More then 3 months from the last Reindeer Release say hello to the ORGanizer for Salesforce Giraffe Release (0.6.8.4).
Why a Giraffe, you ask?
Like a Giraffe points its head up to the sky, the Giraffe Release points toward release 1.0, when we’ll finally go out of beta, closing an almost 3 years old path since its first release 0.1 in September 2016.
I’ve worked a lot on stability and bug fixing in these months, reviewing tens of issues and suggestions, provided by my beloved ORGanusers who support my day by day work.
A brand new sponsor
It’s also a pleasure to introduce you to our next sponsor NativeVideo for the next months, starting from the current release!
Founded in London in 2018, NativeVideo is on a mission to bring businesses and people closer together with the power of Video.
NativeVideo is the platform that, once installed from the AppExchange, enables video recording and browsing as a native functionality inside Salesforce.
The company has already released two “extension packages” that customise the solution to 2 specific use cases:
LeadGenVideo demand generation / deal nurturing thanks to video messages that include both classic webcam video recording and screen recording
TalentVideo designed for those companies that use Salesforce for their recruitment and adds video interviews to the process, with a very well designed workflow and collaboration features.
NativeVideo customers have customised the NativeVideo platform and the use of Video to their needs on other use cases, like Service – screen recording sent by the service representative to answer questions and solve bugs, CPQ – a walkthrough screen recording video where the offer is explained when it is sent to the customer, Customer feedback / testimonial – inviting customers to answer a few questions on video to provide feedback on the service and results they are receiving, and many more.
Jump to NativeVideo landing page to say hello and thank them for helping the ORGanizer to keep the hard work going!
What’s new with the Giraffe?
First we have new consolidated limits for logins storage:
Approaching to release 1.0 the number of logins that can be stored with the free edition of the ORGanizer will gradually decrease. The number of logins will be limited in the free edition but all the other features will always be kept free.
Pro version can be purchased from the Chrome Web Store and now using Promo Codes (only available on Chrome version as of now):
A promo code is strictly related to the user email address and has an expiration date, and conveys the same enhanced limits of the Pro version in-app purchase.
Why a promo code?
To allow companies to mass purchase ORGanizer licenses or for promotions or free trials.
Know your email address: needed to get your email address for Promo Code verification (your email address is never sent to anyone but only used to validate your codes, if any)
Read and change data on a number of websites:
force.com, salesforce.com, visualforce.com, documentforce.com, salesforce-communities.com: main Salesforce domains
organizer-api.enree.co: Promo Code verification endpoint. This endpoint is called only after Promo code validation (if any)
And more and more enhancements and bug fixes
Read the change log for the whole list of what’s inside this new release, and see you in the next release!
This blog has been verified by Rise: Rb4a7093bc3979124c781aae186805e25
Let’s talk about a great new addition of the Spring’19 platform release to the Salesforce Dev world, the Lightning Web Components framework, with our guest blogger Priscilla Sharon, Salesforce Business Solution Executive for DemandBlue.
DemandBlue is in the business of helping its customers maximize their Salesforce investment through predictable outcomes. As we thrive in an era of cloud-based Infrastructure, Platform and Software services, DemandBlue has pioneered “Service-as-a-Service” through a value-based On Demand Service model that drives bottom-line results. They foster innovation through “Continuous Engagement and On Demand Execution” that offers their customers Speed, Value and Success to achieve their current and future business objectives.
Salesforce launched Lightning Web Components as part of Spring ’19 pre-release to enable a
quicker and easier way to program applications on the Salesforce Lightning
platform. It engages modern Javascript innovations such as web components,
custom elements, shadow DOM and more. Lightning Web
Components is the Salesforce implementation of Lightweight frameworks built as
per the web standards. It provides specialized salesforce services in addition to the
core stack, such as Base Lightning Components, Lightning Data Service, User
Interface API, etc.
Read on to discover how the Lightning Web Components fuses Web components programming model with Salesforce metadata and services to deliver unparalleled performance and productivity.
With Lightning Web Components, we are giving developers a standards-driven JavaScript model for building enterprise apps on Lightning. Every time we release a new platform capability we see an acceleration of innovation in our 150,000 customer base, and we are excited to see what our community of developers will do with Lightning Web Components.
