Change Intelligence. Getting Salesforce out of the 1900’s

By the early 1900s, hospitals around the first world were routinely using x-ray technology. In the beginning, doctors were the ones who used x-rays as a diagnostic devices.  Before x-ray machines were invented, broken bones, tumors, and the location of bullets were all diagnosed by physical examination and a doctor’s best guess. Patients paid the price for these approaches.

There is a parallel here with making changes to Salesforce. Without a Change Intelligence Platform like Elements.cloud that gives you visibility of the impact of changes, then you are doing it by searching through Setup and best guesses.  Your users are paying the price with broken orgs and a lack of agility. 

There is still no widespread use of Change Intelligence Platform. That is changing as more and more clients and consulting firms are starting to use it. 

There are still too many Salesforce Orgs stuck in the 1900’s.

Automation rules

As BA, Admins and Developers we applaud the use of automation to streamline and accelerate our end-users’ work. So why are you not looking at automating the analysis of your org?  By using the metadata APIs to extract the metadata, Elements.cloud can perform the impact and dependency analysis 500x faster than manually and with far greater accuracy. And that analysis is available to you early in the implementation cycle when it is 100x cheaper to fix than when the changes hit production.

This has clear savings if you are working in your own org.  But if you are a customer and engaging a consultant to work on your org and they aren’t using Elements.cloud, you can expect 3 things:

• You will be paying 3x too much (at their day rate) for org discovery because the consultants will be doing it manually. 
• Changes in scope and increase in costs (at their day rate) as the consultants discover that the SOW they quoted on was incorrect now that they really understand your org
• They will leave you with an org that is not well documented and will be impossible to maintain without re-engaging the consultant (at their day rate).

Why would a consultant not use Elements.cloud?  Beats us!! It is just $500/year and they can use it on multiple customers. It is probably because they’ve not heard of it, not because they think it is a bad idea. Having spent 12 years as a consultant, I can tell you, that if you ask (tell) your consultants to use an application, then they will do it. It is your interest. It is in theirs.

Physician, heal thyself

Here are 3 consulting firms talking about the need to make data-driven decisions for customers and their use of Elements.cloud

Elements enabled us to do a very quick, very tight, fact-based analysis of the client’s instance reducing org assessments from 6 weeks to 2 weeks.

JAY NOBLE, SVP SALESFORCE PRACTICE LEADER

The use of Elements.cloud has saved an average of one to two months on projects and allowed A5 to fast-track implementation while still maintaining efficiency and time to value.

SEAN OUIMETTE, ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR

Elements really should become the source of truth, documenting and understanding the org.

ANDY CLARK, PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT & FOUNDER

Let’s all help get Salesforce out of the 1900’s and reduce the pain and suffering.