exercises. “There are a number of other programs that Salesforce University has. There are private workshops that they can do for training credits, an admin proficiency pack (a fast-track to becoming an administrator), and the whole certification component,” Sophie explains. This year, there are twenty-three certifications, whereas last year there were ten. Salesforce has drastically grown the number of certifications that they offer due to new products and demand for roles. Volunteer to get experience. Sophie advises that you should have at least six months of experience with an application before testing for certification. However, getting the experience you need to take on a Salesforce role is a bit of a Catch-22. Sophie’s advice? “Volunteer your time at a non-profit organization. Trailhead is also a great way to show some of that expertise as you work your way towards a certification, and you can show that you have these badges to start to prove your expertise in that way.” She also believes it is vital to network with the community. “Try and get people to help with tips and tricks on how you can work towards certification,” she says. The certification journey. Salesforce University has come up with an excellent way to help people develop the base knowledge they need to get certified. “We’re starting to provide a lot more resources. We just recently introduced something called Certification Journeys. They’re free and are basically a guided approach to helping you on your way to getting certified. We’ve curated a bunch of resources including free online training, trails, and help topics that we are pointing people toward.” You can find these exam guides through downloadable e-books — they start with the basics and work up to more advanced concepts, because Sophie understands that not everyone is on the same Salesforce journey. Be mysterious about your exams. These certification exams can be quite difficult, so Sophie advises Admins not to share the news. “Don’t tell people you’re going to sit for the exam. That’s just more stress when you get back to the office.” Another very helpful tip from Sophie to take on this certification challenge, “Download the exam guide and start going through it. In it, we basically outline what is covered in the exam from an objective perspective. You see the weighting of the exam as well. Go through that exam to see what’s being covered, and from there start looking for your resources. We have training that supports that preparation.” For more insights, make sure to follow Sophie on Twitter @srwestbrook as well as Salesforce University @SalesforceU. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Sophie_Westbrook_Salesforce_Final_Audio.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm PDT |
Mon, 3 April 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re speaking with Leyla Seka. Leyla is the EVP of the Salesforce AppExchange, which she has worked on from the very beginning and has helped build from the ground up. She’s got some great advice to share for Admins, builders, and individuals on how to be leaders in their organization. She’ll also let us in on some of the trends that she’s seen in app building and give us some tips that she has learned along her amazing path, both before and after joining Salesforce. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Leyla Seka. The future of apps. According to Leyla, the focus on artificial intelligence is fascinating because as apps are getting smarter, it makes it easier for us to think about the data we're getting. “We should stop talking about it as data and start talking about it as information. With AI coming on board, it's not just raw data anymore; it is becoming this intuitive thing that's going to help us derive insights in a really interesting way.” As for the next 5 to 10 years? “I see the AppExchange becoming a place with a lot more components and different types of pieces that might put together what we’ve traditionally thought of as an app container, but more about creating an interface that allows people to process information in a way that makes sense for them.” Building apps for value. The attitude of ‘I can build an app just to prove that there's an app that can do this’ has changed since app stores were first introduced. Leyla believes that apps are becoming a lot more practical than they have been in the past. “We're finding that apps are now really being driven by the purpose.” In the early days of the AppExchange and the dawn of app stores, apps were often created because everyone wanted to prove that they could create something. Leyla believes that anyone can build anything if they have the right motivation and skillset. “Nowadays, it’s a matter of building apps that really are going to shift and change the way businesses and individuals are running the show,” she says. Don’t let your internal dialogue stop you from getting what you want. Leyla admits that she almost walked away from Salesforce because she felt like a change and didn’t know that all she needed to do was ask for the position she wanted. “I talked myself out of an opportunity that was right in front of me. All I needed to do was ask for it, and I got it!” Leyla advises that you should be aware that you have an internal dialogue that you’re always running in the back of your head and that you should not let that stop you from getting what you want. “Have a little faith. State what you want. Just ask.” Be true to yourself. People need to think more about their own brand and how they present themselves at work. To Leyla, it is important to stay true to herself. Her friends are often amazed at how similar she is in her personal life to how she is in her professional life. “I didn't want to be in an environment where I felt like I had to wear a suit or be super tight. That's not really who I am as a person.” According to Leyla, being authentic to yourself, knowing what your voice is, and not being afraid to use it are very important factors to consider for yourself. For more insights, make sure to follow Leyla on Twitter (@LeylaSeka) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
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Mon, 27 March 2017
This week on the show we are pleased to chat to Katherine Clark, a Salesforce Admin at Blue Star Families. Katherine has an incredible story to share about her career transition and how a brilliant organization called Vetforce helped her painlessly move from one career to another. We are eager to share her expertise of Vetforce with the rest of the Salesforce community. Katherine has had a remarkable experience with Salesforce, and we hope that her message will both inspire and motivate you. She is also an exceptional storyteller — quite brilliant at setting a scene — so you’re definitely in for a treat with this episode. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Katherine: How the Stars Aligned Katherine calls her journey to Salesforce “a wild path.” Before she became an Admin, she spent three weeks onboard the USS Reuben James where she worked as a government contractor. This job involved delivering training and briefings to help transition sailors from deployment mode back into everyday life — a job Katherine felt tremendously passionate about. Katherine is married to an active duty naval flight officer, which means they often need to relocate, and Katherine was heartbroken about having to let her career go. However, having to say goodbye to a job she loved so much ignited something in her and made her realized that it was time to find a career that would fit her unique lifestyle instead – a career that would be more mobile. “I advanced my research a bit. I was searching for these training opportunities provided to military spouses and veterans, and I landed on a website for something called Vetforce.” She signed up for a position as a developer and as she says, “pretty much instantly fell in love. I just saw that this is the opportunity that I needed to run with and that it would be the next step in my career.” The Aha Moment Katherine admits that when she started, she had never