We have always tried to record all kinds of information, sometimes to immortalize it, other times to show it, but most importantly, to not forget this information.

Let’s start with the main question – what is CRM? Its software, named after the acronym derived from customer relationship management, helps companies manage customer interactions. Every business needs a database where it can record the data of its contractors and their history, transactions, and price lists. This used to be recorded in notebooks and notepads, later in Excel spreadsheets (some companies still use them as their main customer database), and now, one of the leading CRMs in the world is Salesforce.

Is Salesforce like a crystal ball that will boost sales, and phone calls and emails will make themselves? No! (Although emails can be sent automatically.) But thanks to CRM, businesses will be able to do the following significantly:

• Serve the customer better: Automation will do all the necessary tasks for us, remind us of a forgotten customer, and free employees from repetitive actions that always take up precious time and divert attention from the key elements of the business – such as relationships.
• Understand the customer better: The system enables understanding and anticipating the needs of customers, generating sales trends, and most importantly, taking care of them and the business’s relationship with them.
• Increase customer engagement: With tools that allow tracking of customers and their interactions with the business, personalizing content directed to them, and knowing their preferences and tastes, businesses are able to get to know their customers. Consequently, businesses can direct and adjust their business strategies to the style of their customers.
• Achieve better sales results: As we have already pointed out, Salesforce is not a crystal ball predicting the future, but if we know our customers, then those customers know us and our product. And that is already another step toward achieving excellent sales results.

“Well, give me a CD with this system and let’s install it,” some customers might say. But Salesforce is not software that we install on a server or local disk; it is a cloud solution. Thanks to this, everyone can have access to their data.

Salespeople can check their customers during business trips, the marketing team can check the results of their campaign during an event, and the service technicians can make necessary notes from anywhere in the world. The system is a multi-layered ecosystem that is scalable and meets the needs of the customer. What does this mean? This means that customers who want to use sales support elements do not have to purchase the entire solution along with marketing and service desk support.

The available system functions are included in individual licenses. Purchasing a Salesforce license is a subscription model. The customer purchases a specific type of license that offers a certain range of functionality for a period of 12 months.

The prices of the license at the time of writing for the Sales Cloud range from $25 to $300.

Salesforce servers are located in many parts of the world such as the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia.

Is customer data safe? Of course; Salesforce is certified for compliance with many security standards, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, and FedRAMP.

The Salesforce solution is directed to customers of different sizes. From greenfield-type customers who have no previous experience with the system, to huge corporations that expand their systems to enormous sizes, whose administration and maintenance are handled by large, specialist IT teams. Currently, this cloud solution is used by over 150,000 customers in 190 countries. Among the customers using Salesforce, we will find companies such as Spotify, Amazon, Canon, Toyota, Walmart, Uber, and many others.

Salesforce is a multi-module tool. This means that it has many different modules dedicated to specific needs, which will now be described briefly, and in the following chapters, you will learn much more about them:

• Sales Cloud is a solution tailored to the needs of commerce. With it, you can manage the sales cycle from acquiring a lead to winning an opportunity and selling products/services and much more. This module, thanks to its built-in tools, enables the use of forecasting and numerous reporting tools.
• Service Cloud is a tool dedicated to every service/help desk. Everyone has had to call a hotline to get help with a particular matter of life at some point. It’s highly likely that your data has been recorded in Service Cloud. Thanks to its structure, it stores your data and your query in cases.
• Marketing Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is a marketing pair that will manage marketing aimed at B2B or B2C. Automated emails and marketing paths are just a fraction of what you can achieve in the software of the marketing duo.
• Commerce Cloud is nothing more than a booster for your online store. It helps manage online stores, both for B2B and B2C. It personalizes product recommendations and facilitates promotion management, and can do much, much more.
• Experience Cloud, formerly known as Community Cloud (for many, this name will forever remain in their hearts), allows you to create pages, portals, forums, help pages, and others for customers, partners, or users. The drag-and-drop editor facilitates page management for administrators.

Are these all the clouds? No. There are many solutions that facilitate work in various business sectors. Thanks to this, Salesforce easily adapts to even the most complex tasks and needs.

Tip

Get a basic understanding of every Salesforce Cloud, its core features, and how it is helping the business to fulfill its goals, as questions related to this topic may appear on the Salesforce Certified Associate exam.

You already know that there is a Salesforce, how powerful it is, and how much it can bring to the life of any business. However, it is worth remembering that every system needs its own custodian, someone to look after how the system works and make changes to it. You will find out about this person in a moment – the Salesforce Admin.

Every system requires a custodian, a person who can implement changes in structure, fix bugs, or create a new user. Although many of these changes can be automated, a human will always be necessary for system management or even its setup. That’s what a Salesforce superhero – a System Administrator – is for. The Admin role is extremely important, but it may differ across systems. Many companies may define the responsibilities of this role differently. Sometimes it involves system maintenance, sometimes user management, and sometimes deploying previously created system solutions. The main task of Administrators is to manage and adapt the system to the needs of the customer. Thanks to these changes, the system should also meet the business goals of the organization. System Admins often combine technical knowledge with the use of soft skills when in contact with the client.

