Best Practices For Being an Exceptional Salesforce Admin

To become an exceptional Salesforce admin, you not only need to execute a brilliant strategy but follow some basic rules as well. In a recent Dreamforce Video, five Salesforce experts shared their tips on how one can up his/her game in Salesforce. The five experts: Mike Gerholdt, Director of Client Engagement, Jared Miller, Senior Project Manager, Andy Ogenoff, Technical Architect, Matthew Lamb, Technical Architect and Kevin O’Hara, CTO, engaged their audience in a heated Q&A session that lasted for about 1 hour. So, in brief, what tips did they share? First they described the role of a data architect. Data architects are people who spend the bulk of their time planning and understanding how relationships work before executing data models. They keep a keen eye on data quality and integrity. Second, they talked about how to write requirements. Accordingly, there are two types of requirements in Salesforce that is functional requirements and technical requirements. Good admins should always write the functional and technical requirements of everything they do. Requirements should always be written ahead of time to ensure proper documentation. The third concept that was covered in this session is “How do you know when you need a developer?” Basically, you need a developer when you find that you cannot build or operate something using the tools at your disposal. Simply put, you need the services of a developer when you need someone to code complex models for you. Some companies prefer to have their in-house development teams to ensure harmony and precise execution of models. And how do you build a good team of admins and developers? Well, always ensure you hire a developer who is certified. Most importantly, make sure the developer is trained on Salesforce. For more relevant information please reffer to salesforce developer tutorial. What about security? The way forward according to the four Salesforce Guru is as follows. Always consult with the Salesforce developer community on the latest security trends. Besides doing that, make sure you regulate who sees what data. Remember, in doing all these you want to be careful not to make things too secure as this would interfere with workflow. More recommendations:

• Always think about security up-front as you build all applications
• Use strong passwords (Salesforce has launched a couple of features to enhance your security e.g. two-factor authentication. Be sure to make good use of them)
• Ensure that proper governance structures are in place
• Limit admin access to only those who really need it
• Scale applications carefully to avoid breach of security
• Test everything in sand-box mode before rolling it out
• Test user stories before you move to production

In short, if you want to become a successful Salesforce admin, do not underestimate the effort taken to succeed. Always do your homework on procedural objects to ensure seamless execution of tasks. More information is available on salesforce tutorial page. Good Luck.