How I'm Staying Connected to Dreamforce from 3K Miles Away!

It's that time of year again, my favorite time of year, it's Dreamforce time!  Unfortunately this year I had to make a tough decision not to attend Dreamforce.  I will tell you; it was one of the toughest decisions I've had to make in a long time and some tears were shed.  But I do know it was the right decision for me at least right now.  You will see me at the NYC World Tour and most certainly at DF17!

Without further ado, here are the ways I'm staying connected to #DF16!

Success Community/User Groups
It's no surprise that this is first on my list as it's an excellent way to connect with the community outside of Dreamforce.  Holly Goldin-Firestone wrote an excellent blog post on this very topic here.  In addition to that, User Groups around the world are hosting Dreamforce Outpost viewing parties!  I'll be hosting an Outpost party in NYC you can sign up for here.  If you're not in NYC, you can see the whole list of parties here.

Twitter

Twitter was one of the first places I connected with a majority of the Salesforce community outside of Dreamforce.  I remember leading up to Dreamforce '11 some of my Salesforce friends talked me into signing up for Twitter, I've never looked back.  To make it easy for myself and you, I put together a list of some great people to follow at DF16.  Click here to subscribe to the list!

Salesforce Live

One thing I'm super excited about is how many sessions are being streamed this year!  You can see the schedule and register here to watch many sessions from work or home! I'm glad I have two screens at work.  Screen 1: work, Screen 2: Dreamforce. 

Periscope

If you haven't signed up for this nifty app, you definitely should!  It's a great way to see real time what's happening through someone else's eyes.  When you sign up, you can choose to follow people you're already following on twitter.  When they start broadcasting, you will get an alert on your phone, and you can also see that they are broadcasting on Twitter.  

Snapchat

I'm pretty new to snap chat, but I've been following the Dreamforce Snapchat the past few days and have gotten some cool sneak peeks at the setup for Dreamforce.  I feel like I know some big secret now.  Ooooh. I hope there is a Dreamforce Story I can follow from NYC.  If anyone knows let me know!  

Facebook

Over the past few years, my Salesforce family has become part of my regular life, and I have befriended many from the community on Facebook.  I've already seen some Facebook Live Streams and great Posts.  

Salesforce World Tours

The world tour will make stops in Tokyo and NYC in December!  As you can imagine, I'm super excited for the World Tour in NYC, and I hope you'll join me.  More details can are here 

Even if you weren't able to go to San Francisco for Dreamforce, you can still have fun!  If there are any other ways you are connecting to Dreamforce virtually that I haven't listed here, please leave a comment!  

Much Love <3

Cheryl

Why Adding a Field Isn’t Always that Simple & The 5 W’s of Salesforce Administration

I know what you’re thinking. You’re reading the title saying to yourself “C’mon Cheryl, yes it is, in just a few clicks I can add a field. What are you talking about?” In theory, yes, you are correct. However, I wanted to share an example from a recent User Group Meeting that may not be so simple. One of our new members--who is also a new admin--was asking for help adding a field. The admin’s sales team requested a field called Billing Frequency on the Opportunity with 4 Choices: Annually, Quarterly, Monthly and Ad Hoc.

After discussing the request with her it became apparent the technology wasn’t the problem, it was the requirement itself. She showed me their org. They had three opportunity record types with three page layouts and nine profiles. She wasn’t sure which opportunity record type this field should be on, where it should go on the page layout, or who should have access. We looked at the record types and page layouts and we could make an assumption, but we all know what happens when you assume…

I explained that she needed to refine the requirement for the field with the sales team. I helped her draft an email asking everything she needed to know to a new field. She sent the email while still at the user group meeting and approached me after one of the presentations as the sales manager had already responded. It turned out the field should only be on two of the three record types, it should always be required for one of the opportunity record types when it’s closed won, and should only be required for a certain opportunity type when it’s closed won. There was also a requirement that only sales and sales management should be able to change this field, and all other users would have read only access to the field.

The sales manager also asked if he could get an email anytime an opportunity was closed with a Billing Frequency of Ad Hoc. He also asked if there was a way she could load the data in for any closed opportunities from 2015 for one of the record types.

After reading through her email with her the simple additional field requirement became:

· Add a field to two record types and page layouts

· Set up field level security for the field

· Create a validation rule to require the field in the certain circumstances

· Create a workflow rule and email template to fire when an opportunity was closed where this field was filled in with a certain value.

· Extract opportunities with criteria mentioned in above validation rule with ID’s so sales could update spreadsheet

· Load data into the Billing Frequency Field


From the above you can see why adding a field can be more than a simple request, especially if you are adding a field to an object with multiple record types, page layouts, with multiple profiles. This is why I always use the 5 W’s of Salesforce Administration when reviewing enhancement requests from users:



· Who - Who wants the request, who should be able to use or view the new configuration.

· What - What will they do with the data collected in the configuration? What is the long-term goal?

· Where - Where should this configuration be available?

· When - When should this configuration be available, when should it be required?

· Why - Why do they want this new feature, what is their end goal and how will they use it and how will it benefit our business?


When the admin I mentioned above started asking her business users the 5 W’s of Salesforce Configuration, she was able to assist them faster and more efficiently. She was able to determine what was needed upfront by asking the right questions.

What questions do you ask your business users when they submit a request to make a change in Salesforce? I would love to hear from you!

As always, thank you for reading!

Cheryl

How to SABWA When You're Not in the Same Location as Your Users

If you’ve heard Mike Gerholdt speak then you’ve heard him speak about SABWA, Salesforce Administration By Walking Around. I love this practice, but it got me thinking what if users aren’t in a location that’s in walking distance to you or what if you are a Salesforce Admin that works from home? Can you implement this practice? The answer is YES! I know this because I have done it and wanted to share a few tips. Over the past 11 years I have supported Salesforce end users in all 50 states and in over 30 countries. It’s so important as a Salesforce Admin to maintain a connection with your end users regardless of location and time zone, which is why being a SABWA admin, is such a great practice.

It is going to be even more important for us as Awesome Admins to SABWA as we start rolling out the new Lightning Experience to make sure we do this to make sure the new UI is working for our users and they know how to use it and know where to go to get their questions answered.

Here are some practices I have implemented to interact and connect with users not in the same location as me:


Hold Office Hours with a Tool that Allows for Screen Sharing and Video

I supported users in the Americas, EMEA and APAC it was sometimes really hard to support users in the other regions due to time zones, however I didn’t want the users in other time zones to feel left out so I setup weekly Office Hours meetings where the time rotated each week. For example the first Friday of every month office hours were held at 10 AM EST, the second Friday of every month Office Hours were held at 1 PM EST, Third at 4 PM EST and Fourth at 9 PM EST. Having the meeting at different times allowed users from all regions to be able to join easily.

