Week full of events

1.6.20231.6.2023 • Salesforce • 0

What a week behind me. Four events across five days which I was somehow involved in organizing. I had a feeling that it will be easy peasy as everything has been prepared in advance, but the whole week I had a feeling of missing something and the stress in the background made it really exhausting experience. But definitely worth it.

This will a long post, but the TLDR is that I survived, I enjoyed every single one of them even though I had no clue what to expect from most of them.

Johann’s & Nina’s You, the Architect!

TLDR: wow

I’ve met Johann at the beginning of my preparation for the CTA board. That guy is highly organized and very detailed oriented, which was very clear the whole time of this event. Fantastic presentation in terms of content, design and delivery. How Nina read the room and whenever we got out of focus kicked us out to get some fresh air at the beautiful garden on Impact Hub K10, no matter we had just extra 10 minutes planned for that part.

While it was busy the whole day we still had a time to connect with others and have a chat, as most of the attendees were people being of aiming to be architects we had a lot to share. Including the opening line from Johann – I’m an architect and I’m confused.

Architect Dreamin

TLDR: second edition (or was Paris just soft launch?) of event dedicated to architects, which has completely different structure to other events

While the previous event was logistically pretty easy here I had to orchestrate a few more parties. Saying that we started the first day in lovely nearby cafe, where we recorded some to-be funny video and had a great chat to get to know each other. Another unstructured time followed with people enjoying the beauty of nearby park and organizers putting the finishing touches to the agenda and venue.

Day and half full of „workshops“ on various topics, where people had to be active to get any result out of it. Also CTA preparation workshop with Seb, where I would say the crucial outcome to attendees was the level of detail they need to pay attention to not just when they want to pass the board but in real life as well.

Katka and Angela facilitating the workshop

Great presentations from the sponsors included, Elements.Cloud presenting their new AI features (and the platform itself was hugely promoted by Maria, their happy user), CapStorm introducing us to their solution allowing for having data outside Salesforce (if I got the main benefit right) and Adaptus presenting not just their antivirus solution (important at minimum for all companies running Experience Cloud) but also their work with bringing up the security framework for Salesforce (which looks really promising).

Most surprising part to me was the graphic artist who went from room to room, listened and draw pictures of what was going on as a summary of the day.

We finished the first day with a dinner on a boat cruising the Prague, the second day we went for the opposite and enjoyed dinner and view from the Zizkov tower.

Catching the subset from the Zizkov tower

We didn’t have as any attendees from the CZ/SK market as some expected, but the feedback was pretty consistent in why. The price itself, while high, wasn’t the challenge, the unclarity in what to expect and why my boss should send me was the main challenge. Hopefully next year people will understand the importance more and – while Kevin doesn’t want that – the number of attendees will grow.

Photos by Katka.

CzechDreamin

TLDR: 500 attendees at one place learning new things while networking and getting to know each other better

I would say this event was the main driver for all the other events which took place at Prague this week. The event grow from 250 people in 2019 to roughly 500 people this year, with roughly 50:50 between CZ/SK attendees and the rest of the world, which is pretty amazing achievement.

There were so many people this year, that we didn’t fit into the space we had allocated for badges and swag, it (again) surprised how huge the space is at KCP and where I planned two booths for sponsors extra one might fit. We had coffee and tea stand again and a lot of questions before the event whether tea will be available again. We oversold as we really want to give a chance to everyone, not sure the same will be true next year.

The rooms were packed, something we aimed for and super glad it happened, at least a bit of the Dreamforce experience. The Zoom room for the lunch was super awesome with plenty of space for people and just wonderful view at Prague. We also had a plenty of bean bags for some rest and they were heavily used.

Demojam, plushies, non Salesforce related closing keynote, which made you think how AI is different to people (not much actually), drinks after the event and a pub visit for those still with energy left.

What a great day, where I didn’t have time to see a single session (I saw one last year if I remember correctly), where we didn’t (and most attendees as well) post anything on social networks during the day but the posts which were coming after the event were super long and super positive, that’s the fuel for us.

Photos and presentations will be shared on the web.

Wine tour

TLDR: CzechDreamin doesn’t end on Friday evening, you should plan with us for the weekend as well

As is our tradition, there is always some bonus activity after the event. Historically it has been Prague tour, last year we also went for a trip to Pilsen, this year we step up the game and organized a night at Moravia, tasting some wines.

