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Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we have another live interview from the Sidney World Tour, this time with Lorna O’Callaghan, Salesforce Lead at Suncorp Group. She shares how her experience as a Medieval history masters student has translated into a career in tech. Join us as we talk about the keys to leading a mixed team, how Trailhead has helped her broadened her horizons, and why her team is so focused on community engagement. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lorna O’Callaghan. How a Medieval History degree helps in tech. Growing up, Lorna wanted to be a teacher, which is actually pretty common among people in the Salesforce ecosystem and especially among admins. These days, she’s just started a new role as a leader of a team of developers, admins, and business analysts, “which I’m really excited and terrified about in equal measure,” she says. Lorna originally got her masters in Medieval History before she got involved in tech. “I thought it was an unusual career shift, but the more I talk to other Salesforce admins the more I realize there’s a lot of variety out there,” she says. So how did she wind up in Salesforce? Well, it’s kind of a funny story. “I got a call one day from a guy in Dublin who had seen my details in their Salesforce database,” Lorna says, “and as an exercise to prove to the business that the database worked he called me, interviewed me, and I took the job.” Believe it or not, Lorna’s degree has been super useful in her work as a Salesforce admin and beyond. ”Being taught to come at things from a different angle and having to explain to people what on earth you do in a language that they’re going to understand,” she says, “it has one hundred percent stood to me.” Prepping for a leadership role. Today, Lorna is facing down leading a mixed team and is prepping for the challenges that may come up. Trailhead has been incredibly helpful, and she’s already finished all of the manager modules. She’s also been looking at the development framework material to get familiar with it. “It’s definitely a challenge, it’s a little bit outside the comfort zone,” she says, “I’ve managed project teams before but when you’re directly responsible for a group of people it changes things a little bit. I’m very much looking to where I need to upskill myself to be across all of the areas that they are across because it’s vast.” “But equally,” Lorna says, “I’m really really happy that the team that I have come into are also into the community and really active in the community.” That means that she doesn’t have to go it alone—the team is actively working to organize monthly sharing sessions to help each other with what they’ve been learning outside of work on Trailhead and beyond. That feeling when your team checks Salesforce before their email. Before Lorna moved into leadership, she was an admin. So, what makes a good admin, in her eyes? “You’ve got to be a bit inquisitive, you’ve got to have patience and a bit of perseverance to find what you need,” she says, “and not be afraid to make those mistakes.” Things are a bit easier these days with Trailhead, but experimentation is still key if you want to keep adding new skills. Lorna was really focused on user adoption in her admins days. “We managed to actually get to a point where we had the CEO ringing people up saying, ‘Oh, I just say something in this report or this dashboard,’ and you had people coming in, first thing in the morning, looking at list views for what had come into the system overnight before going into their email.” The community is the key. “Salesforce moves really fast. Every release—to be honest, even in between that—there’s so much new stuff that’s coming up that if we, as a team, want to be innovative and want to keep on top of everything then we have to be involved in...

