Developer Survey – Tip of the Week #542
Welcome to Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #542
Tip 1 – Developer Survey
The annual developer survey helps ensure that the dev community is activity shaping the ongoing updates of Salesforce products and learning resources.
Your input will help Salesforce learn how they can improve your experience building and developing the platform.
Why not fill in the survey today?
Tip 2 – India Dreamin’ 2023
Yes – the rumours are true. India Dreamin’ is coming back in 2023!
Announcing on Twitter earlier this week, the popular Salesforce community event will be happening in Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat.
Watch this space for more details on date, speakers etc.
Tip 3 – Top 7 Digital Transformation Trends
The state of the economy in 2023 is very much at the forefront of many businesses focus. MuleSoft has identified 7 digital transformation aspects which according to them, will be crucial to overcoming operational pressures and driving efficient and sustainable growth.
Have a read and let us know what you think.
Tip 4 – Salesforce Health Check
At Cloud Galacticos we run a lot of health checks for both new and existing clients to help ensure that orgs stay in tip top shape.
A thorough health check is your business’s best friend, helping to identify key focus areas that can keep your org humming along.
Would you be interested in a free health check for your Salesforce org from our team of experts? Get in touch.
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How can you improve your Salesforce data quality?
We all know that the Salesforce platform can help businesses of all shapes and sizes manage their customer data and interactions. However, one of the biggest challenges organisations face is ensuring that data is accurate and up to date. Salesforce data quality is one of the most important metrics we can measure as an organisation. We also know that Salesforce is an ever evolving platform that brings fantastic new functionality with every release.
Regular Training = Quality Data
How often do you undertake training with your end users?
Is it an hour here and there when they need it?
Did you go all out when go live happened and haven’t revisited it since?
Proper Salesforce training can help ensure that users understand how to input, update, and maintain accurate data within the system. It can also teach users how to use various features and tools within Salesforce to effectively manage and analyse their data. Ensuring that users are correctly trained on these features can help ensure that the quality of data in Salesforce is and stays high.
One key aspect of Salesforce training is teaching users how to input data correctly. This can mean a variety of things such as:
- Ensuring that all required fields are completed using proper formatting and spelling
- Following any established naming conventions
- Ensuring that the users all agree on what certain terms such as statuses mean
Accurate data input is critical for ensuring that the data in Salesforce is useful and can be effectively analysed.
Insights Lead to Actions
Salesforce training can also help users learn how to use advanced features such as reporting and analytics tools. These tools allow users to gain insights into their data and make informed decisions based on the information. They can then take actions based upon these decisions to help the organisation function. Without proper training, users may not know how to effectively use these tools, which can lead to poor data quality and inaccurate insights.
Rubbish in, rubbish out is an oft-spoken mantra and strikes at the core of the data quality problem for businesses. If you don’t have the right high quality data in Salesforce, how are your team ever going to use it to make the right decisions? How are you going to correctly and appropriately service your customers? What about your partners? How will they feel if they are working with inaccurate data? Often people see poor quality data as an internal problem, but it can severely inhibit an organisation’s opportunity to succeed.
Productive Users Produce Productive Data
In addition to improving data quality and accuracy, Salesforce training can also help improve user productivity. By showing users how to efficiently use the platform, they can save time and reduce the risk of errors. This can lead to increased sales and customer satisfaction, as well as improved overall business performance. It is a perfect example of a virtuous circle. A well trained user enters high quality data. This allows the customer to be better served. This makes the customer happier and allows you to do more work with them, gathering more data. With this data you can make even better decisions about how to serve them and so on.
Summary
In summary, Salesforce training plays a crucial role in improving data quality and accuracy. By teaching users how to input and manage data correctly, as well as how to use advanced features and tools, businesses can ensure that their data is accurate and useful. This can lead to improved productivity, increased sales and customer satisfaction, and overall better business performance. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you with your training needs, visit our Salesforce training page.
About Cloud Galacticos
Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce consultancy with a growing all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our company has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Swindon, Sheffield, and London.
So if you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience to help you make the most of your org, why not get in contact?