Mike Rosenbaum, EVP of Product, Salesforce
Why Lightning Web Components
Lightning Web Components is like a newer version of Lightning Components with additional features.
Knowledge Domain – Developers who know Web Components are familiar with Salesforce Lightning Web Components out-of-the-box. Aura is proprietary, so the better you know the web standards, the better you’ll have of skills that can be used outside Salesforce.
Better Execution – Lightning Web Components leverages built-in browser security features from Web Components standards, which reduces the level of custom coding, which means they run faster and are more consistent in how they ensure security. Moreover, events have a limited scope, so there is lesser processing required handling events.
New Security Features – It gives better CSS isolation, DOM isolation, script isolation and limited event scope that facilitate a more consistent component design.
ES6+ – We have a better support for ES6 and ES7 that is not available in Aura. This enables you to do more with less coding. This also transpires code to work in IE 11 and other browsers which were not supported earlier.
More Consistent Data Binding – The not so user-friendly two-way data binding has been eliminated. This pushes developers to coordinate the way in which data moves between components. It also means that data binding will work as expected, without any unforeseen problems from Aura.
Mixins – You can even import accessible methods from other components and import specific Apex methods from multiple classes. Moreover, the Apex methods can be cached for improved performance.
What Lightning Web Components means for Developers and Customers
Cutting-Edge Advantages of Lightning Web Components
Boosted Performance –
Developing Lightning Web Components does not involve complex abstractions to
run on the browser, providing better performance to end users.
Ease of Use – Post
development, the admins can deploy Lightning Web components with just clicks,
not code to the applications.
Standardized – Salesforce Lightning Web Components is built on ES6+ that provides developers with modern and advanced JavaScript features.
How to create a Lightning Web Components framework?
LWC (Lightning Web Components) cannot be created directly from the developer console. You need to set up Salesforce DX to create a Lightning component. After the SFDX setup, you need to do a few more things:
Get your Salesforce DX plugin updated with the latest release (Spring’19). Run the command below in your terminal or command prompt.
Command:
sfdx update
Once you finish this process, follow the trailhead link to set up the basic project and create a basic Lightning Web Component
Transition from Aura Components to Lightning Web Components
Developers using Aura framework to build lightning components can continue to work on it as the Aura components will continue to function like before. However, the new components can be created using Aura or the Lightning Web Component framework. For future developments, it is best if you use the Lightning Web Components.
Lightning Web Components Availability
Lightning Web Components are available for users since February 2019 in Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance and Developer editions.
Few days ago I was thinking about optimizing the use of constants (usually of String type) inside projects to avoid proliferation of public static final String declarations on various classes (with a limited control over duplicates) but giving at the same time developers a way to increase readability of constants in their code.
The reason for this post is that I want to know your opinion on this strategy, that on my eyes appear elegant and clear but may bring some drawbacks.
public class Constants{
private static ObjectName_Constants objectNameConstants;
public static ObjectName_Constants ObjectName{
get {
if(objectNameConstants == null){
objectNameConstants = new ObjectName_Constants();
}
return objectNameConstants;
}
}
public class ObjectName_Constants{
public String CustomField_AValue { get { return 'aValue'; } }
public String RecordType_ADevName { get { return 'aDevName'; } }
}
}
This article has been packed up by Lindsey Weiss, who will tell us some suggestions to keep an eye on security.
Lindsey enjoys marketing and promoting one’s brand. She believes that to move your market, you must know your market. She loves writing articles on helping people build buzz around their brand and boosting their online presence.
For small business owners, fraud and data
breaches are a nightmare. Not only can those issues bring work to a standstill,
but it can also mean lost consumer confidence and even the closure of a
business. It’s crucial to guard against threats, and if you should fall victim
to one, expediting your response is the best chance for a sound recovery.
Are You in Their Bullseye?
Big businesses often make the news when they become victims of cybercrime. However, it’s important for small business owners to recognize their own vulnerability. Gone are the days when it was safe to fly under the radar of cyber scoundrels; in fact, they are catching the eyes of criminals more than ever. Some statistics indicate small businesses are being attacked more each year, with average losses ranging from $84,000 to $148,000. Most of those companies go under within six months of being attacked, and according to studies cited by IBM, for each stolen record, you can expect a loss of nearly $150.