From Medieval History to Salesforce with Lorna O'Callaghan

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we have another live interview from the Sydney World Tour, this time with New Zealander Anna Loughnan, Customer Success Manager at Todd Digital. Join us as we talk about the importance of female role models, how she found herself in tech, and how she came back and got into Salesforce after twelve years raising her family to be a 4x Ranger. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Anna Loughnan. Girls can do anything, but what should I do? We’re proud to have Anna as our first Kiwi on the podcast. Growing up in New Zealand, there were posters everywhere offering encouragement that “girls can do anything.” The problem was that Anna didn’t exactly what she wanted to do. “Although we had this being drummed into us there was no actual followup,” she says, “there weren’t role models back in the day, so it was just what you were supposed to believe but there was no proof of it.” All Anna knew was that she didn’t want to do something that was a traditionally female profession. She spent five years overseas working all sorts of jobs, from working at a McDonald’s to being a bartender. She found herself in Ireland and signed up for a postgrad course in computer science, “purely as an excuse to stay away from New Zealand for another year.” As soon as she sat down in class it was obvious: “the veil had lifted and that was my home, basically. It was frustrating because I had grown up with the message that ‘girls can do anything’ but it was my brother who had been bought a computer,” she says, “this was my first exposure to computers and I just had such an aptitude for it.” How mentors helped Anna discover the Salesforce ecosystem. When Anna came back to New Zealand in her late twenties, she worked for a while but also was focused on making a family. For twelve years, she worked a little but was mainly raising her three children. When an old school friend was working on a digital transformation project and needed an analyst, Anna got the call. “I found out later that she had to do a lot of hard talking and convincing for them to be comfortable taking someone on who had been out of the workforce for so long, but she had my back,” she says. “That’s what it takes sometimes is somebody else to believe in you.” Salesforce was a big part of the digital transformation project, so that’s where Anna first encountered the platform. Nowadays, Anna was brought on to work on a startup with an old friend from that first job. “I knew he was an amazing person—he was such an advocate for Salesforce back in the day and he had seen the potential of the platform,” she says, “so I knew anything that involved him would certainly be worthwhile.” As the Customer Success Manager, Anna has to work across the entire platform and know all the things. “I try and know as much as I can about as many as possible, but it’s also good to know how you can find out about all the things if you don’t know yourself.” The secrets of a four-star ranger. In addition to being the first Kiwi (Kieran Jameson doesn’t count since she’s on the Trailhead editorial team… but we’ve put a link to her episode below), Anna is the first ever quadruple-star Ranger we’ve had on the pod. That means she has over four hundred badges. How does she find the time to do everything? “What really helps sometimes is making a public declaration,” she says, on Twitter or another community where you can get support. She also signed up with the 100 Days of Trailhead program through Ladies Be Architects. “Until I signed up for that I hadn’t done any super badges,” she says, “it empowered me because just working at Trailhead was an achievement, not necessarily getting a badge every time you sat down to do something.” As far as advice Anna has for what makes a great admin, “I like being able to relate to people and talk...

From Programmer to Mom to Admin With Anna Loughnan

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we have the first of several live interviews Gillian recorded at the Salesforce World Tour in Washington DC. In this episode, we talk to Toya Tate, Salesforce Consultant at Slalom Consulting, Salesforce MVP, and leader in the DC Women in Technology User Group. We talk through her amazing career journey and how the community was there for her every step of the way. Join us as we talk about how Toya got into the Salesforce, the amazing role the community played in her career path, and how she made the jump to become a Salesforce consultant. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Toya Tate. Getting hooked on Salesforce. At college, Toya majored in mechanical engineering, “but when I got to my Junior year I realized I didn’t really like engineering like I thought I did.” She ended up working for a venture capital firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, where they were using a platform to keep track of their investments, applicants who were looking for funding, and more. “One day, my boss came in and told me, ‘Hey, we’re going to use Salesforce for this process now.’‘OK,’ I said, ‘Sure. That’s great. I don’t know why you’re telling me but great.’ He said, ‘I’m telling you because you’re going to run it.’” As soon as her boss walked away, Toya started frantically googling because she had never heard of Salesforce before. They worked with an implementation partner to get started and she quickly fell in love with the platform. She was able to go to New York for a week for more training, and the rest is history. Going to Salesforce from their previous tracking system was night and day. “Tracking was coming from six million different sources before,” Toya says, “once everything got in Salesforce I could just run a report and everything was right there, I didn’t have to spend hours compiling reports every week.” How Toya discovered the power of the Trailblazer Community. “One day I had a question and my powers of Google failed me,” Toya says. She stumbled across the Success Community (now the Trailblazer Community), “and I found the answer to my question but I also found that there was a Cincinnati User Group and they had a meeting coming up.” The person who answered her question was actually at the meeting. “From then on,” she was, “I was fully one hundred percent committed.” Toya spent most of her free time diving into the platform and learning more. One day, she was browsing the community and realized she could answer some of the questions people had. “People don’t believe me but I am an introvert,” she says, “so it was much easier for me to interact online where I could determine how I wanted to interact and how much.” She moved from only answering the questions she was absolutely certain she knew well to learning more about new areas as she helped people. As Toya got more and more knowledge, she wanted to focus on Salesforce full-time and not worry about any other responsibilities—she was still doing other parts of her old job in addition to managing their org. She got certified and started looking for her next move. She saw a posting for a job in DC on the community. “I just took a leap and sent the person who posted it a note,” she says, and they responded back within the day and said that they had seen her active in the community and were really interested in talking to her. If you’re an admin, you’re already a consultant. When Toya got to DC, she connected with Rebeca Lammers, who she had previously known through the community. Rebecca kept trying to recruit her for a new role, and eventually, Toya said, “I’m really not looking but I will meet with the recruiter just so you can stop harassing me.” She took the meeting and, long story short made the switch from an admin to a consultant. “I realized I really was looking for a challenge after eight...