So, whether it’s changes in the system, creating automation, or custom reports, the Salesforce Admin role is key to business. It happens that other roles, such as SF Developer or SF Solution Architect, perform administrative duties, but these are scenarios in which employees perform tasks dedicated to another position.

In conclusion, the Salesforce Admin is a key role for a business. Thanks to this role, the optimized system works better and more efficiently, and users can enjoy more efficient processes and a user-friendly structure. In the following points, we will look more closely at the main duties of the Administrator and what skills the “ideal” Sys Admin should have.

Main responsibilities of a Salesforce Admin

Once, Peter Parker (AKA Spiderman) heard from his uncle: “With great power there must also come great responsibility.” It is the same with a System Admin. Remember, you are the company superhero and you need to help them. Here are your responsibilities.

User management

As mentioned earlier, administration equals user management.

But it’s not just about creating new users, but also about elements closely related to the user: License, Profile, Role, Permission Set. System Administrator is a role in which one of the main tasks is creating new profiles and assigning them to specific users. Knowing what necessary access users should have, the specialist can create a profile dedicated to them and assign it during the creation of new access permissions. If the profile does not meet all requirements, it can be supplemented with a Permission Set, in which access can be granted in a trimmed manner and given to individual users. When setting up new access to the system, it is important to check the license to be granted and the profile. If the company uses a hierarchy, the user should also have a role assigned to them.

But what would user management be without creating, updating, or deactivating users? With appropriate access, the System Admin can make these kinds of changes. Fun fact! You can’t remove a user from the system; the only option is to deactivate the user by unchecking the “Active” checkbox.

Roles/permissions management

Salesforce is a software in which roles and permissions play a huge role. As mentioned earlier, the main element granting access is profiles, but what if a given department, consisting of two groups, needs a default set of access, but also two separate access permissions data dedicated to them? Then the System Administrator creates a Permission Set, which is a set of access permissions to data elements, objects, or features in the system.

Assigning roles, on the other hand, plays an important role in the structure of the company, thanks to which the administrator will build a hierarchy of employees in Salesforce.

How often have you found data in your system such as Jane/Joe Doe or QWERTY? Often, users want to enter something quickly using so-called “dummy details.” That is, they enter incorrect data to quickly create a record in the system. And it is the System Administrator who stands guard over the integrity of the data (imagine them standing on a high building with a flowing cape and a large “A” on their chest). The Sys Admin must ensure that the data entered into the system is correct, unique, and above all, true. Salesforce has the appropriate tools that help achieve data cleanliness, such as the following:

• Validation rules that check the correctness of data entered by users
• Duplication rules that regulate the possibilities of creating (or not creating) records with the same data
• Approval processes, which are requests for data acceptance on the record (e.g., the amount of discount on the opportunity)

To achieve high cleanliness and integrity of data, the Administrator will use the full range of tools offered by Salesforce.

But what if it turns out that users are exceptionally creative and find a way to create duplicated data and introduce Mr. QWERTY 321321321? Then, a red code lights up above the Admin’s head and a data audit needs to be carried out. Such audits may include checking for the following, among other things:

• Duplicates (e.g., 2 x Mrs. Jane Doe with the same email)
• Data inconsistencies (e.g., Acme Corp and Acme Corporation as two different accounts)
• Data errors (in the text field – e.g., email: edward.scissorhands@acme without .com)

The Admin should be able to detect these types of errors, correct them, and set up the appropriate safeguards that will act preventively. Regular data cleaning will keep the database clean and accurate. As we all know, a good admin is the best friend of any department where mass import/export is used. This is also one of the essential skills that an admin must master. For such actions, they can use Data Loader, Data Import Wizard, or Salesforce Inspector. Are any of these particularly recommended? Each Administrator or person dealing with mass data management has their own style and favorite tool for these tasks.

Tip

If you want to efficiently input data into the system, prepare upload templates for your users and teach them to fill in data in the correct structure. Remember, you are the Salesforce specialist, not your users. A correct data structure in the upload template will save you a lot of time.

Customization

This mysterious-sounding word is one of the most important in the daily tasks of a Salesforce Admin. It should be remembered that Salesforce in the out-of-the-box version is a tool that is not tailored to the client’s vision at all. Opportunities have their default stages, on Account – apart from the website and telephone, you will also find a fax field, and the contacts do not contain many data fields.