used a CRM or even worked in sales before. “It’s a little surprising that I was even interested in this. I saw the data model and once I learned how everything connected, it just made sense in my head.” Katherine went on to streamline all the business processes of her previous job and realized how simple it all was. “In my first developer org, I just streamlined all the business processes of my previous job, and it was so much fun!” Take One Hour and Use it for Mentorship Admins should consider providing mentorship to someone trying to break into the world of Salesforce. Perhaps this person is studying to be a Salesforce Admin or they just need a little experience. Katherine is grateful that she got so lucky with Blue Star Families. The technology manager at the time was very helpful and allowed her to learn everything she needed to start out as an Admin. “It changed my life. I’m a Salesforce Admin now.” She advises other Admins to be open to the idea of mentorship, even if it is just for one hour per month. Who can you help? “Anybody looking to break into the Salesforce ecosystem, it would just give them a glimpse into what we're going through.” An Easy Transition There are so many organizations that use Salesforce. Katherine believes that with Salesforce, anything is possible. She got to craft her perfect job to fit her unconventional lifestyle. Whatever your passion is, Katherine believes you can create your dream job with Salesforce. In addition to being a military spouse and having a unique lifestyle, Katherine is also a stay-at-home mom who studied for all her Admin exams during her daughter’s nap times and when she was at school. She advises others out there who are also looking to make the change to consider trying Salesforce. “Just because you've been out of the workforce for a couple years, there ain't nothin’ stopping you. Salesforce Admin is the way to go!” Links:
We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: From_USS_Reuben_James_to_Salesforce_with_Katherine_Clark.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:20am PDT |
Mon, 20 March 2017
This week we are honored to be speaking to product marketer, Ayori Selassie, about Salesforce Einstein. Ayori’s passion for her work with Salesforce is infectious and invigorating. As Ayori says, “I freaking love my job!” We are so excited to hear what she has to say about “Einstein” — an exciting advancement in artificial intelligence for companies. Ayori has been with Salesforce for quite some time and will explain what Einstein is all about. Join us as she shares her passion for artificial intelligence and explains exactly how every industry can use Einstein to its advantage. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Ayori: Introducing Einstein Einstein is artificial intelligence for everyone and every business. It is vastly different from traditional lead scoring, which relies more on a rules-based and formula fields logic. Einstein signifies machine-learning and as Ayori says, “the difference between machine learning and rules is, rules don’t learn.” She also admits that Einstein is a little mysterious in how it works. Meaning, “right now it is a feature. You turn on the predictive lead score and all of a sudden, after the models have generated, you’ve got scores popping into your leads telling you which are the best for your agents to follow up with.” Traditional lead scoring versus Einstein If you already have a system in place, she recommends that you compare whatever existing lead scoring you’re currently using to that of Einstein. “Do an AB test,” she advises. She goes on to explain that you can use agents who are utilizing the traditional predictive lead scoring as well as agents who are fully prioritizing their day based on what Einstein suggests, and then make the comparison from there to see how you feel about the results. Biased Data Ayori has the notion that “dirty in is dirty out” and “you can’t get insights out of dirty data.” Nowadays, we have the capability to manage large volumes of data and to keep it clean and organized. However, having “clean” data doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve collected the right data, after all “our machines are only as good as the data we feed it.” We are humans, and therefore, we're naturally biased. We need to understand the importance of processes and best practices for data capturing to ensure that what we collect will give us a fuller picture so as to avoid harmful biases. “We’re working with teams right now to be able to establish these processes and to make sure that we can share them with our customers. It’s something I’m particularly passionate about.” Artificial Intelligence and the future of human jobs Many people are afraid that AI will take away their jobs. However, this technology is actually making us more respected than ever. As Ayori says, “it’s making your executive-level functioning more valuable than ever. It’s making your creative thinking more valuable than ever.” She goes on to say that if people stopped reacting to the minor routine things that are driving them crazy every day, then they can use some of that creative energy to solve new kinds of problems, to envision new kinds of solutions, and to find new ways of engaging their customers. “You get to be part of leading and ushering artificial intelligence into a state where it is transformative for people’s lives and we’re creating a better state of society.” Links:
We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Tue, 14 March 2017
This week on the podcast, we talk to Melinda Smith and Kristi Guzman of the TwoWIT Podcast. It has been superb to see what electrifying content and exciting guests they have built up for themselves since they began podcasting. Join us as Kristi and Melinda share their Salesforce history, how that led to starting a podcast, and all the things that were imperative for their podcasting success. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kristi and Melinda:
TwoWIT podcaster chemistry. Kristi and Melinda are two peas in a pod. “We met and clicked, and obviously liked talking," Kristi confesses. Melinda initially wanted to do a blog, but Kristi brought up the idea of them doing a podcast together – the type of podcast where they could be “the witty aunts." The TwoWIT podcast takes on a fun and different angle by also featuring non-Salesforce things. As Melinda says “It helps that we have similar ideas about what we want it to be, what we want to talk about, and the flexibility to change — I think it's worked well so far."
The power of Twitter. Twitter and the Salesforce Success Community have been very helpful for answering questions. It is important to see other people who have experienced things that are similar to what you may need as an admin. As Kristi shares, “I Google a lot of things to have answers and blogs that people have written because they figured something out and wanted to share it. It’s great to see other people, read the release notes, and get the highlights from them.” “I realized that the community talk a lot on Twitter, and I made a point to get on it and spend time there. It’s kind of interesting, the friendships you can forge on Twitter,” says Melinda. It’s also a validating feeling to know that other people have asked a similar question before — it can make you feel like you are not alone and that you are on the right path.
The GIF Squad. The GIF Squad consists of eleven Salesforce members who only communicate through GIFs. They first met on Twitter, and the group eventually merged into a Direct Message channel. The GIF Squad developed into a helpful community who made a point of it to get together at Dreamforce 2016. They wanted to know how they could give back, so they decided to sell cost-effective shirts and give the proceeds to STEM research. The GIF Squad chose to support I.AM.ANGEL — a foundation that transforms lives through education and they’ve just released another fun t-shirt design. As Melinda points out, “to give back is a nice way to validate all the ridiculous time you spend on Twitter sometimes. Let’s do it for good.”