I got to know so many users in so many different countries this way. I also always made sure to use video on my meetings so the users could put a face to the voice. It made it almost like I was there in their office helping them but I was in my office in New York City and even sometimes in my apartment.



Join Departmental Meetings

Pretty much every department has weekly or monthly meetings; so ask to join, even if it’s just to listen. It was great to understand what different departments were doing overall not just with Salesforce so I could keep that in mind when writing requirements or designing solutions. I was once on the Order Management and Finance Monthly Meeting and they were discussing how Order Management reps needed to manually enter some new information from the billing system on the Sales Order after they finished processing it. I heard some grumbling on the call about how manual it was going to be. I made a note to myself to talk to our integration developer about bringing this information over via our already existing integration between sales orders and our billing system. After discussing with our integration developer, we found that the data they were going to manually enter after completing a sales order was in a table we were already were connected to and we would just need to add fields to Salesforce and to the integration to bring them over, the estimate was less than a day of development work. Everyone including my VP and our Product Owner saw the value immediately and we put the story in the next sprint to get the integration updated.

I immediately called the business leads in finance and order management to let them know we could automate this data entry and we were going to put the story for the enhancement in the following sprint. They were so thrilled that this could be done. They didn’t think it could be, but they were very happy they were wrong. It was a great feeling to come to their next meeting and announce that they no longer had to enter the information manually that we were able to add this feature for them and save them about 1.5 minutes per order which would save order management about 300 minutes per week. This meant orders were being billed and fulfilled that much faster for our customers.

Random Calls to End Users

I regularly spoke to our product owner and business leads as part of our change management & agile processes, but sometimes even our business leads weren’t aware of issues or challenges with end users. I would block out an hour in my calendar every Wednesday and call 3-4 users randomly. It was a great way to get to know people and listen to their challenges. I can’t tell you how many times I would call an end user and because so much of the business was using Salesforce for their processes they would give me feedback I never even thought of. 

 I once called a Sales Rep that was frustrated that they didn’t have a clickable link to another system like they did for other systems which passed the account name so they didn’t have to copy paste or manually type, it would bring up the correct record(s) in the other system so they could easily find what they were looking for. I had no idea sales was even relying so heavily on this other system. When I reviewed this request during our Change Advisory Board meeting everyone realized how much time that could save sales. We had the new custom link out to the business users the following day.


Send Surveys

Many of us manage survey tools such as Get Feedback, Form Assembly or Clicktools within our Salesforce org to send to customers as part of the customer service process, but what about end users? This was a great way to get feedback from end users. We allowed the surveys to be anonymous if they chose, however, we required them to tell us what type of user they were so we could group the feedback by Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Legal, Sales Ops or Finance & Order Management.

We sent these out every other month to all of our end users and included a link to a survey form when we closed out cases so they could give us feedback on a particular issue or about anything in general.

Many features added to our backlog were because of these surveys. These surveys really showed our end users that we were listening. It was great to send our weekly release email and highlight the items that we released that were ideas from our end users.

I hope this helps some Awesome Admins out there who work remotely or sit in different offices from your end users that you can still SABWA without actually walking around. I would love to hear from you if you have implemented some things to work with end users you may not sit near.


As always, thank you for reading and I hope to see some of you at the Salesforce Tour in NYC on November 18th!


All the best!



Cheryl

Falling in Love...With Service Cloud

I fell in love with Salesforce Service Cloud nearly a decade ago in 2006. I was working at a startup managing an org as a Solo Admin with around 50 users, which were mostly from Sales and Marketing. There were a few departments within customer support: Service Center, Field Service and Engineering. Each of these departments had a shared Salesforce license they could use to login to see what the customer purchased or where they were in the sales process. However, these shared licenses only gave them read only access.

The Service Center Team sat in the office answering customer calls and emails. The Service Center was also responsible for handling escalated issues, meaning if they couldn’t resolve an issue through the phone or email and it needed to be escalated, they would make sure the question or issue was being resolved in a timely manner by Field Service or Engineering. Everything they were doing was tracked in spreadsheets or emails.

The Field Service Team was out in the field servicing our customers on site. The service visits were both routine visits and from service calls. Everything this team did was tracked in a separate set of spreadsheets. These also weren’t real-time so we had instances where two field service members would end up on the same property in the same day because data was only getting updated once a day.

My first few months at this startup company were really spent getting the Sales and Marketing teams up and running on Salesforce. I had to do major cleanup of roles, profiles, fields, objects and data. I also rebuilt all of their reports and dashboards and helped them define KPI’s. It was around that time that the company moved into a bigger office. Up until that time Sales and Marketing sat in one office and Customer Support and Engineering sat in another.

When we moved into our new office we were put into quads of desks. My quad mates were the Service Center Manager, the Field Service Manager and the Accounting Manager. On the third day of being in our new office, I walked into what seemed to be Customer Service chaos. Everyone seemed to be running around and upset. When I asked what was going on, I was told that the master spreadsheets that were saved on the shared drive with customer visit and call information had been corrupted. They had a few local saved versions, but they were a few days old, so they were trying to piece the data back together. The information contained in these spreadsheets contained critical data for these teams that tracked who had an open issue, who was attending to it and when a customer last had a service visit.

I offered up my services to help restore the data in the sheets based on emails and notes. As I was looking at the data in the spreadsheets something clicked in my head. This information belonged in Salesforce. These teams were working with the same customer data as Sales. Why should customer data be in all these separate places? I remembered something I heard about at a Salesforce event that finally made sense to me at that very moment, “A 360-degree View of Your Customers.” That is exactly what we needed to have and I was determined how to figure out how to use Salesforce to give us that 360-degree view.

Later that day as most of the chaos settled I started to do a bit of research on how customer service used Salesforce. I found some really good articles on the help section from Salesforce about Cases, Web to Case and a brand new feature called Email-to-Case. I had never used Cases before, but I thought, what the heck, why not try it out and see what the data would look like with a few of our customers.

I looked at the spreadsheet and configured their process right into cases. I was excited to see that cases operated like Leads, Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities, which were the objects I was most familiar with at that time. I could add fields; have page layouts and record types. In a few hours I had a working prototype of what I thought would be a good solution for the Service Center team. I loaded cases from a few of the customers that called in frequently to see what the data looked like. I created a couple of reports so I could show them how they could look at the cases in a detail view or at a high level through a metric.

