Salesforce Admins Podcast

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to LeeAnne Rimel, Senior Director of Admin and Developer Strategic Content at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about True to the Core Deep Dive and how it will give Salesforce Admins more chances to engage with product leaders, ask questions, and influence the roadmap. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with LeeAnne Rimel. True to the Core with a spin If you've been to a Dreamforce or TDX, you're probably familiar with True to the Core. Typically, it's a keynote session with Salesforce product leaders where you can get key insights and engage them in a Q&A. However, as LeeAnne points out, we've noticed over the years that there isn't always time to go deep on a particular topic. That's why we're launching a special monthly video series, True to the Core Deep Dive. Each month, we'll focus in on one core Salesforce Platform product area, with product leaders there to answer questions and really get down to the nitty-gritty. First episode focus: Setup and user access management For our first episode, we looked at the most highly voted topic area on IdeaExchange: Setup and user access management. So we sat down with Senior PMs Cheryl Feldman and Elizabeth Martin to walk through recent feature updates and look at what's on the roadmap. The highlight was definitely the 40-minute question and answer section, which really let us go so much deeper than your average keynote session. Other product owners Larry Tong and Laurent Kubaski were firing away answering even more questions in the chat. If you missed it, be sure to check out the video on LinkedIn or YouTube. We need you to help pick future topics If LeeAnne wants you to take one thing away from this episode, it's that we need you to help us pick future topics. That's right, this series is all about transparency and that includes topic selection. So each episode ends with a survey to determine what next month's episode will be about. "I read every single comment," LeeAnne says, "we read all of the feedback and it directly informs every episode we're going to put together." So tune in next month for the first community-chosen topic, Flow testing and debugging, and help us figure out what to look at next. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from LeeAnne about what she's working on for Dreamforce. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us in your feed every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog: Introducing True to the Core Deep Dive: In-Depth Product Conversations with Salesforce PMs LinkedIn: True to the Core Deep Dive: Setup and User Access YouTube: True to the Core Deep Dive: Setup and User Access Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social LeeAnne on LinkedIn LeeAnne on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to Salesforce Admins Podcast. Today, we're diving into a brand new way that Salesforce is connecting with the community called True to the Core Deep Dive. So LeeAnne Rimel, who's been on the podcast before, is going to join me and talk about this new series that gives you, the Salesforce admin, more chances to engage with product leaders, ask questions, and influence the roadmap based on your feedback. You'll have to hear how the first episode went. I'll have the link in the show notes. We're going to hear a little bit about what's coming next, but more importantly, how you can shape future topics. So if you're as excited as I am, keep walking or riding the train or listening, and let's get LeeAnne on the podcast. So LeeAnne, welcome back to the podcast. LeeAnne Rimel: Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. Mike: Yeah, it's been exciting. And last I checked, there was live, there some event that just melted my social feeds about True to the Core, so we have to start there. Tell me what's going on. LeeAnne Rimel: Well, we love True to the Core and we love True to the Core so much that we are bringing it to you virtually throughout the year. So if you're not familiar with True to the Core, if you haven't attended True to the Core in the past, it's a program with Salesforce that typically is a keynote setting at TrailblazerDX and at Dreamforce where all of our senior product leadership, senior Salesforce executives get on stage and they talk about Salesforce and the future of Salesforce and they answer questions from the audience. And I think, I should know this, I can't remember exactly when it started, but it's more than 10 years old. So it's a little bit of a fan favorite if you've been in the Salesforce ecosystem for a while because it's such a great opportunity to get transparency into roadmap, to ask very direct questions about things that impact you as a Salesforce professional. However, we got feedback from our community about True