Take a Careful Inventory
When it comes to evaluating your company’s vulnerability, the easiest place to start is with a careful look at your hardware and software. Making solid choices means you have a wall of defense in every direction. Start with a thorough evaluation using a checklist. Data should be backed up to a remote location routinely, and all computers and devices should have antivirus software installed. If you aren’t using a firewall, that is another a must-have.
Examine Your Equipment
Research whether the electronics you’re using are known for being secure, and if not, invest in better equipment. For instance, shimming is an unfortunate but growing trend that threatens many small businesses. Data protection ultimately protects your customer base since a breach means lost confidence on the part of consumers. Consider investing in a more secure payment system with features such as safeguards against fraud and real-time data security.
Where Is Your Data?
If you haven’t already done so, now is a perfect time to start using the cloud. It protects your data by saving it offsite while also freeing up some of your overhead, thereby reducing the amount of time and money your company has to spend updating software and saving files to external drives. It also means your business can operate more freely. Instead of being tethered to the office, you and your staff can do more work on the fly. Better flexibility can mean increased productivity and a better bottom line. Think through what your particulars are, such as how many devices your business requires and how much storage you need, and check reviews to find the right cloud storage option for your situation.
Add Encryption
If your company handles sensitive data, encryption is another must-have in your line of defense. Basically, encryption uses a cipher to turn your clean data into gobbledygook, keeping would-be criminals at bay. As Business News Daily points out, the law requires encryption if you handle sensitive data such as health records, credit card numbers, or Social Security numbers, but even if you don’t handle that kind of information, it’s a worthwhile layer of protection against to help cybercrime. In fact, some operating systems have built-in encryption options, and there are plenty of encryption software packages available.
Other Negative Influences
Once you shore up your hardware and software defenses, it’s time to examine the human element. As part of the equation where you have the least control, staying abreast of the people handling your data can be especially challenging for small business owners. Disgruntled or dishonest employees can worm their way into your confidence and your systems, leaving you vulnerable to fraud. With that in mind, make sure you’re hiring people based on their talents and integrity, and mesh your quality staff with top-notch bookkeeping software so you can keep your finger on the pulse of your accounts.
A strong defense is your key to protecting
your business against fraud and data breaches, so ensure your systems are
well-protected with carefully thought out choices. When a cybercriminal has
your company in his sights, you’ll be ready.
After the Winter ’19 Salesforce platform release post, our guest blogger Priscilla Sharon, Salesforce Business Solution Executive for DemandBlue, will introduce us with her 10 top Spring ’19 features.
DemandBlue is in the business of helping its customers maximize their Salesforce investment through predictable outcomes. As we thrive in an era of cloud-based Infrastructure, Platform and Software services, DemandBlue has pioneered “Service-as-a-Service” through a value-based On Demand Service model that drives bottom-line results. They foster innovation through “Continuous Engagement and On Demand Execution” that offers their customers Speed, Value and Success to achieve their current and future business objectives.
Their On Demand Services for Salesforce include Advisory, Development & Customization, Integration, Administration & Support, Maintenance, and Lightning Migrations.
The Salesforce Spring ’19 Release is here, and you’ll now be
able to explore the exciting new features and upgrades of the newest release.
Here is a quick overview of Salesforce Spring ‘19 release date, our most loved features
in the Salesforce Spring ’19 Release, like the advanced Lightning Experience
features, Deals Cadences, Flow Builder, Lightning Web components and much more.
For complete details on Salesforce Spring ‘19 Release date, click here.
Sell more with Sales Cadences
Sales Cadence is one of the most popular tools in the Salesforce Spring ’19 release for its high efficiency in offering some of the best practices to follow up with high-quality leads. This may include calling the lead, then to follow up with an email, then checking in with them five days later until they hit you up. The High-Velocity Sales feature enables you to create frictionless Cadences that allow sales reps to track what their next action ought to be.
Build Quicker, Simpler, and More Intuitive Flows with
Flow Builder
Flow-building just got better with the all-new Flow Builder in Salesforce Spring ’19 release! The previous Cloud Flow Designer has now been replaced with the much faster and efficient Flow Builder. It is designed with four key design principles to enhance the Flow Building Experience – Clarity, Efficiency, Consistency and Beauty. Its simplified User Interface streamlines the process of Flow Building that enables you to slickly choose the right resource for your flow. For instance, the data elements are consolidated, so you don’t need to keep track of whether you need to use Fast Create / Record Create or the type of variable that you need.
