Hacks, Habits and Helpful Hints: The Admin's Guide to Steering a Successful Salesforce Ship

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HABITS, HACKS, AND HELPFUL HINTS The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship

Transcript of Hacks, Habits and Helpful Hints: The Admin's Guide to Steering a Successful Salesforce Ship

Page 1: Hacks, Habits and Helpful Hints: The Admin's Guide to Steering a Successful Salesforce Ship

HABITS, HACKS, AND HELPFUL HINTS

The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship

Page 2: Hacks, Habits and Helpful Hints: The Admin's Guide to Steering a Successful Salesforce Ship

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Salesforce can be the backbone to your

organization and its infrastructure, but like any

great ship, it needs an experienced captain.

This means you, mighty Salesforce Admin, have

more potential impact than ever. You not only

steer this massive ship, but you keep it afloat,

take it to new places, and bring your organization

and its employees along for the journey.

Yes, perils abound: Adoption woes. The sea of

budget blues. A mountain of information to

absorb. Pirate attacks. Have no fear, we’re here to

help you overcome these issues so you can stake

your claim as office captain.

Steer your Salesforce ship toward CRM Adoption

Island, the Education Passage, and the Big

Mountain of Company Growth.

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This guide is organized for our fearless captains.

Captain’s Daily Habits

Captain’s Weekly Habits

Captain’s Monthly Habits

Captain’s Quarterly Habits

Captain’s Yearly Habits

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CAPTAIN’S DAILY HABITS

Talk to your shipmatesWrite these tips down in your captain’s journal and use

them every single day. They’re all about engaging and

interacting with your users, to help them improve their

day-to-day Salesforce adventures.

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Watch, learn, teachThe best way to learn how Salesforce is being used in your

office is pretty straightforward: Lean in and say, “Ahoy

Matey!” Ask them how it’s going. Give them tips. See if

they have questions for you. Oftentimes, your users have

questions; however, they don’t take time to ask. Take your

expertise to them.

DAILY HABITS

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Be a social leader

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Someone needs to be at the Salesforce helm,

so you won’t always be able to walk the deck.

Instead, set up a Chatter group for Salesforce

users, and make yourself a virtual resource.

But you’re not the only resource: Every user in

your office has Salesforce knowledge and tips

to share. If you get your users in the habit

of using Chatter as a socially-driven resource,

they’ll start helping each other. It’s like creating

a bunch of little captains to help solve

problems, which will give you more time

to focus on your Salesforce vessel.

Use Quick Actions to

allow users to submit

feedback and log cases.

Hack

DAILY HABITS

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CAPTAIN’S WEEKLY HABITS

There’s a lot to be learned, so explore!Focus on upping your own Salesforce

knowledge on a weekly basis (which

spreads to your users). There’s much

to learn out in these wide open waters,

so grab that spyglass telescope and be

a knowledge seeker.

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Download the

AppExchange

Dashboard pack.

HackDownload the

AppExchange

Dashboard pack.

Hack

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WEEKLY HABITS

Land ho!Get inspired by

embarking on

the AppExchange

The AppExchange is adding apps every single day for every

industry and department, all built to address common

challenges and opportunities. Visit the AppExchange regularly

to learn and get better at your job. When you study solutions,

you start to develop an eye for spotting issues in your own org.

It’s inspiring! Next thing you know, you’ll start recognizing areas

where your Salesforce ship’s prow and port can improve.

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WEEKLY HABITS

Belay there!Explore the Salesforce Community

The social-savvy crew of Salesforce experts and evangelists have created a wealth of resources

that you absolutely cannot lose at sea. You owe it to yourself and your users to keep these tools

on board.

Here are some ways to stay up-to-the-minute on all the latest apps and AppExchange news:

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CAPTAIN’S MONTHLY HABITS

Communicate big ideas with those around youAll of your new daily and weekly habits come into play in a big way on a monthly basis.

Without all the knowledge gained day-to-day from brain exercises, you might as well call

yourself a landlubber.

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MONTHLY HABITS

Connect with your matesAbout once a month, it’s time for a gut check with

your mates, or internal stakeholders. In other words,

talk to the team managers using Salesforce. Take time

to sit down and ask how it’s going in their department.

