Salesforce Admins

PepUpTech Admin Stories

Today on the Salesforce Admins podcast, we’re speaking to Michael Lupino, the CRM manager for L’Oreal corporation. Michael is currently helping L’Oreal migrate from Classic to Lightning, while creating new apps and other amazing things within the tool. He’s here to share his experience and a few helpful tips for you to be successful with Lightning. More on Michael’s session: Join us as Michael shares his journey with CRM and how he moved L’Oreal corporation from Classic to Lightning. From getting buy-in from users to designing new apps, we’ll learn how Michael managed this transition with the help of Trailhead and the Salesforce community. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michael Lupino. &nbsp; Use Trailhead to keep track of possible capabilities. Michael got started with Lightning about a year and a half ago. “When we started to look at Lightning, we saw lots of positive benefits in being able to adopt the tools and build more modular, reusable applications that can serve a variety of purposes and reduce some of the code and technical debt of having some of the other tools in the platform previously,” he says. So, how did he get started with the process? Michael says, “I found that Trailhead was a very excellent resource for keeping track of all of the possible capabilities, in addition to providing a roadmap to help figure out the art of the possible. Trailhead helped us develop ideas that could then translate to our business.” &nbsp; Get buy-in from the users. Getting buy-in from users wasn’t hard, explains Michael. As he points out, “everyone loves the modern look and feel of Lightning. I love the capabilities of being able to provide a more innovative user interface that can be customized to the application that they’re using.” Michael says, “I was fortunate enough to build some new applications within the tool for our users to bring them into Salesforce. It allowed me to start from almost a clean slate, to gather requirements and to deliver something to suit those needs.” &nbsp; Embrace the move from Salesforce One to the Napili Template. Michael was also involved in moving a community that was built on Salesforce One to the Napili template. “Moving to that template has been incredibly powerful. Our users have a very large international participation, so we were able to provide a consistent look and feel that would mirror on a mobile device, a tablet, and a desktop. The brand was incredibly excited about this and continue to be excited about the possibilities of what they can do inside the community,” says Michael. &nbsp; Don’t expect moving to Lightning to be an overnight process. Moving to Lightning has been an ongoing process, and he’s learned a lot. As Michael explains, “A lot of planning went into the process. In some cases, we had to wait for Salesforce to catch up with the Lightning release, which they’ve done a tremendous job of doing. Because of that, we’ve been able to effectively determine which sets of users are the best ideal candidates to move.” When it came to moving from Visual Force to Lightning, Michael says, “the very first thing I look at was: what skill set is needed to go from that journey in Visual Force to Lightning? Going through the material and attending a Salesforce University course provided a good framework for the types of skills that are needed.” &nbsp; Stay up to date with blogs and webinars. When asked what tips he’d have for admins looking to stay up to date on all things Salesforce, Michael says, “In addition to looking at the release notes and the changes that are happening, I found that the blogs, such as admin.salesforce.com, have been a good source of information. What I really love is the success community. Being able to read each other’s posts and comment has been a very exciting place. Joining webinars has been another great source.” &nbsp; For...