Taking the Community by Storm With Toya Tate

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we have another episode from the DC World Tour with LeAndria Streeter, Salesforce Consultant at Slalom, to learn about the work she does in the community and how you can apply change management principles to your own life. Join us as we talk about how she got confidence from the amazing DC community, how she made the transition into her first admin job, and LeAndria’s tips for overcoming imposter syndrome. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with LeAndria Streeter. &nbsp;LeAndria’s accidental admin story. “When I was growing up I wanted to work in tech and be an engineer, but I also wanted to be a hairstylist,” LeAndria says, “I’m obsessed with all things beauty and health-related and so I was going to find a way to do both.” When she was starting out her career, she worked as a conference coordinator and meeting planner for a nonprofit. “As everyone who works at a nonprofit knows, you kind of wear a few hats,” she says, “so in addition to planning events, I also managed all of the platforms from event management to their database.” When LeAndria was put in charge of their Salesforce implementation, she fell in love and never looked back. “When we were looking for a solution to replace our dying database, I was tasked with doing the research,” LeAndria says, “and very quickly, all of my research pointed to Salesforce.” Working with a consultancy, she made sure to ask them to teach her how to admin as they deployed the implementation. That set her on the path towards becoming a fulltime admin. How the community can support you. LeAndria was still at her old nonprofit, filling the role of three people and doing all of the things, but she wanted to focus on Salesforce. To find her first fulltime admin position, she used Power of Us Hub, which is basically the Trailblazer Community for the nonprofit sector. That put her in touch with the local DC Community Group where she could level up her skills, get her certification, and land that first job. Imposter syndrome affects everyone, especially when they change careers. “Growing up in the South as a young black girl, you’re not really encouraged to listen to your heart and pursue your goals,” LeAndria says, “it wasn’t until I got here to DC and started working in this very ambitious work environment that we have that I started to become a person who really believed in myself and my career aspirations.” Connecting with community members helped her gain the confidence she needed to know that she could be a fulltime Salesforce admin and make the transition. Change management for your own life. When it comes to actually making that change in your life, LeAndria says the first thing you need to do is truly believe that a career in tech is possible for you. “You don’t just wake up one day and believe that you can do anything,” she says, “it’s a process and it’s intentional.” At WITness Success 2018, LeAndria gave a talk deconstructing that process of changing her beliefs. One of the first steps LeAndria advises is to take the time to visualize your success: doing the work you want to do, taking the vacations you want to take, living the life you want to live. “Take stock of how you feel when you’re in that state. What does that person look like? What expression do they have on their face?” Once you’ve identified those feelings, LeAndria says you need to realize that you are that person. It’s not instantaneous, but you need to work at truly embodying those beliefs. Take time to unplug and sit with your feelings, which could be anything from meditating to journaling. As admins, we’re in the business of adoption and change management, but sometimes you need to apply that process to yourself. Giving back through WIT. Today, through a connection she made at the 2016 World Tour, LeAndria is a Salesforce Consultant, bringing it...