Best Nationwide Salesforce Services Consultancy 2022
Digital City Awards, Best Small Digital Company Finalist 2022
London’s Calling Platinum Sponsor 2022
Salesforce User Groups (UK) – Tip of the Week #541
Welcome to Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #541
Tip 1 – Salesforce User Groups (UK)
There are a few in-person Salesforce User Groups happening in February (in the UK).
They included Reading (9th), Cardiff (16th), Birmingham (16th), London Dev (22nd), Bristol (23rd)…
As you know, I’m co-organiser of the Salesforce Manchester User Group. Our event will be on Wednesday 22nd.
Speakers including Mark Lewis, Head of Training at Cloud Galacticos, and some of the team at Slalom talking about Genie and Snowflake.
Which one(s) are you going to?
Tip 2 – Winter ’24 Roadmap
Want to tell Salesforce which features you want them to build next for the Winter ‘24 release and beyond?
Prioritization is now open and it’s time for you to influence the Salesforce release planning process. You have till Monday 13th February 2023!
Tip 3 – IdeasExchange
Linking to Tip 2 – from Cheryl Feldman on Twitter:
“Hey, #AwesomeAdmins – I have updated around 20 ideas on the #ideaexchange. Here is a direct link that will take you to my recently updated ideas. Keep this link handy, as I’ll have even more updates later this week”
Tip 4 – DevOps Dreamin’
The ever-popular DevOps Dreamin’ is back April 18th and 19th.
“After the success of DevOps Dreamin’ in 2022, we’re bringing the event back to Chicago this year for an even bigger celebration of all things Salesforce DevOps! DevOps Dreamin’ is being held in person”
Call for Speakers deadline: Monday 27th February.
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Profile Based Permission – Tip of the Week #540
Welcome to Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #540
Tip 1 – Profile Based Permission
Salesforce has recently announced the end of life (EOL) of profile based permission.
It’s not till the Spring ’26 Release, so there is still plenty of time to properly plan how you’re going to implement these changes!
Our Senior Salesforce Consultant, Val, says: “I’ve discovered in the last week, whilst comparing permissions in profiles to those in permission sets, that permissions assigned to profiles actually use the same tables as those assigned via permission sets.
They use a permission set but that permission set has a profile Id which provides a one-to-one relationship for a permission set to a profile”
Tip 2 – Albanian Dreamin 2023
Albanian Dreamin is back for 2023 on 29th April.
It’s ‘the Community Powered Conference to activate, empower and strengthen the Salesforce potential through assistance, education, networking!‘
It’s also about ‘fostering technology Innovation through Salesforce & Slack Powered Programs and Building Bridges by the Trailblazer Community Globally!’
Call for Speakers deadline is 1st March – don’t miss out!
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Salesforce Solves – Tip of the Week #539
Welcome to Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #539
Tip 1 – Salesforce Solves
Have you heard of or tried Salesforce Solves?
It’s a ‘series featuring candid advice direct from our SME customers and our own Salesforce Team on how to overcome today’s business challenges’.
Lots of useful webinars to watch and learn from.
Tip 2 – Czech Dreamin 2023
Lots of amazing community events are back this year, one being CzechDreamin in Prague (26th May).
“We aim for full day of sessions in five parallel tracks, 400+ attendees, plenty of food and coffee (and hopefully tea)”
Call for Speakers is now live. You have until 20th February to apply.
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Top Tips for an Effective Salesforce Training Strategy
I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the world of Salesforce training for over 8 years now across a variety of clients. I have worked on training projects for non profit organisations, through to one of Salesforce’s largest global customers. Whilst the number of users to be trained and the size of the budget available were significantly different, the approach to training was very similar! In my first blog post we focused on the importance of Salesforce training. Now let’s take a look at some key things to consider as part of your Salesforce training and adoption strategy.
What are you trying to achieve?
Before you start any training you need to have a clear understanding of what it is you are trying to achieve with the training sessions. This is important as Salesforce is such a huge platform with lots of great features and functionality. If you don’t tailor your training sessions to the needs of your team you may not get the expected results!