How L'Oreal is rolling out Lightning with Michael Lupino

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we talk to Shakil Kamran, a consultant at Now It Matters and winner of the NYC World Tour 2018 Golden Hoodie. We’ll hear his incredible story and the work he’s done to help the next generation of tech innovators. Join us as we talk about how coming to Dreamforce with a learning mindset helped Shakil start his career in tech, and how he’s giving back. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shakil Kamran. Going all in on Salesforce. “As I was growing up I had various jobs in many different industries,” Shakil says, “but I knew that at the end of the day technology ran everything.” While he felt like he was expected to become a doctor or a lawyer, he knew that he wanted to work his way into the tech industry. Starting out, Shakil had skipped college and went straight to work. He was in retail management for three years, “but I knew it was more of a job than a career.” He decided to pick up his education where he left off, and happened to attend a boot camp during his first year at Monroe College. The boot camp was hosted by none other than Selina Suarez, who created an organization called PepUp Tech (People Empowering People Up Through Technology). “My entire life changed after I met Selina,” Shakil says. After the four day session, he was able to transition into an internship, which took him to Dreamforce and Midwest Dreamin’. At the time Shakil was still working his retail job, 50-60 hours a week, on top of being a full-time student, husband, and father. He would come home around 11 or 12 o’clock and hop on Trailhead to get more experience. “Before I left for Dreamforce last year, my company gave me an ultimatum,” he says, “if you leave you can’t come back.” Ultimately, he decided that he had to take a leap of faith and trust that eventually it would work out. How Dreamforce changed everything for Shakil. At Dreamforce, Shakil met Tim Lockie, the founder of Now It Matters. “He believed in me,” Shakil says. He told his story of what it took for him to make it to San Francisco, and Tim decided to take a chance. But that’s simplifying a lot of hard work, and a lot of uncertainty. “It hit me more when I landed: I’m in San Francisco and I don’t know what I’m doing here.” “I just basically spoke to as many people as I could,” Shakil says, and he decided to focus on learning more about Salesforce. He was at a Women in Tech event at Dreamforce when he met Tim and was able to focus on the value he brought with his background in sales and marketing. In other words, it’s not just about what you can get from the community but what you can give back as well. The importance of giving back. “I want to inspire the next generation of change leaders and thought leaders that are coming behind me,” Shakil says, and so he set to work creating a partnership between PepUp Tech and the City University of New York, the third-largest university system in the country. For him, it was a moral obligation. Because a Salesforce career isn’t like a traditional one (like a doctor or a lawyer), it’s important to help folks from all backgrounds understand what’s out there. “When you’re on the other side of the door, you’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know this role even existed,’” he says, and taking that type of knowledge back to the community can change people’s lives. “Where I come from, we were taught that nothing is free,” Shakil says, so sharing the incredible resources that are Trailhead, PepUp Tech, and the Salesforce Ohana is key to helping people see themselves in tech. “Everyone wants to see you succeed here, everyone wants to see you move up and do great things in life,” he says. “If you do have an opportunity in front of you,” he says, “just do it and figure out the rest later.” Resources  PepUp Tech: https://www.pepuptech.org/ Trailhead: Build Your Career...

Shakil Kamran Says Just Do It

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’ve got Marciana Davis, a Project Analyst at Yurgosky. She came to Salesforce through PepUp Tech and has done a lot of work to give back to the community and help others get into the ecosystem. Join us as we talk about Marciana’s job breaking things as a QA analyst, how giving back can help you grow, and the key qualities of an Awesome Admin. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marciana Davis. How PepUp Tech got Marciana hooked on Salesforce. Marciana started out studying development at school. When she got to Monroe College, she was still set on that path, but it didn’t quite seem right. She approached her professor and said, “Listen, I love computers but I’ve really found a niche for databases,” which led the professor to recommend an upcoming Salesforce bootcamp put on by PepUp Tech. What attracted Marciana to databases in the first place was “the way that you can easily manipulate them to get information that you need.” As Marciana says, “I’ve been a scatterbrain since birth,” so the ability to organize and sort information in so many different ways while still working on one thing was amazing to her. The amazing community that made Marciana feel welcome. At the boot camp, there’s a lot of information to take in over the four days, “but as you gain more experience on the platform and go into user group meetings—that definitely solidified my career path into Salesforce,” Marciana says. When she finally got a chance to free up her calendar and go to one, the people that she met and the passion they had for the platform was life-changing. “The meeting I went to was about inclusion,” Marciana says, “and I felt that for a long time in my past I haven’t been included as much as everyone else.” It struck a chord with her that the Salesforce Ohana makes it a priority and holds it as a core value. Breaking things, professionally. In Marciana’s job as a Project Analyst in the QA department at Yurgosky Consulting, “I basically break things and make sure that the engineers are fixing it.” That involves a lot of creativity, trying to do the same thing as many ways as she can think of to make sure that everything’s working. “All of this is clicking, folks, there’s no coding involved,” she says. For Marciana, the key to being an Awesome Admin is attention to detail: “You have to make sure you know what the client wants and how they want it.” At the same time, you need to cultivate patience, “because clients tend to change their minds,” she says. Finally, being a problem solver is key because of all the troubleshooting and learning you need to do as part of the job. How giving back can help you grow. Looking forward, Marciana is focused on giving back to the community by volunteering for PepUp Tech. She’s worked for the virtual boot camp course and is looking to volunteer in person. “Like my mom said, you didn’t get here alone and giving back is a way of saying thank you,” she says. She’s been helping students for the past couple weeks, and when they tell her what a blessing she’s been in their lives she says, “No, you’re a blessing because you’re helping me study for the certification.” Resources  Trailmix by Alex Slack:  BA &amp; QA Training  Social  Marciana: @traveling_dev Gillian: @gilliankbruce Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns  Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  review us on iTunes! Full Show Transcript Gillian Bruce:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast, where we talk about product, community, and careers to help you become a more awesome Salesforce Admin. I'm Gillian Bruce. This week, we've got another great pep up tech story coming for you. We're talking to Marciana Davis. She's a project analyst at Yugorski, and she also learned about Salesforce...