Come prepared with ideas on how to improve their

processes. (If you’ve been visiting the AppExchange

and other resources, you should have plenty.)

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All hands hoay!

“All hands hoay” means making time for all of your stakeholders to come

together once a month for governance. This is when you all set the forward path,

as a Salesforce ship crew. One of the beauties of Salesforce is how well it

works across departments, so it makes sense that stakeholders and leadership

have the opportunity to discuss Salesforce-related initiatives together.

MONTHLY HABITS

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Me hearties!Share with the Salesforce

Admin Community

From stories of new apps to stories

of life at sea, the information in the

Salesforce Admin community is there

to share the latest app tales. Give the

world your tips and tricks in an admin

group. Does one of your users make

you say “Yo ho ho!” as a result of your

help? Share the success story not only

in your internal Chatter group, but

with other admins out there.

RELATED TIP: Don’t be afraid of uncharted waters

To get even more involved and learn new things,

travel to a Salesforce Admin group at least three

or four times a year, and present something to the

group. Public speaking is nerve-racking for a lot

of us, but it’s a great skill for your arsenal. User group

meetings let you compare your org’s progress to

other orgs, so you can see how it stacks up.

MONTHLY HABITS

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CAPTAIN’S QUARTERLY HABITS

Focus your effortsOur quarterly habits are all about running a tight

ship. We get it. It’s really easy to get caught up

in the day-to-day, but it’s incredibly important

to block off some time to tidy up and do some

prepping for the future.

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QUARTERLY HABITS

New releases — whether seasonal updates from Salesforce or an

app implementation from you — can be ugly as a scallywag if you’re

not prepared. It can require a lot of reading, but you need to study

those Salesforce release notes and communicate the most relevant

changes to the users who are depending on you. That goes for your

internal changes as well. Always test internal changes in your

sandbox and then demo them to your users. You can do demos

live or via a video posted in your Chatter user group.

New releasesP L A N FO R

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Hot product tip

Tame Your Release Notes Eat and Delete

1. Print out new Salesforce release notes.

2. Mark new features that are automatically turned ON, so you know you need to take action.

3. Mark stuff that can be turned ON in another color. Evaluate with stakeholders and your team if you think it will support your users.

Schedule time to meet with groups of your users, give them lunch, and go through report folders to see what is and isn’t being used. If it’s not being used, throw it overboard (a.k.a. archive it).

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Beyond your crew, mates, and stakeholders, go up the

ladder and meet with your company’s high-level decision

makers, such as C-level executives. Get key insights on the

company’s overall direction, such as planned increases in

headcount, changes in product offerings, or new pirate hats.

Also ask if there’s anything you can do to help or share your

Salesforce-related, big-picture ideas.

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QUARTERLY HABITS

ShipownersM E E T W I T H

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CAPTAIN’S YEARLY HABITS

Despite doing your best to keep users up to speed, some things can slip through the cracks. Interestingly enough, one of the things that slip is knowledge of the basics. It may have been several years since some users were trained on how to use Salesforce. We all forget stuff, so retrain them. You’ll be surprised how many “Aye!” and “Arr!” and “Oh wow! I didn’t know I could do that!” moments they’ll have.

Run Salesforce refresher training for crewmembers

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YEARLY HABITS

Review and update your Salesforce Help Text.

The Hover and Discover feature can be really helpful to

users, so you should make sure what they’re discovering

is current and relevant.

Create an app to track how long each user has been trained. If you’re a new

admin, it’s a great way to get you into building your own apps.

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YEARLY HABITS

Head to DreamforceDreamforce offers amazing experiences, and the return on investment

has been proven time and time again. Make it a goal to present

at Dreamforce. Every presenter was once a young lad (or lass).

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Salesforce certifications aren’t just about showing what you know or going for

a raise. It’s also about how your users, stakeholders, managers, and other crew

members feel about you. And it’s about how YOU feel about you. It instills

confidence in your ability to get the job done. Certifications say that you’re

passionate about your job, you’ve got what it takes, and that there is smooth

sailing ahead.

Bottom line: certifications are undisputed proof that you rock, and give you the right to dress like a pirate to work. Visit appexchange.com to stay up-to-date on all of the latest apps.

VISIT US

Get certified!