Key Stakeholders should be involved from the outset – it’s important that senior management buy into what we are trying to achieve. An often overlooked stakeholder is the Executive Sponsor. They as an absolute minimum should be able to provide a paragraph for you to include in your training sessions stating why your organisation has invested in Salesforce. The more engagement you can get from them however, the stronger the messaging will be! Every organisation will have different Stakeholders that need to get involved; managers, department heads and subject matter experts are key to the success!
No more death by Powerpoint
It’s 2023 so just using PowerPoint is no longer an effective Salesforce training strategy. Of course Powerpoint has its place for those who like to read the concepts that are being trained. We all know that there are powerful slides that enable learning and there are slides that are just ‘noise’. Personally, I find the fewer words on the slide the more flexible delivery can be. Reduce the temptation to read from the slide and tailor your delivery to the audience’s need.
Face to face wherever possible
In person workshops for Salesforce training are important to have hands-on exercises for the learners to participate in. A well constructed session will provide the opportunity for this. As we move into the post-pandemic world it is so good to be able to return to in person training. The ability to read the room and ask questions to validate learning cannot be understated. Virtual training sessions played an important role during COVID and we know the challenges in keeping learners engaged.
Use self-paced learning for preparation and reinforcement
Being in an environment where there is an agenda to be covered within a certain timescale is fine. The benefits of in person training certainly outweigh the drawbacks. There is also a positive impact through the use of self-paced learning, particularly for those who are engaged. Hopefully anyone reading this and already active in the Salesforce community is aware of Salesforce Trailhead where anyone who wants to know more about Salesforce can do so. It isn’t specific to your instance and your learners could learn anything about the platform!
As mentioned in a previous blog training is so important to get right in order to drive adoption and get the maximum ROI from your Salesforce. Self paced learning may be another great reason to use those often underutilised sandboxes! Encourage your users to explore and take time to become more proficient in a space where they can’t break anything!
Always keep learning
These are a few of my top tips for an effective Salesforce training strategy and there are many more. Don’t forget to ensure training is given the right amount of focus to enable your users!
You can find out more about the training services we offer at Cloud Galacticos on our Salesforce training services page where you can contact us to see how we can help your team succeed.
About Cloud Galacticos
Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce consultancy with a growing all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our company has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Swindon, Sheffield, and London.
So if you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience to help you make the most of your org, why not get in contact?
Best Nationwide Salesforce Services Consultancy 2022
Digital City Awards, Best Small Digital Company Finalist 2022
London’s Calling Platinum Sponsor 2022
The Future of Tech – Tip of the Week #538
Welcome to Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #538
Tip 1 – The Future of Tech
‘The only constant in technology — as in life — is change’
This article highlights the future of tech according to Salesforce, with predications and trends to watch out for in 2023.
“To survive and thrive, businesses must adapt to the pace at which technology influences how society and technology evolves. And to do this, businesses need to be bolder and wiser than their peers. Smart companies will reallocate resources to build the business of the future, today.” Brian Solis, VP, Global Innovation Evangelist, Salesforce
Lots of food for thought. Let me know what you think about the future of tech…
Tip 2 – Cactusforce 2023
Cactusforce is back next week. There’s plenty of great sessions spread across two days (19th and 20th).
It’ll be held in Phoenix, Arizona. And is billed as a ‘community & conference by/for Salesforce Developers, Architects, and Configurators’.
Final Tip Of The Week – Sign Up
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Francis Muthuswamy – Meet the Galacticos
Continuing in our series in which you get to meet and learn more about the Cloud Galacticos team, say ‘hello’ to our MuleSoft Architect, Francis Muthuswamy . I caught up with Francis to ask him a few questions.
Francis Muthuswamy, MuleSoft Architect
Hi Francis, can you give us a bit of background about yourself and your work history?
I’m Indian by origin and hail from a beautiful place called Kulasekharam. It has a lot of tourist attractions and is located in the southern part of India in Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu. I’m passionate towards computers and did my graduation in Computer Science and Engineering in my hometown.