Here’s what you need to do to migrate from Cloud Flow Designer
to Flow Builder: nothing!
The flows will continue to run as they did before. All flows created in the Cloud Flow Designer will seamlessly open in the brand-new Flow Builder. Whenever you make modifications and save a flow in Flow Builder, it is saved as the new version of the flow. And the original version is not overwritten.
Create Personalized Appointments with Lightning
Scheduler
Deliver better customer experiences by setting up appointments with the right person at the right time. Take advantage of the Lightning Scheduler capabilities in Salesforce Spring ’19 release to schedule appointments within the Salesforce workflows like leads and referrals, opportunities and accounts. With a 360-view of appointments, you can better assign resources and more efficiently address customer concerns.
Here are some of the most critical functions you can perform using Lightning Scheduler in Salesforce Spring ’19 release:
Make
records that represent the employees and additionally include details regarding
their skills, locations, and accessibility.
Define
office locations and working hours
Create
appointment topics, like opening an account or mortgage application
Search
for employees with appropriate skills for an appointment that includes
certifications, areas of expertise among others.
Schedule
client appointments, and include details about required attendees
Turn on Lightning Experience
Salesforce will turn on the Lightning Experience starting Winter ’20 to enable users to move faster and be more efficient. Everybody is encouraged to migrate to Lightning so that your end users can maximize benefits from everything the new interface brings to the table. The future of Salesforce experience is Lightning as all innovations will be happening in the Lightning Experience, going forward. It is best if you could take advantage of the lead time before the Lightning Experience is turned on to learn how your organization’s features perform in the new Lightning instance and to train your end users through Change Management. The Lightning Experience is reported to have increased productivity by a staggering 41% and conversion rates by 44%. To ensure better user experience when Lightning Experience is turned on later, get started now.
Download our comprehensive report on Lightning Migration here.
Get the Most Important List View with Pinned Lists
Do you have a preferred view that you want to make as a default list? This is now possible with the Pinned Lists feature in Salesforce Spring ’19 release that allows you to make a customized list of your new default. Click the Pin icon to pin an unpinned list and select the list view to pin a different list.
Organize Email Templates with Folders
This Lightning Experience feature in Salesforce Spring ’19 release enables sales reps and admins to easily group email templates into folders beyond just Private and Public folders. Users can now create folders in hierarchies and give permissions at different levels so they can locate the specific template they are searching for quicker.
Add Custom Resources to the Redesigned Lightning Experience Help Menu
The redesigned Help Menu in Salesforce Spring ’19 ensures that you have more room for your own resources. Now you can guide users when they work in your org with links to your website URLs, PDF files and Trailhead mixes. The getting-started section enables users and admins to get on-boarded to the new and updated user experience. Users can now search for and see documentation results from within the redesigned Help Menu.
New Lightning Web Components
Salesforce Spring ’19 presents a new kind of Lightning Component called the Lightning Web Component. And what used to be known as the Lightning Component is now named as Aura Component. Both Aura Components and Lightning Web Components work together as part of the Lightning Component framework. The Lightning Web component is a completely editable form developed with six lines of JavaScript.
Suggest Recommendations and Offers through Einstein Next Best Action
The Einstein Next best action feature in Salesforce Spring ’19 allows you to direct your users to the best next step. This component available on Lightning record pages uses various strategies that apply your organization’s business rules to display context-sensitive content like an upgrade or any other service. You get to define the rules and conditions that determine which recommendations to be displayed to your users. This feature is available as part of Einstein Next Best Action.
Here’s how it works. When a user accepts a suggestion, a screen flow launches. And to run a flow, your end users need to have either the Run Flow permission or Flow User field enabled on the user detail page.
Reports: Update headers, resize sections, stacked outlines and Conditional Formatting
Quickly Focus on Relevant Data with Conditional Formatting
Whether you are looking for the right
approach to enable sales reps to effortlessly identify the hottest leads that
need immediate action or quickly identify the accounts and opportunities valued
in the range of $1,00,000 and $5,00,000, the Reports in Salesforce Spring ’19
features give you an all-in-one solution. You can apply conditional formatting to the summary
to add color to the reports and get actionable insights simultaneously.
