If AI is the future (while also in the present), what skills become vital to succeed?
As a “good enough” consultant, you know there is much more to your job than your pure technical abilities. Sure, you know Salesforce well. But that’s just the start.… Read the rest
I cannot remember the last business day that passed where I didn’t use AI.
Whether it’s to
It’s part of my daily toolkit.… Read the rest
This week, I used AI to perform some address cleanup. Cities are notoriously known for being spelled incorrectly.
In the province of Quebec, things can get particularly interesting. For example, the following are actually all the same city:
I attached an .csv… Read the rest
This weekend, I visited my friends at their home north of the city. Being in the countryside is wonderful for the soul and I was happy to see them and break bread with them.
At one point, I showed their young daughter how easy it is to take a picture of something and have AI generate another picture from it.… Read the rest
A recent article on Business Insider confirms something we already had a feeling about.
Salesforce is a marketing company. It’s not a tech company, an AI company, or a family. And it does marketing really well.
Agentforce was announced at last year’s Dreamforce by showing how it was being used by retailer Saks Fifth Avenue (SFA).… Read the rest
As you may know, the original way of creating automation in Salesforce was workflows. Then came processes. Both were superseded by flows.
While you can technically still create workflows and processes today, they are legacy. Eventually they will be fully deprecated.… Read the rest
In case you’re not overly techie, I’ll start from the beginning.
Salesforce is mostly built from .xml files. These are structured text files that tell SF what to do. Every field, object, flow, apex, etc. is composed of .xml files that are executed almost instantly when you use SF.… Read the rest
Today was the in-person event I co-hosted with Salesforce.
The goal was to show nonprofits how to use Slack as a sidekick that helps them manage and interact with their contacts, all without leaving Slack.
Of course, these were specific use cases for nonprofits, but the functionality and UI can be used by any organization.… Read the rest
In Salesforce, it’s generally not recommended for a parent record to have more than 10,000 child records.
Beyond this threshold, skew occurs. While Salesforce can technically store more records, it starts to run into significant, transaction-breaking problems.
Here are some concerns, and ways to mitigate them.… Read the rest
A while ago, I lived in a townhouse with an old and crappy fence separating my backyard from my neighbours.
While doing major renovations to the house, I inquired to the city about replacing the fence. They said the only option, as per the bylaws, would be to replace it with a steel picket fence.… Read the rest
It sounds laughable, but I’ve seen small Salesforce orgs in which all users were System Administrators.
On the other side, I’ve seen a single admin for an org with more than 200 users.
The general recommendation is 1 admin per 75–100 users, and some suggest 1 admin per 50–75 users.… Read the rest
Speaking of passwords, do you use a password manager?
It’s amazing to me to see so many Salesforce consultants either reuse the same password in all their client orgs, or use a very basic way of creating a password per client.… Read the rest
While training for my User Experience certification, I learned a valuable lesson about passwords.
In Salesforce, the default setting for “User passwords expire in” is 90 days. That means every 90 days, users need to think of a new password.
However people aren’t good at creating passwords.… Read the rest
Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of an existing Salesforce org! OK, but now what?
Peering behind the curtains of an org that’s new to you can be both daunting and exhilarating. What surprises will you find?!
Here’s a 15-step checklist I follow to get a high-level view of things.… Read the rest
In an email last week, I wrote, “Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Salesforce changes all of their products to include “Agentforce” (“Agentforce Sales Cloud”, “Agentforce Slack”, etc.)”
Well, this is actually happening!
Although there wasn’t an official announcement, Salesforce has quietly renamed their cloud products to include the word Agentforce.… Read the rest
There’s a new and growing trend while working from home, and it’s called microshifting.
Instead of working a typical 9am to 5pm job, microshifting chunks the day into smaller shifts. The first shift may involve deep focus, the next meetings, the next a break, and then more deep focus.… Read the rest
I’ve been working from home since 2017. At this point, I couldn’t imagine returning to an office full-time.
Then COVID hit, and most of us needed to work from home (WFH). We seemed to enjoy that.
When the restrictions were lifted, CEOs started forcing their employees back to work.… Read the rest
David Giller recently posted how the most recent Dreamforce may have “cancelled” Salesforce Administrators.
A summary of his thoughts: Previous Dreamforces talked in length about the pivotal role of admins. However in this year’s keynote, the word “admin” was never mentioned.… Read the rest
The Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) v2 finally dropped in my latest scratch org, and I’m not impressed.
At first glance, things look more modern. However being UX certified, I noticed several issues that may negatively impact users. Let’s examine page layouts.… Read the rest
In order to respond to organization’s need to have local data residency, Salesforce created Hyperforce.
Hyperforce is basically Salesforce infrastructure running on Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
Before Hyperforce, Salesforce maintained their own servers in a handful of countries.… Read the rest
When you buy a Salesforce instance, it is normally created on a US server (at least that’s what happens in Canada and the US).
However some organizations prefer to have their data in their country or state of residence. In some cases, it’s not merely a preference.… Read the rest
Yesterday, Salesforce announced Agentforce 360. It’s the fourth iteration of Agentforce, and rather than simply call it Agentforce 4, they went with the word “360”.
It’s a huge announcement, and you can read more about it in Salesforce’s Ben article.
There are now some new features that include the word “360”.… Read the rest
I was playing around in a scratch org today and noticed a few changes to flows. Some are useful, some will require getting used to.
Let’s start with a positive: contextual development.
Imagine you have a Get element followed by a Decision element.… Read the rest
Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving today. We celebrate about a month before Americans partially because the harvest season ends earlier here than in the US.
It’s a moment in which both Canadians and Americans eat turkey and express gratitude for the year.
In this spirit (the gratitude, not the turkey part), I wanted to share my thanks for
Writing these emails is a daily pleasure, as it helps collect my thoughts around various topics.… Read the rest
Next week is Dreamforce, and while I’m not going this year, the positive energy seems to be higher than usual.
For those of you who are going, I hope you have a grand time!
In a similar event, I’ll be co-hosting a Salesforce – Slack event in Toronto next month.… Read the rest
Imagine you’re in a room full of fellow Salesforce consultants. What do you bring to the table that separates you from the rest?
This simple question puzzles most people. They offer reasons quick responses such as
Those are great starting points, but do you really believe anyone else in the room can’t also say the same things?… Read the rest
A friend came over today and we chatted about his Salesforce career.
His main issue was he feels that Sales Cloud consultants have become a commodity. This means it’s become so ubiquitous that nearly everyone can do it.
This issue probably started a few years ago, when there was a big rise in people starting their Salesforce career.… Read the rest
This is the first time I’ve ever done this, as these emails are meant for you – not for me. So please forgive this shameless plug.
I currently have bandwidth for a consulting project.
I’m most valuable in a solution architecture role, ideally in the nonprofit sector.… Read the rest
A few days ago, 10K released this year’s annual report on the Salesforce Talent Ecosystem.
Here are some notable mentions.
Summary
After two years of decline, the Salesforce job market is rebounding with a new phase of maturity, called “cautious optimism”.… Read the rest
Another popular concern some consultants have with charging a monthly rate for support is what happens during busy months.
Let’s say in one month, lots of support tickets are created. In the following month, only a handful of tickets. Is that fair?… Read the rest