A few days later, when things seemed to be a bit calmer I approached the Service Center Manager and asked if I could show her something in Salesforce. I showed her what I built out with cases and explained the idea of web to case and email to case. I also showed her some documentation about CTI systems, Self-Service Portals and connecting Salesforce to them. The Service Center Manager loved everything I showed her. We spent an hour or two each day over the next week perfecting what I had built and showing a few other people on the team.

Since the Service Center Team was using a shared license that only had read only rights we needed to purchase 15 licenses to fully get them on board. Our plan was to build something out and “wow” the management team so they would sign off on this expense.

The following week, I sat with the Service Center Team manager in the CEO’s office along with the COO explaining to them everything we built and our proposed plan. Phase I was going to be getting cases up and running, a data migration of existing calls, setup of web to case and email to case. Phase II was going to be creating an escalation process and bringing on Field Service and Engineering Teams. Phase III was to look at doing a self-service portal and CTI integration. The CEO and COO loved everything we built so far and our phased project plan. We got sign off on the additional licenses for Phase I and Phases II and III would be put in the budget for the following year.

Building out Phase I took about two weeks including the data load. It was really exciting to see Service Center Team members entering cases while they were on the phone as well having the ability to see if a customer had any open cases with us right when they called. No guessing, no searching multiple spreadsheets. Everything was right there for them on the screen in Salesforce.

The changes we made for the Service Center also ended up having a very positive impact on Sales. In the past, Sales Reps would sit with Service Center Team members to understand if any of their clients were calling in or if any had issues that were up for renewal or a good candidate for a new product or upsell. Sales no longer had to do that. They had the information at their fingertips. It was immediately apparent to everyone in the company how efficient Salesforce was making our Service Center Team.

A few weeks after our go-live with Phase I, the CEO and COO met with me and told me to go ahead and purchase additional licenses for Field Service and Engineering and start work on Phase II and they would see about getting budget for a portal as well as a CTI phone system for Phase III. Phase I had proven to them that the spend now would save money in the long run due to the efficiency it brought the teams supporting our existing and expanding customer base.

It took just another few weeks to have Phase II rolled out which allowed us to have escalation process right on Salesforce as well as gave a unified system where Marketing, Sales, Service Center, Field Service, and Engineering were looking at the same customer data. It was an incredible experience for me to see the value of my work right in front of me.

About a month after we went live with all of the service teams on Salesforce we started building out monthly and weekly metrics. I used to do all of the reporting for the company so I knew that the average “Time to Solve” for Service Center was just over 2 business days. After having these teams on Salesforce for just over a month it was brought down to less than a day. The average “Time to Solve” was 6 hours, I did the numbers three different times, just to make sure. When I clicked “Run Report” and saw those numbers, that’s when I knew, I was in love. I had become the biggest fan of what was known in 2006 as “Salesforce for Service & Support”, now known as the very robust Service Cloud. The amount of efficiency I could bring to end-users was nothing short of incredible. Not only did I become a fan, so did my end-users. The customer service teams loved Salesforce and actually helped me get to my first Dreamforce in 2006, but that is a story for another day.

Eventually my career grew and a few years later I was bringing thousands of customer service users onto Salesforce at a billion dollar financial services firm, building out self service using portals and communities, integrating with entitlements systems and lots of other fun complexity. My favorite projects over the past 11 years of working on the Salesforce platform mostly involve Service Cloud.

I even rolled out Service Cloud for a team I was managing a few years ago where we were managing thousands of Salesforce Users. We used it to manage requests and our internal escalation process. Service Cloud can bring efficiency to teams doing any kind of support work, not just customer service.

Now, a question for you, the reader, when did you fall in love with Service Cloud? I would love to hear your story.

As always, thank you for reading. See you all at Dreamforce!!

My Awesome Admin Heart

My Awesome Admin Heart

This was originally posted on my Facebook last month while I was expressing some random thoughts. Some friends encouraged me to turn this into a blog post, I hope you like it.


I will forever and always be a Salesforce Admin. I do not care how far I move up in the world, my heart and soul will forever be with the awesome admin community.

I have been that person spending my Friday night figuring out a formula or validation rule that just was not working. Then, I was that person jumping for joy at my parents’ house, my apartment or even at my desk when I finally got my formula or validation rule to work!

I have been that person on the phone with end users at 9 PM helping them through a problem. Then, I was that person tearing up at my desk reading a thank you card from the user I helped. I not only helped them, I taught them.

I have been that person cleaning up data; making it pretty and designing validation rules to make it useful. Then, I was that person presenting my efforts in front of executives, getting nods and smiles for my dedication to clean data.

I have been that person almost in tears heading to a user group because I had a boss that was screaming at me to do something that I didn't know how to do; walking out of the meeting with renewed hope when someone helped me. Then, I was that person moving onto a job where I was appreciated for the knowledge I gained within the community.

I have been that person who built an amazing solution in an afternoon in the best platform in the world wowing end users. Then, I was that person that realized Salesforce was the only platform I ever wanted to work on.

I have been that person accepting an award from business users for my design and implementation of a large-scale solution. Then, I was that person presenting an award to others who have built even better solutions.

I have been the person who was yelled at when something I built didn't work as expected (oops should have tested it in sandbox first). Then, I was the person that learned from my mistakes and implemented a better process, admitting that I could have done better.

I have been that person taking a phone call from another admin in my local community helping them sort through a formula field they could not build. Then, I was that person who realized that serving those in my local Salesforce community was my calling and my duty.

I have been that person wiping away tears of a new admin at a user group who had Salesforce thrown upon them not knowing what to do next. Then, I was that person who realized I could help these new and next generation admins by sharing my knowledge and things I have learned over the past decade.

I have been that person who planned my whole weekend around a Salesforce release going live in sandboxes so I could play with the new features. Then, I was that person who found the Salesforce community on Twitter, realizing I was not alone in my plans.

I have been that person who begged my manager to send me to Dreamforce. Then, I was that person who brought back so many ideas that my boss became so excited about Dreamforce he allocated budget for both of us to attend the following year.

I have been that person who helped another admin just because. Then, I was that person that told them to pay it forward.

I have been that person who shook in fright before presenting at a user group meeting for the first time. Then, I was that person being asked to interview for positions solely based on my presentations at user groups.

I have been that person who realized that presenting at a user group was not so bad, so I decided to lead one. Then, I was that person who decided to lead three.

Through the good the bad and the ugly I have been a Salesforce Admin. Forever and always an Awesome Admin.


Thank you for reading.

