Dreamforce 2019 summary

Since the moment I got back from Dreamforce everyone asks – how was it? And my answer is – super short and I’m not really sure I attended any session at all.

This was my fourth Dreamforce and it is pretty funny how each of them was different. In 2016 I packed my schedule with sessions and I learnt a LOT. 2017 I co-presented about automation in the theatre and got an invite to see the future of flow, which was awesome and I still look forward for some things we saw there. At 2018 I attended very little sessions, had one on my own, helped at Trailhead area and found some „secret“ locations where I could learn more behind the scene. This year I saw maybe two sessions, I remember close to nothing from them (sorry presenters), I helped, I didn’t speak and I enjoyed meeting people I know from online.

My calendar has been packed as always, two to four sessions at every single time, but I use them more as a reference what I want to eventually check (and already know I probably won’t have time).

I really enjoyed the WIT event on Monday, see how those initiatives as Supermums, Ladies be Architect, RAD Women, WIT Devs progress further, how much women they draw, make me really proud about the Salesforce ecosystem, which is more 50:50 than traditional IT.

WIT group meetup

I remember gate crashing CTA’s session and be quickly kicked out, but having a great conversation about it later that evening, which won’t happen otherwise and which was super beneficial. Looks like Salesforce recognise that when you finish both architect certificates you are still far away from CTA and it is expensive for every one when people fail the exam. So they prepare some steps on the way, maybe some online/web screening to prioritise people who might be more ready. Make sense.

Architect Certification Path

Eric’s breakfast is a tradition and I enjoy it every time (far enough, I didn’t enjoy it that much last year thanks to different location). Four people at a table, it is either hit or miss, but at Salesforce ecosystem it must be really hard to get the „miss“ part. Always a great debate plus breakfast.

Then they talked me into attending the keynote. Being at 6th row wasn’t bad at all, the waiting wasn’t that bad as well as I had time to catch up with people I know mostly online. The protester and watching body guards looking around really cautiously. Also the first time I watched something in real time and online at the same time (MVP Slack) and it was great to have this „cross“ system conversation.

The AppExchange street team was great experience, but either I did it wrong or people didn’t have that much need to take a picture with us, as we weren’t giving away money as year before. Still hope that some of those who took photo with me won those 50$.

AppStreet team

5k run was great morning exercise, watching the Sun going out, having fun with people, running quickest in last 5 years+. And sore legs the rest of the week, but I will do it again.

Sunrise at San Francisco

I also had a few meetings arranged in advanced – which is not typical to me – and looks like both will have successful outcome, watch for CzechDreamin agenda and sponsors.

Small help to Ladies be Architect with their session, hosting Circle of Success (still need to think how to make sure that every table will be a success as it depends on people a lot, tempted to have it at CzechDreamin and unsure about the outcome at the same time), helping with leading workshops at the Customer 360 – showing people how to do thing.

Getting signed books about DevOps and Community Cloud, chatting with both authors and invite them to Czech Republic – you guess why. And, maybe, who knows … And I missed the OrgConfessions book.

RFP - we want something unique

Concert, where most of the Czech team by some miracle got together and enjoyed the music together. Such a great idea to copy the UK WhatsApp group to sync all on site together.

Equality party, which wasn’t probably that packed as other and you know what – those people are quite normal. Actually, am I one of them when I attended it? Something we aren’t really used to from CZ, but great to experience it and realise that it is normal.

Secret session for MVPs only, with awesome inside information and great chat why not to surface those information to public, as it cannot really hurt anything but provide a lot of value and remove a bit of disappointment. And then session for Dreamin‘ events organiser, where we found out how many of us there are, awesome demojam and some future plans. Great to see that we are finally on official Salesforce calendar and that they push AEs and other internal people to learn more about such events and push to customers as well.

Community Groups Gathering

I did know in advance that I have no chance to learn much myself, so I asked all the group leaders in Prague to do one meetup together. On December 4th we got 97 people at the Deloitte offices together with nine speakers and we summarised what it was about for the community. We run the event in two rooms at the same time and I wanted to be in both of them, meaning I didn’t see anything. Luckily I do have the presentations, so I can do the summary based on them:

  • Evergreen – probably the biggest Developer announcement (I also heard that the Developer keynote was really good), which will be paid, but allow us to do things not possible now – use node.js to do all things possible such as FTP connections, PDF generation and much more, while also allow people from outside the SF ecosystem to play part in it. Which might also mean we need to learn something new and also shows that SF developer probably cannot cover everything anymore;
  • Lightning Web Component isn’t something new, we already know the benefits (speed and ability to use „normal“ front-end developers), they will be unit testable with Jest, which might mean that in the future we have to write the tests as part of the deployment (if for nothing else), don’t forget security (scoping) and effectivity (minimise the DOM re-drawing);
  • Einstein and rolling out new features – the opportunity scoring will be rolled-out to everyone during next year, Einstein Search should also be available to everyone and of course Voice is still here and more prominent than before;
  • dynamic forms will be huge game changer, looking forward to it and at the same time scared how we will manage it;
  • the term „Lightning“ will be used in proper places only (no Lightning Sync for example as it has nothing to do with the UI, which is the „real“ Lightning), at the same time the Customer 360 will be everywhere but basically it just means „the platform“ (and it should be free for any client with 2+ clouds);
  • dynamic emails in Marketing Cloud with direct interaction from users. Awesome and scary at the same time;
  • DevOps/CD/CI – plenty of sessions about this, looks like the future even admins has to learn, curious what it will mean in terms of 3rd parties who currently provide the solutions and whether Salesforce will buy some of them to do it on platform;
  • IdeaExchange – we heard enough about the changes, what I kind of like is the idea of coins, where everyone will get a fix amount of coins to be spend on ideas and those ideas with the highest amount on them WILL be delivered. Which is interesting change compared to now-a-days as we had unlimited amount of likes and weren’t „forced“ to think about what is important.
Prague Community Groups together

Next year

This year Dreamforce sold out in about 3 weeks, next year it will happen on November 9 – 12. I plan to be there again, my favourite hostel is already sold out. What about you, did you put it in your budget for training for next year? And what about investing yourself, I’m pretty sure it can be up to 10 % of your income. And that’s the amount we should invest in our self 🙂

You can find all the presentations from our meetup at Google Drive together with some photos. The next Prague Administrator Group will take place probably in March 2020, the topic is still unknown but you can at least join our group to get the email once we know more.

BTW: we finished our biggest meetup so far with raffle and donated all the money we got to Postbellum, who documents the memories of witnesses of the important historical phenomenon of the 20th century, and Zdravotni klaun Red Noses, who heal by laugh at hospitals. You bet, they were surprised.

mini Dreamforces aka Dremin event

Dreamforce is the ultimate dream for many, but maybe the wrong dream. It is the biggest for sure, but you might learn more at TrailheaDX or some community run events, which happen across Europe (and other continents) as well. Put one of these on your schedule for next year:

Still want more?

There are some other great articles on the internet – check the ultimate collection of links from Salesforce, YouTube channel with presentations, top 10 announcements by Christine Marshall on SalesforceBen or by David Liu, Ines’ Dreamforce, Gemma’s busy week.

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