Dive in with Lightning. How did Melinda approach Lightning? Well, she jumped in with both feet, of course. She believes that you need to go in and commit. "Be here now, be in Lightning." You’ll be amazed how easy it is to transfer those skill sets. Links:
We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Wed, 8 March 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re taking a break from the normal show format and having a hostful episode- no guests. Gillian Bruce, LeeAnne Templeman, and Mike Gerholdt sit down to discuss to a variety of things that are top of mind. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few highlights of our conversation. What we wanted to be when we grew up? From diving to ocean depths, to reaching the stars, and protecting our national parks. We have a varied wishlist of what we aspired to be as kids. Spring 17 Got a favorite feature? We do. From Kanban, Path, Favorites, to all kinds of fun features- we discuss them. Happy 18th Birthday Salesforce! What were the Salesforce Admin Evangelists up to 18 years ago? We trade stories about what we were doing and Gillian uses a whole bunch of big words. And find out which evangelist will save us all from the apocalypse. What were you doing 18 years ago? Tweet us with the hashtag #18yearsago For more insights, make sure to follow us on Twitter:
Links: We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Hostful-_Mermaids_Rangers_and_Astronauts.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:29am PDT |
Tue, 28 February 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re talking about what our amazing Salesforce Admins and Developers are doing to create more entryways for more people of color in tech. As our guests, we have Shonnah Hughes, a Salesforce MVP, mentor and women in tech chapter leader; Selina Suarez, a Product Manager at Salesforce and advocate for education equality; and Rakia Finley, a CRM and Salesforce Developer and the Chief Strategy Officer at Surge Assembly. Join us as we discuss some of the amazing things our Salesforce Admins and Developers are doing to encourage diversity and bring more people of color into tech. Learn how Shonnah Hughes is using Trailhead to teach Salesforce to students in her community and how Selina Suarez has partnered with Monroe College to create Salesforce Bootcamps. You’ll also get the inside scoop on how Rakia Finley worked on the Obama administration’s White House Council on Women and Girls to help create more pathways for women of color to get into tech. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shonnah Hughes, Selina Suarez, and Rakia Finley.
Engaging students with #Trailhead4All. As Shonnah explains, #Trailhead4All is a community-based initiative that provides Salesforce training via Trailhead to youth in her local community. “It’s a call-to-action for all community members to reach out and give back to their community utilizing Trailhead,” says Shonnah. “I took that call-to-action personally. Who doesn’t love Trailhead? It’s an amazing tool. It’s used by everyone in the community and makes learning Salesforce easy and fun,” she says. As Shonnah explains, #Trailhead4All has had a huge impact on her life. “I’m able to go into local classrooms and talk to them about my career, my journey, my path and how Salesforce Trailhead can help them as well. Being able to see the looks on their faces, the joy and the fun they’re having while learning is priceless,” she says.
Partnering with Monroe College to create Salesforce Boot Camps. When asked why focusing on technology and college students so important to her, Selina says, “my passion comes from the fact that I grew up in the inner city of New York City. I came from an area that no one I knew went into technology. I wanted to change that and give people who had the potential a blueprint.” She’s partnered with her alma mater, Monroe College, to create Salesforce boot camps. As Selina shares, “last year, we did a two-day full immersion boot camp where used the user group community in New York City and Salesforce employees, and we created a curriculum that did a couple of different things. First, we focused on: what Salesforce is, the ecosystem, what kind of skillsets you need, and what kinds of jobs are out there.” “Next we went through Trailhead to show them how to build an app from beginning to end,” she says. As Selina points out, “If you’re going to use social media to grow your career you need to be where your industry is. We ended the two days by having LinkedIn come in and tell the students how to leverage social media to grow your career.”
Be intentional about making diversity a priority. While it’s crucial that we partner with elementary, high school, and college students, it’s also important to partner with government entities. Rakia Finley worked on the Obama administration’s White House Council on Women and Girls to help create more pathways for women in color to get into tech. While she saw lots of amazing initiatives that targeted students, she felt something was missing. “The companies that were going to hire these people, they weren’t prepared for this workforce. They didn’t have true institutional knowledge of how they can create an inclusive workforce, how they can create checks and balances to make sure that inclusive workforce is founded on equality and inclusion. I wanted to be a part of educating them on that,” says Rakia. When it comes to the technology world, Rakia says, “our managers, our CEOs, it’s still not an inclusive environment. We’re still not seeing that diversity. How do we get them involved? We partnered with the Obama administration and a number of amazing organizations, and asked these tech companies to make a pledge of inclusion and equality.”
Understand where your passion lies and where you can be of benefit. When asked what advice they’d give people who want to be change makers, Rakia starts by saying, “part of getting involved is understanding where your passion lies and where you can be of benefit. Because of my passion and the community I belong to, I work a lot more with people who hire, CEOs and business owners on how they can make that pathway for women of color.” Shonnah encourages community members, “don’t be afraid to lean in, reach out, be uncomfortable and go into spaces where you wouldn’t normally be. That’s where you’re going to see the most amount of change within others and yourself.” Selina adds, “All of this is outside of our normal 9-5. You have to do something that makes you excited. You have to carve out the time and resources. I look for other people who are just as passionate as I am because they’re going to work just as hard as I am.” For more insights, make sure to follow Selina Suarez (@SelinaSFDC) and Rakia Finley (@RakiaMC) on Twitter. Links:
We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Wed, 22 February 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking to Rebe de la Paz about her incredible journey to Salesforce and the amazing stories she has inspired since getting involved in the Salesforce community. Join us as Rebe shares her journey from wanting to be a doctor to Salesforce Admin and User Group leader. You’ll hear how she taught herself Salesforce, the challenges she has faced in and outside of Salesforce, and how she’s using her experience to make a positive impact on others. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Rebe de la Paz.
