THINKING AHEAD Salesforce, as ever, is thinking ahead of the game. Whilst everyone was trying to come to terms with shutdown, Salesforce created an excellent COVID-19 Response playbook to help leaders and managers understand how to transition through the stabilize, reopen and into the growth phases. In this recent SalesforceBen article I discussed the implications on organization…
Why flowcharts are so 1980’s: Universal Process Notation
Flowcharts and swimlanes were the way that most analysts and consultants used to capture requirements and business processes. But this has changed over the last 5–10 years and now a there is a simpler and more engaging diagramming notation. It is proven in major highly regulated industries right down to innovative startups and small nonprofits.…
I understand why it is so difficult to clean up an Org: Poison Oak
I have been WFH on and off since we started Elements.cloud in 2016. I share a home office with my wife but I am up at 6am talking to the UK so I get it to myself and then I cycle to the ferry to go to Salesforce Tower and 535 Mission where the team…
Rachel Brozinick, 5X certified Salesforce Admin: Consequences of Technical Debt
Rachel Brozinick, Certified Salesforce Admin, talks about the consequences of technical debt, which is the biggest issue she sees for people not being able to make changes to and improve Orgs. She identifies lack of Org data dictionaries, lack of documentation, a “hurry up” mentality and lack of senior management support as exacerbating the problem.
Drive up user adoption with in-app help & feedback
Business benefits Poor user adoption is a triple threat: users not using apps, so no data and wasting money on Salesforce licenses users using apps but entering incorrect data leading to poor decision making by humans and Einstein user using apps but wasting time with “page layouts that look like CVS receipts” Post COVID-19, organizations…
8 reasons why XLS is pants capturing requirements
Your users often don’t know what they really want. They think they do and express their needs as Business Requirements. Your job as an analyst is to try and interpret them and understand what is really required. But first, you need a consistent way of capturing, managing and analyzing the requirements. The tools used by your…
Getting HigherEd back to school in a post-COVID19 world
What is clear is that the future is not clear. But, what is certain is that schools that adapt to the new post-COVID19 world to stay engaged with their students will survive. Speed, relevance and safety are the critical metrics. Every industry is impacted by COVID-19 and whilst Higher Education would seem to be perfectly…
What every Org needs — a metadata dictionary
The Salesforce platform is very powerful, and as Spiderman was told: “with great power comes great responsibility”. With every Salesforce release and with all your customizations, your Org gets more powerful but also more complex. With everything else you need to do, documenting your changes is probably low on your priority list. But it shouldn’t…
Why Free is Not Free. The true cost of free
YOU HAVE A NEED Many of the tools required to manage any complex (i.e. most) Salesforce implementations are not provided as part of the platform; requirements capture, process mapping, metadata dictionary, impact analysis, release management, governance, training, feedback and backup. BUT WE CAN ONLY AFFORD FREE Rarely is free ever free. There is ALWAYS a…