Trailblazer Community- Believe it, See it and Make it Happen with LeAndria Streeter

This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re joined by Laurie Dusko, the Product Owner of Salescloud at Wiley, for the third and final episode recorded live from the Salesforce Worldtour in New York City. We learn how she balances immediate needs with longterm goals, and how she’s creating a team of super users to help her get her message out there. Join us as we talk about why timing is so important when it comes to delivering functionality, how transparency about your decision making can help you, and how she’s recruiting super users to socialize her ideas. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Laurie Dusko. &nbsp;It’s all in the timing. “I work to help our users be more effective in everything they need to do that’s Salesforce-related,” Laurie says. She does this in a number of ways, but as of now, she doesn’t yet have her Admin certification. “I understand the practical applications of the things we need to do, I can go do it in a sandbox,” she says, “but I have a dev team that builds these things for me so I spend a lot of time writing user requirements and stories and just really wrapping everything up nice and tidy with a bow to make sure it works for our users.” One of Laurie’s biggest jobs is working as the go-between from the technology to leadership. “I work really hard to translate what leadership thinks they want into what they actually need,” she says. One thing Laurie harps on that doesn’t get discussed enough is timing. “If something’s important right now but I miss that window, they might not need it for a full year,” she says, “and there are other things that really could help those users get to the end of their fiscal year or meet their quota that can move up in priority.” In short, the secret is to find a balance between where you’re working toward and what you need right now. How Laurie gets executive buy-in. Balancing priorities is a constant struggle, and that’s really come to the forefront as Laurie’s team as switched to an Agile development model. “If it’s a busy time of year, you don’t want to roll out too much change too quickly that could impact their ability to do their job,” she says. Instead, they’re borrowing from Salesforce to divide the changes they want to make into major releases where they can plan any training they need to do. They still make smaller changes more frequently, but they’re careful to make sure nothing is too disruptive. When Laurie talks to executives, she tries to keep the conversation focused on what they want to get out of any Salesforce changes they’re requesting, rather than getting too much into checkboxes versus radio buttons. “Sometimes we’re really quick to solution and say what we need without really understanding what it is we’re trying to solve for,” she says. Laurie has taken the idea of SABWA (Salesforce Administration By Walking Around) to the next level by using it to get executive buy-in. If you can spend time with leadership to really understand their pain points and what they need, you don’t need to be such a mind reader.&nbsp; Recruiting a team of super users. Laurie’s team’s approach of bundling major changes into releases also meant that they created “release notes” to send out along with them. While that worked OK, they’ve made the decision to shift gears and take a more social approach. They’ve identified their super users both to gather feedback and help them as they roll out new features. To put together this group, they actually used an application process combined with working closely with their sales managers who know their users best. The program also allows them to create the potential for cross-silo communication between super users who wouldn’t necessarily otherwise share ideas with each other. What’s more, it gives Laurie’s team the opportunity to train and possibly hire some of these super...

Socializing Your Ideas with Laurie Dusko

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re joined by Yves Stewart, a Salesforce Consultant at Slalom. We learn how to get out of your own way and dig into your problem. Join us as we talk about why you just need to get started, the importance of surrounding yourself with the platform, and the importance of having patience with yourself as you learn. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Yves Stewart.&nbsp; How Yves got started as an accidental admin. “Before embarking on my Salesforce journey, I just never thought about me being this techy person,” Yves says, “I always felt that that wasn’t me, it was for everyone else. But I accidentally became an admin, and it was the best accident of my life.” She was working for a manufacturing company in the energy sector when she met a Salesforce dev and MVP who pushed her to take a serious look at the platform. When they had to leave the company, Yves stepped up to the plate to take over as an admin. Yves’s first big “aha” moment dealt with approvals—they were in the middle of their annual sales meeting when the approval process went haywire. She took a deep dive into the process and sort things out, solidifying her role with the sales team and giving her the confidence to move forward on the platform. “I no longer had to think of myself as an accidental admin,” Yves says, “I actually was an admin who was knowledgeable.” Jumping in and learning as you go. Yves’s company had a major need to keep everyone in sync in the field, which lead to her developing a component that allowed her team to create tickets even if they didn’t have connectivity at their current location. They could put in a request and get all the information they needed as soon as they got a WiFi connection, eliminating what was previously a paper process. “It was very exciting because it allowed us to not work in segments but instead bring all the groups together,” she says, “it allowed everyone to get a complete view of the customer and have people coming from all different angles to make this a win-win situation all the way from the beginning to the end.” The big problems can often be the most challenging to make headway on, and Yves’s advice is to get out of your own way and just start. “You have to start somewhere in order to make it happen,” she says, “actually lay down a roadmap and give yourself some steps to get there. You don’t have to have it all figured out, you just need to get started.” The power of the Salesforce community. Starting out is always tricky and for Yves, as a solo admin, the Salesforce community was a major help in guiding her on her journey. She went to a Houston user group meeting where she learned about the Salesforce Military program. As a military spouse herself, she was able to get connected with a community of people who could relate to what she was going through and help her out. If you’re just starting out, Yves has some sage advice. “Learn about the product and the platform—it’s a phenomenal tool,” she says, “you don’t have to be an expert in everything, you just have to be able to understand the basics of how it works.” It takes time, but you can keep learning through Trailhead and other programs and continue to grow. Social:  Salesforce Admins:  Yves:  Gillian:   Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  For full transcript, go to

