Read more about Business Analysis.
We asked one question about a Salesforce Org. “How can we improve our Case management?” Elements.cloud mined every business and configuration process tied to the Case object. It generated and analyzed the data model. It checked adoption across every user. It identified and categorised every piece of tech debt. It mapped the full multi-level dependency…
Salesforce keeps your business running. It is the platform your teams depend on for revenue, operations, support, compliance, forecasting, customer experience, and everything in between. It is the system you cannot afford to have out of action. But here’s the catch: most Salesforce failures don’t come from big mistakes…but from small changes no one noticed.…
The role of a Salesforce Admin or Architect is demanding, whether you are a solo Admin managing everything yourself or part of a larger team supporting a complex Org. The rise of AI Agents, Vibe Coding and rapid platform innovation only increases the pressure. While those capabilities are exciting, they rely on strong foundations. You…
Agentforce represents a new way of working: a model that allows enterprises to scale intelligence across their Salesforce ecosystem. Across multiple sessions at Dreamforce and Agentforce World Tour, Salesforce leaders and partners echoed what has long been central to our approach at Elements.cloud: design comes first. Architecting your agents is critical to achieving reliable outcomes.…
Deploying agents at scale requires a proven, repeatable approach with a strong level of governance. This includes version control of agent metadata and underlying action metadata, setting review cycles based on risk, and continuously monitoring agent performance. With the foundations in place, organizations can confidently navigate the three key phases of the AI agent lifecycle.…
For many companies, the journey from a customer reporting an issue to a development team fixing a bug is often a chaotic and inefficient process. It’s a journey filled with manual steps, miscommunication, and delays that can frustrate both employees and customers alike. At Elements Cloud, we confronted this very challenge within our own “Case-to-Bug”…
How jobs get delivered is changing The rise of AI has ushered in a new era for businesses, providing the opportunity to fundamentally transform operations and creating opportunities for innovation. This shift emphasizes a new conception of AI as ‘digital labor’, where organizations redesign processes to leverage AI’s strengths as a pseudo-employee rather than a…
What’s the problem? Implementing AI agents can seem daunting and organizations struggle to understand the best use cases. The challenge is picking a use case that has a strong ROI and can make an impact. But it also needs to contribute to an overall end-to-end process. There is no point implementing an agent in one…
The rapid rise of AI agents is poised to redefine business productivity, from automating customer service to optimizing supply chains. For many organizations, however, this exciting future hits a wall of internal complexity, especially within their Salesforce environments. You simply can’t build a reliable, AI-driven enterprise on an undocumented foundation. The solution? An Operational Graph. What…
The rise of AI agents is more than just a technological advancement; it’s a fundamental shift in how businesses can operate, and for the first time, scale is no longer an inherent defense. Startups, with their agility and a fresh “agentic-first” perspective, are uniquely positioned to disrupt established incumbents. By designing their core business processes…
The rise of AI has brought with it a wave of excitement and, for many, a degree of uncertainty. For Salesforce Admins, the question isn’t if AI will impact their roles, but how they can leverage it effectively. Building reliable AI Agents is a game-changer, offering the potential for monumental gains in productivity and customer…
Data, Process, and the Future of AI Rebecca Wettman and Patrick from “The Crunch” recently sat down with Ian Gotts, CEO and Founder of Elements.cloud, to discuss the critical intersection of data, process, and AI in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. While AI and data have dominated recent tech conversations, Ian emphasized a less-discussed, yet…
The rise of UPN Universal Process Notation (UPN) is an established approach to business process mapping that emphasizes clarity and simplicity. UPN diagrams are process diagrams designed to be easily understood by individuals at all levels within an organization, from entry-level employees to top-level management. This is achieved by utilizing a set of standardized symbols…
We’ve built AI agents but a lack of transparency into what they are doing, governance of their changes, and confidence in their results is preventing users deploying them. In a word: trust. TL;DR What if you could already deliver transparency, confidence, and trust in building agents today? How many more deployments could be achieved? How…