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Kate Lessard, Lead Admin Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the new Agentforce Adoption Framework and her new YouTube series, "Kate Clicks Through It". You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kate Lessard. A flexible, nonlinear learning journey for admins It's been a while since we've had Kate on the pod, but she's been cooking up something cool, and I wanted to sit down with her to hear all about it. It's called the Agentforce Adoption Framework, and it's your guide for bringing the power of AI into your organization. Kate and the Evangelist team identified a gap: admins needed a structured path to get up to speed with everything Agentforce has to offer. The framework breaks this down into five areas of focus: Explore what's possible Get curious Try it out Make it work Use it often You can check out Kate's post on the Admin Blog for more details, but the goal is to help you set goals for your organization and get ready for what's coming next with AI. Hands-on learning through "Kate Clicks Through It" Kate's also started a new YouTube series, "Kate Clicks Through It," where she walks you through Salesforce processes step by step, with demos so you can click along and try them yourself. "I personally am someone who learns best by doing," Kate says, "I need to get hands-on, I need to do something. In many cases, I need to do it over and over again." The videos are around 10 minutes long, giving you quick tutorials on subjects like how to build an Agentforce data library, or how to use Org Check as an alternative to Optimizer. A framework for learning just about anything The Agentforce Adoption Framework was developed through tons of research and feedback from admins, Salesforce MVPs, and folks on the product team. We think it's pretty spiffy—so keep an eye out for more adoption-focused content at Dreamforce or even an event near you. As Kate points out, while Agentforce might be the shiny new toy, the adoption framework can be adapted to just about anything you want to implement. She uses the example of Data Cloud to highlight how important it is to have that fundamental level of adoption for both your users and your external customers. There are so many more great insights from Kate about how to level up your understanding of Agentforce, so be sure to check out the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Admin Blog: Your 5-Step Guide to Successful Agentforce Adoption YouTube Series: Kate Clicks Through It Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Kate on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full Transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admin's podcast. This week, admin evangelist Kate Lessard joins us to dive into the Agentforce adoption journey. From building a foundation AI to launching the new Kate Clicks Through It YouTube series, Kate walks us through how admins can thoughtfully and confidently bring AI into their organizations. We also chat about how feedback shaped the adoption framework and, sneak peek, what you might see at Dreamforce. So if you've been wondering where to start or where you are on your AI journey, this episode's for you. Let's get Kate on the podcast. So Kate, welcome back to the podcast. Kate Lessard: Thanks. It's been a while. Mike: Yeah. January. Was it when we did the kickoff? That was the last time. Kate Lessard: Maybe. Or maybe did we do a TDX, prep for TDX call maybe? Mike: We might've. Other podcasters would remember their episodes, but me, just crank them out. Kate Lessard: Yeah, you're a little busy. Mike: It's okay. So you've been busy as well. Let's talk about Agentforce stuff and YouTube stuff and everything you've been working on. Kate Lessard: Yeah, absolutely. It has definitely been a busy year. It's been flying by. And some really exciting stuff that we've been working on for admins this year. Mike: First up being Agentforce stuff, because Agentforce. I know there's not too much Agentforce out there. People say that, there's not. When we're recording this ChatGPT is coming out with a new model. This is our new norm. It's like when the iPhone drop, there's not enough iPhone information out in the world. There's always iPhone information out in the world. There's always going to be AI stuff for us to learn. Kate Lessard: Yeah, agreed. I think that that's the really cool thing about Agentforce and the job that we get to do is that we get to play with and learn the new things as they're coming out because it's so important for us to share with others and let them learn from our mistakes. So I think that that brings a lot of fun experimentation into our jobs. Mike: Right, absolutely. So speaking of that, how do w

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Amit Malik, the Content Portfolio Lead for AI within Product Education at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how we can teach AI effectively to admins and the easiest way to learn Agentforce. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Amit Malik. The shift from knowledge to value As the Content Portfolio Lead for AI in Product Education at Salesforce, Amit is the perfect person to talk to about where admins should get started with learning Agentforce. After all, his job is all about planning the courses that are offered globally about Agentforce and Data Cloud. What Amit emphasizes is that past knowledge matters less than what learners do in the next 12 months. Agentforce's capabilities are growing with every release, so he recommends focusing on understanding the core concepts of how AI works and building from there. Malik's agent framework for admins When you're building with AI, the first step is aligning on why an agent is needed in the first place. From there, he recommends asking five questions to guide your process: Is an AI agent the best way to solve this problem? Would it be easier to build a flow? Just because you can solve something with Agentforce doesn't mean you should. What agent type do you need? Salesforce has several pre-built agent templates for specific use cases, like Service Agent, Employee Agent, or Guided Shopping Agents. Consider those options before trying to build something more complicated. What topics do you want to assign