Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Snowfakery – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #496

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Welcome to my Salesforce Tip of the Week #496

 

Tip 1 – Maintenance Due?

Maintenance Due

Just in case…I am sure we have all done this already…

But the Spring ‘21 Salesforce Certification maintenance deadline is in 2 weeks time (Friday April 8th).

For Winter ’22 you have plenty of time. If in doubt, take 30 seconds to check…it will help you sleep better at night!

 

 

Tip 2 – Appexchange

Appexchange

Take a peak at the new look Appexchange. Judging by this article (which highlights what has changed) these may be the first updates of many.

So keep an eye out and give some feedback where possible.

 

 

 

Tip 3 – Snowfakery

Snowfakery

Just in case the name does not give it away “Snowfakery is a tool for generating fake data that has relations between tables. Every row is faked data, but also unique and random, like a snowflake.”

It is an open-source tool created by Salesforce.Org which I think many of us will find useful.

Read more about it here.

 

 

 

Only FOUR more Tip of the Weeks till I reach my #500th edition..!

 

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!

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Appexchange – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #488

by with No Comment Tip of the Week

Welcome to my Salesforce Tip of the Week #488

 

Tip 1 – Speakers Needed

Here at Galactico Towers we are  very excited to be involved with London’s Calling 2022…and you can be too!

The Call For Proposals has gone out, you have until 13th Feb. See here for details. Don’t leave it until the last minute!

 

 

Tip 2 – Marketing Cloud Releases

Here is a link to the next Marketing Cloud release, which will be out to all users by Feb 19th.

But other big news is starting with the Spring ’22 release, Marketing Cloud plans a new cycle to align with the release schedule of the rest of Salesforce products.

With 2022 updates during the Spring ‘22 (Feb 5-18), Summer ‘22 (June 4-17), and Winter ‘23 (Oct 8-21) releases.

 

Tip 3 – Appexchange

Appexchange

Congratulations to the Appexchange team and all its partners – 10 million installs is an amazing achievement.

I’m sure there are many more to come. Well done!

 

 

 

 

 

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!

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Appexchange Trusted Reviewers and Rollup Helper – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #447

by with No Comment AppExchangeDataTip of the WeekTrailhead

Tip 1 – Trusted Reviewers

Have you noticed any updates on the Appexchange? Last month these updates were announced, which are useful when you are looking at reviews on Apps/Products. If there are 2 reviews, 1 good 1 bad, which do you take as the most accurate? The new Top Reviewer/ MVP/Ranger icons add some extra gravitas to certain reviews, maybe not to base a decision on, but at least to help sway a split decision!

Tip 2 – Rollup Summaries

We have featured this Rollup tool from Andy Fawcett in a number of blogs and presentations, so I am using this week’s latest release as an excuse to highlight ‘Declarative Lookup Rollup Summaries’ here. Our Architect Mike Gill says…

“Every org at some point requires a custom roll up discussion, and warranty’s at look at the options and apps out there – such as DLRS. If your use case requires a non standard roll up the first thing you should do is revisit the business requirement which has lead you to this point. Question the object model design, do you really need a custom roll up at all? If you still need a custom roll up – the next thing you need to decide is whether to build your own or use an app such as DLRS. DLRS has evolved over the years into a one stop shop for solving roll up requirements, most people don’t fully appreciate the scope of it and how it works, so we recommend taking a look!

It’s primary use case is bridging the gap between related data when no master-detail relationship is possible. Example – rolling up data from Service Cloud object such as Case to the Account object.This is all easily achieved declaratively without the need to create a single flow or apex class. On the flip side it’s not the ideal solution for simply solving reporting requirements after reporting requirement. Every roll up no matter how it’s created or implemented has it’s cost and just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

With great power comes great responsibility — alternatively known as the Peter Parker principle”

Final Tip – Sign up

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Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Data Recovery, Trailmix, New Community Event – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #444

by with No Comment DevelopmentSalesforce EventsSalesforce study resourcesTip of the WeekTrailheadyoutube clips

Tip 1 – Data Recovery Returns

Phew, we can all relax and delete our live data now!! Well not quite, but having have to use this safety net once in my lifetime is enough to appreciate that it is back! Read more about it here.

The post says “Last year, we announced plans to end our Data Recovery Service. We arrived at this decision through several factors — most notably, the small number of customers actively using the service and availability of numerous third-party solutions.

However, you, the Salesforce community, correctly pointed out that Data Recovery Service’s value lies in its very existence and knowing that it’s there in the event of an emergency.”

There are great backup services available on the Appexchange, but if you dont have one of those and an emergency happens, this is your lifeline!

Note also a hint of a new/upgraded feature to come…

“…based on customer feedback, we are pleased to announce that we will pilot Salesforce backup and restore services built natively on the Platform this summer. We’ve co-designed these services with customers and we expect to deliver the performance, speed, and scale that you’ve come to expect from the Salesforce Platform while continuing to provide additional ways to innovate and extend these capabilities through our vibrant ecosystem.”

