Last Friday, my colleague told me about a head-scratcher moment that he had with his Salesforce client.
The client had an old Salesforce instance, and there were too many “cooks in the kitchen” over the years. Sometimes these were internal people, other times it was external Salesforce agencies.… Read the rest
Let’s pickup from yesterday’s challenge. The conceptual answer is to create a state machine.
What is a state machine?
According to Wikipedia, “A finite-state machine (FSM) … or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time.… Read the rest
Recently, a client approached me with a more complicated requirement than usual. I love a challenge, so I listened with great enthusiasm. The scenario below is a simplified version of the issue.
In Salesforce, the contact object had a field called “Status”.… Read the rest
By now, most of you are aware that TrailblazerDX 2023 is currently underway. This three day conference focuses on Salesforce technical developments. The target audience are developers and architects, although all disciplines can benefit from learning what the “shiny new tools” look like.… Read the rest
A handful of years ago, I was hired as a Salesforce consultant to help a very large organization with their Salesforce implementation. They were overhauling their partner web portal and wanted to have tighter integration with their Salesforce instance.
The project was impressive because it’s not often when an enterprise has the foresight and drive to overhaul a system.… Read the rest
A couple of years ago, I noticed a need in one of my clients. There was a gap in functionality between the Salesforce platform and all available packages. This includes all official apps on the AppExchange and unlisted apps, which only Google knows about.… Read the rest
There’s a perception in the general public that consultants don’t stick around to see the client’s end results. Instead, they come into an organization, give direction and advice, and then leave before seeing the true impacts of those decisions.
While this may be true for management consultants, I don’t believe this is true for Salesforce consultants.… Read the rest
Recently, there are a few popular threads on LinkedIn discussing Salesforce certifications vs experience.
One scenario that was mentioned was an individual with 10 certifications and only 1 year of experience. That definitely seems odd, and may indicate the person is using exam dumps.… Read the rest
Did you know, in addition to writing this weekday email, I also host a weekly podcast?
It’s called, “Agents of Nonprofit”. The name is a derivative of the tv series, “Agents of Shield”, as I’m a big Marvel fan. Side note: although the tv series started strong, I felt it lost its way after a few seasons.… Read the rest
Last week, a student of mine told me about a situation with one of his Salesforce clients.
It’s a small client, with two main user groups: an executive team and the end users.
The executives are the product sponsors and they are paying the bills.… Read the rest
Here’s my solution to yesterday’s challenge.
The goal is to automate everything and not make any assumptions. We also need to take into consideration exam creations, updates, and deletions.
To calculate
Here’s a quick Salesforce challenge for you. This scenario was the current state of a recent client project. I’ll share my solution tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’m curious to know what your approach would have been.
Simplified data model:
As you know, Salesforce is much more than just a CRM – it’s a platform.
As such, its functionality is designed to be extended and customized according to your client’s business needs. The advantage is the platform can do “anything you want”, and the disadvantage is the platform can do “anything you want”.… Read the rest
Let’s pickup from yesterday and jump right into the details.
Here is the list of artifacts to consider including in the sales to delivery team hand-off:
When organizing Salesforce projects, it’s critical that the sales to delivery team hand-off is done well.
Prior to this moment, sales was managing the client relationship, and the client probably fully trusts them (which is why the deal was successfully closed!).… Read the rest
It’s truly awesome how customizable things are within Salesforce.
You can do pretty much anything with it. The downside? You can do pretty much anything with it.
Thus the question really isn’t, “Can this be done in Salesforce?”. Instead, the question is actually, “Should this be done in Salesforce?”… Read the rest
One common complaint I hear from new Salesforce clients is something like, “Why is it that Salesforce cannot do what I want it to do?”
These clients usually originate from the custom web development space, in which just about anything they want can be realized.… Read the rest
Yesterday I spoke about the option of using a dedicated license to load data into Salesforce. This Automation User (perhaps it should be called “Unautomation User” or “No Automation User”) is similar to another kind of dedicated license – the API User.… Read the rest
During a Salesforce project, when planning for data migrations, it’s common to review automations and validation rules to determine which ones should be temporarily disabled.
Not all automations usually need to be deactivated, but keeping some active might accidentally cause unwanted behavior.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, there’s a balance between investing your time and energy into learning more about Salesforce or developing other skills.
One of my students asked me what it would take to obtain the Certified Technical Architect (CTA) certifications, the pinnacle of Salesforce technical expertise.… Read the rest
Being good at Salesforce isn’t enough.
To be a strong consultant, you need to have skills in four main categories:
These categories are subdivided into further elements, all of which are documented in the mind map below.… Read the rest
In the Windows operating system, the blue screen of death (BSOD) is an error message that appears when Windows reaches a fatal system error. The system cannot continue and your only choice is to reboot.
Salesforce has its own BSOD, and it’s called GACK.… Read the rest
For any Salesforce project, there are 3 competing factors
The client can only control one of these factors.… Read the rest
Imagine for a moment, a bird perched on a tree branch.
It’s very windy, and the branch is waving around frantically. The bird doesn’t know this particular branch. It just landed on it moments ago.
Despite the chaotic situation, the bird is not afraid.… Read the rest
Michelangelo was regarded as one of the most important artists of all time. His most well-known sculpture is a masterpiece called David, which is made of a single piece of marble. This statue is currently on display in Florence, Italy and I highly recommend you see it in person.… Read the rest
There’s a trend on LinkedIn where people put the number of Salesforce certifications in their headline. It’s usually the leading word, and sometimes it’s the only thing in their headline.
Something like “7x Salesforce Certified”.
Do you realize this headline doesn’t actually say anything?… Read the rest
People often ask me what are the most common apps/tools/websites I use while implementing a project.
Here is a list of several free resources I use on a regular basis:
1. Declarative Lookup Rollup Summaries (DLRS)
What it does:
– Allows you to declaratively create rollups using lookup relationships (which is not possible natively)
– You can add filter criteria
– It can perform operations as first, last, min, max, count, and concatenate
-These rollups can be executed in real-time or scheduled
– FYI, I call it “Dolores”
2.… Read the rest
I’m helping a client using Salesforce integrate with their website.
Most of their customers are from the US or Canada, but we need to support all countries. So enabling State and Country picklists in Salesforce seemed like a no-brainer.
(Note: In case you don’t know Salesforce well, enabling this feature changes the fields “Country” and “State” from a text field to a picklist.… Read the rest
I just finished a Slack conversation with a nonprofit client.
The conversation started because I recently implemented a nightly batch job that automatically generated tax receipts for their donors. This is what she requested.
Her exact words were, “Do you think we could automate the tax receipts when a donation from an individual (over $20) comes in through the website?”… Read the rest