Cheryl

PS - Here are my upcoming speaking engagements:

4/16 - 9:00 AM - NYC Salesforce.com User Group - Process Builder and other Awesome Admin Tools

4/23 - Salesforce World Tour Chicago - You can find me in the Admin Zone 

4/30 - 6:30 PM -  Financial Services Salesforce.com User Group - Householding/Spring '15 Features

Dear Salesforce Product Management...Thanks For The Wings!

Dear Salesforce Product Management,

Before you start reading, I want to let you know that this isn’t another post telling you all of the ideas you need to implement yesterday, this is a post to say thank you.  I sit here writing this post just after playing with Lightning Process Builder and re-building a fairly complex process we currently have in code.  I was able to re-build 90% of this process that updates cases and inserts new records when certain things happen on a case.  If I could reach out and hug you through my MacBook I would. 

After sitting here trying out my new process in a developer org I started to think, really started to think why I love Salesforce the company and the platform so much.  It’s because of tools like this.  It is because people like me, who have zero coding experience can easily build out a huge complex process in less than an hour.  I re-built most of this in 43 minutes.  Yes, I timed myself, because I was curious. 

This brought me back to why I first fell in love with the Salesforce platform and why I think the company has been so successful.  It is because Salesforce has made its platform configurable to a businessperson.  Someone who really understands his or her business can set the platform up pretty quickly and easily to meet business needs. 

My thoughts naturally turned to my own career path wondering what my career would have been like if Lightning Process Builder had come about seven or eight years ago.  Then, I started to think about the people I met at Dreamforce this past October who are just starting out their Salesforce Admin careers.  Some aren’t full time Salesforce Administrators; actually most of people I met after my sessions or in the Admin Zone were their company’s Salesforce Administrator plus something else (secretary, operations analyst, office manager, etc.).  I realized that this isn’t just a tool to help automate business process; this is a tool for career path.  I guarantee you there is someone sitting at their job right now, who isn’t happy, who catches on, gets certified and gets a better job; a higher paying job; a job that they love where people treat them with respect because they are the subject matter expert for a tool that that their company relies on to do business.

Each time you build something like this for Administrators and Developers to use, you aren’t just making the platform better, faster and easier to configure.  You are giving someone his or her wings.  Wings to a career path, wings to fly out of a job they maybe stuck in because they need to pay bills, take care of their families. 

I’ve had my wings for just over ten years now and my career is soaring at over thirty thousand feet.  If it weren’t for the Salesforce platform I may still be answering someone else’s phone.

If anyone in product management reads this, please take a moment to go into the community today and see what you have built, what you have really built.  Look at all of the ideas posted, the conversations happening in the various groups, and the people helping each other on Answers.  We exist because of you. 

Thank you,

Cheryl Feldman

Owner of Awesome Admin Wings

My Sessions at Dreamforce

I am so excited for Dreamforce 2014!  This is the first year I'm presenting and I'm presenting five times!  Here is the list of sessions where I'm presenting. 

Monday
Admins and Business Analysts: Agents of Change

1:00 PM - 1:30 PM

Moscone Center West, Admin Theater Zone 

Tuesday

So You're a Salesforce Admin..Now What?

10:15 AM - 10:35 AM

Moscone Center West, Admin Theater Zone 

Why Button Click Developers are the New MacGyvers

11:15 AM - 11:45 AM

Moscone Center West, Community Lounge 

Wednesday

 Kicking a Hole in the Glass Ceiling

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM

Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Plaza A 

Thursday

Hands-on Workshop: Introduction to Point-And-Click App Building on Force.com

8:30 AM - 11:00 AM

Moscone Center West, 2020

These are sessions that I will be attending and you should too!

Monday

Success Community Keynote

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Golden Gate A,B 

I'll be in the Admin Zone at Mascone West for most of the day, so come by and say hello, especially since it will be my Birthday :)

Tuesday

Welcome to the Customer Success Platform with Marc Benioff & Special Guests

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Moscone Center South, Main Keynote Room 

 Dreamforce Gala

6:30 PM - 10:00 PM

Civic Center, Civic Center Plaza 

Wednesday

Salesforce Admin Keynote

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Grand Ballroom B

 

Complete Customer Intelligence Driven By the Best 3rd Party Data

5:00 PM - 5:40 PM

San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Yerba Buena - Salons 10, 11, 12 

Thursday

Marc Benioff & Parker Harris Q&A

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Moscone Center West, Product Keynote Room

See you in less than a week!!

Cheryl

We Are Admins…Hear Us Roar

Dreamforce 2014 is going to be epic and not just because Bruno Mars is performing.  It’s going to be epic because history is going to be made right in front of our eyes.  For the first time ever, Admins are going to have a place to call our own; a place where you can grow as an admin, get your questions answered, get help on that formula field or validation rule, or think about what’s next in your career path; a place where Admins are appreciated and recognized for your achievements on the Salesforce platform, where you will realize that you aren't just a Salesforce Admin, but an Awesome Admin.

The place I’m referring to above is the Admin Zone.  If you are a Salesforce Admin, want to be a Salesforce Admin, or a Developer that is looking to do more with clicks you need to be in the Admin Zone as much as possible.  There are so many great sessions and things to take away from the Admin Zone that you will be able to learn everything from creating basic apps to being a MacGyver Admin.  

In addition to this history-making Admin Zone, we are going to have a Keynote!  Our very own Admin Keynote on Wednesday, October 15^th at 9 AM, this is when the real history will be made.  This is where all of us Admins will Roar together with one loud voice.

It doesn’t just stop there, the Admin Keynote will have surprise Guest Speakers, Salesforce swag, Awesome Admins that you know and love from the Salesforce Community.  I am telling you, as an Admin, this Keynote is not to be missed.  If you’re an Admin, this is where you need to be to show the world how awesome it is to be a Salesforce Admins and that we are the heartbeat of our Salesforce implementations. 

If all of that wasn’t awesome enough, what if I told you that you could be in the front row of the Admin Keynote?!  Be up close and personal with some of your favorite admins, including Mr. Button Click Admin himself, Mike Gerholdt!  I have the honor of giving away two front-row seats to the Admin Keynote! 

To enter the contest to win one of two front row seats you will need to do ALL of the following:

1. Make sure you’re registered for the Admin Keynote here
2. Comment on this blog post telling me you want to be in the front row of the Admin Keynote
3. Share this blog post on twitter or the community with the hashtag #AwesomeAdmin letting everyone know that you want to be in the front row of the Admin Keynote.

Winners will be selected at random on October 10^th, 2014.

Looking forward to seeing all of you at the Admin Keynote!  

As always, thank you for reading!