This is where the administrator, who, like Michelangelo, sculpts Salesforce for business needs, steps in. Customizing the system is an extremely important process, which can last for either of the following:

• Periodically – in the form of projects
• Constantly – as part of system management

System configuration can contain many elements, from changing branding, adding new fields, and changing settings, to creating completely new home page layouts. These tasks are often repetitive, such as creating a field or removing it, but among the tasks, there are also those that require more time and practice, such as automation. When Salesforce announced the retirement of Process Builder and Workflow Rules, fear befell people who effectively avoided Flow, the only native low-code tool currently available in the Salesforce ecosystem. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, Flow has become popular not only with Administrators but also with other people working on improving the company’s org. It is important to remember what I mentioned at the beginning: each company follows its own policy and scope of work for Administrators. So, in one business, it will only be structural changes, and in another, it will be automation and deployment between environments.

Training and troubleshooting

Once the system is configured and populated with data, what’s left for the Administrator – to sit back and enjoy the lack of tasks? Of course not.

Every company hires new employees, many of whom might not have worked in the industry before, and an even larger number may not be familiar with Salesforce. This is another task assigned to the Administrator: it’s up to them to guide users through the ABCs of Salesforce.

The training can be broken down into the following segments:

• Salesforce basics: Logging in, creating records, inputting data into fields, creating custom reports, and so on
• Company processes in Salesforce: An introduction to sales/service processes, essential data in records, set approvals/validations, automation, and so on

Tip

If you want users to remember something from your training, ask questions, show examples on the existing org, and remember that you are speaking to users unfamiliar with SF. Therefore, adjust your language and try to explain everything from the basics.

Often, users, even unknowingly, will encounter a scenario that wasn’t tested during the solution design. They then look to specialists for help. With various solutions such as ticketing tools, emails, or service cases, the Sys Admin can efficiently address user issues. Typically, resolving user issues involves checking their profiles, permission sets, and general object settings. Communication with users is crucial in such situations, allowing the Admin to replicate the problem and immediately solve it.

A highly useful feature when addressing user issues is the login as user option available under Setup -> User -> Login next to the user:

Figure 1.1: Login as user

With this, the administrator can view the system from the user’s perspective, enabling a quicker resolution to the problem at hand.

Tip

If you don’t want to be logged out every time after using login as user, change the session settings in Setup -> Session Settings -> Deselect Force re-login after Login-As-User. This way, the system won’t force a re-login after you switch back.

Skills

Working in the Salesforce environment is not solely based on knowledge of the system.

Many beginner Administrators have never dealt with this system before. Maybe they’ve heard of it but never had any experience with it; many of them will have studied cultural studies, sociology, computer science, or agriculture. Is this an obstacle to starting work as an Admin? No. What matters are willingness and knowledge of SF (or a great desire to get to know it), and it’s good to have analytical, problem-solving, communication, and project management skills (e.g., agile skills).

However, it’s worth noting that many companies offer internships for Administrators and various academies that prepare future Administrators. Quite recently, Salesforce launched a program for women who want to return to work after a break related to motherhood, illness, or other personal reasons, and their goal is the SF environment. The program is called “Bring Women Back to Work,” and as the name suggests, it is exclusively for women. After a 12-month training cycle, SF helps these women enter the job market by sending their resumes to program partners.

Do you need to have all these skills to be a good Admin? I think they are not must-haves, but rather nice to have, because with them and the right knowledge, you can achieve the title of Certified SF Admin. There’s more on this in the next section.

To be certified or not to be certified? That is the question! I often receive this query from Salesforce newcomers seeking advice on establishing a career in Salesforce. The straightforward response is, “Yes, certainly, you should obtain Salesforce certifications.” The more considered answer is, “It depends.” You’ll frequently come across a common description on many LinkedIn profiles of Salesforce experts – “2x Salesforce Certified,” “5x Salesforce Certified,” “21x Salesforce Certified” – showcasing their number of Salesforce certifications. Should you follow the same path? Yes, you can. Is this the only path? No, it is not. Allow me to elucidate this using an analogy my jiu-jitsu trainer shared with me during my first tournament, when I found myself facing a rather intimidating individual covered in many tattoos, who happened to be my next opponent. My trainer’s words were, “Tattoos do not fight.” This statement holds true universally and can be applied to the Salesforce realm as well. Essentially, having a multitude of certifications doesn’t always equate to genuine proficiency in Salesforce.

Throughout my IT career, I’ve encountered numerous Salesforce professionals possessing “just” one or two certifications who were exceptionally skilled in Salesforce. To put it simply, practical experience always outweighs certifications – always. However, this doesn’t negate the value or importance of holding Salesforce certificates. Allow me to outline some pros and cons concerning obtaining Salesforce certifications.

