with Aslah Hussain

• Podcast •   0

We recorded this podcast with Aslah in June, but somehow I never found the time to cut it and publish. Luckily there is a new year and new opportunities to follow-up on things you didn’t have time before.

Notes:

  • even Salesforce developer can be accidental (Salesforce) developer, it isn’t just admin thing;
  • Java and JavaScript knowledge make a good start, all governor limits will surprise you;
  • juniors know that Google might have the answers but feel bad about it, but seniors know it is totally ok to Google things;
  • being a „full-stack“ developer probably makes sense;
  • being „just“ a developer is not enough, you should aim for consultant/architect knowledge as well;
  • proper tests are hard;
  • being on a small project as a junior will give you more responsibilities and probably quicker growth.

We also spoke about life at PwC, Dreamforce, CzechDreamin (call for speakers is open!), Salesforce MVPs and a few other things. All in all we had a great chat which we need to repeat one time. And maybe I can have such a great chat with someone else as well, what do you think, will you find time for me?

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

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Čtyři tisíce týdnů, Oliver Burkeman

• Nezařaditelné •   0
Čtyři tisíce týdnů, Oliver Burkeman

Knihy o produktivitě, jak toho zvládnout více, jak dělat ty správné věci, jak pracovat se svojí energií, jak mít čistý stůl. A pak je tady Oliver, který to celé postaví na hlavu.

Čím produktivnější zvládnete být, tím hůř pro vás!

Protože si pořád hledáme další věci co dělat, které kupovat, lepší sousedy, ke kterým vzhlížíme, nové výzvy. Všechno, abychom svůj čas úplně naplnili. Jenže máme k dispozici řádově pouze 4000 týdnů života, Verne dokonce v jedné ze svých knih psal o „pouhých“ 3000 týdnech. Takže cpát nebo užívat?

E-mail je bezkonkurenční nástroj umožňující rychle odpovědět na velké množství zpráv – ale nebýt e-mailu, všechny ty zprávy by vám vůbec nechodily.

  • díky Apple Pay nemusíte hledat drobné po kapsách, jenže kdybyste hledali, tak byste možná některé impulsivní nákupy neudělali;
  • Seamless/Bolt/Wold/Dáme jídlo vás zbaví muk rozhodování co si objednat v restauraci, ale kdybyste se tam vydali tak podpoříte toho člověka, který pracuje u vás v ulici a pomáhá držet komunitu (Tomáš Hajzler k tomu má vždy asi nejvíc co říci);

Všechny techniky time managementu byste měli poměřovat tím, jestli vám pomáhají zanedbávat ty správné věci.

Zaplaťte nejdřív sobě

S penězi to někteří zvládají – pravidelné příkazy, které ihned po příchodu výplaty část peněz odsunou na spoření/investice/horší časy. Lepší než utrácet a až před další výplatou investovat to co zbylo. Když se mají freelanceři posunout k metodě Profit First, tak už to trochu bolí. A že možná peníze nepotřebujeme až v důchodu je zase úplně brutální myšlenka.

S časem to ale děláme úplně jinak.

Soustřeďte se

Warren Buffet prý dal radu, aby si člověk sepsal své priority, seřadil je, pak se soustředil na top 5 a u všech ostatních si dával pozor na to, aby je ignoroval.

Oliver zase zmiňuje knihu Personal Kanban od Jima Bensona a Tonianne DeMaria Barryové, která doporučuje zvolit si maximálně tři činnosti, kterým se budu věnovat a další požadavky musí počkat, dokud jednu z těch věcí nedokončím. V kombinaci s článkem o kapacitním plánování podle energie by to mohlo jít hezky dohromady.

Koníčky: věnovat se aktivitě, v níž nemáte žádnou šanci dosáhnout výjmečnosti, znamená na chvíli odsunout stranou úzkostnou potřebu „využívat čas dobře“.

Tipy, jak se smířit se svou konečností

Samotný závěr knihy, který vám dokáže, jak nečekaná ta kniha je:

  • berte produktivitu jako zdroj s pevně nastaveným objemem;
  • pracujte postupně, ne souběžně;
  • předem se rozhodněte, v čem neuspějete;
  • soustřeďte se na to, co už jste zvládli, nejen na to, co zbývá;
  • nerozmělněte svůj aktivismus;
  • využívejte nudné, jednoúčelové technologie;
  • hledejte novost v běžných věcech;
  • buďte vztahovým „výzkumníkem“;
  • pěstujte spontánní štědrost;
  • praktikujte nicnedělání.

Jo, takhle kniha je prostě úplně jiná. Naprosto nečekaná, jak ji Jan Melvil mohl vydat, jsem si říkal většinu doby. A to je přesně to otevírání mysli, které je nutné, které ukazuje, že možná na ten čas, který tady máme, bychom měli nahlížet trochu jinak. Což zní až moc hluboce.

Zkrátka a prostě – investovat čas do téhle knížky může stát za to. Asi vás to změní a ta změna asi bude překvapivá. No a co?

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Salesforce Associate Certification

• Salesforce •   0

The question I’ve been asked on every training this year and to which I probably have different answer than some other people. What a perfect opening for an article about a new certification Salesforce released a while ago.

Do I need certification to find a job?

And my answer is no, even though I love certifications and have plenty of them.

Actually, there are two perspective I can think of:

  • when looking for a job with client, it might be beneficial. At least in Czechia there aren’t many administrators with any certification, which will immediately give you some extra points. Also the smaller clients might not be able to evaluate your skills properly;
  • when joining partners or bigger customers, they are able to evaluate your knowledge properly and know that the practical experience is more important than a title.