Cheryl

Packing for Dreamforce

Recently, I watched the Road to Dreamforce webcast on Admin Success and boy was it amazing.  They talked about everything from top five sessions for admins, the new admin zone and packing for Dreamforce.   If you haven’t checked this series out, you can watch all of the episodes here.  A new episode airs live every Tuesday at 11 AM PST.  While you are watching the episodes live you can tweet with the hash tag #RoadToDF14 and they will answer some questions live!  These live episodes have been so much fun, I really try to block out my calendar so I can watch them live, but if you can’t, they are recorded and available usually within a few hours of airing.

One of the exciting items announced during this episode is that they are having a “Pack your Bags” contest where you can win a Premium Dreamforce Pass!   Per the Dreamforce website a Premium Pass is “The Dreamforce Premium Pass is an upgraded pass available to any full conference Dreamforce registrant looking for exclusive VIP perks.”  All you have you to do is tweet your packing list or a picture of your bag you are packing for Dreamforce with the hashtag #DF14COS.  In case you’re curious, COS stands for Circle of Success, you can read more about Circle of Success here (see #3).

Dreamforce 2014 will be my sixth Dreamforce, and even though I’ve been before, I always struggle with what to pack.  I am definitely one of those people that if I could, I would pack my entire bedroom and bring it with me, but since I’m only allowing myself one checked bag this will not be possible.  I know, I know, first world problems!  What to pack had already been on my mind even before this Road to Dreamforce episode.  I was already tweeting asking people what types of shoes they were bringing and it if it was too early to shop for Dreamforce.  I guess I’m not alone in my thoughts, because others tweeted back that they were also already shopping and preparing.

In response to a few of my tweets, I had some people asking me some specific questions on what I was going to pack, as well as I had people tweeting me after this episode asking me what I was going to pack.  I figured I would use this contest as an opportunity to help some other people who haven’t been to Dreamforce before or those who are just struggling with what to pack.   

I am dividing this up into a few separate posts so you can get to different topics easily.

Clothes with some outfit ideas

Shoes

Makeup & Hair

My suitcase, accessories and other essentials

Electronics

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you find all of the related posts helpful!

Cheryl

Packing for Dreamforce - Clothes & Outfit Ideas

Before I get into what I’m packing clothes-wise and some outfit ideas I figured I would tell you about my style. I would describe my style as classic with some trendy mixed in. In addition to my style, I should probably tell you that I am plus sized, not that someone who isn’t won’t find this useful, but I thought I would put it out there.

When you are going through your closet to pack for Dreamforce, keep a few things in mind:

• Dress nice, but comfort is going to be key
• It’s San Francisco in October
• You will be walking a lot
• Temperature varies in session rooms/outside

The Staples

When I start to pack, I pull out what I call my staple pieces where I will build an outfit or outfits around. I like to have a few pieces that can mix or match with other things that can be re-used on different days so I don’t have to pack as much. Without further adieu, here are my staples:

A Blazer – last year I brought a standard black blazer

as well as a teal blazer. A blazer can be matched with a nice pair of black pants to create a more formal look or paired with jeans to dress up a more casual outfit. The other advantage of a blazer is it can also act as a jacket if it gets a little chilly walking between locations for sessions. It can also be taken off if it’s particularly warm in one of the sessions. Most importantly, blazers look good on pretty much everyone. You can see a picture to the right of an outfit idea showing my teal blazer, the same one I wore last year, with some dark jeans and a white top.  

Sweater Dress – Oh how I love thee oh comfortable

sweater dress. If this makes it into your bag, I would recommend bringing one that is short sleeved. Lesson learned last year, I brought two with me: the one pictured below, and a long sleeved one. I overheated in the long sleeved version. The sweater dress I’m showing I actually purchased just before Dreamforce ’12 and it’s seen much love since then and will be making its third appearance at a Dreamforce. I pair this with black leggings, a belt and black boots. You can also dress this up with a chunky necklace or a scarf, which is what I have done in the picture below. This is such a comfortable but cute outfit. I wore it all day at Dreamforce ‘12 and ’13 and even went straight to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert with no issues.

A suit – I’m presenting this year, and I know for

some of the presentations I will want to wear a suit, others I may wear a blazer and nice pants. The suit pictured is from Lane Bryant (from last Fall), it’s a mix of brown and tan and I have paired it with a cranberry colored dress top that can be worn on its own should I want to take the blazer off. The suit I wore last year to an event was a charcoal, which I paired with a purple top underneath. I may bring both this year since I’m presenting a few times. Once I have my schedule ironed out I will know more.

Black pants – Black pants, they go with pretty much everything and you probably already have a favorite pair. I wore my black pants on two different days last year. I wore them the first time for the Girly Geeks event on Sunday and a second time on the last day of Dreamforce. I wore different tops with the pants, so it was like a whole new outfit, but I only had to bring an extra top.

Dark washed jeans – I have a pair of dark washed, extremely comfortable but nice jeans that I like to pair with blazers. Because the jeans are a dark wash you can get away with wearing them in a business casual setting. I actually wear these to work all the time with a blazer or a nice top.

A cardigan – As I mentioned above the temperatures can vary in session rooms. In the same day last year, I was in one session where it felt like it was 80 degrees and in another where I was freezing. It’s always good to have a sweater that you can easily fold up and put in your purse when you don’t need it, but also have it handy in case you are cold. Cardigans work perfectly for this scenario. I will be bringing a black cardigan with me since it will pretty much match everything.

After I have my staples picked out, I pick out other pieces such as tops and shoes that can coordinate with them. If you’re interested in seeing more details on some other pieces I will be bringing let me know, and I will write a follow up post.

I hope this post helps some of you and gives you some ideas on which items from your closet will make it into your Dreamforce bag. I would love to see what you are bringing, so write a post, take a picture or make a list and tweet it out with the hashtag #DF14COS so you can enter the contest too!

Looking forward to seeing you in October and as always, thank you for reading.

Cheryl

Packing For Dreamforce - Shoes

Let me start this post by telling all of you my nickname, Cheryl Shoes. My friends made this name up for me when I was 19, and it kind of stuck. If you can’t already tell by that nickname, I love shoes! Shoes are like art to me. It’s the way someone can express himself or herself through footwear. I have lots of different kinds of shoes, but as far as Dreamforce goes, I pack shoes with the two C’s in mind…comfortable and cute.

I give a lot of credit to women who can rock heels at Dreamforce; I am unfortunately, not one of those women. I tried wearing heels at my first Dreamforce. The space wasn’t nearly as big as it is now, and my feet were killing me after the first day. After the first day of sessions, I bought a pair of black flats. I knew after that experience that for any future Dreamforce, it would be flats only.