From pre-med to Salesforce. As Rebe explains, her journey to Salesforce has been anything but a straight line. “I’m the lady with a million jobs. It’s been a long path to Salesforce for me,” she says. After a variety of career and educational experiences, she graduated from the University of Massachusetts and landed a position as a Marketing Coordinator with a non-profit in the Chicago area that had just purchased Salesforce. However, the transition to Salesforce was rocky at best. “What better way to learn Salesforce than by learning data architecture and hierarchy?” Rebe says. However, as Rebe shares, “I taught myself Demand Tools while I was there. I knew nothing about ETL but I figured it out, and I got the system clean within a year.”
Learning Salesforce. When she experienced a setback at that position, Rebe says, “I spent the time bettering myself, my brain and learning more Salesforce. This is pre-Trailhead. I came across a site called ButtonClick Admin and another site by a gentleman, David Liu, who chased down his dream to work at Google. I thought, if this man can do this in two years, I can too.” So, how did Rebe begin this process? She says, “I just started to dig deep, canvas the blogs, read, and listen to podcasts. I started playing around with my own dev org and figuring things out.”
Going all in. When Rebe made a choice to expand her horizons, “within two weeks I found another job,” she says. “I still hadn’t participated in the Success Community yet. But once I took that new role, I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to let myself feel that way — like I was threatened or like my job would be taken from me — in a role again,” says Rebe. “I made a decision, I’m going to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way, and I’m going to put myself headfirst into a Salesforce career. When I went to my new role, I joined the Salesforce Community,” explains Rebe. Her first in-person Salesforce experience was a developer meeting during Lightning week, which she says was initially intimidating. “If you’re a woman in the tech world, there’s always going to be a lot of guys, especially at the developer meetings. I knew no one, but the thing that really got me was that everyone there was in amazement at what we saw on the screen,” says Rebe.
Getting involved in the community. Since that moment, the Salesforce Community has continued to have a huge impact on Rebe’s career and life. “Every week, every day, I can’t believe I’m a part of this. I meet so many people. I get to participate in so many things. I’ve done so much since I’ve joined the community,” says Rebe. One of her career milestones has been teaching Girl Develop It courses, which have allowed her to give back to the community. As she explains, “At the end of the day, I want to be able to look back and say, ‘what did I accomplish with the breath I was given?’”
Giving back with Girl Develop It. Rebe has loved being involved with Girl Develop It. “There was a camaraderie amongst women who are passionate about Salesforce. For me, it was amazing because I gave up one Saturday. That’s all it took. Imagine if everyone gave up one day to do something for someone else?” she says. As she points out, it all comes down to how you manage and view your time. “I have more than one day on my calendar to help others. That made me want to further my partnership and work with Girl Develop it,” says Rebe. When she recalls one of her favorite student success stories, she says, “that little bit of time out of my year just made a major impact on another person, and that person is going to make major impacts on others.” For more insights, make sure to follow Rebe de la Paz on Twitter (@Rabedela).
Links:
We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Wed, 22 February 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking to a couple of original members of Team Trailhead: Lauren Grau and Dana Hall. Lauren does all of the fantastic marketing for bigger campaigns on Team Trailhead, and Dana is (as many of you know) the Twitter voice of Team Trailhead. Join us as they give us an inside look into Team Trailhead: how they got to Salesforce, the things they work on and how the Trailhead community has changed their lives. We’ll also hear about “Trailheart” and what admins can do to “keep Trailhead weird.” You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lauren Grau and Dana Hall.
The journey to Salesforce. Both Dana and Lauren came from non-profit backgrounds before landing at Salesforce. As Lauren explains, “a friend who worked at Salesforce told me about a job opportunity on the developer marketing team. A week later, I had a job at Salesforce. I ended up being part of the team that founded Trailhead in 2014.” When asked to describe Trailhead to someone who’s never heard of it, Lauren says, “Trailhead is the fun way to learn Salesforce. But first, you’d have to know a bit about what Salesforce is. Luckily we have a trail for that. Navigate the Salesforce Advantage is a great trail to teach people what Salesforce is. Basically, Trailhead is our e-learning platform that’s designed to teach everyone — whether you’re a developer, admin or end user — about the Salesforce culture, product, and company.”
Witnessing the love fest that is the Trailblazer community. “The community helped get Trailhead to where it is today, with their energy and enthusiasm. We’re really proud of our Trailhead community. We call them Trailblazers because these are people who are carving out a path for themselves and reaching a hand back to help others,” says Lauren. Dana agrees, adding that she sees “an amazing organic community that I’ve come into and that I’m happy to help foster online, especially on Twitter. It’s amazing to see people who have never met answer questions and supporting each other.” The community aspect has had an enormous impact on Lauren. She shares, “I didn’t always feel that one-on-one connection with my work, but with Trailhead, every day we’re hearing stories from Trailblazers about how having access to education and tech skills has changed their lives.”
Keep Trailhead weird. Trailhead is anything but a boring corporate training program, hence, the slogan, “keep Trailhead weird.” Dana says, “it’s the idea of keeping what makes Trailhead special, especially as you become more popular, you can lose what made you popular in the first place. Trailhead is so successful because it’s valuable content that is well written with hands-on elements that are fun and that people find addictive in the most positive way. As the team grew, we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose our special sauce.” “It’s all about keeping that offbeat nature and the willingness to try something new, different and not settle for the status quo. Also, keeping it real. We have a saying: Trailheart,” says Lauren.
Tapping into Trailheart. “Trailhead has really helped me learn the history and culture of Salesforce. It’s also really helped me feel like a better employee,” says Dana. As Dana points out, “it’s not hard to get people to understand the value of Trailhead. The real kicker is figuring out how to help people find the time and motivation. This is something we really want to figure out.”