Pros

There are several benefits associated with obtaining a Salesforce certificate and even attempting to acquire one:

• When preparing for a Salesforce exam, you will need to study to know more about Salesforce
• You will learn about topics and features that you may not have used previously so you will increase your knowledge
• You will get a nice “tattoo” that others will recognize and it will be visible as proof of your knowledge
• It may help you jumpstart your Salesforce career
• If you are a Salesforce beginner, having certs such as Admin and/or App Builder will strongly increase the chance of you getting your first Salesforce job
• More is not always better but sometimes, having the next Salesforce cert will give you hints about which Salesforce career direction to take or not take

Cons

Let’s now see the cons related to exam preparation:

• You will study things you may not even touch/use outside the exam.
• The knowledge you will gather may be forgotten quickly if you do not use it in practice.
• More certs do not mean your career will rocket quicker as experience > certs, and in most recruitment processes, you will be asked about your practical knowledge.
• Specialization is still strongly looked for in the IT world. The market is not searching for individuals who are A-OK in every single Salesforce feature/cloud. The recruiters are searching for experts in particular features or clouds.
• Doing certs for the sake of having certs is wrong. Be sure that the knowledge you will get may be used practically and is in line with your career plan.

Of course, the aforementioned “cons” are not real cons, as having a certificate is almost always better than not having it, but before planning your next Salesforce cert, you need to answer an important question: what do you want to do in your life? And then, just…take the relevant exam.

We will cover the Salesforce exam topic more deeply in Chapter 12. Here, I will only highlight the most important topics related to the Salesforce exams in general:

• There are more than 20 Salesforce-related certificate types on the market now

  Yes, some people have them all. No, more does not mean better.

• The exams are multiselect tests

  The exception is the Salesforce Associate Certification, which is currently not multiselect.

• The passing score may differ but is generally around 65%

  You should know that some topics require a higher score than others as their wages are higher.

• You may do the test online at home or offline in one of the exam centers

  As the exam centers may not be available in your area, you may always take the online exam. The online exams are proctored, so this means that you will be assisted and monitored by a proctor through a webcam.

• There are official test questions provided by Salesforce

  Currently, test questions are available only for Admin and Email Specialists. You can buy these official test questions to prepare yourself for those exams.

• If your native language is not English, you may ask Salesforce to increase the time you will need to deal with the exam

  You will get additional time if you are taking an exam in English and your native language is not English. To get additional time, you need to contact Salesforce support before the exam.

• To get some certificates, you may need to achieve other certs as some are prerequisites for other exams

  For example, you need to be a Certified Administrator to be able to get an Advance Administrator certificate.

• There is a clear path that you can follow to become a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect, the top of the top roles in the Salesforce ecosystem

  Some Salesforce certs are bound together and passing them all will ultimately give you the title of Application Architect and/or System Architect, which opens the door to becoming a Salesforce CTA – a Certified Technical Architect. The paths are known. Just follow the steps.

As I mentioned already, the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam will be covered in detail in another part of this book, so I would like to mention only that the Admin exam was, up until some time ago, the first exam that opened the doors to the Salesforce cert world. But as the exam scope is quite big and it’s better to be at least a Salesforce user on a daily basis to pass this exam, Salesforce some time ago introduced an easier exam called the Salesforce Certified Associate. Salesforce just recognized that it’s hard for Salesforce newbies to prepare for the Admin exam and start their careers without having at least a few months experience on the platform using Salesforce in the current work. The Salesforce Certified Associate is dedicated to Salesforce beginners with around three months’ experience on the platform, while the Admin cert is recommended to people with around six months’ Salesforce experience. The first three exams we recommend doing to jumpstart your Salesforce career are as follows:

• Salesforce Certified Associate
• Salesforce Certified Administrator
• Salesforce Platform App Builder

You may ask, do I really need to do the Salesforce Certified Associate exam before trying to pass the Admin exam? The answer is simple: yes but no. Just joking. Yes, you may skip the Associate exam and go straight to the Admin exam. This is recommended especially if any of the following apply:

• You are starting an SF-related job soon – let’s be brutally honest, the Salesforce Associate exam is a good start but when you have already got a Salesforce job, in 99% of cases that means you know some Salesforce and you would need more skills than are needed from Associate. Rather, you would need at least Admin skills. This is because the Associate is rather one repair wrench and when you start a Salesforce-related job (especially in consulting), you need the whole toolbox already.
• You are already a Salesforce user/superuser/Admin – if you are already in one of these roles, the Associate exam could be tempting as you will pass it without needing to learn it, but it will add almost nothing of value to your career. Of course, you will be “more” certified and will be able to make the “huge” change on LinkedIn, which will be changing “1x Certified” to “2x Certified” on your profile summary, but mostly, that’s it.
• You learn fast or you’ve worked before with other IT tools such as CRM, ERP systems, and so on.
• You have limited funds – Salesforce Associate is not free on a daily basis. Sometimes, Salesforce gives some random discounts that can limit the price to zero or cut the cost, but usually, you need to pay for the exam. If your funds are limited, you may consider skipping the Associate exam as the Admin certificate is much more recognizable and valued than the Associate cert.