So, for Dreamforce ’14 what will I be bringing? Below is a picture of some of my flats that may make it into my bag. I will have to finalize my outfits first before I make the final shoe decision, but I do know of a few pairs that will definitely make it into my bag. 

Black Boots – I am so glad I had these with me last year since it rained a lot. The black boots shown below I purchased just before Dreamforce last year, and they held up really well. Mine are from Torrid, which in case you are not familiar is a plus size clothing store, but they also carry shoes. If you struggle with wide calves, I recommend checking this store out even if you are not plus sized - their boots have a wider calf than other brands. I will pair these boots with my sweater dress and they can be paired with jeans or other pants if it gets rainy, so my feet don’t get wet.

Black dressy flats – I have a few pairs of black flats, patent leather, black leather and suede. Last year I brought just my black leather flats with me. I’m thinking that I may bring my black patent leather flats with me. They look really cute with black pants or jeans and they are really comfy.

Coach Sneakers – I bought my first pair of coach sneakers just before Dreamforce ’12. I was looking for a pair of sneakers that were dressy, but still gave the comfort of sneakers. These were perfect. Two years and miles of pavement later, they are shot. I just purchased a new pair, which you can see in the back right of the below picture. They definitely fit the two C’s, cute and comfortable! I will probably wear them to travel, as well as anytime during Dreamforce where my feet need some extra support. If you’re looking for a pair of these or any other dressy sneakers check out DSW, that’s where I got mine, and they were about $30 less than what Coach has them for on their website.

Flip flops – I recommend bringing a pair of these to walk around your hotel in. Sometimes putting on your socks and shoes can be a hassle if you just want to run out to the ice machine or even just to walk around your room. I personally don’t like the idea of walking barefoot in a hotel, but that’s just my quirk - I do not judge others who do it.

This list may change based on what I end up packing. I can certainly update you on what shoes are in my bag as I’m packing for Dreamforce if you’re interested. I hope this post helps some of you. If you love shoes too, definitely share what shoes you are packing for Dreamforce. I’m always looking for ideas and shoe-inspiration. Don’t forget to tag what you share with the hashtag #DF14COS so you can be entered into the contest!

Can anyone else believe Dreamforce is less than two months away?! I’m getting excited! As always, thank you for reading.

Cheryl

Packing for Dreamforce - Makeup & Hair Goodies

If you haven’t read my blog before, let me start by telling you that I am a makeup artist on the side. I used to do hair and makeup full time prior to my career as a Salesforce Admin and Business Analyst. If you’re curious as to how I got here, you can ready my story here. With that being said, I love makeup; I might love makeup more than I love shoes. If were given a choice as to which I loved more, I couldn’t choose! It would be like picking a favorite child. As I mentioned on my previous post about shoes, shoes are a way of expression to me, for me makeup is the same. With all of that being said, as far as Dreamforce goes, I don’t go too crazy. It is technically work, although for me, it’s my favorite time of year. I love it more than Hanukah, Christmas and my Birthday combined!

Before I get into this, I want to post a disclaimer; I would never ever tell anyone they have to or should wear makeup. As I mentioned above, I have loved makeup for as long as I can remember and it is always a key component of packing for me. 

When choosing products to bring with me on any sort of trip, I think about a few things:

• What type of event is it
• What types of looks will I be doing
• Will I be doing anyone else’s makeup

For Dreamforce I stick to full coverage looks, similar to what I would wear to work, but something that I know will stay all day, won’t move and will photograph nicely. If you didn’t hear on the Road to Dreamforce episode on admin success at Dreamforce, there is going to be a photographer available to take headshots in the Admin Zone!

I posted a picture below of the products I will most likely bring with me. I’m not going to go into detail on each item, but for each category of makeup I will go into the type of makeup I chose and why.

Skincare – When travelling, I typically only bring a few skincare items with me that are easy to use, effective and travel friendly.

Makeup Remover Wipes – my favorite brand is Neutrogena, these take off a good amount of makeup and never irritate my eyes. These are also great for touch ups. This is also more sanitary to use on others when doing makeup on other people, so you’re not potentially spreading bacteria in a bottle of eye makeup remover.

Daily Facial Cleansing Cloths – Oil of Olay makes these, but to be honest, I always get the Wal-Mart brand (they work the same). These are dry cloths that you can wet and have cleanser on them. They take off everything including waterproof mascara.

Moisturizer – I usually just put some of my moisturizer into a little travel bottle and throw it in my carry on. The one I’m currently using is by Garnier. If you have dry skin check this line out, works just as well as some of the high-end brands.

Face Makeup

Primers – The key to getting your foundation to stay all day is a good primer or primers for different purposes. Think about painting a wall, you prime the wall before you apply the paint so the paint applies evenly, same goes for foundation. I’m loving the Hourglass primer, which I apply all over, especially in my dry areas. A lot of us struggle with large pores. There is nothing you can do to make your pores go away or to change their shape, but you can minimize their appearance. I really like the pore minimizing primer by NYX for this. If you like Porefessional by Benefit, it’s almost an exact dupe for about 1/3 of the price. I just apply this where I have large pores (on my cheeks and forehead).

Foundation – I’m going to bring my Bare Minerals makeup with me. I love this foundation. You can build it up to a very full coverage or use it lightly for minimal coverage. What I love most about this is when you do make it full coverage it does last a long time. If you’re speaking and going to be under hot lights, Bare Minerals in most cases doesn’t break down where other foundations might. If you’re looking for a good drug store foundation, check out Revlon Color Stay. This has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. It can feel a bit heavy on the skin, so if you’re not used to wearing foundation you may not like it, and it isn’t as travel friendly as Bare Minerals.

Concealer – I use Maybelline Fit Me concealer, it’s creamy and really brightens your under eyes. It’s an almost exact dupe for NARS Radiant Creamy concealer for about 1/5 of the price.

Setting Powder – This is something I definitely wanted to touch on. If you know you’re going to be photographed, stay away from the white setting powders (like Makeup Forever HD), these can cause flashback. They are great for film, bad for photography. When I say flashback I mean your face appearing 3 shades lighter than the rest of your body. If you are looking for a good setting powder to set concealer or foundation with, get one that has some color in it. I recommend Ben Nye Banana Powder for setting concealer. I use the Bare Minerals mineral foundation to set the liquid version of their foundation.

Blush/Bronzer/Highlighter – I typically like to bring one palette that I can use with various colors. The one you see in the picture is by Tarte.  This palette was limited edition, so I won't be able to link to it.  I will probably bring this or something like it with a highlighter and deeper bronzer for contouring.