Get Out of Your Own Way with Yves Stewart

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re talking to Eric Praud, a Service Cloud Delivery Manager at Ladbrokes Coral Group. We discuss best practices for building formulas and how to ask and answer questions on the Salesforce community. Join us as we talk about why you need to learn things with the mindset that you may need to teach them later, why it’s so important to avoid technical debt, and how to be better at asking for and giving help on the Answers community. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Eric Praud. Why it’s OK to get it wrong the first time. Like a lot of people we talk to on the Salesforce Admin Podcast, Eric is someone who stumbled into the platform. He started out working thirteen years in the restaurant industry, but when he was looking to transition into technology he ended up working in Salesforce support. “You start with support and it feels like a sink or swim situation because you don’t know much, to be fair,” Eric says, “but it was the best schooling I could’ve had for Salesforce.” These days, Eric keeps up with his support roots by keeping active in the community, where he tries to answer questions every day and is in the top three. He’s particularly focused on formula-based questions: “I just really like the challenge that is in the question, I like the logic of the formula, and I love it when it works out in the end,” he says. The big thing is to not be afraid of failure. If it’s complicated, you’re probably going to get it wrong the first time, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying. Avoiding technical debt. One problem Eric encountered on the Answers community had to do with how to create a formula to show what fiscal quarter a particular date would fall into. The fiscal quarters for this particular company never seemed to start on the same date, so Eric sat down with a pen and paper to work it out. It took him three days, but he eventually reverse-engineered the method behind the madness. “You don’t want to carry technical debt,” Eric says, “will you remember, in five years’ time, that you have to go back to that formula? You may not even be there, it may be another admin who will have no clue what’s happening here.” Eric is always looking for an evergreen solution that will always work no matter what the circumstances are. In other words, spending three days to figure out the fiscal year formula now is worth it if it means that nobody will ever have to spend time on it again. How to be better at asking for and giving help. When it comes to the Answers community, Eric has some words of wisdom about being a good poster. “Remember that we’re here to help you, but help us help you,” he says, “remember to add a few screenshots, give us the data types of the fields that you mention.” Most importantly, describe the problem you’re facing in layman’s terms. Every business and industry is unique, but a little bit of context can go a long way, and not everybody is going to be familiar with your specific situation. On the other hand, if Eric is giving answers, he has a few strategies for making sure he’s being helpful. “Sometimes you can tell when people are new at Salesforce,” he says. Sometimes they tell you straight away, but there are also some hints from the way they’re phrasing their questions. In those cases, it’s helpful to overexplain your formula so they have an understanding of not just what to do, but why they’re doing it.&nbsp; Social:  Salesforce Admins:  Mike:  Eric:   Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  &nbsp; Full Show Transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins podcast, where we talk about product, community and careers to help you become an awesome admin. I'm Mike Gerholdt, and joining me today is Eric Prod to talk about building formulas as a best practice, evergreen solutions and wow, we also dig a little bit into how to ask and...