I Do QA (I Break Things) with Marciana Davis

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re welcoming back podcast favorite Zayne Turner, Lead Developer Evangelist at Salesforce. We chat Lightning Web Components, a new technology that helps reconfigure how we build Lightning components. Join us as we talk about what Lightning Web Components means for our implementations and applications. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Zayne Turner. How Lightning Web Components changes the game. Lightning Web Components is a new way of building components that lets you apply the experience you already have in other web development technology outside of the Salesforce ecosystem. “Under the hood, some of the standard components you see in the top of the explorer and app builder have maybe been Lightning components for a while now and we didn’t know it,” Zayne says, and the beauty of this technology is that you don’t have to. As Gillian says, you can make a components turducken and it’ll just work and be delicious. “When we introduced Aura, the web was different,” Zayne says, “there weren’t as many things that the browser knew how to do out of the box so we had to build a lot of it for you.” That meant that it needed to be built custom, which made it confusing for developers because they needed to learn different ways of doing the same thing. It also made things slower. Now that the web is smarter, we can leverage widespread technology to make things easier. What does Lightning Web Components mean for admins? For admins, there are a few things that you need to think about with the release of Lightning Web Components. “If you’re wondering what’s going to change when I open up App Builder,” Zayne says, “you shouldn’t have to change anything.” The bigger change is that you help your developers make a better choice, especially with performance or adding new talent with other web development experience. We can help developers be more efficient by bringing our Admin Magic to the table. If we really understand the business processes at play in a particular situation, we can show them how a particular component fits into the broader landscape. That means a more efficient team that gets more done. Get your hands dirty. If you’re looking for how to get your hands dirty and understand what the Lightning Web Components app opens up, you can start with the Recipes sample app. “It shows you how to solve a lot of common problems in 30 lines of code or less,” Zayne says, whether or not you’re a developer. You have so many different ways of doing what you want to do, and it’s valuable to understand what those options are even if it’s not in your normal toolbox. Coming up, there are the Global Developer Week meetings in February where people can get together to talk about what’s new and where there are challenges. At the end of May, of course, there’s TrailheaDX. Check out your local community group for more information, and there are always great resources available online (and in our show notes). Resources  Lightning Web Components Launch recoding Sample Apps Gallery Global Developer Week events TrailheaDX  Social  Zayne: @zaynelt Gillian: @gilliankbruce Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns  Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  review us on iTunes! &nbsp; Full Show Transcript Gillian Bruce:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Welcome to the Salesforce Admins podcast, where we talk about product, community and careers to help you become a more awesome Salesforce Admin. I'm Gillian Bruce and today we're welcoming back one of our favorites to the podcast, Zayne Turner Lead Developer Evangelist here at Salesforce. Zayne has been doing a lot of work on Lightning Web Components. Lightning Web Components is an exciting new technology that we launched not too long ago to help reconfigure how we build Lightning components. Now most of this has...