Tip 2 – New Trailmix

Complete this Spring ’21 Trailmix for Developers by March 31, to earn a special community badge, and enter to win prizes…and learn more about the release contents of course.

Tip 3 – Consultancy Dreamin’

This is a new Community run event, planned for June 2021, and the call for speakers is now open. The website explains “Consultancy Dreamin’ was created for anyone who already is or wants to be a Salesforce Consultant.” Count me in.

Tip 4 – New Video

We launched this at London’s Calling last week, hope you like it 🙂

 

Tip 5 – Sign up

Remember if you have enjoyed this week’s tip then sign up for the weekly email, direct to your inbox here!

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Optimizer App and London’s Calling – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #443

by with No Comment AppExchangeDevelopmentSalesforce EventsSalesforce ProductsTip of the Week

Tip 1 – Optimizer

A great way to review your Org, and get suggestions on areas for improvement, is by using Salesforce Optimizer. The report has been around for a while, but soon to be disabled in June as the App is more interactive. Nothing to instal, just search ‘Optimizer’ in Setup and click ‘Open Optimizer’ to reveal a list of suggestions and estimates. Turns out I have lots of unused Fields, and Reports I have never run!

From the Salesforce Help docs…

The Salesforce Optimizer app analyzes more features than the existing PDF report and in a more interactive and actionable format. Quickly identify issues that require immediate attention by using the sortable list view. Read through expert Salesforce recommendations to plan next steps.

Consider running Salesforce Optimizer as part of your monthly maintenance, before installing a new app, before each Salesforce release, or at least once a quarter. You can run the report as often as you want to keep on top of maintenance activities. You can set the App to run automatically on a monthly basis.

Tip 2 – London’s Calling you Now! 

LC2021 is just kicking off. We are happy to be sponsoring today, as we have for every LC event! There is always great content, so it is THE best UK Salesforce event in my opinion. I am looking forward to:

Lawrence Newcombe’s session ‘Ready, Set, Architect’ at 10.45am,

Leslie Gestautas’s session on migrating data at 3.30pm,

and of course our very own Paul Battisson’s session ‘Improving the performance of your Apex Code‘ at 2.45pm.

I am sure the sessions will be available on YouTube in the coming weeks, but it is always good to block out a chunk of learning time all in one go at an event like this.

Keep an eye out for our new animated video & tell me what you think!

Tip 3 – Sign up

Remember if you have enjoyed this week’s tip then sign up for the weekly email, direct to your inbox here!

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Free Apps, Partner News, Book Review – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #441

by with No Comment AppExchangeNewsTip of the Week

Tip 1 – Free App(s) of the week

Thank you to Amanda Nelson at the Appexchange team for adding some of my favourite free SalesforceLabs Apps to this article. So now you have 13 recommendations to take a look at! Enjoy.

It looks like Report and Dashboard apps are very popular on the Appexchange, and especially from the free apps provided by SalesforceLabs. Of the Apps recommended, I have also used ‘Adding multiple related records’ and ‘MyV2MOM’. Which are your favourite Labs apps?

FYI – To make it easier and faster to find these apps, Appexchange recently launched a new Salesforce Labs Digital App Guide. “Find the department or challenge that best match your needs, and once you find an app (or a few), click on the listing to learn more and install it”.

 

Tip 2 – Partners

Congratulations to Shiv and his team at Dazeworks, who this week announced they are joining with US based iLink Digital. We have worked together with Dazeworks since Day 1 and are very happy for their news, and look forward to working with the extended team in the future. It is great to hear positive stories in these challenging times, and this is a great positive for both Dazeworks and iLink.

 

Tip 3 – Book review – ‘Eat That Frog’

You know that thing that you know you have to do but don’t really want to do…just get it done first thing, and your whole day/life will be better! Ok that has saved you a few hours of reading. But actually, after I thought the moral of this short book had been taught on page 1, there was some more useful ideas for prioritising what is important, and ending procrastination.

 

Eat that frog and sign up to my weekly Salesforce Tips email. As you may know, I write this blog every Friday, and have done for over 8 years (never missed a Friday yet!), and add whatever interesting things I find in the Salesforce world each week. Feedback always welcome. I hope you enjoy the content, and the ‘short & sweet’ format.

 

Don’t forget to sign up for my Salesforce Tip of the Week!

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Formula Warning – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #424

by with No Comment AppExchangeDataNewsTip of the Week

Formula Warning

You feel safe and secure having set up your Profiles, Roles, Sharing etc! But here is a warning when setting up Cross Object Formulas. Did you know that if you create a formula that references a field on another object and display that formula in your page layout, users can see the field on the object even if they don’t have access to that object record. It may not be an issue, but you want to be aware so you do not get tripped up on this!

