Creating records in a flow

When updating or creating records in screen flows or autolaunched flows, you have two main choices for determining how the record is set:

  1. Use all values from a record
  2. Use separate resources, and literal values

Admittedly, option 1 takes slightly longer to set up.… Read the rest

Variable names for collections in flow

In Salesforce flows, having a proper and consistent naming convention is important. It helps with readability, understanding, and logic processing.

When working with a single record, it makes sense for the variable to be singular. Similarly, when working with multiple records in a collection, it makes sense for the variable to be plural.… Read the rest

Extending your Salesforce network

Yesterday’s email sparked some great feedback from readers, so let’s expand the topic of building your Salesforce network.

LinkedIn was mentioned, but it doesn’t really matter which social media platform you participate in. For example, Twitter/X has a vibrant Salesforce community.… Read the rest

Ways to build your professional network

Having a strong professional network helps attract clients and projects. Once you are known, you can refer business to others, and they can refer business to you.

So how do you become known?

There are three main ways to build your professional network.… Read the rest

Variable names in flows

People have various opinions about naming conventions for Salesforce variables in flows. Some draw their opinions from old VB code, others from C or Java.

As a previous C developer, below is my approach, which follow specific design patterns.

1. Keep it simple and concise
If a variable name can be written shorter, then shorten it
E.g.:… Read the rest

recordId: text or object?

There was a recent discussion on LinkedIn about the input variable “recordId”.

Most flow developers know about the special variable “recordId”. (Note: the “I” must be capital, but the “r” can be upper or lower case). In a screen flow, when you set this specific variable as an input and text, it’ll automatically be populated with the Salesforce Id of the current record from where it was called.… Read the rest

Tomorrow, you’re always a day away

In Montreal, Canada, there’s a popular diner for smoked meat sandwiches.

It’s basically an institution in the city, and there’s always a long line outside the establishment, regardless of the time of day.

Inside, the chefs carefully prepare each sandwich, whistling, and cracking jokes at each other.… Read the rest

An extended break

Dear reader,

I’ve decided to extend my email break by another week. Normally I only take a break for a week every once in a while, but this time I feel the need to take more time for myself.

I’m also trying to make progress on a few work projects, and will use this week to focus on them and some personal projects.… Read the rest

End of year reflections

Pausing your normal routine is wonderful for your mental health. It breaks the daily churn of what is to be expected, and opens your mind to the art of the possible.

You can break routine by going on a holiday, traveling to a new place, visiting a new restaurant, or many other things that simply get you out of your comfort zone.… Read the rest

Announcing Salesforce Scale Test

This week Salesforce announced their Scale Test is now generally available.

This automated testing tool provides the following:

  • Ensures that the software performs reliably under increasing user loads and data volumes.
  • Safeguards a positive user experience.
  • Identifies and addresses potential issues before they impact operations, reducing the risk of costly downtime or data loss.
Read the rest

Introducing the Trailblazer Career Marketplace

When looking for a new Salesforce position, there are many channels available for you to advertise.

  • General employment sites (ZipRecruiter, Monster, etc.)
  • LinkedIn (set yourself as “Open to Work”)
  • Professional recruiters
  • Referrals

And now there’s a new option: Salesforce directly.

As of last week, Salesforce has its own career center.… Read the rest

How NOT to do document management

When doing a Salesforce discovery project, the deliverables are usually a series of documents. Here are the usual suspects, sometimes with different names:

  • System Landscape
  • Data Model
  • Security Model
  • Sandbox Management
  • Data Migration Strategy
  • User Flows
  • User Stories
  • Test Strategy
  • Training Plan
  • Project Plan

In one particular project I’m finishing up, these documents were originally written in Google Docs.… Read the rest

Work vs life balance

The expression, “I need to work on my work vs life balance” has always struck me as odd. It’s presented in a way that work and life are distinctly opposite forces, competing for your attention.

  • Is work not part of life and life not part of work?
Read the rest

What are you actually providing?

As a Salesforce consultant, what are you actually providing to a client? Do you believe you are providing a new Salesforce feature, an integration, a series of reports, or anything like that?

You’re not.

You’re providing the results of the new feature, the integration, or series of reports.… Read the rest

Lying on your resume

I have a confession to make. I’ve lied on my resume.

Now, some would call it a bold-faced lie, while others would call it an exaggeration. Either way, I wrote something that wasn’t true.

