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.
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:
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
One of the advantages of starting a career in Salesforce is its low barrier of entry.
I’ve heard of several success stories in which someone with no prior Salesforce experience teaches themselves using free resources, gets the admin certification, and then lands a $80,000/year job, all within 6 months.… Read the rest
I often advocate for being a Salesforce specialist instead of a generalist. There are numerous benefits to selecting a specific focus and then diving deep to become a specialist in that group.
When looking from a higher perspective, however, we are all already specialists: While we continue work with Salesforce, we are platform specialists.… 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:
Usage:
Let’s continue with part 2 of 3 of the “usual suspects” for the technical deliverables in Salesforce discovery projects.
3. User Flows
Purpose:
Usage:
Required:
Example:
4.… Read the rest
When conducting a Salesforce discovery project, there are a number of technical deliverables. Here are the usual suspects:
1. Current and Future System Landscape
Purpose:
Usage:
Required:
Example:
2.… Read the rest
Here’s a cheeky hack to avoid certain projects: Overprice yourself.
I’ve only done this a few times myself, as it sometimes feels a little dirty. Necessary, but nevertheless dirty.
For example, let’s say a potential client has unreasonable expectations of what Salesforce can actually do.… Read the rest
There are a couple methods to report on changes to Salesforce data.
The most common is field history. To summarize, once enabled, you can report on when field changes occur, the old value and the new values.
To enable this feature, navigate to the desired object in Object Manager and click “Set History Tracking” from the Field & Relationship menu.… Read the rest
Since several readers were intrigued by the conversion rate email from yesterday, here’s more food for thought.
I was reading the webpage Measuring Conversion Rates in Salesforce and Gabrielle has another perspective on this topic.
She defines the conversion rate as a transition.… Read the rest
A client of mine told me they want to have a Salesforce dashboard component that displays a conversion rate. I asked for clarification, and how this metric would be used. As you know, asking why is an important step before you begin the design phase.… Read the rest
Recently I did a Salesforce audit for a client. They had a number of issues with their instance, and wanted a review from an independent expert.
The main person responsible was an Accidental Admin, and wasn’t given sufficient time to design a modular and scalable data model.… Read the rest
Depending on the client and the project, or even for a particular moment, being a Salesforce consultant can feel like being a firefighter or a janitor.
A firefighter is someone who jumps into risk and uncertainty, and saves the family from the burning building.… Read the rest
Every once in a while, you’ll need to use static variables in a Salesforce automation. These variables may be different in sandboxes and in production. But once they are set in a sandbox, they don’t change often.
To illustrate the option, imagine a simple example where we want to assign accounts to a specific user.… Read the rest
There’s a temptation that just because you can rename standard objects, you should. Common examples are
Here are several reasons why this is a bad idea.
1. Inconsistency
It’s generally bad design practice to have the label and API name be different.… Read the rest
There was more great feedback from another fellow reader. This time, it was related to selecting your Salesforce champion.
I’ll paraphrase, but the question was basically, “what about choosing your champion BEFORE the project starts?”
My reply was: the champion can be picked before the actual project implementation.… Read the rest
A fellow reader provided some feedback on the email How to display warning messages using the Salesforce Lightning Design System.
His main question was, why not use Salesforce’s Einstein Next Best Action (ENBA)? That’s a great question, and so I thought to share and expand my answer with you.… Read the rest
A client recently asked me for guidance on how to display warning messages on a contact record.
These warning messages need to be dynamic; sometimes none, one, or more messages will be displayed to the user. The requirement was also to have them as undismissable.… Read the rest
Salesforce offers a few options to merge records, whether they be accounts or contacts.
The merging process is straightforward for the user; you choose which record becomes the master, and merge individual fields into the master. All related objects of the merged records are reparented, and then merged records are deleted.… Read the rest
For a period of about five years, I worked with a medium-sized Salesforce agency. During that time, I was often the lead on the more challenging projects. They were usually the projects no one else could manage, or the really big ones that scared people away.… Read the rest
My coaching students often ask me what is usually the biggest concern about a Salesforce project. You know, the one that often keeps me up at night, worrying.
The answer usually surprises them, because it has nothing to do with technology.… Read the rest