to this agent? Define the set of business problems you want your agent to solve. There are standard pre-built topics like FAQ or escalation, but you can make a custom topic if needed. How will you provide data to your agent? AI is only as good as the data you provide it, so you need to make sure you have everything you need in Data Cloud and set up access with the Agentforce Data Library. What actions do you want the agent to perform? "This is where the magic happens," Amit says. There are four types of actions: Flow, Apex, API, and Prompt Template. It's important to understand that Agentforce is the final layer of the org, the interface. An agent is really an aggregation of the topics you build it to solve. Those topics comprise the specific actions you enable your agent to perform, and those topics, in turn, are possible based on the data you've integrated into Data Cloud. Adopting a learner's mindset For Amit, the most important thing you can do if you want to learn Agentforce is to adopt a learner's mindset. "The art of learning is to become curious," he explains, "education is not about the instructor, it's more about the learner." Where many businesses go wrong is viewing AI as a solution in search of a problem. But once you start to get curious about the specifics of your business processes, you'll start to find all sorts of new ways that AI agents can help. And building around these specific, real-world use cases is the easiest way to get started mastering Agentforce. Amit has a lot to share about learning, teaching, and working with Agentforce, so be sure to tune in for the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch a new episode every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Architect Courses for Admins with Amit Malik Trailhead: Discover Agentforce Trailhead: Review Agentforce and Data Library Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Amit on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're welcoming back, Amit Malik to talk about a topic that's very top of mind for every Salesforce admin right now, which is how do we teach AI effectively? Amit's going to share with us some insights from over a decade of Salesforce instruction diving into why teaching AI is a little bit different now, and how admins can use his five question agent framework to put to better use. Now, whether you're just getting started with Agent Force or you're already experimenting with Data Cloud, this conversation's packed with practical ways to bring clarity to your learning and to your users. So with that, let's get Amit on the podcast. All right, Amit, so welcome to the podcast. Amit Malik: Thank you. Mike Gerholdt: I know a few years back you were on to talk about the architect mindset, so I'll be sure to link to that episode, but now we're talking everything Agentforce and Data Cloud and Metadata and Customer 360. But for people that haven't been around listening to the podcast for three years, and there's a few of them, could you reacquaint the audience with what you do at Salesforce and your journey to Salesforce? Amit Malik: Sure. I joined Salesforce in 2013 and I have been lucky to

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to John Wall, co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast. Join us as we chat about how new generative AI tools are enabling marketers to get more personalized. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with John Wall. Six core marketing use cases for AI Thanks to Agentforce, generative AI has moved from novelty to necessity for most organizations. It's a key tool for strategic content creation, customer insight, and business transformation. That's why I sat down with John Wall, co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast, with guests like Simon Sinek, Seth Godin, and Debbie Millman. John identifies six key areas where marketers can lean on AI support: Generation Summarization Extraction Rewriting Classification Question answering These tasks are helping marketers analyze massive datasets, repurpose content, and simulate customer feedback in ways that were previously unimaginable. So my question for John was: what can we, as admins, build to help them out? Better data, smarter personas Marketers use personas to help them think about the specific people in their audience that they want to reach. "Right now, that's four people in a conference room coming up with cute nicknames like Sally Shopper or Wally the Weekend Warrior," John says. In the future, however, AI will make it possible to decide on marketing personas based on data-driven profiling. Marketers can extract customer patterns from engagement data and train real models based on statistics, not spitballing. Even more exciting, these new persona agents are essentially customers on demand. You can ask them questions and get their feedback while you plan your next marketing campaign. Why you need a human in the loop As everyone rushes to deploy AI, John emphasizes the importance of the human in the loop. Mistakes are bound to happen, and rushed implementations can harm brand trust. You need to make sure that any solution you deploy has gone through a thorough internal vetting process before it goes live. As John says, AI advancements are probably not going to put you out of a job, but they'll definitely make your job easier. "The big thing is you have to be curious," he says, "go play with something and see what you can make it do and what kind of results you can get from it." Listen to the full episode for more from John about how AI is transforming