Tip

You may already know that there is also another popular Salesforce certificate that is dedicated to programmers. It’s called Platform Developer 1. Some may say that you don’t need to do certs such as Admin or App Builder if you just want to be a programmer. They would be wrong. Salesforce is a platform where one of the most important rules is to try to not use Visualforce…Just kidding. The real rule is “try to configure before starting to code.” As Salesforce gives you a lot of customization possibilities, code-based automation options the starting point should always be declarative customization, click no code aka low code. For this reason, I recommend starting your Salesforce certificate journey with Admin, then App Builder as a prerequisite before jumping to Dev 1, even if you don’t want to be an Admin and do not know what App Builder really is.

Now that you have some basic context about Salesforce exams and being Salesforce certified, let’s see how to make the very first step toward your future Salesforce career and learn how to create your Salesforce test account.

Is it even possible to learn Salesforce without working in Salesforce at your job? This question is asked many times by Salesforce Admin wannabes. The answer is: yes, yes, yes!

I like to say that the Salesforce job market has quite a low entry threshold when comparing it to other popular IT platforms such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft CRM, and so on. This is because of a few important reasons:

• You may learn Salesforce on your own, at your own pace, using Salesforce’s free learning platform, Trailhead.
• Salesforce exams are not too expensive – this is of course a relative statement, but when comparing Salesforce exam prices to other technologies’ exam prices, the Salesforce ones are not as pricey.
• In addition, you can get a fully useful and free test environment that you can use to get to know the platform and customize, build, and destroy safely. In this section, we will show you how to do this.

Free Salesforce environments

There are two types of free Salesforce environments: Developer Edition orgs and Trailhead Playgrounds. Let’s see what the differences are and how to create each one.

Free Developer Edition environment

“What? A developer environment? Should I use it, given that I’m not a developer and have no intention of becoming one?” The answer is straightforward: yes, you can use it even if you are not a programmer. Think of it as a name that Salesforce has assigned to its demo account. To see a more detailed explanation, let’s take a look at how Salesforce describes its Salesforce Developer orgs on their pages: “A Salesforce Developer environment grants you access to a fully featured copy of Force.com, absolutely free, and yours to use indefinitely. Utilize the Developer Organization to stay current with the latest features, construct your own applications, and test functionalities prior to their purchase.” This implies that you can access the Developer Edition for free, forever and ever. It encompasses both Sales Cloud and Service Cloud features, enabling you to explore and experiment with both sales-related and customer-support-related functionalities within a single space.

Can you generate multiple Developer Edition environments? Yes, you can. Will you create more than one? Yes, you certainly will! Based on practical experience, I can confirm that you’ll utilize dev orgs for customizable experimentation, constructing numerous automations, preparing job interview demonstrations, and a wide array of other tasks. And you will do it a lot. For these reasons, it’s often preferable to initiate with a fresh new environment rather than attempting to “repair” the alterations you made in your existing orgs.

Free Trailhead-related Playgrounds

A long, long time ago in the Salesforce galaxy far, far away, there existed an era when the only testing environments that Salesforce provided to users were the free Developer orgs. However, with the advent of Salesforce Trailhead, a free learning platform, the demand arose for quicker and more convenient access to testing orgs. This prompted the creation of Trailhead Playgrounds to address this requirement. Essentially, Trailhead Playgrounds are akin to Developer Environments, but they can be generated with greater ease, speed, and relevance to specific Trailhead tasks.

Tip

I use Salesforce Dev environments for client demos, job interview demos, testing new Salesforce releases, and doing some experiments, while I use Trailhead Playgrounds only when doing Trailhead-related tasks.

I hope you now understand the difference between the Salesforce Developer environment and Trailhead Playgrounds. Let’s now see how to create them.

Let’s start with the Developer environment. These are the steps to create a Salesforce Developer environment:

1. Go to the Salesforce Developer website:

   Visit https://developer.salesforce.com/signup.

2. Fill in the required information:

   Fill in the required data such as your name, email address, password, and other details. Agree on the terms and conditions and click on the Sign me up or Create Org button at the end:

Figure 1.2: Fill in the form

3. Verify your email address:

   After registering, Salesforce will send you an email to verify your email address. Click on the verification link provided in the email:

Figure 1.3: Verify account

4. Complete the registration process:

   Once your email is verified, follow the instructions to complete the registration process. Set the password that will be used to access the Developer Account:

Figure 1.4: Set a password

5. Create a new Developer Edition:

   After creating the password, your Developer Edition will be created and you’ll be redirected to your Salesforce org. From there, you can start building and testing applications in the Salesforce environment.

Tip

It may be important to know that besides the Developer environment, which as was said is free for a lifetime, you may also get access to other Salesforce tools/clouds. However, those accesses are time-limited (mostly for 30 days).

Now that we know how to create a Developer environment, let’s see how to create a Trailhead Playground:

1. Sign up or log in to Trailhead:

   If you don’t have a Trailhead account, go to the Salesforce Trailhead website (https://trailhead.salesforce.com) and sign up for a free account. If you already have one, log in using your credentials.

