New Year - New Certification

I have started studying for the Platform App Builder Certification exam. I chose this exam for two reasons:

1) Mike Wheeler just released his certification preparation course (link here)
2) Salesforce.study has a course on this as well. (link here)

I took a look back at what I did to pass the Administrator Certification exam and the biggest contributors to my success were Mike Wheeler's course and the materials on Salesforce.study. While I'll likely explore other materials, the effectiveness of these two sources drove my decision to study for the Platform App Builder Certification exam. Also, while I enjoy being an administrator, I think long term being a developer is where it is at.

I am also going to study a little differently. First I am using a time tracker (link here) to track how much time I spend studying. Secondly, while I am going to create a study notes document, I am not going to publish it all at once. I am going to post sections on the blog weekly.

The purpose of the blog is to showcase what I am doing to develop my Salesforce skills. I think multiple entries will be easier to digest for people as compared to a whole document. Plus it gives me content. While I am doing a lot, most of it is proprietary to my clients. I can't take screenshots of their data, so I'd have to recreate things in my developer account. I have some tools on that and I may start doing videos of it; time will tell.

Regarding my study process, the first thing I am going to do is watch the Wheeler videos. Then I am going to re-watch them and create my notes. After that, I'll tackle the Salesforce.study materials and finally take the exam. In between, I'll likely look for more materials to beef up my knowledge and I'll post those as well.

Happy New Year!!!

Upserting Data

I’ve been doing a lot of admin stuff this week and enjoying it! The most interesting thing I did was upsert data to a field that I created. To facilitate reporting for my client I created a picklist so that the Inside Sales Rep working on a Lead/Account/Opportunity can be associated with the record. The Field Sales Rep will be the owner of the record but Management still needs to know which records and which rep worked on it. There were over 2,000 records that had to be corrected.

To accomplish this I created a report with the relevant data, exported it, updated it in Excel, and then upserted it modify the records. The key was to use the Salesforce ID so that I could properly amend the correct record. Not a big deal and the solution is all over the web. But the key factor is that now I too can say that I did this.

The intent of the blog is to showcase what I’ve done and this is something that I did. It’s also something I can write about.

The Website is Up!!!

So my DIY website is up and running. It needs more work and I already found a few typos but it's a start.  I'll still post here for the blog, which links to the website (click here)

They’re Impressed by my Experience?

Over the past few weeks, I have gotten a lot of calls about potential positions based on my Linked In profile. I’ll be the first to admit that my profile is short on details about what I do. This is partly because I am too busy doing whatever it is I do to update it and partly a result of wanting to be able to include some meaning full accomplishments. Certainly, a few passwords resets a month is not that impressive.

On the off chance they are reading the blog, I have included a pie chart of the breakdown of my duties below. My main task it working in improving utilization (process improvements such as optimizing the mobile version, tracking data better, etc.) and providing insight into the sales process (reports, dashboards, marketing ROI, etc.). I have been providing training for new and existing users, both on-site and remotely. I also am assisting with an ERP integration by cleaning up page layouts and fields as well as general administrator duties, such as password resets, custom reports, etc. For completeness, I am working with ~35 users on an Enterprise Edition organization.

Gemba, It’s Not A Monster Sent to Destroy Tokyo

Gemba is Japanese for "the real place." It is where the work is and often where the problems are. In my engineering practice, I need to see how a product or process is performed and speak with the operators directly. I try to avoid the managers since they often don’t know the real story. I try to practice this as a Salesforce Administrator as well. In my current role, most of the sales force is remote which makes it challenging. Conversely, I have looked at roles where I might be remote, making the practice of Gemba difficult as well.

The issues I struggle with is how to do the “Gemba Walk” remotely. There are several tools which make it easier as compared to monitoring a process. The first is the ability login in as a user. Using this access, I can at least see what the users are seeing.

One thing that has not worked has been relying on emails and phone conversations alone. I use the language of Salesforce and often the users don’t have the same lexicon as me, which leads to confusion on my part. It also results in me solving the wrong problem.

I am learning that I need to have them walk me through the steps that they follow while I am in my instance of Salesforce so that I can see what they are doing. I do this as a System Administrator so that I can determine if it is an access issue or a something else. If I can see it and they can’t it is usually a permissions problem. If I can’t see it, then I need to dig in a little more.

So while I can’t always be at Gemba, I can get a sense of the real action going on…

The Word On The Street

Well, I have a job! It's a contract job helping a small business revamp their Salesforce Organization (~35 users). Being an Administrator is everything I hoped it would be. Right now I am doing mostly process mapping, and planning improvements.

I have done some user support issues. I will say that while the certification helps with addressing the problems, but nothing beats experience. To be a contractor I had to start an LLC (KGForce, LLC). That has been a lot of work; nothing too hard, just time consuming. Once I catch up with all the paperwork, it should be smooth sailing. I do have an accountant who is helping with a lot of the tax paperwork, and I went through an online provider for the filing documents.

I have a website that is in-progress, and I am going to write another six sigma article for Linked In. I will use that platform for business marketing and the blog for career updates. I will link the blog to the website and post both the Linked In and blog entries on the there. For now, I suppose if the blog hurts the business, I may have to rethink the approach, or I may blog about more business issues and fewer career issues. It is a good outlet for my creativity.

Fun times ahead! For those that celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving...gobble, gobble...

Belt Mean No Need Rope Hold Up Pants

As I progress in my Salesforce career, I have found a lot of use for my Six Sigma training (see my LinkedIn article). Throughout the years I have been part of various training programs but have not had a chance to get either a green or black belt. I have been exploring contract jobs and have gotten a 3-month gig starting in November.

As part of this exploration, I learned that I needed to start an LLC (KGForce, LLC) in order to get paid. I am in the process of creating a website (no content yet), though I will still blog here and link to the website. I am generating content for the website and I have decided to highlight my six sigma approach to setting up Salesforce organizations. Discussing this approach raises the issue of belts and certifications.

From a training and certification perspective, I expect that Salesforce certifications will be more influential in getting contracts than a Six Sigma belt. In reading about the belt process, there are a lot of certification programs. The best ones all have projects associated with them. This suggests that experience is more valuable than education.

I have found in the interview process, that this is also true. I got the most interest in my resume once I became certified. However, beyond certification, recruiters and hiring managers wanted to know about my experience. So I will work on both Salesforce projects and certifications. The six sigma belts will have to wait. I have created a training roadmap based on what I think is a mix of logical progression and quality of training materials available.

I have tried to stay with the declarative aspects of Salesforce. I get the sense that they are driving users towards this via increasing functionality with the declarative features. I think marketing automation will be a good area to focus on and the training plan reflects that. Eventually, I’ll get a belt or too, but for right now I’ll have to let my experience to the talking.