One of the reasons why I love being a digital nomad is the opportunity to embrace minimalism.
Several years ago, I trekked around the world for 1.5 years with just two backpacks; a 65L for clothing and a 25L for tech.… Read the rest
Complex validation rules in Salesforce can be a real pain in the butt.
When it’s a single IF statement with perhaps one OR or AND statement, there’s usually no issue. But when it’s a nested statement if ORs followed by ANDs, things can escalate quickly.… Read the rest
Salesforce made a huge announcement yesterday regarding the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.
Until now, if a nonprofit organization used Salesforce, they typically installed a managed package called Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). This is a mature product, evolving for more than a decade.… Read the rest
Yesterday I published a podcast episode with Julia Devine of Devine Parker.
Julia and her colleague Catalina help nonprofits determine a technology strategy. This means assessing a client’s current state and building a plan to get to the target state.
They also help determine which CRM is the best fit for their clientele.… Read the rest
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
Yesterday, I was a guest speaker on The Nonprofit Show. It’s a daily live broadcast where the national’s nonprofit community comes together for problem solving, innovations, and reflections to foster greater social impacts.
The subject of the episode was about whether nonprofits are using the tech right, and included topics such as
When I’m doing my podcast, I’m the one asking the questions, and it’s not live, so it’s easily editable.… 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
One common objection I hear about trying to be a digital nomad is kids.
Kids make things messier when traveling. They require significant time and attention, their basic needs must be met, and then there’s school.
Obviously the best time to be a digital nomad with kids is when they are young enough to not go to school.… Read the rest
No, I’m not talking about using your face as a type of authentication to your device.
We all know that watching your client’s face for micro expressions is an important method to provide hints. These hints tell us whether the client is happy or sad or frustrated or anything in between.… Read the rest
Another way to build strong connections and gain insight into your client’s perspective is with empathy.
Let’s say you’re discussing a deadline with a client. Their position is that a certain Salesforce feature needs to be in production by the end of the week, and it’s just not feasible to do this.… Read the rest
One way to build trust quickly with a client is to repeat their words.
This simple yet surprisingly effective tool can not only help build trust, but also help with project negotiations. It’s a type of verbal mirroring (as opposed to physical mirroring).… 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
In the 50th episode of my podcast, the appointed host asked me, “What are the rules for being a digital nomad?”
My response was, there aren’t any rules.
Whether you spend time in a “van down by the river” (a reference to a skit by the late Chris Farley on SNL), or half the year in the south of Spain, makes no difference.… 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
Several years ago, I was working with a client on a new web feature. It wasn’t in Salesforce, but Siebel CRM. For those of you who are unaware, Siebel was *the* CRM before Salesforce, perhaps 10-15 years ago.
The new feature was a tree-like hierarchical folder structure, like you see in Windows Explorer.… Read the rest
In honor of the 50th episode of my podcast, Agents of Nonprofit, there was a special guest.
This guest is not used to speaking about himself very much. As such, although he’s the host of a growing podcast, he prefers to interview others.… 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
Humans are creatures of habit. We like routine because it provides us a sense of predictability and security. It also allows us to make certain plans that don’t change on a whim.
One of the many reasons I became a digital nomad is to avoid the larger and monotonous routines.… Read the rest
In continuing the theme from yesterday, your clients are like your children.
As a parent, you quickly learn everything is a type of negotiation. Whatever you give your children, they’ll want more of it or a bigger version or to keep it for longer.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, clients are like our children.
We want them to grow up strong, healthy and self-sufficient. We nurture them, guide them and show them the right way to move forward and be successful.
But every once in a while, we need to fire the bastards!… 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
Last month, Spain made its digital nomad visa available to residents of not-EU countries. The requirements are low and the benefits are high, making this an absolutely awful offer.
The main requirements are:
OK, that’s not too bad.… Read the rest
One of the most important elements of being a “good enough” consultant is the ability to aggregate knowledge.
In today’s world of constant breaking news, company newsletters, journey articles, blog posts, press releases, Youtube videos and so on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.… Read the rest
Several years ago, I helped a small client of mine interview for a Salesforce admin.
Since their budget was the primary concern, there wasn’t a very long line of available candidates. I reluctantly had to accept this restriction, no matter what my particular views were.… 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: