I’m happy to announce that my book, “Salesforce Advanced Administrator Certification Guide: Unleash your Salesforce administration superpowers with an advanced training certification guide”, made it to BookAuthority’s Best New Salesforce eBooks.
BookAuthority collects and ranks the best books in the world, and it is a great honor to get this kind of recognition. Thank you for all your support!
The book is available for purchase on Amazon.
This guest post has been written by Stas Dunayev, a Managing Director and Valentina Naumenko, a Head of Marketing at Advanced Communities (London based consultancy), a highly innovative team devoted to Salesforce Community Cloud evangelisation.
I decided to give AC a spot on my Nerd At Work because I used their great product on a personal project regarding the Salesforce Ohana Italia, and what a better way to promote a product that is available for free for our Salesforce Ohana! (ed)
We are Advanced Communities and we specialise in Salesforce Community Cloud. We have lots of Community Cloud components on AppExchange and we would like to introduce our most popular component – AC Ideas.
The main point of our Community Ideas Component is to facilitate the Ideation process. In plain English, this means your customer or partner or even your own employee can create an Idea and other members of your customer/partner/employee community can then view, comment and, most importantly, vote for that Idea. After voting, you can see which Ideas are the most popular ones and decide whether to implement them or not.
The Ideation process can be employed by companies and organisations of all sizes and across all industries as an important part of product design.
To stay one step ahead of your competitors, you need first and foremost to listen to your users as this allows you to succeed in both growing your business and retaining your existing customers. You might be familiar with the Ideation process already as Salesforce as a company uses Ideas extensively for its own products. On the well-known IdeaExchange site (https://trailblazer.salesforce.com/ideaSearch), Salesforce users have created thousands of ideas suggesting improvements and missing features and collectively contributing to the success of new Salesforce releases. If Salesforce uses it, why can’t your company do the same?
Ideas Management used for Salesforce Community Cloud platform can provide fantastic benefits for any business: it allows firms to interact with clients as well as partners and to engage with their personnel within a community thus providing an opportunity to generate fresh ideas.
The Ideation process includes the following steps:
AC Ideas, an Idea Management created by Advanced Communities, provides you with a complete set of tools at each stage of the Ideation process. AC Ideas can help you leverage the power of Community Cloud and crowdsource new ideas as well as collect employee feedback and provide valuable insights to help you grow your business.
By employing AC Ideas, you will be able to:
AC Ideas is a lightning solution developed for Salesforce Community Cloud which allows you to get invaluable feedback from your customers and to identify their pain points or missing features in your products and services. The ideation process can and should help you with planning and creating a roadmap for your products.
1. After installing the component and setup of its settings, your users can start generating new Ideas. To do this, they can login to community, go to the Ideas page and click ‘Post an Idea’ and fill in details – the key information about an idea: its title, categories and description.
2. Now a new idea is posted! For more efficient management of published ideas there is a list of useful features:
3. And finally, you get a clear structure of your ideas, obtained by using a Categories Hierarchy, as well as Filters and Advanced Search, that allows you to organise your Ideas page in the most efficient way.
Since the component was launched on AppExchange it has been installed multiple times and is in use by thousands of companies and organisations.
The main version is free and does not have any restrictions.
A paid Enterprise version is also available with lots of extra features and is in use by companies such as Australia Post, Mulesoft and Financial Force from this link.
Today’s guest post is delivered by Gilad David Maayan, a technology writer who has worked with over 150 technology companies including SAP, Samsung NEXT, NetApp and Imperva, producing technical and thought leadership content that elucidates technical solutions for developers and IT leadership.
The consumers of 2020 want to access and purchase products and services anytime and anywhere. They are always connected and engage with e-commerce brands through chatbots, social media, and marketing emails.
Consumers often expect to instantly find and buy the product they are looking for. This is why e-retailers want to create a smart, and easy shopping experience in every media channel. You can achieve these goals through the use of Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
Salesforce recently announced some new features in its Commerce Cloud platform. New features include artificial intelligence, inventory availability and more. Read on to explore some of these new features.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that lets you manage products, promotions, content, and pricing. From the operational point of view, the platform offers different functionalities over multiple channels like mobile, web, social, and store. SFCC integrates with your order fulfillment channel and with your back-office tools.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud key features include:
Top-shelf shopping experiences are critical in the competitive e-commerce landscape. One way of doing so is through Artificial Intelligence (AI). That is why Salesforce recently integrated AI-powered features into the Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Below is a quick review of the newest Salesforce Commerce Cloud features and how they can transform e-commerce brands.
The term visual search refers to a product search, which is run with a photo instead of text and keywords. Recent reports reveal that 62% of millennials prefer visual search over any other search technology. In addition, brands that offer voice and visual search will increase their revenue by 30% in 2021. The visual search market is estimated to reach $28.4 billion by 2027.
To address increasing customer expectations, Salesforce announced the Einstein Visual Search. Einstein is an AI-based feature that enables users to search, shop, and discover promotions through photos. Shoppers upload an image from their mobile device and the Einstein Visual Search automatically finds a visually similar product.