Lightning Web Components for Admins with Zayne Turner

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re talking with Shannon Hale, Senior Director Product Management at Salesforce in charge of Flow. We find out about this amazing declarative automation tool and the changes coming up with the Spring ‘19 release. Join us as we talk about Shannon’s journey from the music industry into product management, how her team has made Flow easier to use, and where we’re going next. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shannon Hale. From indie music to software development. Shannon is an OG guest of the original ButtonClick Admin Podcast with Mike and Jared. When she flunked out of her engineering degree, she started getting involved in the music scene, taking pictures and writing about bands “for really obscure indy rags that you’ve never heard of,” she says. She went back and did a writing program at 27, but “I could not find a writing job to save my life. I had a really fabulous CD collection but I could not pay my rent.” Shannon ended up working as a secretary for an engineering firm in a very small office. “I’d always liked computers and had access to them from an early age,” she says, “and so I started doing things like putting the hard drives in the computer or taking the CD-ROMs out.” They saw her interest and offered to sponsor her for classes in programming. “I ended up accidentally moving into tech,” she says, moving into teaching and eventually user experience, which led her to Salesforce. “A good part of it is just saying yes to opportunities, even if you don’t necessarily have all the skills but you know that you have some of them and are pretty sure you can get the rest,” she says. The magic of Flow. A lot of the time we identify a business problem that we want to solve as admins, but we don’t necessarily know what tools to use to do that. “Wanting to solve the problem is 75% of the battle,” Shannon says. That’s why working on great tools like Flow is so valuable—it puts powerful solutions in the hands of problem solvers. If you have a business process that is complicated or idiosyncratic, it can be hard to make sure that all the correct forms and fields are populated 100% of the time. Flow can help by providing validation to make sure that happens. “But Flow is also a little bit more powerful than some of our other tools,” Shannon says, “it has more code-like aspects to it.” It makes it easy to take people screen-by-screen through a business process and only ask them for the information that they have at that time. Flow can string things together across records in a single operation, rather than having to go through three different places to get it. Exciting new changes for Flow in Spring ‘19. Flow has had a lot of power, but there have always been some elements of it that maybe made it intimidating to the average admin. For Spring 2019, Shannon and her team are trying to make the experience match other aspects of Salesforce, like Process Builder and Lightning App Builder. That makes even the more complex aspects of Flow feel more familiar. “I have this phrase that I use periodically called, ‘Our programming is showing,’” Shannon says, “places where the complexity of the technology is really showing in the user interface but doesn’t necessarily make sense to people who aren’t writing the technology.” Spring 19 has represented an opportunity to clean a lot of that up and make it more approachable. That also includes adding options for larger text and better contrast. Just some of the things you can do with Flow include being able to quickly enter information that is going to appear in three different records. You can also delete child records when the master is closed, but you probably want to be careful with your implementation, Shannon recommends. Coming up in the future look forward to undo/redo and copy and pasting elements, along with more...

Shannon Hale on the New Flow Builder

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we have another great PepUp Tech story from Sasha Manford, Salesforce Admin at Carl Marks Advisors. We get a chance to hear her amazing career story and how she moved from a power user to a full-blown admin. Join us as we talk about building your career, Selina Suarez’s amazing mentorship, and the entrepreneurial spirit you need to be a great Salesforce admin. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Sasha Manford. The Salesforce Princess. Like many admins, “my journey to Salesforce started accidentally,” Sasha says. She was working at a company that really invested in employee training and happened to use Salesforce to keep track of everything. “I remember the first day of orientation I was so enamored with the platform,” she says. She took to it quickly as a user, and when the previous admin left she took over the role. It came with a great new nickname: the Salesforce Princess. As a new admin, Sasha needed a lot of help to get started, “but that’s the great thing about the Salesforce ecosystem—everybody wants to help you out,” she says. Between Trailhead and user groups, she felt fully supported by the community as she grew into her new role. Her company had major struggles with Salesforce, however, so after about a year, she had to leave her position. Before that, however, Sasha attended a Women in Tech User Group meeting where she met Selina Suarez. The amazing mentorship of Selina Suarez and PepUp Tech. As soon as Sasha told Selina her story, “she immediately was like, ‘Here’s my number, text me, come to the Word Tour and find me.’” When she went to that event (on her birthday!), Selina took her around and introduced her to just about everybody. “It was the most magical day of my life,” she says, and just like that Sasha was signed up for the Spring semester of the PepUp Tech Bootcamp. Sasha actually got a job before class had even begun, in part thanks to a book Selina recommended called Knock ‘em Dead. Even though she had a Salesforce position, the bootcamp was super valuable. “I was able to learn a lot of stuff I never knew I was able to do on the platform,” she says. Currently, Sasha is a Salesforce admin at Carl Marks Advisors, a financial services firm. When she was interviewing, she was nervous because she only had a year of admin experience under her belt. Throughout the process, however, Selina was like a guiding angel. “I told Selina that they’re wary of me because I don’t have my certification,” she says, “and Selina was like, ‘Who cares? Read the book, study up on the company, and knock ‘em dead.’” The keys to being an awesome admin (it’s not just your tech skills). “Being a Salesforce admin I feel like I’ve grown so much—it’s helped me have a voice,” Sasha says. “Being an admin, you really have to have an entrepreneurial spirit,” she says, “you’re in charge of the platform, you are the guru, you are the expert.” Because of that, you’re in charge of your own work and responsible for your own growth. “People look to me for help, and to me, that’s the biggest achievement ever,” she says. After getting the job, Sasha started immediately looking for problems that needed to be solved to prove that they hired the right person. She fixed her company’s Box integration, created custom dashboards for a user, and generated a timeline to clean up their instance. Moving forward, Sasha is focusing on the finer points of being a great admin. “A lot of people think that being an admin is technical; it’s technical but you also have to have really great people skills,” she says. “You’re going to be dealing with a lot of people who have different personalities who don’t want to use the platform, and you have to persuade them.” It’s challenging, but it also means that there’s something to look forward to every day at work....