Changing the way people learn. We asked Dana and Lauren: if they had a time machine and could go forward 20 years, what would they like to have accomplished? They hope to change the way people learn and access education. As Dana shares, “having Salesforce skills and literacy for the Salesforce platform is a necessary business skill, like knowing how to type or use email. In 20 years, I hope it will be taken for granted as something we had to endeavor to teach.” For more insights, make sure to follow Lauren Grau (@laurengrau) and Dana Hall (@THEDanaHall) on Twitter. We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
Direct download: Ep._325_with_Lauren_Grau_and_Dana_Hall.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:15am PDT |
Wed, 15 February 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking to Pat Solum, he’s a Salesforce MVP and the co-leader of the Sioux Falls Salesforce user group. Pat’s Salesforce origin story is simple: once he saw the figurative Salesforce Bat Signal, he immediately connected with his community. This connection to the Salesforce community enabled him to master many different technologies. Now he’s ready to share some of the most valuable tips and tricks for Admins that he’s learned in his career. Join us as Pat shares how he became involved in the Salesforce community and what inspired him to create User Group Office Hours. We'll also hear about the essential skills Admins need to have, as well as the products he's most looking forward to in 2017. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Pat Solum. Embrace the community. Pat started in a Marketing Manager position and, “really quickly, Salesforce became my favorite part of my job,” he says. The Salesforce community is a huge part of why he loves what he does. “There are certain people who, if I hadn’t met them, I would have flunked out of Salesforce in my first year,” says Pat. As Pat explains, “I found the Answers community to be really, really engaging. I would have what I thought were really dumb questions. I’d post them out there. Low and behold, an hour later I’d have exactly what I needed to do my job. I got really hooked on it.” That’s when he discovered User Groups. “Everyone in these User Group meetings was so engaging. Really quickly it became this really contagious community,” he says. Start a User Group. Looking to connect with the local Salesforce community, Pat and his co-leader, Sarah Gall, started the User Group in Sioux Falls. Unsure of how to begin, Pat started User Group Office Hours, which is now in its second year. “We’ve been able to help a lot of different User Group Leaders, new and old,” says Pat. Connect with other Admins. When asked how his career has changed since starting with Salesforce, Pat says, “My career has just exploded. Salesforce has opened up so many different avenues for me, personally and professionally.” “This whole idea that Salesforce uses Ohana, it’s not just talk, it’s real. There’s so many great life long friends that I’ve met through here. They have helped my career by helping me learn new skills and have allowed me to connect with amazing companies,” says Pat. Prioritize and communicate with users. So, what exactly does an Admin do everyday? Pat says, “the biggest thing for me as an Admin has been prioritization. Looking at your email, looking at the different tasks I had open for that day and being able to prioritize what needed to get done right now and what could be delayed. I always have the philosophy that if it takes five minutes or less, just knock it out and get it over with.” Another was talking to his users. He always asked them, “How is Salesforce working for you? What can we do to make Salesforce more efficient for you?” He often spent time talking to the business stakeholders to make sure they were getting the right data out of Salesforce. “It was a very busy job. I loved it,” says Pat. Be the calm in the middle of the storm. When looking for a Super Admin, Pat says the quality he would look for most is someone “who could be the calm in the middle of a storm.” He goes on to explain, “You get a lot of things thrown at you as a Salesforce Admin, and you have to be someone who can’t get rattled. You have to be someone who can prioritize their time and focus on the important tasks. Also, someone who can defend the decisions that they’ve made in a diplomatic way.” Pat also believes that the ability to learn the technical aspects is crucial. “There’s so much great information out there through Trailhead, the Success Community, and Answers that the technical aspect of learning the Salesforce platform is almost secondary to the time management and diplomacy side of being an Admin,” says Pat. Don’t get randomized. “When you get a user request, you have to be 100% sure why they’re asking for it. Sometimes a user will ask for a feature, but then you discover that it’s because they don’t know how to run a very simple, fundamental part that’s already in the system,” says Pat. As he explains, a lot of being an Admin is “making sure that the feature the user wants is really as important as they think it is. Then being able to diplomatically tell them no or find other stakeholders to make it part of what Salesforce does for your users.” Looking forward to Spring 2017, Pat says he’s most excited about Lightning even though some Admins are still intimidated by it. “What we need to ask is, ‘is my end user’s experience better in Lightning or better in Classic?’ If it’s better in Lightning, that’s where you need to be. It’s our job to figure it out to make it easier for them, not vice versa,” says Pat. That is, ultimately, what you should use to drive your decision about what you build and what your end user sees. For more insights, make sure to follow Pat Solum on Twitter (@Sodakforce). Links: We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
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Wed, 8 February 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking to two security experts, Laura Pelkey and Lynn Simons from our Security team at Salesforce. They have some really great security tips for admins and so much more. Join us as Laura and Lynn share their insights on security best practices at Salesforce and what they’re doing to help make the lives of admins and customers easier and more secure. We’ll learn about the benefits of two factor authentication protocols and why it’s important that admins transition to TLS 1.1 or higher. All that and more from Laura Pelkey and Lynn Simons. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Laura Pelkey and Lynn Simons. Creating one stop shop for security needs. As Lynn explains, “We want to make things easy for our community.” What they’ve been doing to make this happen: “we’ve been working on a web page that is a central hub for admins and customers. It will help them find what works for them and answer the questions they have about security. That URL is Salesforce.com/security,” says Lynn. The website is chock-full of helpful resources. “You can even link back to admin.salesforce.com and have an assorted view of all the blog posts we’ve written for admins, all in one view,” says Lynn. Making people feel the spark. Laura has a background in security and has been with Salesforce for a little over 2 months, however she started as a Salesforce admin. As she explains, “I love talking about security. I’m super obsessed with it. I think it’s something that unites the world right now. It’s the universal struggle, everyone needs to be more secure and everyone is talking about it.” What would she like to hear someone say to her at Dreamforce next year? “Wow that’s so interesting. You need to get people to feel the spark so that they direct themselves and ask: how can I be more secure? What can I do in my everyday life?” says Laura. Lynn has also felt the spark. “Security in every fiber of what we do. That just got me jazzed because I realized that every single person had a role to play. I think that’s true for our customers too. Whether you’re a user, an admin or a dev there’s some element or way you’re interacting with this internet service that makes security relevant,” says Lynn. As Lynn shares, “it’s the world we live in. It’s