An AI algorithm improves the search capability of Einstein when various users upload different images. SFCC enables image optimization and uploads from smartphones through services like Cloudinary. Retailers can extend the feature to include uploads from laptops or desktops.
Recommendation engines enable retailers to offer the right product to the right customer at the right time. The result is an increased conversion rate and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Experts indicate that up to 31% of e-commerce store revenue comes from product offer personalization. Another report indicates that 35% of Amazon’s revenue comes from its recommendation engine.
Formerly, the Einstein recommendation engine was only available in the SFCC storefront. The new update enables retailers to integrate Einstein recommendations beyond their e-commerce site through an API. Merchants can now personalize user experience on mobile apps and across customer service and marketing channels.
This new feature enables e-commerce sores to activate a fulfillment center and in-store inventory across multiple digital channels in real-time. As a result, retailers can use programs like buy online, browse by store or, pick-up in store. The new feature also supports spike periods with high-volume requests like holidays.
Developer sandboxes isolate development work from your production environment until you are ready to deploy changes. Sandboxes provide a training environment for developers and enable them to test changes against users and versions of production data. You can set up a sandbox in minutes and deliver innovation to the e-commerce website faster.
The new Commerce API Explorer allows developers to search across an API library and test different functions and calls. This new one-stop-shop for all Commerce APIs in a single portal and easy-to-use user interface allows developers to design and test new experiences more efficiently.
SFCC has recently changed its pricing model to a range that enables smaller merchants to use the platform. The new pricing is based on a Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) model and offers three core options—Starter, Growth and Unlimited. GVM is the total gross revenue of an e-commerce store in a given period.
The Starter option is for single store retailers and stores with up to two price books. The pricing starts at 1% of GMV. The Growth option is for retailers with up to five stores and up to 10 price books. The pricing is set to 2% of GMV. The Unlimited option is for merchants with larger demands.
The new pricing is more appealing because there are no significant ‘upfront’ license costs. However, this approach may not appeal to a niche business model or non-standard audiences. SFCC features are mainly focused on what the majority of B2C retailers find compelling.
Digital commerce is no longer just a shopping cart. In fact, 21.8% of the world’s population shops online, which makes online shopping responsible for 11.9% of all retail revenue worldwide. For this reason, retailers can leverage Salesforce Commerce Cloud to deliver enhanced shopping experience through AI-powered commerce services, APIs and a robust partner ecosystem. Some of the most well-known brands use Commerce Cloud, including Under Armour, Fila, GoPro and more.
For more info about the Commerce Cloud product click here.
It’s been another exciting year in the Salesforce ecosystem. We’ve seen expanded strategic partnerships, brand new products, and revolutionary integrations made possible by Salesforce’s savvy acquisitions in recent years (MuleSoft and Tableau, to name just a couple).
Salesforce is one of the fastest-moving tech ecosystems on the planet. That’s why it’s so important to stay on top of what’s happening in the world of a once humble CRM technology that’s now growing into the most-dominant business software across all markets and industries. We helped create a monster!
Released annually, the Mason Frank Salary Survey is the largest independent study of the Salesforce community. It’s an invaluable resource for Salesforce professionals, partners, and customers looking to gather insights into the working culture of the technology ecosystem, and to benchmark salaries, benefits and market trends.
With thousands of Salesforce professionals and employers surveyed, we can use Mason Frank’s research on product trends and job market depth to steer growth in businesses using Salesforce technology. For candidates, learning which skill sets, technologies, and certifications maximise earning potential is extremely useful.
You can, of course, download the report in full for free on their website, but here are my highlights from the 2019/20 survey report, along with findings that may be of particular interest to Italian members of the Ohana.
What is the top Salesforce product in 2020?
It’s unsurprising to see Sales Cloud maintain its position as the top Salesforce product in 2020, given that the technology is ultimately sales-focused, as well as the market dominance of Sales Cloud in the CRM world.
Service Cloud has risen to the third most-used Salesforce product over the last months, and this is unsurprising given the recent developments in the technology.
Just recently at Dreamforce, it was announced that Service Cloud would now benefit from integration with Amazon Connect, empowering contact centre agents with access to customer information across multiple disparate systems. Service Cloud Voice will also perform real-time sentiment analysis to gauge common customer problems and position relevant solutions to reduce average case handling time. It’s a great time to be a service cloud user!
Which Salesforce certifications maximise earning potential?
IT research firm IDC recently predicted that the demand for Salesforce technology would create 4.4 million new jobs by 2025. This is fantastic news for Salesforce professionals, who are already in high demand, but which certifications will open up the most opportunities and earning potential?
Of all respondents to Mason Frank’s survey, 71% were Salesforce-certified, with the Admin certification being the most popular cert (88% of certified talent held the Salesforce Certified Administrator credential). Of those who weren’t certified, 72% said they were working towards this certification.
