Category: Salesforce

I recently had a conversation with a frustrated client.

He wanted a straightforward report that shows all contacts in Salesforce with the following criteria:

• had an email address
• didn’t opt out of any type of marketing
• donated in the last 5 years (a donation is a record type of opportunity)

The report must display

• full name
• email address
• city, state, and country
• last donated amount
• last donated date

This information would be used to segment an audience for upcoming events.… Read the rest

The possibility to nominate someone for 2024 Salesforce MVP is currently open.

But wait, what is a Salesforce MVP?

As defined by Salesforce, Salesforce MVPs (most valuable person) are exceptional leaders and product experts who go above and beyond to help others succeed in the Salesforce ecosystem.… Read the rest

I was recently a guest on Jonathan Stark podcast, and the episode was just published.

For your information, Jonathan is my main mentor for fixed pricing and value-based pricing. Listening to his podcast episodes and digesting his articles about the topic completely changed the way I do business.… Read the rest

Well, it’s official!

After many

• years & tears
• highs & lows (it’s sometimes hard to stay motivated)
• compromises & sacrifices (mostly on the personal side)
• conversations with clients (to make sure it’s fit-for-purpose)
• sleepless nights adding some final touches (did you know I was a perfectionist?)

I was recently on the Mission: Impact podcast with Carol Hamilton. The topic was, “Finding the right CRM for your nonprofit organization”.

This may sound odd coming from a Salesforce Architect, but I don’t believe Salesforce is the right choice for all organizations.… Read the rest

Keeping track of all the possible user licenses Salesforce offers is tricky because they change often. It’s usually best that Salesforce manages the commercial agreement with the client.

However, it’s important to be aware of what kind of user licenses exist and to sometimes provide guidance.… Read the rest

Once the ledger of technical debt reaches a certain amount, it’s a good idea to sit down with the product owner (PO) and review the list. The PO can prioritize the work, and the project manager  (PM) can slot the work into a future release.… Read the rest

Technical debt is not not always a bad word. Sometimes it can be useful.

Whenever creating tech debt however, it’s a great idea to record it. This could mean something as simple as a note in a technical design document. The goal here is to create a ledger of the debt.… Read the rest

Another of the great breakout sessions at Northeast Dreamin’ 2023 last week was by Hunter Dunbar. His session was called, “The Leverage and Luggage of Technical Debt”. Here’s a summary of that session.

Let’s start with a definition.

Technical debt, tech debt, or code debt, is the result of the shortcuts taken by the development team to speed up the delivery of a piece of functionality.… Read the rest

One of the wonderful breakout sessions I attended at Northeast Dreamin’ 2023 last week was by Daniel Gorton. His session was called, “Delivering Empathic and Joyful User Experiences”.

Being UX certified myself, I was drawn to the words “empathic” and “joyful”.… Read the rest

For the last two days, I’ve been at Northeast Dreamin in Manchester, New Hampshire, and it’s been a blast!

Some familiar faces were present, most of whom I met in person while at the Salesforce World Tour in NYC earlier this year.… Read the rest

This email may be a little controversial. I don’t mean it to be, but it’s something I’ve noticed more often these days.

Salesforce, as a company, has certain targets to meet. They tend to focus the client’s attention in a very specific way.… Read the rest

Let’s say you have a few webforms to design, which will be embedded into a public facing website, and used by a non-authenticated user

When a form is submitted, it’ll be send to Salesforce, applying a previously discussed webform pattern.… Read the rest

This is the age-old apex trigger question, but for flows. Should an object have one after-save trigger flow or multiple?

In apex, it was usually recommended to have a single apex trigger handler that organized which subclass was called based on the type of trigger (after insert, after update, etc.).… Read the rest

While working with a Salesforce client recently, I noticed they used an interesting reporting structure.

There was a report folder called “Development”, used by the development team. Under that were several subfolders, one per calendar year.

The reports in each subfolder were slightly different, and some in the 2023 folder still had the label of 2021.… Read the rest

Salesforce training isn’t something you do once the project is launched and is never discussed again. It’s an iterative process you need to keep in mind at all times.

Why is that?

Because people don’t remember everything they’ve been taught on the 1st pass.… Read the rest

How many Salesforce sandbox instances should you have? What is each of their purposes? What are their inputs and outputs? When do you migrate from one to another?

At the absolute minimum, there should be one sandbox for development and testing.… Read the rest

On Oct 11, 2023, I’ll be publicly presenting Dryad Receipting, a modern and easy-to-use tax receipting Salesforce application for Canadian nonprofits.

The event is hosted by a Salesforce user group and I’m super excited about it!

Until now, I’ve only been demoing the app to potential partners and clients.… Read the rest

Error messages in Salesforce validation rules have a lot of responsibility. They are not just supposed to indicate what went wrong, but be specific about why, and mention what to do about it.

For example, let’s say if “Reason Code” (which is a picklist) has a value of “Other”, then the field “Reason Code Other” (which is text) is required.… Read the rest

As a Salesforce consultant conducting a technical discovery session, you need to ask a lot of questions.

Having a handy reference guide to keep track of key topics to discuss is useful, so below is my checklist.

You’ll notice they mostly consider Sales Cloud.… Read the rest

Years ago, I noticed there was an important feature missing from Salesforce core. It wasn’t well filled by 3rd party apps either, and that’s generating tax receipts for Canadian nonprofits.

Admittedly, tax receipting isn’t the sexiest topic. But charities need to issue receipts, and Canadian rules are precise and strict.… Read the rest

Today was the 1st working session with a new client. It’s for a Salesforce discovery project, and was the 1st of many technical sessions.

Here’s how I prepared for and conducted that 1st session.

I first reviewed the Statement of Work (SOW), to make sure I fully understood what the business goals of the project are.… Read the rest

Website forms, or webforms, or just forms, are awesome. They allow you to easily collect information from people who may or may not exist in Salesforce.

They often come with a built-in native Salesforce connector, allowing you to submit data to one or multiple objects (often the Contact, Account, and Opportunity).… Read the rest

These days, it feels like every social channel is talking about Dreamforce next week. It’s although you cannot escape the consistent messaging from every direction.

It’s also clear the main topic this year is AI.

• AI + Data
• AI + Trust
• AI + {anything}
• AI + {everything}

I’m sure the event will be spectacular this year.… Read the rest

What exactly separates the experienced Salesforce consultant from the junior?

From my perspective there are four main factors:

1. Technical knowledge, of which Salesforce is the largest component.
2. Industry knowledge, to know the common challenges facing your target industry.
3. Interpersonal skills, like communication, trust building, and negotiation.

A famous saying that stuck with me for years is, “You must learn from the mistakes of others – you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.” This quote is attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt and can be applied to the Salesforce world.… Read the rest

I had a recent conversation with a student of mine with an interesting question, and I thought you might be interested in hearing the key points.

He is a full-time employee at a Salesforce agency and liked the predictable income, but wanted to know his options for long-term growth.… Read the rest

Let’s finish with part 3 of 3 of the “usual suspects” for the technical deliverables in Salesforce discovery projects.

3. Environment Release Strategy

Purpose:

• Understand the various sandboxes and their uses
• Describe how functionality will be migrated from one sandbox to another and eventually to production

Usage:

• Some sandboxes are specifically built for development while others are for proof of concepts (POCs) or testing
• Align everyone on how to move functionality from one instance to another, i.e.