The future of work is here, and it’s digital. With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, businesses are on the cusp of a revolutionary transformation—one driven by AI-powered “digital labor.” This new era introduces AI agents capable of performing tasks once limited to human agents or employees, offering unprecedented scalability, efficiency, and reach. As Salesforce…
We’re not a huge company, with less than 250 users, but we leverage Salesforce Data Cloud alongside Sales and Service Cloud. Additionally, we rely on multiple systems that store core customer data: marketing, training academy, support, finance, and Elements.cloud usage. We’ve implemented Data Cloud to create a unified customer profile and obtain a 360-degree view…
Inactive metadata accumulates over time when automations that are no longer needed or that were deactivated due to errors get forgotten. Think of your Salesforce Org as a full wardrobe you need to clean out. Inactive automation, rules, and workflows can accumulate like old clothes you no longer wear. Removing redundant metadata items streamlines your…
Business requirements and overview of the process You’re likely familiar with the challenges of managing Salesforce user permissions. If you’ve been working with Salesforce for a while, you’ve experienced the headache of dealing with a proliferation of Profiles, each slightly different from the next. Or you’ve struggled with the time-consuming task of troubleshooting security settings…
In this webinar, the panel of BA rockstars discussed the profile of business analysis in the Salesforce ecosystem, its importance, whether it is a skill or a role, the soft and technical skills, and how to harness AI. Below is Video Deck and resources Here is the deck to download Audio Transcript and AI analysis…
Data Cloud is the future Data Cloud, now integrated into the Salesforce Platform as Einstein 1, represents the future of data management and analytics. Its power lies in its ability to seamlessly connect disparate data sources, harmonize the data, and make it accessible within the core platform. Whether data is copied into Data Cloud or…
Introduction Salesforce is the most powerful customizable business application on the planet. Because it offers rich, declarative and easy to use ways to change the Org configuration, it serves as a hub for business innovation. However, that power also introduces complexity. The more the Salesforce Org is configured, the more automations and innovations are built…
Overview The goal of every change project is adoption. The change could be minor; updating a discrete business process driven by feedback; addressing poor adoption; or eliminating waste. But the changes could also be a strategic, top-down digital transformation: the application of AI, the merging of two orgs; or the implementation of a new Salesforce…
GPT can now draw process diagrams We all know that business analysis is important. Salesforce invested a huge amount of time and effort to create the hugely popular BA Certification. Failing to do sufficient business analysis means we often start building before it’s clear that we understand the business requirements of the users. This wastes…
Managing technical debt in Salesforce is critical to maintaining its agility. In a recent McKinsey survey, CIOs reported that 10 to 20 percent of the technology budget dedicated to new products is diverted to resolving issues related to tech debt. More troubling still, CIOs estimated that tech debt amounts to 20 to 40 percent of…
What are user stories? In this article, we’ll be delving into Salesforce user stories. A User Story is a structured statement that outlines the work you need to complete, to meet the overall business requirement: “as a [role], I want to [action], so that I can [outcome].” A User Story articulates what an end user…
If the historic rate of digital transformation failure continues, it would manifest as $2.4 trillion in waste, by 2025. The solution to this issue, is a new category: Change Intelligence.
We all know that documentation is essential. But so often, it gets missed in the rush to release. The issue is that the risks are more significant the next time you come to make changes. Agility needs to be recovered, and the value of Salesforce with it.
Scary monsters Halloween is the one day in the year when LinkedIn is filled with scary stories of ghosts and ghouls. But those managing Salesforce face even scarier things every single day. Many they know about that keep them awake at night – like the super-complex flow that is mission critical, or the opportunity object…
In this blog, we’ll uncover the top 10 mistakes many users make in Salesforce org management and, more importantly, provide you with actionable insights on how to sidestep these pitfalls. Remember, good Salesforce org management contributes to a Centre of Excellence (CoE): best practices, innovation and informed decision-making.