I am a Mulesoft Certified Integration Architect with 17 years of experience in architecting, designing, developing and deploying the integration solutions using Mulesoft and IBM Integration tools. I’ve worked in top Indian MNCs such as Wipro, HCL, Tata Elxsi and Tech Mahindra apart from French based Capgemini and US based IBM. I have also worked across globe in the UK, South Africa, Malaysia, Belgium, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
What’s your story behind joining the Cloud Galacticos team?
There are multiple reasons which made me join the Cloud Galacticos team. My spouse was doing her Masters in Computer Science and I travelled to the UK as a dependent. I was looking for a remote job in Mulesoft where I can grow myself in technology and spend time with my family on work. I found that the Cloud Galacticos is more focussed on Salesforce and understood about their customers on their website. As Mulesoft will go hand in hand with Salesforce, I found it interesting to establish a Mulesoft Integration Platform for the Salesforce customers.
I was also looking for an organisation with a good work life balance. I like to spend more time on sporting activities. More importantly, the Cloud Galacticos is one of the few organisations that provides sponsorship which have helped me immensely in planning my future.
What is your role as a MuleSoft Architect at Cloud Galacticos, and what do you enjoy about it?
As a Mulesoft Architect, I worked for a retail client in the UK. In the past six years, I have had accountability for the Solution Architecture and design of integration solutions for multiple clients. This is the only opportunity which gives additional responsibility to deliver the project end to end from Solution Architecture to Production Deployment in the AWS Cloud.
I enjoyed the remote way of working and it gives the balance between work and life. It gives us more flexibility to spend time with family at work. I had a nice time meeting the colleagues once every three months by getting together. I enjoyed the adventurous team challenge that happened in Manchester Crystal Maze. It was amazing. In the other co-working event, I got an opportunity to prepare pizza which was fun.
Have you passed any Salesforce certifications recently and/or do you plan to take any in the near future?
Recently, I got certified as a MuleSoft Integration Architect. I am planning to do MuleSoft Platform Architect. This will give me the knowledge on how to set up a new on-premise or Cloud based MuleSoft Platform for the Cloud Galacticos customers.
At Cloud Galacticos, we’re a remote work focused company. What advice would you give people to make the most of working remotely and staying motivated?
The Cloud Galacticos is doing the best to motivate their employees by having Coffee Catch up every Wednesday, meeting the colleagues in person every three months and an annual meeting in December.
My advice to motivate the employees will be “recognise the best team of the quarter based on the customer feedback or the team which solved the complex technical challenge”.
Favourites:
– Food: South Indian Parotta and Beef
– Drink: Kanyakumari Special Sarbath
– Music: AR Rahman
– TV Show: The Crown on Netflix
– Film: Guru Movie by Maniratnam
– Animal: Cat
– Place to visit: Switzerland, New Zealand and Ireland
About Cloud Galacticos
Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce consultancy with a growing all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our company has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London.
So if you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience to help you make the most of your org, why not get in contact?
Best Nationwide Salesforce Services Consultancy 2022
Digital City Awards, Best Small Digital Company Finalist 2022
London’s Calling Platinum Sponsor 2022
Winter ’22 Cert Maintenance – Tip of the Week #537
Welcome to Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #537
Tip 1 – Winter ’22 Cert Maintenance
Next Friday is the 13th which is unlucky for some – if you forget it’s also the Winter ‘22 cert maintenance deadline.
Get checking your maintenance modules!
Tip 2 – Spring ’23 Release Webinar
Want to know more about the Spring ‘23 Release but was too afraid to ask (and you’re an Enterprise customer)?
Don’t forget to join the Spring ‘23 Release Overview webinar next Thursday 12th January.
“Join our Success Architects Tim Perdue and Ingo Fochler to learn more about the key new features designed to help you maximize your investment in Salesforce”
Tip 3 – London’s Calling 2023 Speakers
London’s Calling is back in June and the Call for Presentations is now live. It’s one of my favourite Salesforce community events and a must-attend event for anyone in the Salesforce eco-system.
If you’ve ever wanted to speak at this awesome Salesforce community event, now is your chance. But do it before 5th February…
Final Tip Of The Week – Sign Up
Remember if you have enjoyed this Tip of the Week then sign up for the weekly Friday email, direct to your inbox here. And feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas for future Salesforce tips!