Resize Column Widths to Fit Content
Say goodbye to truncated data and unused
blank space! Salesforce Spring ’19 is updated with smart features that allow
you to resize column widths in Lightning Experience in report builder and the
run page.
Assemble Insights Faster with Stacked Summaries
You made complex but brilliant matrix
reports so you could condense huge volumes of data and compare values across
different fields. However, the condensed metrics that need to be compared
aren’t always located alongside each other. You can enable the Stacked
Summaries option to get a more viewer-friendly version that involves lesser
scrolling.
What are your favorite Salesforce Spring ’19 Release features?
Share with us in your comments section below. And to upgrade your Salesforce
Org with latest features and updates, Talk to our team at DemandBlue,
a one-of-a-kind Salesforce consulting partner delivering On Demand Services for Salesforce.Also,
you can give us a call at 949-259-2381
or email us at [email protected]
Let’s talk about Data Migration in Salesforce with Priscilla Sharon, Salesforce Business Solution Executive for DemandBlue.
DemandBlue is in the business of helping its customers maximise their Salesforce investment through predictable outcomes. As we thrive in an era of cloud-based Infrastructure, Platform and Software services, DemandBlue has pioneered “Service-as-a-Service” through a value-based On Demand Service model that drives bottom-line results. They foster innovation through “Continuous Engagement and On Demand Execution” that offers their customers Speed, Value and Success to achieve their current and future business objectives.
Their On Demand Services for Salesforce include Advisory, Development & Customization, Integration, Administration & Support, Maintenance, and Lightning Migrations.
Salesforce Data Migration – Imagine if you were traveling to an exotic new destination for the holidays. You want to make sure that everything is perfect and that nothing goes wrong. You might want to take all the precautionary measures – get travel insurance, have emergency info at hand and make sure that you pack all the necessary things without leaving anything behind. You know there could be nothing worse than reaching the airport only to realise that you forgot your passport – Sigh! But you also know that you don’t have to go through these hassles with careful planning and preparation, which can make it a safe and wholesome vacation for you.
Just like traveling from one place to another, migrating data from one place to another be it from Excel Spreadsheets or Legacy systems to cloud, needs utmost care and caution throughout the scope of migration in order to avoid any mishaps. And ensuring practical safety tips might just save you from the glitches in your Data Migration plans. So, here’s a quick 6-point checklist – your passport to a safe and successful Salesforce Data Migration journey.
6-point Checklist for Successful Salesforce Data Migration
Engage the Stakeholders: It is critical that you involve your stakeholders and inform them well in advance before migration to ensure that you gain maximum support for the project. Stakeholders from different teams and departments have profuse knowledge of the data and can give actionable insights pertaining to your Salesforce Data Migration plan.
Identify the Data to be Migrated: Stakeholders are aware of the most crucial data and clarify your uncertainties regarding the data structure, the place of storage, if it has any duplications and its effect on the Salesforce Data. It might require you to create new or appending current data fields, validations and field values in Salesforce.
Create a Backup – Most importantly, create a data backup to perform a rollback to recover from any possible errors. With a Data Backup, you can be double sure that you can go ahead with the migration process, so if at any stage there is an issue, you know you have the original data to fall back on.
Prepare Data for Error-free Data Migration: After deciding on the changes to be done in step 2, now you can make the necessary adjustments to ensure error-free Salesforce Data Migration process. You can add or modify objects, fields, workflows and validations.
Run a Test Migration: You don’t want to back out after importing all the data into the system. So, to avoid risking data in production, it is highly recommended that you run the test in a Sandbox environment to fix possible issues.
Migrate Data: The test Migration gives you the confidence to migrate data into the production environment. Inform your stakeholders about the changes and how it will affect them prior to migration. Post your Salesforce Data Migration process, it is crucial that you validate the data.
How to Prepare for Salesforce Data Migration?
Each and every Salesforce Data Migration project is unique. Therefore, different migration may need different tools and resources. Having said that, here are top considerations to incorporate in any Salesforce Data Migration strategy.
Identify the Team Members to be involved: Besides the stakeholders, you need to consider the admins and developers who need to be involved in the Salesforce Data Migration process. You will need to include the end-users who will work with the data.
Start Early to Start Early: A Salesforce Data Migration plan is typically a part of a larger project. So, an early start would mean the early start of the big project you have planned. You need to identify, prepare, clean, restructure and map data well ahead of time.