no different if you’re on LinkedIn or Facebook or Tweeting. These implications are everywhere. That’s what sparked me.” Making things easier for customers with two factor authentication. So, what updates are coming to the security landscape at Salesforce? Laura says, “a couple of updates that are coming out in the Spring release are easier and better ways to authenticate your logins,” says Laura. As Laura shares, “two factor authentication is something we encourage everyone to adopt. It’s really the easiest thing you can do to better protect yourself and your data.” Lynn chimes in, “we want security to be easy for our customers. In the upcoming releases you’re going to see it getting easier and easier to not only make your logins secure but it will be easier to configure that.” Building good relationships with IT. Lynn says the new updates are “going to make your life easier when dealing with IT. They’re going to back off a bit. It makes them have more faith in the security of your org.” Admins can now configure a lot of things declaratively which allows them to take a leadership position within their company. “We’re trying to come with ways to make interacting with IT easier. It’s definitely worth the investment in that relationship, ” says Lynn. Also, as Laura points out, building these relationships, “will position you as a security expert within your company.” She adds, “some of these simple configurations can be ways to build the relationship so when you want to make the bigger changes, that relationship is there already.” It’s all about TLS. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security. It’s a type of encryption protocol that helps with browser security. As Laura explains, Salesforce is in the process of switching to a more secure form of TLS. “Right now Salesforce runs on TLS 1.0, but that’s going to be switching to 1.1 or higher to align to security industry best practices. We want to be the most secure we can be for your data and the way to do that is stay current with the best practices in the field,” says Laura. “This is something that we need to do to stay at the forefront of browser security. Since Salesforce runs in a browser we have to have the best protocols to protect data” says Lynn. Admins need to transition to TLS 1.1 or higher. “If you’re a Salesforce admin you’re going to get an email about this, if you haven’t already and will walk you through the process. What we want to get across is that every customer needs to care about this. The first step is to see whether this affects you and then all the tools and support are there to help you,” explains Lynn. For more insights, make sure to follow Laura Pelkey (@LauraPelkey1) and Lynn Simons (@lsimons0524) on Twitter. Links: We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Thu, 2 February 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admin Podcast we’re speaking to Scott Kozinchik, a Senior Product Manager at Salesforce. Scott works on some of the most popular admin tools like Flow and Process Builder. He’s excited to share his Flow and Process Builder wisdom, along with some helpful tips on how admins can be successful at using both. Join us as Scott shares his journey from admin to Product Manager and what it’s like working on the Flow and Process Builder team. We learn the difference between Flow and Process Builder. We also get insight into why Scott loves Reusable Processes and what makes his job as a Product Manager so exciting. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Scott Kozinchik. Process Builder makes data manipulation easy. Scott started his Salesforce career as an admin in 2007. As Scott says, “I love Salesforce for the power it gives to the every person.” However, when asked what aspect was hardest for him to pick up, he shares, “Rules and Permissions and Profiles. It took a long time for me to figure these out because they were spread all over the platform. I also didn’t understand how to use a Lead Object. I didn’t understand the difference between a Lead and an Account. There wasn’t a lot of prescriptive guidance on that. That’s changed.” Moving to Process Builder has been a positive step forward. “It’s a fantastic, simple UI that lets you hook onto changes that happen on any of the objects in Salesforce and take subsequent actions and build out these beautiful ‘if this then that’ formulas while controlling the automatic data manipulation within your org,” says Scott. Processes are really flows under the hood “Process Builder is built on Lightning. It’s a fantastic example of what can be built on Lightning,” says Scott. As he explains, whereas “Lightning was more created to render information and get your users interacting with your data, Process Builder is more a structured tool. Ultimately what Process Builder does is that it creates metadata that drives the Flow engine in exactly the same way that the Flow engine creates metadata that drives the Flow engine.” As Scott explains, “Processes are really flows under the hood. To our advanced admins and admins that cross over to the developer realm, they can actually put that metadata into the engine directly through the API.” Build screens with Flow The Flow component now allows admins to use Flow like never before. “The actual difference between Process Builder and Flow is that the Flow Designer allows you to build actual screens,” says Scott. This is one of the reasons Flow is so exciting. “You can build interfaces. You can collect information from your users and dynamically render new information to them in screens. Historically those have always been standalone, but now Lightning Application Builder has really changed the game, and you can now combine multiple components. Those Flow screens can be part of that,” says Scott. Reusable processes save time and energy. One of Scott’s favorite features? Reusable processes. As he shares, “reusable processes are really cool. Especially for people who are more developer minded and they don’t want to do things over and over again.” So, what exactly makes Reusable Processes so handy? As Scott says, “you can take chunks of your processes that get used by other processes and create something called an Invocable Process. Then, in Process Builder, instead of making that series of actions, something you have to reauthor in all of your processes, you just call the Invocable Process. That’s reusable and compartmentalized.” Product Managers are advocates for other departments. If he had to choose one aspect of his job that’s his favorite, Scott says, “the diversity of people I get to work with. I get to work with designers and I get to work with developers. I get to work with doc writers, marketers, the sales folks and we are one of the groups of people that get to interface the most with customers.” In order to be successful, Scott says it’s important to keep in mind, “when talking to any one of those categories, you’re advocating for all of the others.” When asked what advice he’d give a newbie admin who has never built a process, Scott says, “the hardest thing isn’t using the software tool, it’s understanding your business process. Spend time thinking about what you’re trying to accomplish. What outcome do you want to achieve? What knowns and unknowns are you working with? Then map it out. Once you’ve done that, the processes and flows will fall out from the upfront work you’ve done,” says Scott. For more insights, make sure to follow Scott Kozinchik on Twitter (@scottkozy_sfdc). Links: We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmins to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it. |
Wed, 25 January 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Shawna Wolverton, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Salesforce. Most recently Shawna has been leading the charge on Lightning. She currently runs the Lightning Experience teams as well as our process automation work group. Join us as Shawna shares her inspiration for building out the idea of Lightning and how Lightning is now moving the code cliff for admins. We’ll also hear about some of the Lightning features Shawna is excited to see roll out for Spring 2017. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shawna Wolverton.