Salesforce Associate – when you have no experience

That’s the moment when Salesforce brought the Associate certification, which should be your opener to the SF world. Its content is pretty interesting and shows what SF cares about – reports, data model, what is generally possible on the platform, what is around the platform (community groups, trailhead). I especially like the non-technical part, which is something even long-term admins are not aware about and used to use.

Also the certification is cheaper and shorter, which might be a great start for new joiners as a first win, which will remove a bit of uncertainty from taking additional certs.

And that’s exactly the point why I might suggest this cert as the first for any new joiner. Still not sure it should/will make a difference between hire/no-hire, but might be a great start to your new career.

Additional resources:

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Winter ’23 Release Notes

• Salesforce •   0
Salesforce Winter '23 logo

I’m just two months or so late with my reading, made it just in time when Salesforce starts rolling Spring release to their pre-release sandboxes. And there are a few interesting points:

  • Interactive Einstein Search Answers is just in pilot and while I originally didn’t pay much attention I liked it on second reading – it will search the knowledgebase and return just the important abstract plus a link to full article;
  • structure of custom report type when creating report – in last version they brough the list of objects & fields to the New Report screen, now you can see also what are the join details;
  • second interesting feature for new report is in beta – you can filtr on which (custom) report type specific field is included. This makes me wonder how many custom report types is normal in instances as I rarely create them;
  • Tableau and Tableau together. I mean now you can publish content from Tableau Online („full Tableau“) into CRM Analytics dashboard. I do wonder how many clients use both of these products and whether this overlap is the right step, but can definitely save some extra work;
  • it is almost time for Dynamic Forms – now they do support also Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities, if I’m not mistaken the Cases are the only „important“ standard object missing. And then rock and roll and have fun with migrations;
  • delete unused values on picklist fields might be a big life saver especially when you want to delete a lot of those values. Previously you had to go one by one which took a lot of time, now you can do it in bulk;
  • set field level security on permission sets during field creation is in beta but super important step in moving from profiles;
  • filtr the Change Events stream is really nice as there is a limit on delivered events, so if you can limit it on the subscriber side it awesome;
  • you can stream Salesforce Events into Amazon EventBridge, so if you already use it no need to change anything, just plug Salesforce in;
  • the Optimization Hub in Field Service which lets you track the improvements looks good, not sure it also covers the „what-if“ analysis or rather show hard data;
  • another Field Service thing – bundling appointment. So far there wasn’t such thing and we had to be creative or develop something special, now you can bundle multiple smaller one into „one bigger“;
  • Lightning Web Component support in the Field Service Mobile App is potentially a big thing as so far that app doesn’t allow for much customizations;
  • Automotive Cloud, who cares. But there is one interesting feature multiple (non-automotive) customers might like as well – Lead Line Items which allows you to record interest in products on lead level and will convert into Opportunity Line Items during lead conversion. Great idea, why I didn’t think about it yet?
  • Financial Cloud brings the same feeling but hey, all the ARC related components are pretty cool and would be great to be part of the core platform. Dtto for the Interest component;
  • ToDo list can be part of Utility bar. That might be big!
  • absolutely the biggest feature for me – when sending list email you can now choose from which org-wide address it will be send;
  • record-triggered flow and update of related records – so far one of the biggest reasons to stay with Process Builder as I didn’t want to create loop and all the fancy things around, now it is out of the box in the update element;
  • IN and NOT IN was another pain in flow and collections solved only with APEX, not anymore. A big win!
  • lookup flow component supports more records to be selected;
  • MFA to be (finally?) enforced in Spring ’23, probably time to prepare customers.

And with that my read through 723 pages is over and I probably have two months before the next release. What did you find interesting in the release notes or just in my notes?

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You need an app for your event! Really?

• Salesforce •   0

Topic around which we dance from the first CzechDreamin. We tested a few different apps, heard feedback on another few and still didn’t solve it. It was also one point on my list of things to check while attending French Touch Dreamin (FTD) last week.

On top of all those hassles there are emails from the providers of such applications with „thank you for you interest, we will raise our prices because we put a lot of new features in it.“

And I realised how important it is to understand your needs to get the solution you really want. And probably how old I am or why I would not be a good product owner. Or maybe I’ll be perfect one?

What was my experience

FTD probably got the full package – agenda, sponsors, networking, community, polls, leader board, q&a, maps, ….

Well, having agenda was super cool, be able to schedule it in advance and have it ready on my mobile phone.

Sponsors – I do understand their needs and I really liked that the app was connected with the physical badge and I didn’t have to open the app to be scanned.

Networking – a few people reached out to me in advanced, which was pleasant, and we were able to schedule a meeting in advanced or just agree that we will catch each other.

Community & leader board – oh man. This is the place I realised I don’t really need. It felt like a great idea how to draw people to communicate, but I rather dropped back to my normal channels on Twitter/LinkedIn, because I want to share my posts with wider community, not necessary with other attendees. I would also say that due to the leader board the communication went sideways with tons of obsolete topics just to get the points and there was no real value to me only noise.

What we probably need

The real life experience allowed me to think about what I feel we need for CzechDreamin:

  • lead scanning, ideally based on generated QR on badges;
  • agenda;
  • polls might be nice would – mainly speakers – use it;
  • Q&A – as above;
  • networking – not bad, just need to make sure no spam is going on and probably on the border of GDPR;
  • sync with Eventbrite needed.

Everything else we will switch off probably anyway, so looks like we don’t need full blown solution with tons of features, but something simple will be enough, maybe even two (one for attendees and one for sponsors) solutions will be ok.

Any recommendation? Yes, we are price sensitive 🙂

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