#standard objects

As a Salesforce professional, you are no doubt aware of the power of the standard objects that reside in your org. Be it Accounts, Opportunities or Cases, many a custom object has been attached in relation to these and other standard objects, but many time-saving utilities that can be deployed await your order. While these may not be complex in Salesforce terms, the value to your organization could be the real value, both in the replacement of the legacy option as well as adoption of Salesforce overall. In many instances, the choice to move out of the existing manual process to a more streamlined approach need not be a question of time, but rather the decision to do so as these concepts can be deployed rapidly.  Here then are some ideas to consider to get the most from Salesforce for your users. Case #1 - Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Application Most organizations possess some semblance of a system for tracking progress. This can be on the sales side (such as the progression of deals / new accounts) or on the management side for tracking projects. If your team / management have been asking for such a tool, you need not look any further than your own Salesforce org to accommodate this, and the set-up can be done faster than you may think. In fact, the majority of the time spent on developing this new system will likely be in the information gathering phase such as capturing the fields and the type of reports that are being used at present. This may take a couple of meetings in which to nail down the base requirements, but once captured and reconciled, you need only create a custom object in which all of the customer’s future meetings will be run from. As an example, let’s say that the current KPI’s are being used for a weekly sales meeting. The fields that you have determined which are most used (and reported on) during these sessions include (i) Item Name, (ii) Description, (iii) Start Date, (iv) Estimated End Date and  (v) Status. While more fields will likely be utilized once the group has a chance to see the value of the new KPI system, you need only create the object with 5 new fields for a start. Once done, if you wish to add more pizzazz, you can ask for a spreadsheet of the existing values which they have been using up until now, and through Data-Loader, insert this information into your new application. You can then produce a report (and later dashboard when new fields are added) that your customer’s manager / facilitator can use to run these sessions in the future. As a final item for maximum convenience, why not add a workflow rule to alert the facilitator of tasks which are 2 weeks away from the stated ‘End Date’. Now you have a system in which your (internal) customers can be proud of, and since all team members are utilizing the same tool (Salesforce) the ongoing management will be simple and downright convenient for both the users and the managers. What did all of this take? About 1 day in the Sandbox at most (Development Time, Inserting of Data, Reporting and Testing), but which could amount to days of time saved for the recipient of the system. Plus… it’s just more cool. Case #2 - Agile / Scrum / Kanban Methodology System

In the Lightning Release, salesforce introduced visualization components for the purpose of making rapid sense of the data in your system. What used to be referred to as ‘Swim-lane’ visualizations, the Kanban feature gives you the option of segmenting your data by a multitude of Picklist options such as ‘Status’, which for managing processes like Agile/Scrum can be very beneficial as opposed to purchasing a separate application that runs outside of Salesforce. Using Agile as a Project Methodology example, a similar structure that you may find with other Project-Card-based systems can be easily designed in Salesforce, but with added flexibility for arrangement of the data. Consider a typical Agile Project which has the Project Card as the ‘Parent’ and Project Tasks as the ‘Child’ cards along with the reporting (Kanban) component, this can be accomplished by creating 2 objects, along with a list view and that’s it.

For the base (Parent) object, this would include options such as the Project Name, Project Leader / Members, Due Date and Status, while the child cards would have similar fields, only with Estimated and Completed Hours which would roll-up to the Parent Card. The team-members would fill out the information no different than creating any other Salesforce record, but with the added convenience of tying in existing information in Salesforce such as Account or Case information which for a 3rd-;party application would not even compare. Ongoing, all of this information can be arranged in a List View with the KanBan feature turned on, summarized by Hours and grouped by Status. Now you can see all of the individual Projects / Tasks arranged by Status (i.e. To-Do, Delayed, Doing, QA and Done) in a Kanban style on which cards can be dragged from status to status with a total count of the hours at the top of each card. Case #3 - Expense Tracking System It applies to all departments… Marketing, Fulfillment, Logistics. Many expense sheets are available, but in various forms, with the work of just a few to have to assemble all of this in which to get totals and produce relevant reports. One system to rule them all would make everyone’s life easier, and the good news is that it couldn’t be simpler to put together. Suppose you request an email or spreadsheet on a bi-weekly or monthly basis to be submitted to track the status of existing expenses as well as new ones. These could include ‘Item Name’, ‘Tracking Number’, ‘Due Date’ and ‘Amount’ among others. A new Custom Object with these fields will give everyone a means of interacting with these expenses without any collating of data, with the reports being easily spawned in a matter of seconds. Taking this a step further a Dashboard could be the focal point of all Expense Tracking team sessions with everyone seeing (and ability to access) the same information. If your Expense Process also requires approvals, you have the option of either using a ‘Checkbox Field’ powered by Process Builder or via Salesforce’s built-in Approval Process. Case #4 - Vendor / Supplier Management The idea of having a system to store your ‘rolodex’ of suppliers, 3rd-party contractors and the like is usually a distant thought… until such time when you need to access the information and then the need for such a system becomes a valuable asset. Many of us have this type of information stored in an email folder or in a spreadsheet, both of which are seen only by one, but if someone else on your team needs to quickly access this information, you would need to be ‘at the ready’ to attempt to locate it. Because this type of information is considered non-personal, how much better it would be if it was available in a location to where all could access it in a central location such as Salesforce. In doing so, this can be accessed just as quickly as finding an Account or Campaign, and to develop this takes just hours, The fields required would be no different than the information that you and others on your team have stored on your local system which can then be inserted into your new object using the Data-Loader tool, and as this is an ever-growing system, the base data need only be amalgamated once from the outset with Salesforce being the store-house from that moment on. An additional feature of a custom object to store this data is that you can set Email Alerts as reminders for items such as Contract Renewals based on the renewal date. Now you have something that provides a real benefit when the time comes, with the peace-of-mind that goes with having a single application to get the information you (or anyone else) requires without you having to fetch it.

All of these applications have a central theme attached to them, and that is that they are all Lightning-Optimized, especially the Dashboards and KanBan Layouts. If you are still operating in classic (or if there have been no prior motivation in which to move to Lightning) using one (or more) of these ideas can showcase to both your users, and the leadership team that you mean business because while developing such a system in classic can be done, it is not even in the same sport as to the experience that your users get with Lightning… especially when it comes to the visual aspect which if left in classic could have your users operating like it’s 1999. Of course as an admin or developer there will be times when you will need to switch to classic in which to perform data-driven tasks, but the non-admins are thirsty for more from your Salesforce investment. If your entire org is still on classic, you don’t have to switch all of them in one shot, but can roll it out via a permission set, perhaps using some of the ideas outlines above as a test. The odds are in your favor that once they have seen what is available to them in Lightning, they’ll appreciate the layout and if you then make a dedicated effort to move everyone, it need only be done once, and remember… it’s just a toggle, not a ‘all-or nothing’ update which means you literally have nothing to lose because as an admin, you can still go back when you need to. While the ideas presented are just a small faction of the many options that are available to your organization, consider all of the old applications - some perhaps may have been running for years (Web 1.0 app / Spreadsheet or a process which exists, but which has no means of reporting / management) and try one on for size. You may not see the full benefit yourself, but for your users, a small gesture can move mountains for them in both visual appeal, and the sheer savings in time which if added up over the months pales in comparison to the development investment. That, in any language, is true ROI.