Process builder has moved the code cliff. Shawna has been with Salesforce for 13 years. “The bulk of that time has been working in Product and building cool stuff for admins,” she says. When it comes to process builder and logic, Shawna says, “I’ve always been about moving the cliff and extending the runway when it comes to what admins can do with clicks instead of code. What we’ve been able to do with process builder is take the kinds of things you would have had to write Apex for, multi-step, workflow, criteria and actions and giving that power to admins in a whole new way.”
Lightning is eliminating code for common use cases. So, how does Lightning help move the code cliff for admins? “Lightning is this idea of a new experience for sales and service users. It’s a new eco-system, a new platform and a new way of extending out what you can do with Salesforce,” says Shawna. As she explains, “if you look at what you can do with a standard page in Lightning versus what you can do in Classic, the difference is astronomical. Similar to Process Builder, we’ve eliminated the need to write code for some very common use cases.”
Lightning helps customers and developers go faster. The concept for Lightning was inspired by user feedback. Shawna says, “we were hearing that our user interface was really functional but needed some modernization. Then, there were all these requests to do more with the Page Out editor. But what we realized was that we were hamstrung technically. Lightning allows us to go faster when we do development and allows our customers to build things faster as well.” “Building out components and assembling them into killer experiences has never been as easy as it is today,” says Shawna.
Lightning creates a bridge between admins and developers. Some admins are still trying to wrap their head about Components. Shawna explains them in simple terms, “Components are building blocks of a page. When you think of a Classic Salesforce page you really only had two components: fields and related lists. In Lightning, you still have those fields and related lists, but now you can put all kinds of things on that page.” As a Lightning feature, they’re building a bridge between admins and developers. “These components are built by developers, but they’re built specially, and with a model in mind, for admins,” says Shawna.
New features that are coming in Spring 2017. There are some exciting Lightning releases on their way for Spring 2017. Shawna is excited about Flow, a component that allows you to display visual workflow as a component. How does it work? Shawna explains, “you can now put a flow right on a page. Imagine giving your users guidance on the kinds of things that need to be done on a page and then helping them walk through those tasks with a visual flow.” “We think this can really dial up your Lightning implementation when you do decide to migrate,” Shawna says. Shawna is also excited about Favorites. “You’ll see in the upper right-hand corner on any page that can be favorited, a little star. You can click on that, and then you have a running list of all your favorite records, dashboards, list-views, group pages. Anything you favorite you can go back to. This allows users to build their own navigation system in Lightning,” she says. For more insights, make sure to follow Shawna on Twitter (@shawnawol) We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. and mention @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.
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Fri, 13 January 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Megan Petersen, a Salesforce Senior Principal Success Manager from the Sydney office. Megan is passionate about customer success at Salesforce and has been extremely effective in creating her own role in the company and scaling the program in Australia while activating the community across eight different time zones. She’s here to share her journey at Salesforce and provide some tips on how admins can connect with their community to maximize their success. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Megan Petersen. Customers want to connect with other customers.“I started out as a Customer Success Manager in the Sydney office,” says Megan. She began with five accounts and has grown her department to over 50 accounts in the nine years she’s been with Salesforce. When she returned from maternity leave in her second year, she discussed the opportunity to create her own role. “I found when I was talking to our customers, that I was having the same conversations with them. That didn’t seem smart to me when it came to leveraging our customer base,” says Megan. As Megan shares, “often I find our customers like connecting with other customers as much as they like connecting with us at Salesforce, because they can learn different things from people who are living it day in and day out, like themselves.” Bringing the Awesome Admin message Down Under.Inspired by the Admin keynote, Megan decided to help spread that message in Australia. “I loved the message. Given that I’ve talked to admins daily for the past nine years, it made so much sense to me that we had a team dedicated to the story around what our admins do and highlighting all of the excellent work they do every day,” says Megan. “We have a really amazing community here in Australia. I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past year trying to get immersed in the community. I’ve been a part of Salesforce for so long, but being part of the admin keynote opened my eyes to a lot of things that I wasn’t really paying attention to,” says Megan. If you’re Down Under, you need to get down with Twitter.“It’s phenomenal how many resources are out there to help you any given moment of the day. It’s not everyone’s thing to be part of Twitter, but if you’re not part of Twitter in the Salesforce community, you’re really missing out on a wealth of information and a connection with people,” Megan shares. As Megan points out, “I don’t see a huge contingent of people in the APAC region — especially in Australia — being a part of Twitter. I’d love to see more people in our region getting into that medium and connecting with all of those global resources.” Focus on fundamental, universal topics.If an Admin in Australia was looking to grow that community, what topics or themes should they be writing about? Megan says, “There are universal, fundamental things. For example, everyone is in that transition to Lightning right now. That’s a big topic and seems like a very big mountain for some people to climb. I’d love to see more of the Lightning stuff come into the Down Under time zone.” “We also have this awesome ‘Ask Salesforce Anything’ session that we run every week here. It’s like an open mic hour. We have experts from our team on that call, solution engineers, and VPs as well. You can literally call in and ask any question. It’s a great forum to connect with experts and other customers. You can get to all of that through the Success community,” says Megan. The Success community is always there to support you.Why should people join the success community? Megan says, “You shouldn’t have to email one single person to get an answer to a question. The success community is out there, available 24/7. You’re tapping into such a wealth of resources.” “Apart from learning Salesforce stuff, I’ve seen so many amazing friendships come out of connecting in the community,” says Megan. For more insights, make sure to follow Megan Petersen on Twitter (@MeganPTweets). We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast. |
Sun, 8 January 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins podcast, we’re speaking to Umair llyas, a Senior Salesforce Consultant at Acumen. Umair did a fantastic presentation in December at Salesforce World Tour which was all about helping admins transition to Lightning. Along with having a great presentation, Umair works as a hands on mentor to help admins make the transition to Lightning, learn more, and do better at their job. Join us as Umair shares his journey from the world of nonprofit and teaching to his role as a Senior Salesforce Consultant and admin mentor. We’ll learn Umair’s top tips for admins transitioning to Lightning and hear about some of his favorite Lightning features and capabilities. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Umair llyas. Communication is key. A former teacher who worked extensively in the nonprofit world, Umair didn’t start out in Salesforce. However, he’s used skills from his previous career to help mentor admins. “Salesforce already provides a lot of great resources to help admins learn the system on their own. I like adding to that with soft skills that they can’t necessarily learn online,” says Umair. As Umair points out, “Communication is one of the biggest things you should focus on. As an admin, you’re not the one using the system. Your users are using the system. If you’re not in constant communication with them, how do you know what’s best for them?”