marketing. And make sure you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more John's Podcast: Marketing Over Coffee Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: 2025 Roadmap for Salesforce Admins: AI, Agentforce, and Emerging Trends Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Agentforce Transforms Customer Interactions at Salesforce Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Agentforce Is Changing the Career Landscape Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social John on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admin's Podcast, we're catching up with John Wall, longtime marketer, podcaster, and co-host of Marketing Over Coffee. We're going to dive into the rise of AI in marketing from smart summarization and rewriting tools to full-blown virtual agents. We're going to unpack how marketers can stay ahead and why AI is not magic, even though it kind of feels that way, and what smart Salesforce admins should be watching for next. Plus, you'll hear why having a human in the loop is still the secret sauce to marketing. So give this episode a listen and join me in welcoming John Wall to the podcast. So, John, welcome to the podcast. John Wall: Mike, it's great to be on the mic with you again. Mike Gerholdt: I know, it's been a while. I feel the last time we recorded was in Boston, 100 years ago. John Wall: Yeah, downtown Boston. I remember we were live on Newbury Street. That was like the heart of all the action. Mike Gerholdt: Yep. We were recording the old style podcast. We had an Edison, it was putting it on a phonograph and some wax tubes. John Wall: That's right. Sitting there with my ear trumpet listening. Mike Gerholdt: Ear trumpet, I love it. For those people, like the two people in the world that don't listen to Marketing Over Coffee, can you give us a brief overview of what you do and what Marketing Over Coffee is? John Wall: Yeah, sure. So, my whole career I worked in marketing and tech, and God, going on what, 16, 17 years ago when podcasting was just done with steam engine and hammers and nails. We created Marketing Over Coffee, with my co-host Christopher Penn. And we've had this ongoing dialogue of just every week, 25 to 30 minutes talking about what's going on in marketing and tech. And just like CRM, this space is so insane and changing every week, there's no shortage of st

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Derika West, IT Application Support Analyst II at KinderCare Learning Companies. Join us as we chat about how she got started in her tech career and how she started her Salesforce journey. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Derika West. Getting started in a tech career Derika started her career in the U.S. Army as a Carpentry and Masonry Specialist. From there, she bounced around between service industry jobs while she tried to figure out what was next. "There's no way I could get into tech," she told herself, "that's way too smart for me." However, when Derika moved to the West Coast, her friends believed in her. She applied for a position as a QA Test Technician, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to pitch her skills in a way that would make sense for the role. And that position gave her a foothold into an entirely new career. Getting hands-on with Salesforce In her current role, Derika is the SME for her organization's transition from Classic to Lightning. It's an org with over 40,000 users, so change comes slowly. She found herself in more and more conversations with end users about their pain points using their Salesforce deployment, and started looking for solutions. One thing that has been very helpful for Derika is to reach out to the people at her organization who are more experienced with the Salesforce platform. Even learning the basics of what they do and how they got to where they are today was very helpful in making the decisions that would shape her career. Why you should go to a Salesforce Admin Meetup Derika resolved to go to the next Portland Salesforce Admin Meetup, where she happened to meet Admin Evangelist superstar Kate Lessard. "I told everyone in the room that I'm new and I know nothing about what I'm doing," Derika says, "and everyone was so welcoming and so helpful." Kate connected Derika with Supermums, an organization that provides training and volunteer opportunities to help people get started with a career in Salesforce. She's about to take her certification exam, and let's all send her good vibes and good luck. Make sure to listen to the full episode for more from Derika, and don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Supermums Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Derika on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Josh Birk: Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Salesforce Admins Podcast. I am your guest host, Josh Birk, and today I'm delighted to bring Derika West onto the show, to talk about her journey into Salesforce, into the world of tech. And where she is on that journey, where she's looking for to go. Welcome to the show, Derika. All right, welcome everybody to the show. Today we are going to welcome Derika West to talk about her journey into Salesforce, where she is with it right now, and we're her future looks. And Derika, in looking at your CV, it pretty much starts with your military experience. What was it like being in the Army? Derika West: Yeah. The Army was a wonderful thing for development for myself. I've always been a self-starter, I would say. And someone who thinks outside