Build an adequate amount of time into the Schedule: Salesforce Data migration instances will have many exceptions, and you need to be prepared to meet them. Unexpected issues may surface when you practically work with the data. People may skip steps to meet the deadlines if your schedule is unrealistic. You need to remember that getting it right is as important as getting the work done on time.
Designate tasks to the right People: You need to avoid assigning too many of the members on a task or inviting too many people into a discussion. Ensure that you assign each person’s role after you identify the people to be involved.
Identify the Right Tools: Salesforce has quite a number of tools for Data Migration. In certain scenarios, an organization may require tweaks to be made to an existing tool or to develop a new one.
Enjoy this great infographic!
Have a safe journey with DemandBlue…
Salesforce data migration involves critical decisions since it is typically a small part of a bigger project. Though data migration may be a subset of a larger project, it’s no small task, and the end result can make or break the success of the bigger project. Hence, Salesforce offers cutting-edge data migration tools, such as Data Loader, Data Import Wizard along with Third-party apps that help automate Salesforce Data migration. However complex projects may require an experienced Salesforce Data Migration Consultant who has existing tools or can develop them based on an organization’s specific requirements. And we at DemandBlue have been a preferred Salesforce partner for our one-of-a-kind On Demand Solution for Salesforce. On Demand is a unique Service-as-a-Service model where businesses can deploy Salesforce projects without the hassles of costly contracts or complex SOWs; our clients are charged only for the number of hours spent on a project – be it 40 hours of effort spread over a week or two or a 100 hours of effort spread over a period of a month or two, the customer is billed only for what is consumed.
To find out how On Demand Service model for Salesforce can add Value to your next Salesforce project, Talk to DemandBlue team now!
In this post we’ll talk about email marketing, a subject that rarely has been seen in this blog. I’ll leave the speech to Siva Devaki.
Siva Devaki is a technocrat and an entrepreneur who is passionate about bringing value to the customers with creative technological solutions. Siva currently busy in growing his technology startup – MassMailer, a simple and easy mass email app for Salesforce CRM customers. Siva is passionate to write articles, blog about email marketing, sales development, email deliverability best practices. You can find Siva’s LinkedIn profile at www.linkedin.com/in/sivadevaki .
With click-through rates 300% higher than other email marketing campaigns, drip email is one of the highest ROI strategies a company can invest in. Yet running the right drip marketing campaign requires a comprehensive strategy — it isn’t as easy as “set and forget.” Here’s what you need to know about generating leads through scheduled, automated emailing.
The Advantages of Drip Email Marketing
A drip email marketing campaign is a sequence of emails that are sent to leads in order to generate interest and build a relationship. There are a few core benefits to a drip marketing campaign:
Drip marketing builds a relationship over time.
Drip marketing is fully automated.
Drip marketing is a cost-effective form of marketing.
One of the reasons email has such a high ROI is that it’s both effective and cost-effective. A drip email campaign is able to take advantage of these benefits to continuously engage leads and encourage purchasing.
Creating a Drip Email Marketing Strategy
At its heart, a drip marketing campaign is about sustaining long-term contact with your customers. An email newsletter that is sent out every morning with important, interesting and insightful content will remind your customers that your company exists — but also runs the risk of over-saturating your customers and flooding their inbox. Meanwhile, a marketing campaign that sends information about good deals coming up over the weekend can be equally as valuable.
Consider letting leads choose their own email frequency. For newsletters and deals, the frequency can be at a monthly, weekly, or even daily level.
Pay attention to your lead generation statistics. How often are leads clicking on links? Are they opening emails or deleting them? Are trends moving upward or downward?
Provide good content. If you want your leads to open your emails rather than deleting them, you need to provide the content that they want — not the content you want to give them.
Identify the right times of the day. Before work and after work are usually the best time to send emails, but your demographic may vary. Checking your statistics and testing out different types can help.
A drip email campaign will build your relationships with your customers, creating brand awareness and supporting your brand identity. Through scheduled, automated emails — and with the help of MassMailer — you can encourage conversions and improve your email marketing ROI.
Thanks to the guys of The Welkin Suite we have a special gift for all ORGanusers: an amazing 40% discount if you start a subscription from within the TWS ORGanizer’s banner!
To discover how to get it, follow this post!