Salesforce Developer was recently named in the world’s top 10 jobs, and we can see from the report that only 36% of certified talent hold the Platform Developer I certification; only 10% had achieved Platform Developer II. Given the current and anticipated skills gap, balanced against the low percentage of Salesforce-certified Developers, there’s clearly opportunity for those looking to move into this role.
Certification in any form is likely to open earning potential. The survey found that 44% of certified talent experienced a salary increase after certification, with an average pay rise of 24%. What’s more, two-thirds of these certified professionals indicated their employer paid for their cert exam, so risk/reward is firmly in the favour of ambitious professionals.
What other factors impact earning potential?
While certifications can count for quite a lot, they aren’t everything. By far the largest factor impacting earning potential is experience, with 86% of survey respondents considering this to be significant, compared to just 62% who felt the same about Salesforce certifications. Similarly, 76% also considered exposure to large products to be an important factor.
Only 31% of respondents thought a university degree was an essential factor in earning potential, and 30% considered it not important at all. This question was extended to whether they thought a degree was important when working generally with Salesforce, and 63% indicated they didn’t consider it important. Given the culture of the ‘accidental admin’, these feelings support the idea that Salesforce is an accessible technology even to those without a technical or academic background.
An Italian working in Salesforce
Members of the Milano and Cagliari Salesforce Developer Groups will share the sentiment that it can be difficult to find accurate local market data on Salesforce, but fortunately Mason Frank drills down salaries across all major European countries.
We can see that the average salary across core Salesforce roles (Admin/Dev/Functional & Technical Consultant) in Italy tends to start at around €20,000. Junior Admins can earn up to €26,000, while Junior Consultants and Developers can command salaries between €30,000 and €35,000.
Moving into senior roles, Admins tend to max out at around €32,000, which is where most make the jump into a specialist role. Senior Developers, Functional and Technical Consultants earn between €40,000 and €50,000.
Salesforce continues to enhance functionality of Marketing Cloud, primarily through integrations, making this skillset very in demand. It’s worth noting that even Junior Marketing Cloud Consultants and Specialists can start at €30,000 and earn up to €48,000 when they accrue enough experience. Looking for a specialist area? This could be it.
I hope this exploration of Mason Frank’s findings has been helpful—you should definitely be using this type of market intelligence to set you apart from your peers, so use it when finding your next job, employee, or Salesforce solution to fully benefit from the report.
Looking for more insights? Download the Mason Frank Salary Survey 19/20 in full for unique sentiments on technologies, salaries, and culture in the Salesforce ecosystem.
This post is brought to you by Luca Miglioli, an Information System Analyst that works at WebResults (Engineering group) in the Solution Team, an highly innovative team devoted to Salesforce products evangelization.
Some months ago, Google announced a secure-by-default model for cookies, enabled by a new cookie classification system. Changes concern in particular to the SameSite attribute: on a cookie, this attribute controls its cross-domain site behavior, that is if no SameSite attribute is specified, the Chrome 80 release sets cookies as SameSite=Lax by default while previous to the Chrome 80 release (the current one), the default is SameSite=None.
Ok, but what does it mean?
To safeguard more websites and their users, the new secure-by-default model assumes all cookies should be protected from external access unless otherwise specified: this is important in a cross-site scenario, where websites typically integrate external services for advertising, content recommendations, third party widgets, social embeds, etc. and external services may store cookies in your browser and subsequently access those file.
These changes are being made in Chrome, but it’s likely other browsers will follow soon: Mozilla and Microsoft have also indicated intent to implement these kind of changes in Firefox and Edge, on their own timelines. While the Chrome changes are still a few months away, it’s important that developers who manage cookies assess their readiness as soon as possible: that’s why Salesforce rapidly notifies its customers and partners with an annoucement (contained in the latest release notes, Spring ’20).
Especially, the announcement explains that:
http:// and not https:// then you’ll need to get some form of SSL certificate. It’s probably worthwhile checking all of the links to your pages to make sure they are directing the the https:// version of the page. For example, make sure you are using the HTTPS links if you are embedding Pardot forms on your websites: this was not enabled for our organisation by default, so it’s likely that your organisation may need to do this.SameSite cookie change, you need to investigate your implementation code to ensure cookies are being utilized appropriately.Ok, this looks a little bit scary, but don’t worry!
First, developers and admins can already test the new Chrome’s cookie behavior on the sites or cookies they manage, simply going to chrome://flags in Chrome (type that in the URL bar) and enable the “SameSite by default cookies” and “Cookies without SameSite must be secure” experiments.
Second, developers can still opt in to the status quo of unrestricted use by explicitly setting SameSite=None; Secure: only cookies with the SameSite=None; Secure setting will be available for external access, provided they are being accessed from secure connections.
Third, If you manage cookies that are only accessed in a same-site context (same-site cookies) there is no required action on your part; Chrome will automatically prevent those cookies from being accessed by external entities, even if the SameSite attribute is missing or no value is set.
That’s all! You can still find more detailed info here:
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