This week, Watt Hamlett and I hosted a webinar called “7 Factors for Salesforce Implementation Success for Nonprofits”.
It was wildly popular, with over 150 people registered (a new record for both of us). It also shows how important and relevant this topic is to nonprofits using Salesforce.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, you’re most likely going to work with a team. Lone wolves are few and far between these days.
For example, in the build phase of a project, it’s typical to be paired up with an architect, some devs, some admins, along with an analyst and a project manager.… Read the rest
At a local Salesforce user group meeting today, I was talking to someone that recently entered the Salesforce community.
He made the decision to reposition his career last year, then studied and passed the Administrator certification. Now he’s looking for his first full-time or freelance position.… Read the rest
When you’re starting to plan for your Salesforce implementation, one important step is to define people’s roles and their involvement.
In a decently-sized project, you’ll most likely need an analyst, an architect, developers, admins, testers, a project manager, and people working change management.… Read the rest
It’s amazing to see in action. And until you do, you don’t really believe it can actually happen.
Let’s say you’ve built some awesome new functionality in Salesforce. It performs a whole series of actions in a series of clicks, displays the results in an inline dashboard, and fits all the customer’s requirements.… Read the rest
When nonprofits implement Salesforce projects, both the value and risk are significant. Generally, nonprofits don’t have the same safety net that most for-profit companies have.
This means they generally need to get it right on the first attempt, because there won’t be a second attempt.… Read the rest
Once you’ve started your Salesforce company, and decided on your focus, the next step is to search for projects.
There are several ways to get leads, some of which have a different focus than others. Some are short-term, using a hunter-grather model.… Read the rest
When starting a new Salesforce agency, a key decision early on is deciding your focus of expertise. With Salesforce being as large as it is, no agency can do it all. And even if you could, you shouldn’t.
Why? Because the more focused and specialized you are, the easier your marketing becomes.… Read the rest
Let’s say you’re ready to go out on our own, and start your own independent Salesforce consulting business. This is already a big decision, and it’s the first of many.
One of the first is choosing a name. The question is, should you register a company and website in your name, or in another name?… Read the rest
Montreal’s first Salesforce/Mulesoft conference will be held on August 15, 2024.
In addition to being a sponsor, I am a speaker. The topic is, “How to Become an Independent Salesforce Consultant”.
As I have written quite a few emails about this subject, I’m excited to share my thoughts in person.… Read the rest
Here’s a snippet of my naming convention for profiles and permission sets.
Profiles
Profile names should start with the organization’s shortname or acronym, then a word that represents the type of user. This allows for quick search to identify which profiles are custom and used by the organization.… Read the rest
Salesforce is moving away from profiles and towards permission sets. As such, permission sets and permission set groups should be leveraged as much as possible.
This means each user should have
This translates to using profiles and permission sets for the following functionality:
Profile
Permission Set/Permission Set Group
You can also create the permission set “System Administrator” and assign the aggregated permissions from all custom permission sets.… Read the rest
When building custom buttons in Salesforce, they should have a naming convention.
Here is my convention. Feel free to copy + paste it for your needs.
Button labels
Labels should start with a verb.
E.g. “New X”, “Email X”, “Print X”, “Recalculate X”, “View X”
When you choose a verb, stick with it.… Read the rest
In Salesforce, bad data will creep up over time. As users manually enter data everyday, some of that data won’t be perfect.
It won’t matter whether you have good data governance in place or not. Users will inevitably type the wrong things, or the right things in the wrong places.… Read the rest
Once you’ve decided what to name your fields, the next step is usually deciding where to put them.
Here again, consistency is the key. If the Owner field is located on the top right of the 1st section on Opportunity, it’s a reasonable idea to put it in the exact same spot on Account.… Read the rest
When creating custom fields in Salesforce, having a strong naming convention is important. Here is my convention, which you can copy.
Proper capitalization
Always use title-style capitalization. This means most words are capitalized. Exceptions are words like “a”, “an”, “the”, “but”, etc.… Read the rest
While performing a UX evaluation of some new Salesforce functionality today, I made several observations.
The most striking one was, the implementor wasn’t consistent with field naming.
A previously created custom object had a picklist field called “Status”. Simple, easy to understand, cool.… Read the rest
Imagine you’re at point A on a map. And your goal is to get to point B.
You have multiple options to move from A to B:
Depending on how far point B is away from point A, some of these choices make sense, and some don’t.… Read the rest
In a conversation with a Salesforce colleague last week, he mentioned something quite surprising.
For his FSL project, he wrote a design document. No surprise there. However, his team is part of a larger project across multiple clouds, and he was the only one that wrote one.… Read the rest
Get ready, this is a short rant about Salesforce.
By now, you know I love Salesforce. Truly. Genuinely. However, every once in a while, a “feature” reveals itself, and I stop to wonder, “WTF is this nonsense!?”
Today’s example is about object visibility.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, there are additional implications of the upcoming new Salesforce UI.
The main one is this: whenever you build custom components, use the Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) and other native elements.
When you use SLDS, you are guaranteed that any updates to Salesforce will be reflected in your components.… Read the rest
Coming soon to a Salesforce instance near you, the updated Lightning UI.
There seems to be a general trend at Salesforce that’s heading in the direction of a better overall user experience. In a recent meeting, they spoke about making the administrator’s experience less painful.… Read the rest
A few readers asked for more details about Knowing what to do next.
Let’s say you have a list of things to do, and a few tasks are added throughout the day. Here is my specific methodology.
I try to check my professional emails only a handful of times a day.… Read the rest
There was a Trailblazer Community meetup for the Salesforce Developer Group in Montreal this past Wednesday.
As Montreal is my hometown, it was a delight to attend.
A cozy group of developers, analysts, consultants, and a few architects were present. Although I wasn’t there for too long, I made several new connections.… Read the rest
On Aug 15, 2024, the first ever Montreal Dreamin conference will be held. There hasn’t been a trailblazer community event in Canada since True North Dreamin in 2019, so this is very exciting news!
I’m also proud to announce that Dryad Receipting for Salesforce is an official sponsor.… Read the rest
Sometimes it’s helpful to see things from another perspective.
Here are a few ways to certainly not help your end users and avoid adoption in a Salesforce project.
Don’t understand their current process
Before starting to build, you should have a good understanding of your client’s current process.… Read the rest
Adoption is one of the most important criterias for a successful Salesforce implementation.
Given this, here are a few ways to improve adoption.
Find your champions
Champions are future users that will influence others to your cause. It helps to have a combination of positive champions and negative champions.… Read the rest
After years of experience working on Salesforce projects, I’ve come to realize that one of the most important factors for a successful project has nothing to do about technology.
As an architect or consultant, this may seem counterintuitive. But upon further examination, this fact is rather easy to accept.… Read the rest
During a typical day, how do you know what to do next?
You may have multiple projects to work on, or multiple elements of a single project, in addition to personal things that need your attention, meetings to book, etc.
For me, I track things in a to-do list.… Read the rest
Looking at the other side of yesterday’s coin, there are some drawbacks to being an independent Salesforce consultant.
Here are a few for your consideration.
You need to be a one-person business
Instead of entirely focusing on discovery, design, or implementation, you need to manage every aspect of your business.… Read the rest