Written and process mapped by Ian Gotts So many of you loved the Ryan Reynolds process mapping video. It is fun and educational. And now with AI, great process mapping is even more important. It can save you hours of work because user stories can be generated automatically straight from process maps. The user stories…
Written by Ian Gotts AI powers your Salesforce Org Salesforce has announced the release of the first of the AI apps that help you achieve better results with your customer data. They aim to improve various aspects, like crafting more effective sales emails, providing better responses to service inquiries, and creating more engaging marketing campaigns.…
image copyright: Salesforce Salesforce’s AI vision is compelling. It is not a recent knee-jerk reaction to ChatGPT. Their journey started back in 2016, when Einstein launched. ChatGPT has simply captured people’s imagination and made AI real for everyone. But as we all know GPT is far more than ChatGPT. AI is way bigger than that,…
Written by Ian Gotts Salesforce is an investment. That means it is expensive if you don’t get a great ROI. But there is no reason why it cannot “knock it out of the park” – if your teams follow these 3 golden rules. Each of them has some ideas of the ROI possible from adopting…
TDX Session Reducing Technical Debt Blog Reducing Technical Debt Elements Architect Diagrams Elements has launched a diagram editor for Architecture and Flow Diagrams. If you are a Salesforce CTA you get a free consulting licensex #expertsreact #expertsreact BLOG Reducing Technical Debt Elements Architect Diagrams Elements has launched a diagram editor for Architecture and Flow Diagrams.…
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…
In the first blog in this Change Intelligence series, we gave an overview and 5 ideas for “doing more with less”. Each of these 5 ideas can give both short-term and long-term gains. They were: Build the right thing; Spend more time on upfront business analysis, so you are building what users need. It will…
The power of Salesforce lies in the ability to customize an org, much of which can be done quickly, by an admin or consultant using declarative (point-and-click) configuration. What this boils down to is this: adding and modifying metadata is easy to do, but get it wrong and face serious consequences. Deleting metadata is an…
Salesforce is not an island. Elements multi-cloud dependencies. The need for enterprise-wide, not just Salesforce, change intelligence is becoming obvious. Change intelligence is the aggregation of all documentation that supports the implementation change cycle for apps and processes. It allows collaboration across different stakeholders and enables them to make risk-based decisions when making changes. There are…
A lot has been written in blogs about how to build Flows and exploit the capabilities. There have also been articles on how to migrate to Flow that are teaching you how to build great flows. i.e. how to cut down trees. This article is about how you analyze, plan and prioritize your Flow migrations.…
It all starts with Org Discovery. You walk into a company and there is little or no overall understanding of the configuration of Salesforce. You have no idea of the scale or complexity of the org. Where the org is hitting limits. Where the technical debt is highest. What changes will have the highest risk. …
You wouldn’t spend $5,000 on a used car without checking CarFax and going through all the history. As CarFax says. “A car’s history affects its value”. So why are you risking thousands of dollars when changing Salesforce by not assembling the complete picture of the Configuration Knowledge. Derisking the car buying process Buying a car…
At TrailheaDX, Salesforce launched a systems diagramming notation for Architects (Salesforce Diagrams). It is fantastic that Salesforce is investing in driving great documentation standards. Whilst not everyone enjoys documenting what we are about to build or what we have built, we all understand the value of walking into a well documented Org. “As Architects we…
At TrailheaDX, business process mapping notation for Business Analysis (Salesforce UPN) training. It also launched a systems diagramming notation for Architects (Salesforce Diagrams). This article explains UPN and when to use Diagrams vs UPN. “As Architects we know that diagrams are an important tool in our toolset. When we surveyed you, we heard loud and…
TL;DR Product and price visibility on the company websites means customers are better informed when they walk in to make a major purchase. The transparent mismatch between the online price and final purchase price exposes sales tactics, kills trust and the deal. Digital transformation changes the buying dynamic We have decided to convert a 4×4…
Accelerating implementation We all know the benefits of accelerating and streamlining the release cycle; the business is more agile and reduced development effort. But there are even greater benefits if you think about the entire implementation lifecycle, which includes improved analysis that engages the end users to discover what they really need, not what they…