Best Practices for Building Formulas with Eric Praud

This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve got Tiffany Spencer, COO of Esor Consulting Group and the founder of HBCUforce. We learn how she helps students gain the experience they need to land their first Salesforce job. Join us as we talk about why process and solving is key to working in tech, how to gets hands-on experience with superbadges and case studies, and some great tips for networking effectively. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Tiffany Spencer. Producing an impossible report Tiffany says she does everything, and she’s really not kidding. “I’m a consultant, a CRM manager, a business architect, a solution architect—it kind of depends on who you ask that day,” she says, “a big part of it is working with individuals that I train and helping them understand how to better utilize the Salesforce platform and how to continue on their journey.” Tiffany started as an admin for a small land development company after only a week of training and quickly became all things Salesforce for her organization. “It was a really great position where I was able to play many roles,” she says, “I was the admin, I was the BA, the project manager, the architect, the trainer, and that sink-or-swim moment set the tone for all of my other positions.” She went on to several roles as both an admin and later a business analyst. The craziest part about her whole journey is that that first job never mentioned Salesforce in the job description. Little did she know that her chance encounter with the platform would shape her entire career. Bringing Salesforce to Students Tiffany is the founder of HBCUforce, a nonprofit organization that partners with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to create programs that provide early access to cloud computing careers through exposure to Salesforce and their partners. She got the idea about two years ago when she visited her alma mater, Bethune-Cookman University, and decided to pop in a classroom. She started talking with some students about their career plans and explained to them what she does, and when she saw their interest she realized she could work with the school to create a program to show them exposure to everything a career in Salesforce can offer. While many students aspire to land a position at Microsoft or Google, Tiffany’s found that they don’t often know that Salesforce is just as big (and innovative) of a company. Not only that, but 97% of Fortune 100 companies use the platform. In technology, it’s really about processes. Tiffany always tells students, “I’m not a coder, you don’t have to be a coder or a programmer or a developer to be in technology. There are all these other pieces of the puzzle that help developers do their job that you can be involved in.” Getting Your First Salesforce Job When you’re looking to get your first Salesforce job, Tiffany has a few tips that she’s seen work for her mentees. For one thing, you can do case studies and superbadges to get some hands-on experience. The other thing that really helps is getting familiar with Agile, whether that’s using a tool like Jira or Trello or even reading the Agile Manifesto. Tiffany also tries to give her mentees opportunities to tackle real-life problems by bringing them into her pro-bono projects. If you don’t have a Tiffany in your life (yet), there are still ways to seek out something to get you started. “There are plenty of Tiffanys in the Salesforce ecosystem,” she says, “people are more than willing to guide and help so the first thing to do is to get involved with the community.” Start with your local community group, or organizations like PepUp Tech or Salesforce Military. “There’s not a shortage of people doing amazing things,” she says, “so you just got to get out there and start networking and connecting.” Links:    Trailhead:    Social  Salesforce Admins:  Tiffany: ...

How to Get Your First Salesforce Job with Tiffany Spencer

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re talking to Prag Ravichandran Kamalaveni, Salesforce Lead at CloudKettle. We learn all about the new Trust Champions program, which recognizes trailblazers who have expertise in and champion or advocate for good security practices and effective use of Salesforce technology to protect their company’s data. Join us as we talk about security best practices, lessons he’s learned about how to roll out Salesforce security features, and what you can do as an admin to get started. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Prag Ravichandran Kamalaveni. &nbsp;How Prag became a Trust Champion. “For many Salesforce admins, security is something that they’re less comfortable with,” Prag says, “so when I started attending and hosting Trailblazer community meetings, most of my topics were around security.” When people started thanking him for helping them understand complex topics, Prag realized he not only had a gift for decoding security on Salesforce but for explaining it to others. One big tip that Prag has is to use pen and paper before you turn on or off any security feature in Salesforce. “When it comes to security, there’s no user interface for how the sharing works,” Prag says, “so make sure you write down your sharing model and see how data is going to be shared. Spend time on visualizing how security is going to work inside your org.” Take the time to actually map out how everything is going to work to make sure you understand what’s going on. Practical security tips for your org. Admins often have god powers in their own orgs, but when it comes to best practices, you want to restrict access across the org and apply the principle of least privilege for user records. “Salesforce provides so many great features on the verification and authentication process,” Prag says, “and my leveraging these features, Salesforce admins can significantly increase the level of security for sensitive operations by raising the users’ permissions to high assurance under session settings.” A big part of keeping everything secure is taking advantage of the multi-factor authentication (MFA) features that are baked-in to the Salesforce platform. Safeguard access to your user accounts, and make sure that there’s more protecting your accounts than just usernames and passwords written down on a piece of paper somewhere. “As security threats grow increasingly common, it’s essential to implement stronger measures of account security,” Prag says, and he has some tips and tricks for how to get better adoption from users and get buy-in from leadership. It’s important to remember that these security features are complicated and can often be nonintuitive, but you’re not in this alone. “Look to the community if you need help,” Prag says, “there are thousands of community groups in your local area, so feel free to log in and ask your question.” In the meantime, educate yourself and make sure you understand all of the security features Salesforce offers, and see what you can do to roll them out to your org. Links:    Trailhead:   module    Social:  Salesforce Admins:  Prag:  Gillian:  Mike:   Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or

