Trailhead Baby

Dear friends, I would like to introduce you to the newest Trailblazer - my baby brother!  Isn’t he cute? Cuteness is about all he has going for him right now. He cries all of the time and is taking up most of my scheduled snuggle time with mom.  Oh well. Such is life. I suppose I’ll start on the newest superbadge: App Customization Specialist! This is one tricky badge!  A few tips before you start clicking: Read and Label Highlight when Stuck Copy / Paste!  Don't type!  The instructions are intentionally vague, and require understanding the entity diagram in order to tie all of the objects together.  I printed the instructions and went to work, labeling each field by type and object. An example: On which object should this field be created? What type of field? I wrote down these details next to every field before clicking! Example: Shift Start Time Type: Date/Time. Object: Volunteer Shift. I was confused about ...

Taking a break from Process Builder for a quick chore Best Practice: Sandbox First! Before I start in Production, I am building this process in a Sandbox.  I used CopyStorm/Restore to populate the sandbox with a few dozen accounts along with their related opportunities, contacts, tasks, products, etc.  I also restored email templates, so that I could use some that had already been created instead of starting from scratch.  Having a rich test data set will allow me to test each step of my process with production data, without touching the actual production org.  If you do not have the option to populate sandboxes in this way, you can always manually create test data or use data loader (Time consuming!) I created the first node to associate any open tasks from the account to a new opportunity then tested this node to make sure that it was working the way I liked.  (Simply activate the process, test, then clone the process to start back where you...

Organize My mom provided a rough outline of a process that would help her sales team.  The next step is to translate this to Salesforce terms. Start with the basic questions: What is the end goal of the process?   Automate tasks for opportunities Which object should trigger the process? Opportunities Are multiple tools needed? Process Builder, Chatter, Email Alerts & templates What should drive the order of your process? Opportunity stages Items for each opportunity stage - Translating the Process: Prospecting - If an opportunity for a new customer is opened, associate all open tasks on the account with that opportunity. (Opportunities can open in several stages) Evaluating - Same as above. Quote - s ame as above. If the opportunity is over $20,000, post to a chatter group.  Invoiced Close any open tasks. Add task for invoice follow up  Add task to extend trial licenses.  (I added this for mom even though she didn’t a...

Would you build a tower without at least writing a list of all the supplies that are needed? At least a minimal amount of organization? No! Why treat a process any differently?   Making a plan... perhaps I should have used paper instead of the wall! Read the scenario or analyze the problem and translate into “process builder-ese”    What is the end goal of the process? Which object should trigger the process? Are multiple tools needed?  Visual Workflow and Process Builder? What should drive the order of your process? For a Trailhead Superbadge- read the instructions ! 95% of the questions that I receive are easily answered by reading the instructions more carefully, so I can’t say enough about print, highlight, read, read, read !  If you can not visualize a step in advance, don’t start the process creation until you understand what is needed. If you can not explain a process in simple enough terms so that a 5 year old will understa...