Category: Salesforce

In Salesforce, you have two approaches to give user access to certain records.

1. Use the “least privilege” model. This means settings the object to Private and then creating a Sharing Rule to provide access to specific users or groups
2. Use restriction rules to remove access to certain records for specific users or groups

When deciding which approach to use, consider this: users with the View All Records or View All Data permissions can view all records regardless of restriction rules.… Read the rest

As you may know, Marc Benioff recently made an odd comment at an event. It was supposed to be humorous, but definitely wasn’t received that way.

This is not the first time he’s made a comment that didn’t land the way he expected it to.… Read the rest

Well, it seems AI is not producing the results we hoped for.

A recent survey has uncovered some interesting facts. For example, although AI helps junior developers produce 35% faster, the results are actually less maintainable.

The main issue is, AI is not good at keeping track of high level architecture and design patterns.… Read the rest

If you’re not a developer, it’s possible you haven’t heard of Heroku before. Heroku is a cloud platform that lets you build apps. It’s basically a competitor to Amazon AWS.

In 2010, Salesforce bought Heroku which made a great place to offload some processing from Salesforce.… Read the rest

When presenting options to a client for a monthly support contract, I’ve noticed a common request.

Rather than you simply do all the work on their behalf, a lot of clients want to be mentored. This presents an interesting dynamic.

On one hand, showing them how to do things will definitely slow things down.… Read the rest

A while back, I wrote an email called you really don’t want to rename standard objects. Recently, a reader asked, “When is it OK to rename an object?”

The short answer is, when

• The new name is better understood by the user
• It’s not completely different from the original name
• Almost none of the object’s fields need to be renamed
• You can still leverage standard functionality (like Account Hierarchy or Opportunity Products)

For example, in the nonprofit industry, we deal with organizations and households.… Read the rest

Let’s say you want to start your career as a Salesforce developer. Where do you begin?

If you don’t have a coding background already, this is a challenge.

Here are a few ways to begin:

• Watch instructional YouTube videos like Apex Hours
• Buy a well-rated coding course on learning platform like Udemy
• Find a mentor

If you already have coding knowledge, then it’s “just” a matter of learning the syntax and patterns of apex.… Read the rest

Junior Salesforce developers have a tough time these days as AIs have become good enough to replace them.

In the past, it was common for a small development team to have 4 junior devs for each senior dev. Today, a senior dev with an AI can accomplish the same results.… Read the rest

In Salesforce, formula fields have an unusual limit.

Rather than enforce a maximum number of characters, it enforces a 15,000 character compile limit. This limits the number of characters the underline SQL statement can contain.

Interestingly enough, this number can change dramatically without you really noticing.… Read the rest

In the rare moments I respond to an RFP, I mostly treat it like any other project.

Of course you need to make sure you respond to the requirements set in the RFP. So if they ask for your team’s profiles, be sure to include them.… Read the rest

A fellow reader asked the question, “Even before one gets to the RFP stage, how do you even get to the point of getting a prospect? Especially for 1-2 solopreneurs”.

For open RFPs, these are actually hard to find for for-project companies.… Read the rest

Based on reader’s responses and feedback from my post on LinkedIn, when it comes to RPFs, most people seem to fall into the “necessary evil”.

Fellow reader Nicole wrote a LinkedIn article about this topic, I recommend you check it out as it goes into much further depth than I did.… Read the rest

In Salesforce, it’s common to receive Requests for Proposal (RFPs).

Open RFPs are when a client allows anyone to submit their candidacy for a potential project. Closed RFPs are when the client has a shortlist of vendors and only approaches them.… Read the rest

While not usually a best practice, sometimes you need to rename standard objects.

Depending on whether the object is standard, custom, or part of a package, the exact renaming process takes a few shapes.

However once renamed, you may need to retrieve the new label to display in a screen flow.… Read the rest

I’m willing to bet that most Salesforce projects only use a single language. However there are times when more than language is needed.

When that case arises, the main tools used are Custom Labels and the Translation Workbench (TW).

Labels are easy enough to work with.… Read the rest

Whenever working with data, I always use MS Access. Excel is more commonly used, but Access is an actual relational database.

Importing .csv or Excel files takes a couple of clicks. Once there, you can sort, filter, and manipulate data with ease.… Read the rest

Depending on your data source and data import frequency, you have various options to load data into Salesforce. Taking a closer look at the one-in-a-while use case, here are some popular (and free) tools:

1. Salesforce Dataloader
The tried and true dataloader.… Read the rest

Imagine a client hands you a .csv file that needs to be loaded into Salesforce. So, what’s your process?

Here are the steps I usually follow:

1. Import the data into Google Sheets. Working in a collaborative spreadsheet is significantly easier than emailing files back and forth.

As a Salesforce consultant, you’re normally not responsible for managing others.

Buf if you work in a team, you may need to delegate tasks to others, you may need to resolve conflicts, and you may need to coach new recruits.

Given this, let’s take a look at each of them.… Read the rest

Just over a month ago, I made the prediction that Marc Benioff will rename Salesforce (the product) to Agentforce.

A few days ago, it was obvious he’s clearly thinking about it. But not just the product. He’s entertaining the idea of renaming the entire company.… Read the rest

Let’s say you have 13 tasks split across 5 clients, where do you start?

I follow (and recommend) a simplified version of David Allan’s Get Things Done (GTD) approach.

In the original version, there are 5 steps to this approach:

Step 1.… Read the rest

A fellow long-time reader recently asked (shared with permission):

As I interview for roles, including subcontracting, I’m asked about my ‘Project Management’ skills. By this, I don’t think they’re asking about PM skills as a PM – i.e. managing other peoples’ work.

For the 2025 “Good Enough” Consultant anniversary giveaway, there were 6 people that referred 9 new readers.

They were entered into a winner wheel (for each new reader) and the results are in the video below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHswGcAgSfi3s9tPRJG9MvrnFLDnIIyL/view?usp=sharing

And this year, the winner is jtxxxx@ixxx.com!… Read the rest

In initial sales calls with potential clients, there are many threads to observe and ask questions about.

Most Salesforce consultants have a checklist of questions such as:

• Tell me about your business
• What are your current Salesforce challenges?
• What are your business goals?

Your reputation as a Salesforce consultant is paramount. It takes years to build and can tumble within moments.

Given this critical importance, let’s take a closer look at it.

A good reputation includes (but is not limited to):

• Reliability: consistently show up, being available, and helpful
• Being easy to work with: keep a low ego, be positive and optimistic, and remove friction
• Speaking the truth: be honest and fair about outcomes
• Producing value: build high-quality projects and achieve your clients’ business goals
• Good marketing: use wording that shows you know your client’s problems and that you say what you do and do what you say
• Collecting social proof: collect client testimonials and give credit to your client, not yourself
• Contributing to the community: answer community questions and present at in-person events to demonstrate expertise

The takeaway
Do these activities today, and again tomorrow.… Read the rest

You may not have known this, but I’ve been a podcast host for almost 4 years.

It’s called Agents of Nonprofit and the 1st episode was published on Feb 28, 2022. It was a weekly show where I interviewed everyday “superheroes” in the nonprofit community.… Read the rest