Trust Champion: Prag Ravichandran Kamalaveni

For this episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re joined by Tiffany Thomas, Senior Salesforce Business Analyst at New York Life Insurance. We learn how getting your users to collaborate can have a huge impact on buy-in and adoption. Join us as we talk about why active listening and good communication skills are the foundation of being an effective BA, how that’s changed with more remote users than ever before, and why it’s so important to remind your users that they are the experts on their own business processes. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Tiffany Thomas. SABWA? More like SABZA. Tiffany always knew she had an interest in technology, but it wasn’t until she got a chance email from PepUp Tech that she got a chance to make those dreams a reality. “PepUp Tech is an amazing organization that inspires and empowers underrepresented people by teaching technology skills, such as Salesforce,” she says, “and also provides a strong network of support to help people launch a successful career in tech.” These days, Tiffany is focused on a new challenge: migrating her org from Classic to Lightning. “We’re not just taking everything that was in our old house and bringing it to our new house,” she says. She’s in charge of meeting with all fourteen service teams to go over their business processes—especially in light of more people working remotely—and creating user stories around them. In other words, Tiffany does SABWA (Salesforce Administration By Walking Around) as a job, though these days it’s maybe more like SABZA (Salesforce Administration by Zooming Around). Maintaining business relationships in a remote environment. When Tiffany first started at New York Life, financial services was a new industry for her. That meant she had to really understand what her users are trying to do and what their workflows look like. Most importantly, she was able to ask why they do what they do, and understand what’s important and what’s not. Prior to COVID-19, New York Life already had employees working from home, so Tiffany had experience helping those users through Salesforce. However, one thing that’s been different is not getting the chance to run into people and find out what’s on their mind. “For me, the most important thing was trying to maintain the relationships I’ve built with my users and letting them still feel like they’re playing a part because they are,” she says. The two skills every BA needs. Tiffany is a Business Analyst working in Salesforce, and she has a couple of tips for how to harness a little BA magic for yourself. “One of the most important skills that a business analyst can have is being an active listener,” she says, “listen to understand.” You might not know all of the business processes, but being able to hear what your users say and understand the Why behind it can go a long way. The other key skill is effective communication. “Communicating back what you’re hearing will help when you’re trying to get buy-in,” Tiffany says. “I like to start each meeting reminding my users that they are the experts in that business process,” she says, which brings them into a collaboration with her on how to improve their workflow and, ultimately, helps drive adoption. Trailhead:    &nbsp;  Social:  Salesforce Admins:  Gillian:  Mike:   Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  Full Show Transcript Gillian Bruce: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins podcast, where we talk about product, community and careers to help you be an awesome admin. I'm Gillian Bruce. Mike Gerholdt: And I'm Mike Gerholdt. Gillian Bruce: And today we are talking to Tiffany Thomas. She is a senior Salesforce business analyst at the New York Life Insurance Company in New York. And we had Tiffany hop on the pod to talk about how to think like a BA or a business analyst. It's very helpful for admins. She had some great tips. And so without...

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The Salesforce Admins Podcast