The Welkin Suite 40% discount
Before discovering all the new features of the Reindeer Release v0.6.8.0 let’s see how to get the 40% discount for The Welkin Suite subscription.
Make sure you have the latest ORGanizer for Salesforce version (right click on the ORGanizer icon > Manage Extensions):
Now click on the ORGanizer for Salesforce icon to show the Popup page and identify The Welkin Suite banner:
Click it and the promo code will be automatically added to your basket on the Welkin Suite site!
If you have purchased ORGanizer PRO, drop me a line using the support form, I’ll send you a dedicated promo code.
Reindeer Release new features
New PRO license limits
If you purchased a PRO license (available only on Chrome version) you’ll now get increased storage limits:
That is you can store up to 2000 logins (sync or not) and up to 1000 sync logins: the Beta limits are 200/150, but the free tire limit will get lower once the ORGanizer gets out of Beta!
Profiles Chamber
Want to massively change profiles? With the Profiles Chamber plugin you can!
In this release the plugin only supports Login Hours massive update with different options and the chance to create templates for a given Org).
You can choose multiple profiles and days to update and then apply changes (by deploying in your ORG): only the Login Hours data is actually pushed.
For detailed info about the Profiles Chamber follow this link.
Replace API names refactoring
The Replace API Names plugin has been completely rewritten to give consistency between Classic and LEX:
The API name is now shown directly next to the real label: few bugs has also been fixed (e.g. misbehavior with fields with the same label).
Becoming a Salesforce Administrator is often the entry route into the world’s number one CRM technology, but this doesn’t make the job interview process any easier for prospective admins.
As the most prominent role in Salesforce, the competition for a job as a Salesforce Administrator is particularly high. In Mason Frank’s 2018/19 independent Salesforce salary survey, 70% of respondents reported being a Certified Salesforce Administrator, far higher than any other certification. With other candidates waiting in the wings, you need to be sure your interview goes perfectly to guarantee the job offer, and that comes down to preparation.
A job interview for a Salesforce Administrator role can take many forms, and so you’ll need to be prepared for several different lines of questioning. Your interviewer won’t just be interested in your technical experience as an administrator, they’ll also want to know how you see CRM as part of a larger business, and use this to test how much you’ve researched their organisation. In addition, they’ll also want to get to know you as a person.
Read on for a series of tips on how to prepare for your next job interview as a Salesforce Administrator.
Testing your technical knowledge
Ultimately your prospective employer will want to learn how skilled you are on the Salesforce platform, and so you should expect to be asked technical interview questions. A Salesforce Administrator is quite a varied role, and so technical questions you may be asked can be quite broad. You could be asked something very functional such as ‘what is a roll-up summary field’, or perhaps something a little more scenario-based, such as ‘how do you share a record and in what circumstances would that be expected?’
One thing that you need to be aware of going into the job interview is that your interviewer may have no experience using Salesforce, or alternatively they may be a Certified Technical Architect.
With this in mind, it’s not enough to simply have a good working knowledge of Salesforce, you need to be prepared to explain technical concepts in plain language so that a non-expert will understand you. Having technical knowledge is one thing, but being able to communicate your knowledge to a layman is another thing entirely, so practice this before the interview.
Testing your experience
While knowledge is valuable, application is power.
Salesforce Trailhead is a fantastic education portal and is responsible for launching the career of thousands of Salesforce professionals, but it won’t provide you with that all-important practical experience that employers are looking for. This is why experience is incredibly valuable, and so you should be prepared to discuss the projects you’ve worked on and what you learned from them.
If you’ve worked as part of an implementation team, be ready to discuss the technical elements as well as the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. If you’ve ever experienced data loss or a data breach, be ready to discuss how you discovered the event and how it was resolved. Don’t be afraid to discuss challenges and mistakes made—this is what experience is all about, and will set you apart from the other candidates.
Something else that employers value highly is your ability to work on a collaborative project. As an Admin it’s unlikely that you will be working completely independently, so be prepared to talk about your communication skills, requirements gathering, and ability to work within the confines of a project timeline, using examples from your previous experience.
Testing your cultural fit
It’s essential you have the skills and experience to perform the job you’re being interviewed for, but your prospective employer will also want to get an idea of who you are as a person. After all, they’ll likely be spending around 40 hours a week in your presence, so it’s important they employ someone who they’ll enjoy working with—you should also be confident that you’ll enjoy working with them as well!
