This was my second World Tour in NYC, and I felt the energy to be slightly less intense than last year’s. I attended a couple of sessions about AI and nonprofits, and missed the keynote. But the main theme was basically “everyone can be an Einstein”.… Read the rest
Here was my approach to yesterday’s task challenge.
I started by creating a custom object called “Task Team”, with a lookup to the User. Using a custom objects allows me to potentially create additional fields, such as “Role” (picklist) and “Primary” (checkbox).… Read the rest
Here’s a real-world Salesforce scenario I recently had with a client.
The client needed to record meetings with their end clients. The meeting summary tracked the subject, summary, date, status, related contact(s), and related organization. It also needed to record the internal team (a collection of users) present at the meeting.… Read the rest
Every once in a while, I come across a “feature” in Salesforce that really forces me to scratch my head.
In today’s WTF moment, I was working with a client on a screen flow. We needed to add a lookup component, to allow users to select one or more contacts.… Read the rest
As long as people are typing on keyboards, errors will happen. Duplication is arguably the most common type of error in Salesforce, and of those, accounts and contacts are the most popular.
Creating a strategy to identify duplicates is a multi-phased approach.… Read the rest
Let’s say you’ve verbally proposed a monthly support engagement to your Salesforce client. What does the written proposal look like?
To help answer this, here’s an excerpt from my 5 page proposal template:
Project Options
In the following pages, I have outlined three options of increasing complexity for the project.… Read the rest
Once you move away from hourly billing, there are two main types of pricing for Salesforce consulting services: project-based or monthly.
Monthly agreements are generally a good fit when:
During the sales call, you need to determine which type of pricing would fit best for your client’s needs.… Read the rest
When you’re switching from full-time employee, should you bill hourly or jump straight to fixed prices?
The easy way is to price yourself hourly. You can take your annual salary and divide by the working hours to obtain an hourly rate.… Read the rest
Today’s email is a bit of housekeeping.
In the Salesforce ecosystem, coaching tackles specific Salesforce skills or goals, while mentoring offers career advice and general platform knowledge.
I’m definitely interested in the latter. So when I announced my new program, I called it “mentorship”.… Read the rest
In addition to the 10 UX principles, there are many other UX design considerations. Taking a closer look at one of them, when building apps on Salesforce, it’s important to keep accessibility in mind as well.
Accessibility refers to the practice of making applications usable by everyone, regardless of their abilities.… Read the rest
The 10th and last UX heuristic is called Help and Documentation. It states, “It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete their tasks.”
There are two types of help.… Read the rest
The principle of Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors states, “Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no error codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.”
To implement this principle,
In terms of Salesforce, here are some specific scenarios.… Read the rest
The 8th heuristic, Aesthetic and Minimalist Design, states, “Interfaces should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in an interface competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility”.
This translates to the following main points:
The Flexibility and Efficiency of Use principle states, “Shortcuts — hidden from novice users — may speed up the interaction for the expert user so that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.”… Read the rest
The principle of Recognition Rather than Recall states, “Minimize the user’s memory load by making elements, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another. Information required to use the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed”.… Read the rest
For the Error Prevention heuristic, it states, “Good error messages are important, but the best designs carefully prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions, or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.”… Read the rest
The principle of “Consistency and Standards” states, “Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions.”
If you know me, you know I’m a HUGE fan of consistency. If the same thing has different names, formatting, or syntax, my eyes cannot unsee it.… Read the rest
The principle of User Control and Freedom states, “Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted action without having to go through an extended process.”
Fortunately, Salesforce already has some built-in mechanisms to support this.… Read the rest
The principle of Match Between the System and the Real World states, “The design should speak the users’ language. Use words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than internal jargon. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.”… Read the rest
The Visibility of System Status heuristics states, “The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.”
Here are some examples of how to apply this principle to Salesforce:
In 1994, Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group wrote 10 general principles for interaction design. These principles are called “heuristics” because they are broad rules. They are not specific usability guidelines.
They apply today as much as they need back then, whether it’s to static .html… Read the rest
People have been using websites and web applications for decades. As such, they preconceived notions on how things should work.
For example, they identify buttons and links based on appearance, like rectangles and underlines, and know how they should behave before they interact with them.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, can you be paid for time not spent in front of your computer?
To answer this question, let’s take a step back in time for a moment, and let’s examine my personal journey.
My professional career started as a software developer.… Read the rest
Last month, I wrote an amusing email about not making assumptions. The topic was personal, so here is a short story about one that’s professional.
My tax receipt application for Canadian nonprofits requires the managed package called Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP).… Read the rest
While working with a new subcontractor, it quickly became obvious we have different approaches to project implementations.
They have very strict labels and rules. If they consider themselves as a subcontracted employee, they behave in this manner. If they are considered partners, they behave in another way.… Read the rest
Today I’m excited to announce an expanded mentorship program!
My 1 hour coaching call is now called a 1 hour mentoring call. The service stays the same, but the price will increase from $250 USD to $500 USD on April 1st.… Read the rest
I’m currently working on a project to migrate a client from Raiser’s Edge to Salesforce. Since I don’t know much about Raiser’s Edge, I asked a boutique agency to assist.
The agency gave me a fixed price for the project, which was my preference.… Read the rest
One of my students is a Salesforce consultant. He’s recently made the transition from full-time to independent and engaged my services to help him close a relatively large project.
He started by asking me how he should present himself. Should he start with all his credentials, his years of experience, the work he’s done on similar projects?… Read the rest
When you’re a more experienced Salesforce consultant, one of your usual tasks is to help write user stories. Typically, the consultant writes the functional part of the story, while the business analyst fills in the rest.
The question then becomes, how much detail should you add to the user story?… Read the rest
This question was recently discussed in an online forum recently. To answer it, let’s look a little closer at what it means to be a Salesforce professional.
As the recent series on Salesforce roles explored, titles are given to people doing a certain type of work.… Read the rest