Discover Your Admin Voice with Sasha Manford

On this week’s Salesforce Admins Podcast we’ve got Shannon Gregg, President of Cloud Adoption Solutions and author of It’s About Time. We discuss the ins and outs of adoption from her unique position as both someone who consults in it and also as a researcher studying it for her Ph.D. dissertation. Join us as we talk about what you can do as an admin to position Salesforce in your organization to make it successful and help your users become more efficient. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shannon Gregg. That feeling when you fall in love with Salesforce. Shannon first encountered Salesforce because she was running the Sales department of her company. “They were like, ‘Here you go, you run sales operations, therefore Salesforce comes along with it,’” Shannon says. “Once I started digging around inside of it, I was instantly hooked,” she says. A lot of the work she was already doing used Excel to track things like RFIs and pricing volumes, but Salesforce took that to the next level. The organization Shannon was working for was acquired by another company, which didn’t have a true Sales Operations department. “When I got to work for that company, I came in and said, ‘Now let’s look at the power Salesforce can give us for collaboration, for communication, and find the best way for us to sell,’” she says. That approach worked great, and as the business continued to grow and make more acquisitions, Salesforce use just kept growing and growing. “Our board of directors just loved it,” she says, “they loved the ability to look at their phone at 2 o’clock in the morning as see what’s happening with their business.” How a governance committee can give you support for broader adoption. “One of the things I love the best about adoption is opening somebody else’s eyes to help them see the power of the platform to help them be more efficient and effective in their workday,” Shannon says. If you want someone to commit themselves fully to Salesforce, they need to understand what’s in it for them. It’s a simple goal to shoot for, but takes a lot of effort and thinking to make it happen. Beyond that, establishing a governance committee can be a big help towards encouraging broader adoption in your org. Shannon recommends figuring out which executive ultimately is responsible for the Salesforce spend at your business and getting them involved. Get them on Chatter, help them get the Dashboards they need, get them to better understand the platform and they’ll be a big mouthpiece for you. Look at people in Sales, Finance, Project Management, the people who are involved in Salesforce every day or who require the outputs, and meet regularly to go over what’s working and what’s not. Balancing your Awesome Admin goals. Managing all of the demands on your time as a Salesforce Admin is tricky. “You could be doing this job 24 hours a day, and many of us would like to because we love it that much,” Shannon says, “but for me, I like to say what am I managing by metrics and what am I managing by objective?” Look at your own metrics as a Salesforce Admin to make sure that you’re getting your bigger goals done, and find a way to visualize it, whether that’s Calendar View, the Kanban Board, or a custom Dashboard. The research Shannon is doing on adoption. “My Ph.D. dissertation is really focused on engagement and time-to-mission,” Shannon says. She’s looking at how nonprofits use Salesforce to allow them to improve productivity while also being more controlled with what they’re doing day to day. She’s working closely with nonprofit user groups to learn the challenges of engagement and implementation, which ultimately affects how effectively they can reach their goals. Shannon’s research combines IT theory, change management theory, and adult education theory, all three of which combine to create engagement....