Given that your technical knowledge and experience come with the territory of being a Salesforce professional, getting your personal character across can often be the most nerve-racking element of a job interview, but this shouldn’t be the case. Just be yourself and communicate your goals and ambitions clearly.
It’s always a good idea to think about why you entered Salesforce technology and where you eventually want your career to take you, as long as you can relate this to why you want the job you’re interviewing for and how this will help you achieve your goals.
Being a successful Salesforce Administrator is about more than just doing the job, it’s about finding ways to maximise the value of Salesforce in an organisation, and making yourself indispensable as a result.
One of the questions I got from the community was:
is this approach safe for production?
I was actually not sure about this, as the logged in info was passed from the pre-chat page to the chat bot context in clear: this way an advanced JS hacker could have impersonated a real user, knowing its username/user id: that’s why I replied that you should have used a temporary “token”, that should have been deleted once used (upon user confirmation on the Chat Bot loading step).
When I write posts about tech workaround all I have in mind is open your minds and make you find a new way to solve problem: from this point we can enhance our solution to make it the best one!
This blog was the direct consequence of my workaround, making the user identification safer.
He then went on by finding another workaround to enforce user authentication with this great post!
I loved his quick and dirty style and I decided, upon his approval, to repost his article here.
Enjoy the reading!
Kerckhoffs’s principle says that a cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge. The user id is not a key and shouldn’t be considered as one.
Both classic Live Agent client and Snap-Ins chat client provide a very useful feature to pass the prechat information to the custom fields on LiveChatTranscript object.
As you know, Einstein bot is built on top of Live Agent and allows you to trigger apex actions based on community user message like a knowledge article search. Problems come when you want to make authenticated actions like updating your case status or contact information. Live Agent doesn’t provide any way to enforce logged community user session. Instead, the context user is a technical user (AutomatedProcess or Integration).
The first reflex is to get the user id from a visualforce page / lightning component and pass it to the Snap-Ins Code Snippet in order to reuse it from apex by querying the Transcript Object. This approach is a security breach as the user id can be easily changed on the fly. The attacker can usurp any user by providing another user id. Again, user id is not a private key and shouldn’t be used as one.
A safer approach
So we need to find a way to validate that the returned user id is equal to the connected user id. The idea illustrated below suggest asymmetrically hashing the user id so no one can change it to usurp someone else’s identity. As the end user cannot produce a token, it can’t corrupt the user id.
Step 1: Token generation
The first step is about token generation based on connected user id. The user id will be publicly accessible but we will use a self-signed certificate to sign the user id and generate a token.
Go to Setup > Security > Certificate and Key Management > Create Self-Signed Certificate, define a label, a unique name, uncheck Exportable Private Key and click on save.
Use the apex code below to generate a secure token based on session id and user id of the connected user.
Add the lightning:prechatUI interface to a Lightning component to enable Snap-ins to identify it as a custom Lightning page template that can be used for the Snap-ins Chat pre-chat page (docs here).
Now call the getPrechatData method from your lightning component to retrieve the logged user id and its token.
@AuraEnabled
public static Map<String,String> getPrechatData() {
Map<String,String> prechatData = new Map<String,String>();
// Returns the context user's ID
String userId = UserInfo.getUserId();
prechatData.put('userId',userId);
String token = getToken(userId);
prechatData.put('token',token);
return prechatData;
}
Step 3: Pass the prechat information
LiveChatTranscript is the unique object that can be used to share context between the logged user and Eintein Bot which means that we need to create custom fields on LiveChatTranscript object.
Go to Setup > Object Manager and search for the Live Chat Transcript object. Then Field & Relationships to create two new custom fields called UserId (UserId__c) and Token (Token__c).
Now we have retrieved the user id and the token from step 2, we can pass them through a snippet setting file.
Add the code below to your existing Snippet Settings File you had uploaded as a static resource.
This is the last step before we can rely on the returned user id. We need to ensure that nothing has been corrupted. We’re going to sign the user id returned by the lightning component again and compare this new token to the returned token.
If the user id was corrupted by the end user, signing it again will produce a different token than the previous one. If not, it means we can now rely on it.
Conclusion
We just described how to safely get the connected community user id from a live agent session. And remember you should never trust user input, your user will not always submit data your application will expect.