Eye Makeup

Eye Primer – similar to what I mentioned above about face primer, the same goes with eyes. If you don’t use primer, eye shadow can tend to crease and by the end of the day it may look like you never even had shadow on. My holy grail eye primer is Primer Potion by Urban Decay. I have tried so many other brands and this is the best one I’ve ever used.

Eye Shadow – the palette I show here is the Full Exposure Palette by Smashbox. I will probably bring this or a palette like it so I have different colors to choose from, but are all in the somewhat neutral color family. If you’re looking for a drug store alternative to this, check out the new Nudes Palette by Maybelline.

Eye Liner – This is probably the toughest product to get to stay all day. Even if a product claims to be “bullet proof” our eyes tear throughout the day, we sometimes rub them, and when we do that, off comes our eyeliner. I find that after applying a liner if you set it with some shadow of the same color it will last much longer. I tend use a gel liner on my top lash line and a pencil liner in my water line.

Mascara – You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get long, full lashes. My favorite mascara is by a brand called Essence. It’s in a pink tube in the picture below. Its less than $5 at Ulta and performs similar to They’re Real by Benefit or DiorShow by Dior. I can make my lashes look like falsies with 2-3 coats of this mascara.

False lashes – For a very dramatic look I will wear false lashes. I will probably do this for the concert. My favorite lashes are the ones in the picture. I got them at IMATS earlier this year (makeup artist trade show) and they don’t have a brand on them, sorry. But if you are looking for false lashes I recommend the Demi Wispies by Ardell. You can find them in most drug stores.

Lips

I don’t plan on doing any crazy lip looks, so I will probably bring 1-2 neutral colored lipsticks and the same for lip-glosses. I featured a few in the picture below. The only other necessity for me is some sort of lip balm. When I talk a lot my lips get very dry. My favorite at the moment is by EOS. You can get them at any drug store.

All about hair

As far as hair goes, I’m doing something different this year. I’m not going to bring much hair product with me, maybe a dry shampoo, some hairspray and a few hair ties. I’ve decided I’m going to treat myself to the DryBar on Sunday the 12th. Even though I can give myself a killer blow out, in order for me to do this I need to schlep my dryer, my brushes, and product, which adds a lot of weight to my bags. For $40, I can get my hair blown out. If you haven’t been to the DryBar you should check them out. They have two locations in San Francisco. I’ll be going to the one in Union Square and already have my appointment booked. Typically I can get my blow out to last 3-4 days with dry shampoo. If you don’t know, I have very thick, coarse, dry, curly hair, so I don’t really have a problem with oily hair. If anyone wants to go with me, let me know and I’ll tell you my appointment time and you can book yours at the same time. It’s a lot of fun.

I hope this post was helpful to some of you. If you have any specific makeup questions, please leave a comment below and I can answer. If you’re looking to have your makeup done by me, leave a comment below as well. There is no fee if you let me take before and after pictures that I can use for my portfolio. We will just need to plan ahead to make sure our schedules match up.

If you love makeup like me, and are making your list of makeup essentials for Dreamforce share it with the hashtag of #DF14COS so you can be entered into the contest, too!

As always, thank you for reading. See you soon!!! Dreamforce is almost here!!!

Cheryl

Packing For Dreamforce - My Suitcase and Other Accessories

Since the idea of this contest was to show your bag(s) that you are bringing to Dreamforce, you can see mine below. I always get compliments on my suitcase when I travel, so I thought I would share some details about it and tell you where you can get one too.

I purchased the suitcase you see in the picture below for Dreamforce last year. I don’t travel that much anymore, so I had a crappy suitcase that was basically falling apart. I decided to treat myself to a new suitcase. I got this one from Kohls, the brand is American Tourister, and it came in a set of three. There was the largest one, which you see in the picture, a medium size suitcase and a small travel tote. The whole set was on sale for $99 and it’s held up really well. I’ve taken 4 trips with it and no issues so far. I have also seen this brand at Wal-Mart and Target, so definitely check these stores for luggage sets if you need one. Another great place to find deals on expensive luggage brands is T.J. Maxx or Nordstrom Rack, you can find nice pieces there that are heavily discounted.

The black Tory Burch bag you see across the suitcase is my favorite cross body bag. This was my splurge earlier this year at a Tory Burch outlet center in upstate NY. I recommend bringing a cross body bag that you can use at night or when walking around. This way it keeps your hands/arms free for other things while still being able to keep your bag close to you. This particular bag has a long cross body strap that can be removed as well as a shorter gold plated strap that can be used to carry this as more of an evening bag. This strap can be removed as well. If you are looking for a bag like this and looking for a more affordable option check out Target. They have a great bag selection. I have a few nice bags from Target that can pass as a designer bag. I have a bag that looks similar to this, but in a different color that was less than $30 at Target.

The last bag you see in this picture is my Dreamforce backpack from last year. I love this backpack so much. I carry my laptop and other office essentials back and forth between my physical office and home office all the time. It’s my favorite Dreamforce bag…ever. I will be using this bag to carry pretty much the same things I normally carry in it: my electronics and my notebooks, plus any items I want to carry on board with me. I tend to bring as much of my makeup on board with me as possible since some of it is breakable, and don’t want to risk it getting smashed in my bag.

There are some other things that I wanted to mention that I feel are necessities for me, so here is my list:

Umbrella – just in case it rains again, they did give out free ones, but it was nice to have my own with me.
Extra Ziplock bags – I always carry a few extra just in case

Sunglasses – I always wear my sunglasses when walking in the city during the day and it will be no different for me in San Francisco, it keeps wind and sun out of your eyes. If you are looking for cute and affordable sunglasses check out Forever 21, they have most sunglasses for less than $10.

Hand Sanitizer – I keep this handy in my bag so if I am around a lot of people or touching something like a public stairwell I can get rid of any germs on my hands if I can’t get to a sink.

Hand Moisturizer – Since the above can dry your hands out, I always keep this handy in my bag.

Tissues – Those little purse packs can come in really handy when you’re traveling.

I hope you found this helpful. Don’t forget to share your bag or what you are packing for Dreamforce with the hashtag #DF14COS so you can be entered in the contest, too!

As always, thank you for reading.

Cheryl

Packing for Dreamforce - Electronics

Before each Dreamforce I go through the debate of, “Should I bring my laptop or should I leave it at home?” Last year, I decided to leave my laptop home and only travel with my iPhone and iPad. I will be honest, I did miss my laptop last year. I have never really brought my laptop to sessions, but where it does come in useful is if I have to respond to an email and it’s going to be a lengthy response, it’s much easier to type on my laptop. The other reason I missed my laptop was after some sessions I wanted to try out a feature that I just learned about, and I couldn’t really do that without a laptop. That’s when I missed my laptop the most.