Be an Adoption All-Star Like Shannon Gregg

This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve got Taisha Inesti, Business Manager at AHRC New York City and PepUp Tech alum. We come to you live from a bar in the NYC Finacial District to talk about her journey into the Salesforce ecosystem who is just getting started. Join us as we talk about how she became a liaison between the tech and people parts of her organization, her experience in PepUp Tech, and how she’s approaching breaking into a Salesforce career. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Taisha Inesti. Working to make a difference. Taisha, who goes by Tai, originally wanted to be a lawyer. However, like most of our guests on the pod, life happened and she ended up on a different road that led her to tech. For Tai, it was becoming a single mother at nineteen. She needed to get to work to support her family, so she started at a nonprofit that provides behavioral health services to patients with disabilities. First, she provided direct care, eventually moving into admin and eventually became the Systems Manager. “That’s when my love for systems and technology came into play,” she says. At her agency, Tai is trying to overhaul the systems that are being used, but it’s tough to get momentum, especially when critical day-to-day operations depend upon them. “They’re not using enterprise systems, they’re not even electronic medical records,” she says, “we’re recording on the backend to basically make a bill.” Tai is in charge of making sure they have clean data to make sure everything’s running smoothly, and that they can satisfy their reporting requirements. Translating from IT gruff talk to human. As Tai got more involved in the data side of her nonprofit, she started working with the IT department, which at first fulfilled the stereotype of being a bit rough around the edges. She was a fast study and wasn’t afraid to speak up when trainings had the wrong tone. People took notice, and so she was able to pick up some coding. Eventually, they had a special position created specifically for her to help IT with training. “A lot of people, when they’re learning, they’re learning without understanding why things happen the way they happen,” Tai says, “but when you understand the way something works it’s a lot easier for you to be able to help another person understand that too.” She had a talent for understanding the Why behind a thing, and communicating that clearly to the actual people who needed to execute that task. When Salesforce entered the picture (Selina Suarez strikes again). During this time, Tai also went back and finished her degree in Public Affairs and Legal Studies. She got to design her own major, so she focused on IT, and project management, supplementing that with Khan Academy courses in Java and more to feed her curiosity. “I just wanted to keep learning, and I wish I had heard about Salesforce back then because I would have been a Trailhead master,” she says. So how did Tai get to Salesforce? A childhood friend of 25 years who happens to be Selina Suarez. As Selina was learning Salesforce and getting more involved, she kept telling Tai to come along for the ride. When Selina started PepUp Tech, naturally, Tai got involved. She went to her first Dreamforce this year, and the experience was amazing. “I cried so many times, I was overwhelmed by the love and community that exists within the Salesforce ecosystem,” she says. Tai was particularly moved by Marc Benioff’s discussion of “inclusive capitalism,” the idea that business can help make social change real and achievable. “I think that Salesforce is breaking generational curses, that it’s making the world a better place,” she says. “People who would have been overlooked—they’re in the ecosystem and they’re building and they’re thriving,” she says. Resources  Trailhead:  Build Your Career in the Salesforce Ecosystem...

Aspire to be an Admin with Taisha Inesti

This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Saray Rosales, Associate Consultant at Now It Matters, with another great PepUp Tech alumni story. We learn how she first met Salesforce as an end user and now is building her career in the platform. Join us as we talk about how she got started with PepUp Tech, and what she’s learned as a new Salesforce admin to help herself and help herself and help others. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Saray Rosales. Driven to help other people. When she was growing up, Saray really just wanted to help other people: “I wanted to impact people and do something big for others.” In her new role at Now It Matters, she gets to do just that. “Every day is a new day, something challenging and something new and I love it.” Saray didn’t necessarily know off the bat that Salesforce would be the way to do what she dreamed of, but the company she was working for happened to use the platform, so she encountered it as an end user. “I wanted to learn more about Salesforce, so I went to the World Tour where I met Selena Suarez, the founder of PepUp Tech,” she says. She did the boot camp program and it changed everything: “I fell in love with Salesforce. I fell in love with the company, the inclusion that it represents, and I really look forward to learning more about it.” How Saray relies on her community. So how did Saray end up going to World Tour when she was really just an end user at that point? “We didn’t have an admin at the company back then, so I was feeling like we didn’t know what to do with this amazing tool that we had,” she says. She took the boot camp to learn more about the backend in order to do more with the platform. “The boot camp was amazing,” Saray says, “I got to meet amazing people that I’m still friends with and very close with. I tell them that they are my Ohana, my family here, my support system, they opened so many doors for me. They actually changed my life for the better.” As studied more, Saray quickly saw why the admin role was so important to the platform. “I’m learning how you can make things better for your users. How can you make everything more efficient for them and easier for them?” she says. “You see the backend of things, and you analyze all the processes and figure out a way to make things better.” In other words, you help other people do their jobs better. Proving herself in a new role. At Now It Matters, Saray is learning something new every day. “My coworkers are amazing, they’re very patient with me, and they take the time to teach me things because there’s always something you can learn and do better,” she says. When she started out she was on a two-week trial which was understandably a little nerve-wracking, so she reached out to the PepUp Tech community to ask for advice. “They said, ‘Just take a step back and look at the big picture of things, don’t get overwhelmed,’” she says, “‘look at the small pieces and put it all together.’” From the start, Saray faced some tough challenges. She needed to solve a problem related to finance, but she had no idea what to do because it wasn’t in her background. However, she realized that she could use it as an opportunity to prove that she can learn quickly and take on new problems, so she took a deep breath and dove in. “I read a lot and reached out to people that I know who could help me,” she says, and it ended up being a big win for her. “There are so many things that you don’t know as a new admin,” she says, “and that’s why you’ve got to take a step back and relax.” Resources  Trailhead:   Build Your Admin Career on Salesforce Trailmix Discover Salesforce Career Paths   PepUp Tech  Social  Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Saray: @SarayKRosales Gillian: @gilliankbruce  Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  review us on iTunes! Full Show Transcript