Originally I was scared by the three hours trip to get there, but people fully used the time to have a chat and get to know each other better. Quick lunch and short walk to the Lednice chateau, where I’ve probably never been to and which is super beautiful. Short trip to watch out tower where we got our first wines of the day, quick relax at hotel and cellar was ours for the night including the music, which started some dancing as well.

A lot of talks again during the night, breakfast in the morning and another 3 hours back to Prague, where people just didn’t want to go home but they continued to another location and most of them directly to the airport after that.

Professionals

Anytime people asked how much time I spend with putting the event together I say not that much. And this year, especially as the small hicups were quickly solved, I realized how important it is to work with professionals, who made the life so easy for me and at the same time allow me to look great.

Thank you:

Flat cafe
Impact Hub Prague K10 – great coworking space with awesome garden;
AV Media
CEELI Institute – the villa is just awesome;
Prague Catering
Zelená Zahrada
Jam & Co – where Asia meets Europe;
Prague Congress Centre
Zátiší Group
The Miners – I didn’t notice big queues this year, great job;
Meetea – people told me during the day „I tasted all the teas and they are all great“ and I replied with „actually they change them during the day so I don’t believe you had them all„;
Kolkovna – we brought 50 % more people than expected (thank you Bryan), but they managed;
Aurora – wine cellar which handled our changing requirements without any problems;
Student Agency – comfortable bus for our Moravian trip
SmileBox – somehow photos are part of any SF related event and we just follow;
Kytky od potoka – make the place nicer was our main goal this year, at the same time we didn’t want to spend money on booth made just for the day. Flowers were our way and hopefuly they made someone happy in the evening;
Lukáš Hrdlička – for the first time this year we provided presentation couch to selected speakers;
Evka Neuman a Pavel Humpolec – thank you for great photos.

That’s it

That was quite long, but this is the end for the time being. We plan to be back with CzechDreamin next year, we plan to extend our audience a bit with the single admins from small customers without partners, who might get the most from the event. And we are definitely looking for help from anyone who can somehow help, marketing isn’t the topic we are strong in.

See you next year? Or sooner elsewhere? London’s Calling is sold out, but YeurDreamin still have some tickets left.

Napiš komentář, díky!

Platform Developer II

26.4.202326.4.2023 • Salesforce • 0

This certification hasn’t been on my radar at all, as I’m not a developer, and this one is supposed to be the hardest one.

Two years ago Johann told me that he isn’t developer as well, but this one is doable. Ok, challenge accepted, after the CTA.

I did know that it is theoretical part and practical via superbadge, but I somehow didn’t properly check which superbadge. At the end I decided to do it quickly before they will upgrade it to LWC superbadge as I don’t really want to learn another thing. How surprised I’ve been that the superbadge is „only“ about VisualForce and APEX.

For the theoretical preparation I used the Focus on Force test, which I feel is even harder than the exam itself. It is (and the exam as well) surprisingly wide – going from VisualForce over Aura to LWC, obviously APEX is behind everything.

I learnt a few new things along the way, which is always the purpose why I do it. This time I remember the Continuation, which I haven’t been aware before at all, and that cacheable=true methods cannot be combined with DML operations. Besides that no really surprising things, which was surprising on its own.

The superbadge was kind of boring at the end – you know, writing all those tests and parts of the, pretty basic, code, not much challenge. The need to rewrite one of the classes into Queueable was the highlight.

Now I can claim to be PD2 certified as well and already checking which certification should be the next one.

Napiš komentář, díky!

Integration User

5.4.20233.5.2023 • Salesforce • 0

One of the quickest idea in terms of implementation time into the product – at Dreamforce 2022 during TTTC Alon Waisman asked why we need to pay full licence for all integration users, when security and trust is one of the Salesforce values. The idea, which came after 20+ years on the market, has been immediately approved and during TrailblazerDX 2023 new licences have been announced. So merely 6 months after the wish we all (I mean Enterprise and above) got 5 free licences we can use for integration and additional one costs just 10$/month.

Why we need it?

First of all, there are two types of integrations and you can use these users only for one of them. Inbound (where external system calls into the Salesforce) and Outbound (where Salesforce calls external system).

While Outbound happens under the logged-in user, the Inbound was troubling so far as either the system admin or some other user gave their credentials into the other system and all updates have been tracked under them. Not best it terms of security and accountability.

With 5 of these licences we can give each external system their own user with their own set of permissions really tweaked to what the system needs to create/update in Salesforce. We will see which system made which changes and when and can track why it happened more precisily.

How to do it?