2. Access Playgrounds:

   Once you’re logged in, navigate to the Hands-On Orgs section of the Trailhead website (https://trailhead.salesforce.com/users/profiles/orgs). This is where you can manage your Trailhead Playgrounds:

Figure 1.5: Hands-On Orgs

3. Create a new Playground:

   Look for an option that allows you to create a new Trailhead Playground. Click on it to begin the process:

Figure 1.6: Create a Playground

4. Choose a Playground name:

   Give your new Playground a unique name that helps you identify it easily. The name should be relevant to what you plan to use the Playground for:

Figure 1.7: Choose a Playground name

5. Build the Playground:

   Once you’ve filled in the required details, click on the Create Playground button. The system will then create a new Salesforce Trailhead Playground for you:

Figure 1.8: Build a Playground

6. Launch the Playground to access it:

   After the creation process is complete, you’ll receive information about your new Trailhead Playground including its unique URL, credentials, and any other relevant details.

   With your new Trailhead Playground set up, you can now access and explore Salesforce features, try out different configurations, build applications, and practice what you’ve learned in the Trailhead modules.

7. Create Playgrounds ad-hoc:

   Besides creating “in-advance” Playgrounds that may be then used during hands-on Trailhead challenges, you may also create a separate/new Trailhead Playground for each Salesforce Trailhead hands-on challenge that you will be currently performing. While taking the test challenges, you will see the action button that will serve you with ad-hoc Playground creation.

Tip

Although the way to create Salesforce Dev orgs and Trailhead Playgrounds has not changed for some time, you need to remember that the process might change or evolve over time, and Salesforce may introduce new steps or change the user interface. Always refer to the official Salesforce Developer website or documentation for the most up-to-date information on creating a free Developer Edition environment.

Now that you know how to create a Salesforce Playground, let’s see in the next section of this chapter what the Salesforce interface looks like.

In this section, we will closely examine the Salesforce user interface, delving into its most essential components. This will provide you with a better understanding of what you, as a user, will encounter. If you are reading this book, it’s likely that you have intentions to dedicate a significant amount of time to navigating the Salesforce UI. As a result, grasping the features linked to the Salesforce UI becomes of utmost importance.

Comprehending these pivotal elements of the Salesforce UI will empower you to use the platform more efficiently, thereby enhancing your overall productivity. Keep in mind that the Salesforce UI is both intuitive and adaptable, allowing for customization to cater to individual preferences. This, in turn, maximizes the potential of Salesforce, facilitating success in your business endeavors. By investing time in familiarizing yourself with these features, you can fully leverage Salesforce and harness its capabilities to drive your business forward.

In this section, we will cover the following Salesforce tabs, also known as objects:

• Home
• Leads
• Accounts
• Contacts
• Opportunities
• Reports
• Dashboards

We’ll also cover the following Salesforce features:

• Search Bar
• List Views
• Setup access
• Object setup access
• Record setup access

Home – where your Salesforce journey begins

The main home page after logging in is a crucial starting point. Here, you will find a concise overview of important information, such as tasks, calendar events, notifications, and other key data pertinent to your work. By the way, the Home tab has a really good name. I will tell you why. Because like with a real home, you will abandon it after a while, spending more time in other places such as bars, gyms, and restaurants – in other words, other Salesforce tabs such as Lead, Account, Contact, or Opportunity.

Tip

If you are a Salesforce Admin, speak with your business to understand what they would really like to see on the Salesforce home tab. If you do not do this, they will leave the house (home) and will never miss it. ;)

The four riders of significance – Leads, Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities

Moving on, the top navigation bar contains various tabs and options, facilitating seamless navigation within the Salesforce platform. This enables swift access to sections that interest you, such as Contacts data, Customers Data, and Prospects data.

• The Lead: The person initially interested in your product or service.
• The Accounts: Companies such as your customers, partners, future customers, and competitors.
• The Contacts: People related to Accounts, most likely employees of Accounts. People working for your customers, partners, future customers, or competitors. People who you like. People who should like you too. ;)
• The Opportunities: Sales processes processed with your customers, partners, and future customers. Deals that you love. Money that they will bring. ;)

How are Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities bonded together? Let’s see a simple example to be able to understand the relations between Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities in Salesforce. Let’s map example customer data from the company “Super Sweets” to Salesforce features; let’s “take us to the candy shop”:

Account – “Super Sweets” candy shops

Contact – Adam Smith, who works for Super Sweets as an IT Director

Opportunity – Selling IT security stuff to Super Sweets and contacting Adam Smith to make it happen

So, you will keep the Super Sweets company information such as name, address, and customer status on the Account object, while people working at Super Sweets will be covered by the Contact objects. Deals that you are making with Super Sweets will be tracked on the Opportunity objects. Quite straightforward, isn’t it?