Driven to Help People With Saray Rosales

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve brought Marciana Davis back to the podcast. One thing that’s happened since the last time we spoke is that she’s started working at a new position, as Salesforce Administrator at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. For the next 3 weeks, we have episodes recorded live from the Salesforce Worldtour in New York City. Marciana was last on the show about a year ago, so it’s fun to hear how 2019 went for her and what she’s looking forward to in 2020. Join us as we talk about how volunteering can help you stay current, why the new year is a great opportunity to set some goals, and what her resolution is for Salesforce admins. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marciana Davis. From breaking things to fixing things. The last time we had Marciana on the show, the episode was titled, “I Do QA (I Break Things).” So what’s changed since last we spoke? “I fix things now,” she says, “being the Salesforce awesome admin I’ve always dreamed of.” She works to resolve all manner of issues that may come up in her org, and she’s been loving every minute of it. She’s gotten her seventh Superbadge this year, as well as a certification as a Marketing Cloud Email Specialist.&nbsp; Marciana is, as one friend puts it, “the Evangelist of Newcomers” at PepUp Tech. “I help students with badges, Superbadges, and it keeps my awesome admin skills sharp,” she says. You always have to learn more when you’re a teacher, so she gets back just as much as she gives in the process. New year, new you. Looking back on 2019, Marciana’s advice for her past self would come down to three words: trust the process. “You’re not going to know everything, and that’s OK,” she says, “it’s a learning process, you’re going to bump your head a little bit.” The key is stick through it and trust that you’ll learn and grow and, eventually, be in the right place at the right time. The best thing to do is to keep learning, so that way when you get an opportunity you’ll be able to step up. To look ahead to 2020, Marciana is planning to do a lot more speaking events. She’s set her sights on South Florida Dreaming, so hopefully, you catch her there where she’ll share her approach to getting the most out of the learning resources available to admins. She also has a 2020 resolution to travel more, so you’ll be able to find her at Midwest Dreamin’, WITness Success, TrailheaDX, DC Worldtour, and Dreamforce. So, basically everything. “I love Salesforce so much that I can’t help it, Marciana says. If you’re having trouble thinking of your own New Year’s resolution, Marciana can help you out. “Find a senior admin and have them mentor you,” she says, “with more experience, you’ll learn a heck of a lot more than just getting certified.” Training is one thing, but getting more acquainted with the business processes she’s responsible for has been so valuable in learning how to apply her knowledge. Resources   I Do QA (I Break Things)  Trailhead: Admin Super Set   Business Administration Specialist&nbsp;  Lightning Experience Reports &amp; Dashboards Specialist  Security Specialist&nbsp;  Social  Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns&nbsp; Marciana: @traveling_dev Mike: @MikeGerholdt  Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  review us on iTunes! Full Show Transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast where we talk about product, community, and career to help you become a more awesome Salesforce Admin. I'm Mike Gerholdt and for the next few weeks we are going to be recording live at the Salesforce World Tour here in New York city. So outside of our normal comfort zone and catching up in some instances like today with Marciana Davis who used to be at another company in the beginning of this year, not to give you a spoiler, but has moved onto a new professional career and so it's a fun time. We're...

I Do QA (I Break Things) with Marciana Davis

The Salesforce Admins Podcast