Just change the user licence to the new Salesforce Integration one.

There is profile already prepared, but it doesn’t provide access to the objects. So next step is to create permission sets and assign them to the user as David Smith summarizes in his article.

Step two – assign permission set licence. Without that you won’t be really able to assign any permission set with wider access you will create.

David also opened an interesting question about oAuth authentication or reseting a security token, where it seems you might need to switch into a full licence to do these things and then switch back. At the same time Salesforce Help says that oAuth 2.0 flow should be the way to go.

Let’s do it

Now just find the time to do the switch with my customers. While it looks easy at first (just switch and you are done) the fact that you can play with the access rights should lead to really think about what the other system should be allowed to do and limit it as much as possible. And that thinking process takes time.

Napiš komentář, díky!

Net Zero Cloud with Ines Garcia

29.3.202328.3.2023 • Salesforce • 0

It all started in January, when Ines happily shared on LinkedIn that she passed the Net Zero Cloud accreditation exam and I asked, whether it is at least a bit practical or full of theory about different scope definitions.

Two months later she presented at Prague User Group to almost 30 people (while 60 signed up). And … holly shit!

First of all – global warming is most likely here and I don’t want to make fun of it. I do offset my emissions when travelling to Dreamforce for example and I was really curious about this new cloud. But sometimes it is just tempting.

When this message came into my email followed by statement that we don’t want global warming because crocodiles will be in our rivers (again), well … that’s what I call a bad joke.

But here we are, with Ines in (virtual) front of us starting her presentation. This women is all over the place – Agile practitioner, author of several books, foodie, biomimicry practitioner, climate change couch, the list goes on. And it makes sense, why limit ourselves to one thing when we are interested in multiple.

Ok, back to Net Zero Cloud.

By 2030 we should be net zero, no offsetting allowed anymore and this product should help companies.

The product is expensive (she didn’t say it, but we found on the website), I still feel it needs at least a few people to maintain it (meaning mainly the data), when we speak about the implementation work it looks like it mainly consist of data import, user training and most likely some API integration (which all make sense and would be awesome if the product is really that complete and doesn’t need more).

The data model is crazy. I need to buy a bigger screen to take a look at it, period.

It has tons of nice dashboards, it can auto calculate some data based on different „conversion rates“, etc.

But still, even after this hour long presentation, I don’t really get it.

The cloud should help companies monitor how close to zero they are. Fine.

All companies should be net zero, no offsetting. So when we organize CzechDreamin, all our suppliers will be net zero including air lines, so we don’t need to worry as we don’t produce anything, right? And because we cannot offset we don’t have many chances to make it better.

I feel I got lost somewhere, obviously need another half a day of explanation for like 5 years old. But that’s good, we just need to be prepared that I’m probably not the only one.

You can enjoy the recording and maybe you will understand the whole picture better than me. What I learnt is, that I don’t need this accreditation and that was important goal as well. And yes, there is a Trailhead as well.

Napiš komentář, díky!

CzechDreamin 2023 Agenda is ready

15.3.20239.3.2023 • Salesforce • 0

What is the hardest thing in running the CzechDreamin conference?

The first year I would say „finding sponsors“.
Second year „finding wider set of attendees“.
This year it is „selecting the speakers“.

While sponsors are major thing, as based on their money we basically run the conference (while the ticket price might look steep in Czechia it more or less cover the refreshment part and I doubt we can charge several times more). Attendees are important as well because without them the sponsors won’t be interested in.

Speakers are interesting area. What works suprisingly well in the Salesforce community is their eagerness to present and the fact that we can „just“ publish the call for speakers and have enough submissions to choose from. It doesn’t mean that we don’t hunt for specific speakers on top of that or that we aren’t light or not covering some topics at all.

We are super grateful for the growing interest from speakers and I’m delighted to see the grows of local speakers, exactly one of the reasons we started with the event.

So this year we had 160+ submitted abstracts and space just for roughly 40 of them. Great variaty of topics, which we wanted to include all, but simply didn’t have the room for all of them. DevOps, flows, Slack, integration – you name it we had it and at the end you can select one or two of each unless we want to a conference specialized on certain topics, but they are there already – DevOpsDreamin, AutomationDreamin.

Two days conference would help us to have space for more sessions, but at the same time it will be way more demanding on the attendees. Who knows, maybe next year. Till then you need to take what we have, check our agenda and buy a ticket if you are interested in. No recording or streaming planned, you need to visit us in person.

Napiš komentář, díky!