So, this year I’ve decided to bring the following electronics with me:

• iPhone – this is my personal phone
• Samsung S4 – this is my work phone
• iPad – more for reading on the plane
• Laptop
• Extra battery power for smartphones – I have one by Anker you can see in the picture below. It works really well and it’s pink!
• Headphones – mine are by Bose and I love them.
• Charging cords
• Extra lenses for iPhone – I recently ordered these from Amazon, they are supposed to make some really cool effects for pictures taken with your camera.
• Apps – my necessary apps on my iPhone are – Dreamforce App, Salesforce1, SalesforceA, Google maps, Uber, United Airlines (airline I’m taking). 

I hope you find this helpful. What electronics are you bringing with you to Dreamforce? Is there something missing on my list that you’re going to bring? Tweet your list of what you’re bringing with the hashtag of #DF14COS so you can be entered in the contest, too.


As always, thanks for reading.

Cheryl

The best vacation day...ever.

Yesterday, July 23^rd, was the sixth day of my vacation, and so far one of my favorite days.  No, I didn’t go to the beach or anything like that.  I attended the NYC Salesforce.com User Group and helped facilitate User Group Therapy sessions. You may be reading this and looking at the title again, saying to yourself, “Didn’t she just say vacation day?”  Yes, you read correctly. 

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Kendra Webb-Scott, the NYC Salesforce.com User Group Leader, stating that she was going to be trying something new at the NYC User Group called User Group Therapy.  The description of this read, “You asked, and we listened! Our focus for the next meeting is all about YOU! One of the biggest benefits of the User Group community is getting tips and best practices from your peers to make the most out of your CRM. That's why we're introducing User Group Therapy - an open forum session to allow all attendees to ask questions, seek advice, share experiences and generally help each other out.”  When I read this, I immediately knew I wanted to attend this and offer up to help out.  I can’t think of a better way to give back to the community that has helped me so much than to facilitate a session like this.

Kendra had this broken out into three different 45-minute sessions, which were held downstairs from the main area where the partners were presenting.  There really weren’t specific topics, but each session had different facilitators.  The session I was facilitating with Jean Winget was first at 9 AM.  That first session had around eight attendees.  After brief introductions, we jumped right in and the questions and comments just started flowing naturally.  The questions included making sure the right people were informed about Opportunities, building mobile apps, data integrity, tools for data cleansing, and some general adoption questions.  My co-facilitator, Jean, is a database/data expert and offered up some great advice on what to do if you have dirty data coming in from an integration, and who you may want to reach out to at your company to help you fix it.  We ended the session by talking about some great administrator tools that come out-of-the-box, such as workflow, validation rules, visual workflow (flow), and of course, my favorite, publisher actions!

After the first User Group Therapy session ended, it seemed that word spread like wildfire about what was going on downstairs.  As I was gathering my things to head back upstairs, I realized how big the group had gotten in the room; it more than doubled in size for the next two facilitators, Ohad Idan and Carlos Frias.  I decided to stay because I thought there might be even more interesting discussion, because Ohad and Carlos both act as both admins and developers at their respective companies.  I have always enjoyed hearing their perspective on things, so I knew this was going to be a great session. 

The second session started similarly with brief introductions, then everyone just jumped right into it.  The first question was around Documents vs. Content.  Various people in the room, including myself, were able to answer questions on Libraries, some best practices on Libraries and some benefits of Content.  Then, someone in the room made a comment about the session in general, “I can’t say the word workflow at my company, because I’m the only one who understands what that word means.  I love that I can come here and talk to others who know what that means and can talk about challenges, ask questions, and see what others are doing.”  This started to lead the discussion around the path of community, not just community, but The Salesforce community and how great it is.  Carlos pulled up the New York User Group page on the Success Community and showed everyone how to access it.   People in the room started to share their stories of how much the community has helped them over the years.  Carlos and Ohad started to go through the different tabs on the community.  When they got to the Ideas tab, more discussion started to happen on why you should vote on ideas.  Ohad pointed out that they now put in the release notes all of the ideas that were delivered in that release.  I talked about how one of my ideas was delivered in this release, and how many Ideas points Salesforce Product Managers released this past release.  I also talked about the power of the community, and how if outside of these meetings if anyone needs advice just post on the New York User Group Page.  Once they got to the Answers tab, some of the attendees started to recount Steve Mo answering their question.  There was a lot of community love in the room. 

One of the other major topics discussed was Chatter, on successful rollout and adoptions. There was one name that must have come up about five times during this discussion, and that name is Becky Webster.  There were several of us talking about some of her great blog posts as well as her Dreamforce presentations from last year. We plan to post them on the New York User Group page so everyone can watch because they are so helpful. 

After the community discussion, the second session wrapped up with questions around communication and training to users and some best practices.  There were so many great suggestions in the room for the newbie admin.  In my opinion, this is why these sessions were so successful. You had people from all types of companies, in various roles, helping each other be successful. 

Allister McKenzie and Vikram Kamra, who both have a wealth of Salesforce knowledge and experience, facilitated the third session.  It was actually Vikram’s first user group in NYC, but even though he didn’t know anyone, he was completely willing to help as many people as possible and share more than a decade worth of Salesforce knowledge.  I figured I had stayed for the first two sessions, why not stay for all three? I’m so glad I did.  The third session went through even more detail on Chatter, including some of the benefits and how to convince your manager to let you roll it out.  There were so many great suggestions around this.  We also talked about the different types of Sandboxes, what a Sandbox is, and how you should use it.  I talked about how our developers use the different types of sandboxes for our development process.  I also encouraged everyone in the room, after they make sure they are on the success community, to go to developer.salesforce.com and sign up for a developer org. It’s free and you can play with all sorts of stuff. 

In the morning, I had set a goal for myself that I wanted to try and help five admins at the user group.  Together, we helped around 40 admins of all levels.  We received extremely positive feedback about these sessions, and Kendra has now made this a staple for the NYC User Group!  I am so happy to have been a part of this.

I will never forget when I first attended the NYC User Group and how happy I was to get help with my formulas.  If it weren’t for those people, I may not have the career I have today.  I’m hoping that at least one person has the same feeling and maybe at the next meeting they will help facilitate a session and pay it forward.  After reading this, I’m hoping now you will see why this was my favorite day of my vacation so far.  To me, this isn’t work, this is fun. 

As always, thank you for reading.

Cheryl

P.S. – if you haven’t attended your local user group, definitely do so, you can see a list of all user groups here.