Leads

Sales users will most likely embark on their Salesforce journey right here. The term “Leads” refers to individuals we intend to reach out to, as they could potentially express interest in testing our solution, purchasing our product, or booking our service. A Lead embodies elements of an Account, Contact, and Opportunity; it represents a person (with attributes such as name, email, and phone number akin to Contact fields) associated with a company (with a Company Name field resembling an Account) that we wish to evaluate for potential interest in our offerings (indicated by the Lead’s status, similar to Opportunity indicators).

Why does the Lead exhibit such similarity to Account, Contact, and Opportunity? This alignment stems from the fact that Leads serve as precursors to these entities, as all their respective records can be generated during a procedure called “Lead conversion.” So, what precisely is Lead conversion? Allow me to elucidate using an example.

Imagine your company specializes in high-end merchandise. Someone completes an online form inquiring about your products and provides all the necessary contact details. This individual now qualifies as a Lead. It’s that straightforward. Your sales team can now reach out and ascertain the extent of their interest in the products. If, following a conversation, the salesperson confirms their continued interest in our high-end merchandise, the Lead can be elevated beyond its initial status – it becomes what you might call an “uber Lead.” The salesperson can initiate the conversion process, transforming the Lead into an Account, Contact, and Opportunity – all three records emanating from that single Lead! This process is aptly termed Lead conversion.

Throughout Lead conversion, fields from the Lead, such as Company Name, facilitate the creation of Account records, while attributes such as first name, last name, and email are employed to generate Contact records. When the Lead is transformed into an Account and Contact, the Opportunity can also be concurrently established. Opting to create an Opportunity during Lead conversion signifies the continuation of the sales journey, presenting an opening to potentially sell a product or service to the Lead.

Wondering how to trigger Lead conversion? The process is both prominent and straightforward. An action button labeled Convert exists on the Lead page. Simply click this button and work your magic!

Reports and dashboards

After a while, you will notice that your Salesforce database is growing, and after some time, you will realize that there is a substantial amount of data. Eventually, your business will also recognize this and inquire about reports that can present crucial information concerning Leads, Opportunities, Orders, and more. Be prepared! Form a friendly relationship with reports and dashboards in the Salesforce Analytics tab.

So, what exactly are reports and dashboards in Salesforce? It’s actually quite straightforward. A report is used to create a summary of existing Salesforce data. It bears some resemblance to an Excel spreadsheet, displaying data in columns and rows. On the other hand, dashboards are designed to visualize this data. Think of them as Excel graphs but integrated within Salesforce.

Reports don’t necessarily require dashboards to function; they can stand alone and remain independent. They possess strength and autonomy. However, dashboards cannot exist without reports. Dashboards are more like team players; they are often associated with numerous reports that serve as their data sources. They possess strength as well, but their power is rooted in the reports they are built upon.

Search Bar

Now, what can this feature be used for? Can you guess? ;) Well, of course, it’s meant to help you locate the closest bar in your neighborhood. Just kidding! That’s a task expertly handled by Google Maps or your best friend! In reality, Salesforce employs the Search Bar exclusively for locating the records you’re seeking. Just enter the name of a record, such as an Account Name or Contact Surname, and Salesforce will promptly provide you with relevant results. It’s as straightforward as that.

What is searchable in Salesforce?

• Standard object records such as Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities, Orders, and so on
• Custom object’s records if they are marked as searchable in their settings
• Reports and dashboards

How to use search?

• Just write a word, click Search, and get records. Magic! ;)
• Use natural language while searching (with some limitations, of course), for example:
  • my contacts lead source is partner
  • opportunities in Texas last month
  • tasks high priority last week
• Use wildcards and operators such as the following:
  • asterisk (*) to find items that match zero or more characters at the middle or end of your query
  • question mark (?) to find items that match only one character at the middle or end of your query
• Use search operators such as the following:
  • AND – search for items that match all of the search terms
  • AND NOT – search for items that don’t contain the search term
  • OR – search for items containing at least one of the search terms
  • Parentheses – group search terms together (grouped search terms are evaluated before other terms in your string)
  • Quotation marks – search for items that match all the search terms in the order entered

Tip

Salesforce updates its search capabilities from time to time for this reason. Try to keep yourself up-to-date and check the current Salesforce release and help pages related to this subject. For example, the AI-related and natural language search is what Salesforce has developed strongly in recent years. If you are using the Salesforce Enterprise edition, you can catch a glimpse of these features when searching and activating Einstein Search in your setup.

List Views

What is the Salesforce List View? Let me explain this with a simple example. Have you ever noticed that when entering Salesforce Accounts, Contacts, or any other tab, Salesforce serves you a list of recently seen records? I hope you noticed this because the recently viewed records are an example of the Salesforce List View. List views are lists of records that could be created on every tab.

