Technical debt is not not always a bad word. Sometimes it can be useful.
Whenever creating tech debt however, it’s a great idea to record it. This could mean something as simple as a note in a technical design document. The goal here is to create a ledger of the debt.… Read the rest
Another of the great breakout sessions at Northeast Dreamin’ 2023 last week was by Hunter Dunbar. His session was called, “The Leverage and Luggage of Technical Debt”. Here’s a summary of that session.
Let’s start with a definition.
Technical debt, tech debt, or code debt, is the result of the shortcuts taken by the development team to speed up the delivery of a piece of functionality.… Read the rest
One of the wonderful breakout sessions I attended at Northeast Dreamin’ 2023 last week was by Daniel Gorton. His session was called, “Delivering Empathic and Joyful User Experiences”.
Being UX certified myself, I was drawn to the words “empathic” and “joyful”.… Read the rest
I recently listened to a wonderful podcast with Annie Duke.
Annie is a former poker player and author of some books related to decision science and decision education. As you know, decision making is an important part of being a Salesforce consultant.… Read the rest
For the last two days, I’ve been at Northeast Dreamin in Manchester, New Hampshire, and it’s been a blast!
Some familiar faces were present, most of whom I met in person while at the Salesforce World Tour in NYC earlier this year.… Read the rest
This email may be a little controversial. I don’t mean it to be, but it’s something I’ve noticed more often these days.
Salesforce, as a company, has certain targets to meet. They tend to focus the client’s attention in a very specific way.… Read the rest
Let’s say you have a few webforms to design, which will be embedded into a public facing website, and used by a non-authenticated user
When a form is submitted, it’ll be send to Salesforce, applying a previously discussed webform pattern.… Read the rest
This is the age-old apex trigger question, but for flows. Should an object have one after-save trigger flow or multiple?
In apex, it was usually recommended to have a single apex trigger handler that organized which subclass was called based on the type of trigger (after insert, after update, etc.).… Read the rest
While working with a Salesforce client recently, I noticed they used an interesting reporting structure.
There was a report folder called “Development”, used by the development team. Under that were several subfolders, one per calendar year.
The reports in each subfolder were slightly different, and some in the 2023 folder still had the label of 2021.… Read the rest
Return-to-office (RTO) mandates are killing employee engagement. One of the consequences is financial losses.
According to a recent survey by McKinsey, public mid-size companies risks losing around $300 USD million each year due to low engagement. Yikes.
The survey also grouped employees into 6 categories on the disengagement spectrum:
Salesforce training isn’t something you do once the project is launched and is never discussed again. It’s an iterative process you need to keep in mind at all times.
Why is that?
Because people don’t remember everything they’ve been taught on the 1st pass.… Read the rest
How many Salesforce sandbox instances should you have? What is each of their purposes? What are their inputs and outputs? When do you migrate from one to another?
At the absolute minimum, there should be one sandbox for development and testing.… Read the rest
Your Salesforce clients know their business. This is what they do every day and where their expertise lies. That’s their job.
They shouldn’t be expected to know Salesforce. This is what you do every day. That’s your job.
So in order to understand their needs, it’s your responsibility to speak to them in their language.… Read the rest
On Oct 11, 2023, I’ll be publicly presenting Dryad Receipting, a modern and easy-to-use tax receipting Salesforce application for Canadian nonprofits.
The event is hosted by a Salesforce user group and I’m super excited about it!
Until now, I’ve only been demoing the app to potential partners and clients.… Read the rest
In the beginning, employees were in the office 5 days a week, usually from 9am to 5pm.
Then a few years ago, everyone was forced to change that habit and work remotely for a couple of years. Surprisingly, employees were either just as effective or even more effective at home.… Read the rest
Error messages in Salesforce validation rules have a lot of responsibility. They are not just supposed to indicate what went wrong, but be specific about why, and mention what to do about it.
For example, let’s say if “Reason Code” (which is a picklist) has a value of “Other”, then the field “Reason Code Other” (which is text) is required.… Read the rest
Yesterday’s email about “Yes, and”… with clients and the example with a client with a dumb idea seems to have ruffled a few features. So let’s talk about another use case, one in which you’re working with fellow team members.
Let’s say you’re doing a Salesforce discovery session with a handful of colleagues and the client.… Read the rest
In a Salesforce discovery session with a client, someone is bound to share some stupid ideas.
It’s not that the person is dumb, it’s usually the idea they are communicating just doesn’t fit in the current context.
Rather than point out how weird that idea is, here’s a tip from improvisational comedy: Say, “Yes, and …” and then redirect the conversation to something else.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant conducting a technical discovery session, you need to ask a lot of questions.
Having a handy reference guide to keep track of key topics to discuss is useful, so below is my checklist.
You’ll notice they mostly consider Sales Cloud.… Read the rest
Weeks before my last trip across the ocean, my Dell laptop stopped recognizing it was plugged in. The power cable itself worked, but the laptop just didn’t see it. So the battery slowly drained until 0% and there was nothing I could do to stop it.… Read the rest
Years ago, I noticed there was an important feature missing from Salesforce core. It wasn’t well filled by 3rd party apps either, and that’s generating tax receipts for Canadian nonprofits.
Admittedly, tax receipting isn’t the sexiest topic. But charities need to issue receipts, and Canadian rules are precise and strict.… Read the rest
Today was the 1st working session with a new client. It’s for a Salesforce discovery project, and was the 1st of many technical sessions.
Here’s how I prepared for and conducted that 1st session.
I first reviewed the Statement of Work (SOW), to make sure I fully understood what the business goals of the project are.… Read the rest
Website forms, or webforms, or just forms, are awesome. They allow you to easily collect information from people who may or may not exist in Salesforce.
They often come with a built-in native Salesforce connector, allowing you to submit data to one or multiple objects (often the Contact, Account, and Opportunity).… Read the rest
Last week I wrote an email about Asking for the no: A negotiation lesson from Calvin & Hobbes, in which Calvin attempts to use a negotiation strategy called the door-in-the-face technique.
Today’s negotiation strategy is about the opposite method. It’s called the foot-in-the-door technique.… Read the rest
It feels like new digital nomad visas are popping up every month. One month it’s Portugal, the next it’s Spain, and tomorrow it’s South Africa.
To help you keep track of which countries offer these visas, there are several websites available.… Read the rest
These days, it feels like every social channel is talking about Dreamforce next week. It’s although you cannot escape the consistent messaging from every direction.
It’s also clear the main topic this year is AI.
I’m sure the event will be spectacular this year.… Read the rest
Despite wanting to believe that you and I are superhuman, our brains have the same limits as everyone else. And knowing some of these limits can help us be better communicators during Salesforce projects.
The limit for today is: the number of daily decisions we are capable of making before “decision fatigue” kicks in.… Read the rest
Another negotiation tactic that involves the word “no” comes from the Black Swan Group.
According to their website, “When someone says yes, they’re committing to something, and people are hesitant to make such commitments. On the other hand, when they can say no, they feel protected.”… Read the rest
When I was younger, I used to love reading the comic, Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson in the Sunday newspaper.
Calvin was linguistically wise beyond his years, and it was lovely to re-read all the books with my nephew more recently.… Read the rest
Amid the many organizations forcing workers to return to the office full-time, there are some that are strongly advocating for remote work forever.
GitLab is one of the latter, and they published an in-depth article explaining exactly how they manage remote workers.… Read the rest