HABITS, HACKS, AND HELPFUL HINTS
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 2
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.
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 3
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
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.
Download the
AppExchange
Dashboard pack.
HackDownload the
AppExchange
Dashboard pack.
Hack
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 8
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.
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 9
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:
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 10
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Many of your users have been using Excel and Salesforce for years. With
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With X-Author for Excel, you can:
“Once we saw what
Apttus X-Author
Excel was capable
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perfect fit for us, and
now we use Excel as
a calculation engine
for Salesforce.”
CHAD PRATTSenior Business Analyst
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Motorola Mobility
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Deliver all of the Excel capabilities that users want while maintaining Salesforce data, permissions, reporting, routing, and controls.
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 11
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).
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).
The admin’s guide to steering a successful Salesforce ship 22
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!