This was a very long time ago, so I’m open to sharing this now, but it’s always been a sensitive topic for me.… Read the rest

Determining your ideal client

Let’s say you’ve dedicated time to work on your own Salesforce practice. One of the first steps is to determine who is your ideal client and what services you plan to offer.

To determine your ideal client and positioning, start by yourself the following:

1.Read the rest

When to switch from employee to independent consultant

Let’s say you’re an employee working at a Salesforce agency, with dreams of becoming a freelance consultant.

What’s the best way to make that happen?

Let’s start by talking about how it shouldn’t happen.

You probably shouldn’t just drop your full-time position and announce to the world that you’re now a freelancer.… Read the rest

Finances as a digital nomad

A reader asked me how I manage finances as a digital nomad.

Here’s my situation:

  • I’m a Canadian resident
  • My business is incorporated as a Canadian company (not a provincial one)
  • I live 6 months plus one day in Canada, and the rest is mostly in Spain and Poland.
Read the rest

Going from 0 to 1

They say the shift from 0 to 1 is harder than from 1 to 2, or any greater number.

Let’s say you’re a full-time Salesforce employee with ambitions to start your own business. You may be working on several projects at the same time, but you don’t own any of them.… Read the rest

Monthly vs subscription services

One great way to offer your services as a Salesforce consultant is with a monthly package.

This is often well-suited for support work, but can also be for larger projects in which you are one of many and don’t control the project’s scope.… Read the rest

Be comfortable not knowing everything

As Salesforce consultants, we are expected to know pretty much everything about Salesforce. But is that actually possible?

The ecosystem grows bigger everyday. The product names keep on changing. The bugs keep appearing. The updates keep coming. And our work doesn’t stop.… Read the rest

Value based pricing success story

Last year, a Salesforce agency was struggling with their developers. The devs were attempting to tackle a project that was beyond their knowledge. In addition, they needed advice on how to approach certain technical situations.

I was engaged to help. A monthly subscription-style service was proposed, as it provided flexibility to the agency to decide the duration of the engagement.… Read the rest

Statistics about working from home in 2023

Being a Salesforce Solution Architect, I love metrics and statistics. Infographics are also an awesome way to communicate lots of complicated information in an easy-to-digest format.

So when Forbes recently released some interesting metrics about working from home in 2023 (in the US), I felt the need to share them with you.… Read the rest

A lesson learned about value based pricing

One fellow reader asked me to write a “lesson learned” story about value based pricing.

A small nonprofit was looking for help with their automation. Things like

  • A record was supposed to be updated when another field changed, but wasn’t
  • Related records had to be manually tagged as the most recent
  • The last time a contact completed a course was manually calculated

So we agreed on a rough scope, which included the problems above and a few other minor issues.… Read the rest

Winners of the one year anniversary giveaway

The three winners of the one-year anniversary giveaway have been selected!

If you are interested in the selection process (and to be fully transparent), I made this short video: https://youtu.be/QP4EDXt8TMw

If you’re not interested in watching the video, there’s the text version:

  1. There were 15 new subscribers, which were referred by 9 people
  2. For the 15 subscribers, the 4th letter of their email address was identified and ordered by that letter
    1. This was just an easy way to randomize the order
  3. A sequential number was assigned to this ordered list, from 1 to 15
  4. ChatGPT was asked to select 3 random numbers between 1 and 15, without repeating itself
  5. Winners were chosen by ChatGPT

Congratulations to:

  • erak
  • dgel
  • ales

I will contact each of you directly for your mailing address.… Read the rest

Today is the one year anniversary

Well, it’s officially been a year since I started this email list, and I wanted to share some thoughts on this anniversary.

Firstly, I started this email list because I wanted to give back. Among many perks, the flexibility of the Salesforce ecosystem allowed me to build my dream lifestyle.… Read the rest

Initial feelings of Spain

From the moment the airport doors opened in Malaga, my energy changed.

It was an overnight, 7 hours flight from Montreal, Canada to Malaga, Spain. Despite the abundance of legroom, I was barely able to sleep. So I was quite tired walking through airport security and picking up the luggage.… Read the rest

Is 75% code coverage good enough?

All the cool Salesforce kids are using flows these days. As a result, it’s not as popular to write apex code anymore.

However, there are moments in which flows aren’t the best choice. Apex classes can fill in those gaps and can perform some really heavy lifting.… Read the rest