The main features related to List Views are as follows:

• There are standard List Views such as Recently Viewed but besides those, you can also create custom list views.
• You can decide which Salesforce fields should be used as columns on the list while displaying this to the users.
• You can set filters to show only records that you want, for example, only records owned by you or records with specific field values, such as Accounts with the billing country as Poland or Spain.
• You can decide who sees the created list views. Different (public) groups, users, or users with specific roles can have their own List Views that are visible only to them, so as to not overcrowd the list views of other users. Finally, you may also create list views that are private, so visible only to you.

Tip

Please consider restricting the permission to create a public list view (yes, such a permission exists in Salesforce and can be revoked from certain users) to Salesforce Admins and Super Users. Granting this capability to every individual user will lead to chaos in the public list views, causing an influx of unnecessary views and user frustration, ultimately resulting in users abandoning this tool. Instead, let Salesforce Admins or business-oriented Super Users, who are closely attuned to the needs and requirements of standard users, manage the list views.

Related lists

Related lists are very similar to List Views, but they always exist in the context of records only. What are Related Lists, then? To describe them, let’s use simple examples of standard related lists:

• List of Contacts related to a specific Account
• List of sales Opportunities related to a specific Account

Both aforementioned related lists can be seen on the Account records UI and show people and deals related to the specific Accounts. While viewing Account X, you will see the list of Contacts and deals related to Account X, while, when viewing Account Y, you will see the Contacts and deals related to Account Y. As simple as that!

The main tasks of Related Lists are as follows:

• Show records related as a child records of the record you’re currently on
• Be able to show filtered records; when using dynamic related lists, you can show only a portion of related records limited by some filter conditions
• Create new child records with the press of a button, just by clicking the New action on the specific related list
• Perform some mass actions on the records displayed on the lists, such as updating or deleting those records

Setup access and direct object setup access

The possibility of accessing the setup means that you are the master of the universe, or at least the master of your Salesforce realm. You are quite literally the “boss” of this digital “neighborhood.” To enter the Salesforce setup, all you need to do is click on the gear wheel icon located in the top-right corner of the screen:

Figure 1.9: Setup access

From this perspective, you can enter the whole treasure chamber by clicking Setup (or Service Setup if you want to mess around with Salesforce Service Cloud settings), or Edit Object if you want to go directly to one of the “treasure chambers” such as Accounts setup, Lead setup, and so on. How will you know which “chamber” you are entering? It always uses the context of the tab that you are currently in. So, if you are in the Account tab and you click Edit Object there, you will land on the Account Setup page. The same goes for other Salesforce tabs.

What can you do there? Many interesting things, such as the following:

• Add new fields
• Create field validation
• Create record action buttons and list view buttons

Record UI setup access

You might have already noticed that when you are on a specific record page and you click the gear wheel icon, you will find not only the Setup and Edit Object options but also the Edit Page option. What is this option for, you ask? Well, it’s a Salesforce mystery! Just kidding! While there are indeed many Salesforce mysteries out there, this isn’t one of them. When you click the Edit Page option, you’ll be redirected to the area where you can manage the UI or interfaces related to the object of the record you’re currently viewing. This includes the UI of objects such as Accounts, Leads, Opportunities, and more:

Figure 1.10: Object access

What can you do in this setup? Many interesting things, such as the following:

• Decide which fields are visible on the record’s UI
• Decide whether some fields should be visible, for example, only when other fields have some specific values
• Place some action buttons on the record page such as Edit, Clone, Delete, and so on
• Place some components on the record’s UI such as paths, related lists, tabs, rich text, and many, many more
• Place custom-made (coded by Salesforce programmers) components

In summary, this initial chapter has given us the basic understanding needed to grasp why Salesforce is important and how it works.

We’ve explored the pivotal role of a Salesforce Admin, gaining insights into their key responsibilities and the essential skills they need to excel. Now you know what a Salesforce Admin does, so you will now consciously follow this challenging path and you won’t be saying that no one warned you about it. So, no excuses from now, sorry!

Additionally, the section on the Salesforce certification exam has illuminated the path to becoming a certified professional. Now you know that more is sometimes less, and that you don’t need to be a Salesforce General with tons of badges and certificates on your chest to become successful, desired, or who knows, maybe even loved by the market.

Practical guidance has been offered on setting up a Salesforce account, followed by a detailed tour of the platform’s interface, enhancing readers’ ability to navigate and utilize Salesforce effectively. You are now able to create a free and endless Salesforce environment, one or a hundred of them. OK, let’s say even thousands of them. You will stop counting after the tenth.

We hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this book and are eager to explore more! Remember that Salesforce is all about development, and here, we are talking not only about app development but also, most of all, about self-development, where we believe perseverance is a key skill. So, “Stay hungry, stay foolish,” – Steve Jobs and remember, “We’ve (all) suffered losses, but we’ve not lost the war.” - Optimus Prime. This is just the beginning, and the real deal will come in the next chapters! Buckle up! Here we go!