Dreamforce '19: 7 Tips Every Admin Should Know
Where’d I come from?
My path throughout the Salesforce ecosystem has certainly not been a standard one, though there are enough stories of unique roads travelled that perhaps I am the norm after all. I graduated from music conservatory a phenomenal artist (I’m a classical double bass player by trade) - and quickly realized I had no idea how to pay rent performing my craft. Four months of self-directed MBA training later, I dove headfirst into the sea of business automation software, emerging with a single SFDC license to my name.
Starving artists do just that…
Years later when the hustle of the arts was no longer worth the creative reward, I was fortunate to be able to pivot on my experience into this world as a Solo Admin. In the years since I’ve working everything from that six person consulting firm, the Sustainable Advocacy Non Profit, the 30,000 person internal financial services corporation, that fast growing Silicon Valley tech startup, and now my own RevOps consulting company.
An opportunity to contribute.
I’ve been attending Dreamforce for a number of years, and recently I started to notice a gap in the presentations being offered. While there were dozens of intro sessions - Admin 101 and the like, and many options for advanced Developers - there was nothing for the Intermediate/Advanced Admin. No one was sharing the kind of knowledge that only comes from years experience in the platform. Those potentially overlooked tricks, best practice hacks, small easily digestible and instantly implementable glorious nuggets of information were absent.
So, I decided I was going to, as the kids say, “be the change I want to see in the world.”
What do I consider to be in this liminal space between “Create Your First Custom Field” and “All Else Has Failed So Here’s Apex for Admins”? Here’s a quick breakdown of some of what I covered in this session:
Process Builder management.
When and why to create multiple Flows for the same Object. Don’t make a mess, be smart, and take care of your future self.
Generally speaking immediate Actions govern more Agile business requirements, and separating your ability to version control those behaviors from your need to manage Paused Interview versions greatly enhances your ability to protect yourself from instances where supposedly simple changes entail hours of upkeep. To that end, create two (2) Flows per Object; one without any Time Delayed Actions, and one with.
Consolidate reporting across platforms.
Redundant integrations making it hard to consolidate reports? Formula(Text) fields are your friend.
Rather than using Flows to sync multiple disparate picklist fields from multiple redundant solutions into one master picklist for top-level reporting, spreading out your consolidation attempt, create a single Formula(Text) field you know to reference as time goes on and you manage to strip away the duplicate products.
“Debug Mode”
Can’t find that one Validation Rule that keeps tripping up your data load? Custom Settings to the rescue.
Having boolean values assign to your Admin(s) that get referenced at the top of each Validation Rule will enable you to one-click exempt yourself from all possible error messages, rather than needing to individually deactivate everything that might possibly be related, and then remember to reactivate after the data load is complete.
So, if you’re still with me, go ahead and click through to the Dreamforce footage. It’s short, sweet, entertaining, and who knows - it may even be useful.