Here is an example of what could go wrong…”For example, if you create a formula field on the Case object that references an account field, and display that formula field in the case page layout, users can see this field even if they don’t have access to the account record”.

Formula Warning

In other news…

The Exchange magazine

Click here for the latest edition of the Exchange (Autumn 2020). As always it is full of Community info, News, and of course Apps. There are some recipes, a Trailblazer spotlight on Kim Wargo, and some belated Halloween ideas.

Exchange

Congratulations

Congratulations to 2 of my MVP friends, who this month have moved to roles at the Salesforce Mothership. Anup Jadhav joins as Senior Project Architect (Insurance), and Jodi Wagner as Financial Services Cross Cloud Specialist. Salesforce are lucky to have you both!

And finally

This week sadly saw the passing of a football legend Nobby Stiles. He was a World Cup winner in 1966, winner of the European Cup with Manchester United, as well as the English league. I spoke to Nobby’s nephew this week to pass on my condolences. Mike Stiles was my Business Studies teacher at school. So who knows, maybe without Mike, Nobby, and family, I wouldn’t be running my own business today! RIP Norbert aka ‘the destroyer’. Sometimes the smallest guy on the pitch can make the biggest impact.

Nobby Stiles (left) with George Best and Bobby Charlton

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Non-Profit Dreamin – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #421

by with No Comment AppExchangeSalesforce EventsTip of the Week

This week saw the announcement of the newest Salesforce Ohana event focused on the non-profit sector, Non-Profit Dreamin. The event is focussed on those working in or with the not for profit sector, to enable them to network, share ideas and stories and collaborate together.

Non-Profit Dream

The event will be held at the end of January and will be fully remote so anyone can attend. The call for speakers is open now as well, so if you have something you would love to share and think others would enjoy, head over now and submit your idea!

In other news…

New book on the reading list

Ines Garcia has released her new book “Becoming more agile whilst delivering Salesforce” – I’ve added it to my reading list, and having known Ines for a while I am sure it will be fantastic – go and buy a copy here.

Salesforce Labs appExchange Category

Long term readers will know I love the free apps from the Salesforce Labs team. All these apps and components now have their own category on the appExchange making it even easier to browse through them and find something to solve your headache.

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Salesforce Labs Components – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #415

by with No Comment AppExchangeDreamforceLightningTip of the Week

Salesforce Labs have outdone themselves this time, with 15 Lightning Web Components to play around with. Salesforce Labs produces free Apps that are created by Salesforce employees (as an experiment, not usually as part of their day job), and added to the Appexchange for us all to use. I could take up 15 Fridays of ‘Tip of the Week’ blogs on this, but instead here is a great list that you can take a look at. There are too many to choose a favourite from, but I am going to start with a look at the Lightning File Explorer.

Salesforce Labs Apps

Salesforce Labs

In Other News…

Who is going to pick up your device?

I had a few days break, walking and running in the Peak District which was amazing, and on the way found an iPhone in the middle of a field! How do you reconnect a device to it’s owner? Or how can a first responder find out about an unconscious person from a locked phone? If you haven’t done it, like me, and like the owners of the iPhone, set up an ICE or Medical contacts, it is free and fast and available on Apple or Android devices! Thankfully with some detective work, I got the phone back to the owner…and thanks to our Marketing Manager Ben Duong, who managed to track them down with just 1 tweet to his network!! Never mind 6 degrees of separation, with Ben it is just 1.

Now what for Dreamforce?

Here is a great post from Keir Bowden aka Bob Buzzard, about what can and can’t be recreated without an actual in-person Dreamforce. I think we all agree, Virtual events are definitely no real substitute! But it looks like it will be quite a while before any of us board the plane for a long exotic trip to a Dreamin’ event or Dreamforce 🙁

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

No Virtual Dreamforce 2020? – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #412

by with No Comment DreamforceTip of the Week

In an interview this week Marc Benioff suggested that there may be no Dreamforce this year, of any kind. It would be a shame of course, I have some great memories of time spent at DF, but maybe this is a chance to redesign it? Lets be honest, it’s too busy, too big for the location, and only will get busier and bigger.

Benioff Dreamforce 2020

Like many I have been anticipating that there would be some sort of virtual event this year in place of the in person event. Let’s see what the next few weeks and months bring!

In other news…

Auto add fields to report types

Ever edited a report and struggled to find a field? It can be a massive headache, usually caused by a Custom Report Type being built before the Custom Field was created. Thank you to North England Community co-leader Clare Ramsaran for sharing this… “Beta in Winter ‘21: when a new field is created it will be automatically added to all associated report types” hoorah!

Free App of the Week – Star Rating Lightning Web Component

The latest free App from the wonderful SalesforceLabs is this star rating component. Deserves a 5 star rating!