Lightning isn’t just a user interface upgrade. How should admins get started with Lightning? Umair says, “I start by helping the admin understand that Lightning isn’t just a user interface upgrade. It’s an entirely new user experience. The way you do things in Classic is not the same as the way as you would do things in Lightning.” Secondly, admins should make use of the resources available to them. “There are plenty of lessons available to you on Trailhead to help you get Lightning ready,” says Umair. He also encourages admins to use Lightning Migration Assistant. “It’s an entirely different page within your set-up that walks you through everything you need to do to get ready for Lightning. One of those pieces is the Lightning Writing Assessment, this really cool report that shows you all the different items you need to touch upon before you can move into Lightning,” says Umair.
It’s all about change management. “I’ve seen a lot of people I’ve worked with miss the ball on this,” says Umair. As he explains, “moving to Lightning is not as easy as flipping a switch. It involves communicating with your end users, knowing what’s possible in the system, figuring out how to equip your end users to use the system, providing support after you go on Lightning. It’s a journey that you have to take with your end users, clients, and customers.” However, he says the result is worth it. “Yes, it’s daunting. We’re naturally afraid of things that look different and that we haven’t used. But at the end of the day it’s something that’s going to benefit your users,” says Umair.
The first step is hardest. When it comes to learning Lightning, a lot of Salesforce admins don’t know where to start. Umair’s advice: “Just take one step forward and everything works itself out.” “In the beginning, you’re not going to know everything, but that’s the fun,” says Umair. For more insights, make sure to follow Umair llyas on Twitter (@UmairSF).
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Tue, 3 January 2017
Today on the Salesforce Admins podcast, we’re speaking to Michael Lupino, the CRM manager for L’Oreal corporation. Michael is currently helping L’Oreal migrate from Classic to Lightning, while creating new apps and other amazing things within the tool. He’s here to share his experience and a few helpful tips for you to be successful with Lightning. More on Michael’s session: Join us as Michael shares his journey with CRM and how he moved L’Oreal corporation from Classic to Lightning. From getting buy-in from users to designing new apps, we’ll learn how Michael managed this transition with the help of Trailhead and the Salesforce community. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michael Lupino.
Use Trailhead to keep track of possible capabilities. Michael got started with Lightning about a year and a half ago. “When we started to look at Lightning, we saw lots of positive benefits in being able to adopt the tools and build more modular, reusable applications that can serve a variety of purposes and reduce some of the code and technical debt of having some of the other tools in the platform previously,” he says. So, how did he get started with the process? Michael says, “I found that Trailhead was a very excellent resource for keeping track of all of the possible capabilities, in addition to providing a roadmap to help figure out the art of the possible. Trailhead helped us develop ideas that could then translate to our business.”
Get buy-in from the users. Michael says, “I was fortunate enough to build some new applications within the tool for our users to bring them into Salesforce. It allowed me to start from almost a clean slate, to gather requirements and to deliver something to suit those needs.”
Embrace the move from Salesforce One to the Napili Template. Michael was also involved in moving a community that was built on Salesforce One to the Napili template. “Moving to that template has been incredibly powerful. Our users have a very large international participation, so we were able to provide a consistent look and feel that would mirror on a mobile device, a tablet, and a desktop. The brand was incredibly excited about this and continue to be excited about the possibilities of what they can do inside the community,” says Michael.
Don’t expect moving to Lightning to be an overnight process. Moving to Lightning has been an ongoing process, and he’s learned a lot. As Michael explains, “A lot of planning went into the process. In some cases, we had to wait for Salesforce to catch up with the Lightning release, which they’ve done a tremendous job of doing. Because of that, we’ve been able to effectively determine which sets of users are the best ideal candidates to move.” When it came to moving from Visual Force to Lightning, Michael says, “the very first thing I look at was: what skill set is needed to go from that journey in Visual Force to Lightning? Going through the material and attending a Salesforce University course provided a good framework for the types of skills that are needed.”
Stay up to date with blogs and webinars. When asked what tips he’d have for admins looking to stay up to date on all things Salesforce, Michael says, “In addition to looking at the release notes and the changes that are happening, I found that the blogs, such as admin.salesforce.com, have been a good source of information. What I really love is the success community. Being able to read each other’s posts and comment has been a very exciting place. Joining webinars has been another great source.”
For more insights, make sure to follow Michael Lupino on Twitter (@mjlupino).
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