the box. And I just didn't know where that would fit for me in terms of which direction of a career I wanted to take. I initially started in college, and then I met somebody in my math class in college who was actively in... I think it was the reserves at the time, and I think she's full-time active duty now. But we just started talking about options of careers. And I'm always asking questions, as you'll find out. I just asked her, what is it like being a female in the military? And she just said, "There's so many things that you can do as a female that you aren't really told growing up, and even high school." For me, I never considered the military as an option for me. And then, I just learned that there's so many different routes you can take. It's a way to build yourself up and get some self-confidence, really, as a female. And so, I ended up speaking to a recruiter, got involved, and then I joined the Army. And did battle buddy things with her and talked to her throughout my journey. It was really great. Yeah, I had a good time in the military. Josh Birk: So two follow-up questions to that. First, was there something about the Army role that you were looking at that you were... Going back to your point, I didn't know. I didn't think about me being as an engineer because I haven't seen a lot of women in tech, women in engineering, stuff like that. Was there something about the role that was like, oh, this could be something cool and new that I

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Chris Emmett, Salesforce Solution Architect at Capgemini. Join us as we chat about how to clean up your data to prepare your org for Agentforce, and why data without context is useless. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Chris Emmett. AI requires clean data I caught up with Chris hot on the heels of his TDX London session, "Prep Like a Pro: Clean Data and Metadata for Agentforce." He's an experienced Salesforce consultant who has helped countless organizations of all sizes reboot their business processes. As Chris explains, unless you have a company of five people that started last week, your org probably needs some data cleanup. And if you want to get started with Agentforce, you need to do the work to make sure the agents you build can understand your data and use it to generate actionable insights. After all, if you can't derive useful information from your data, then it's useless. Why cleaning data can feel like boiling the ocean When I worked in sales, we used a CRM that was so complicated that only one guy at our company knew how to use it. Talk about a bottleneck! The truth is, if your business has been around for a little while, you've probably inherited all sorts of legacy data. Maybe it's some random field created by that one guy in the 90s who didn't document anything, or a legacy system like SAP or MSX that is essential to your day-to-day operations. Chris has seen it all, and it can often feel like cleaning up all that data is akin to boiling the ocean. It's a monumental task with no end in sight, let alone getting the organizational buy-in to do it in the first place. A practical way to start cleaning your data Chris recommends focusing your data cleanup strategy on the functionality you want to build in Agentforce. For example, if you want an agent to email a customer when their opportunity is five days from the close date and still unsigned, what data do you actually need? You don't need the 300 fields that might be on the opportunity page, or the 300 fields in that account. You might need the opportunity's name, the stage of the opportunity, the close date, the account, and maybe the primary contact of that account. That's five pieces of information. Suddenly, you don't need to boil the entire ocean—you just need to boil a cup of water. So start small, focus on the functionality your data cleanup project will deliver, and get the ball rolling. Trust that the things you build with Agentforce will speak for themselves, and you'll be able to generate momentum to clean up your data project by project. Make sure to listen to our full conversation with Chris to learn more about how to clean up your data and provide context for AI agents. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Automate with Agentforce Episode: Using AI To Maximize Sales | Automate with Agentforce Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Should I Clean Metadata for Salesforce AI Agents? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Chris on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're joined by Chris Emmett, consultant, data enthusiast and Salesforce evangelist accidentally. Well, Chris is passionate about data, and he takes us on a journey from legacy systems and those DOS screens to databases and AI-powered actions, all while sharing practical advice on how to clean up your data without making it feel like you're boiling the ocean. So if you ever wondered how to prepare your org for Agentforce or why data without context is basically useless, this one is for you. So listen in, share it with somebody who maybe is swimming in a sea of records. So let's have Chris swim his life raft over and let's get him on the podcast. So Chris, welcome to the podcast. Chris Emmett: Thanks for having me. Mike: Yeah. Well, it's good to be here. I got a note from Jennifer Lee. She saw the session that you and Jonathan did at TDX London about cleaning data and cleaning metadata, and last week, we talked with Jonathan about cleaning metadata, so this week, of course, we're going to clean our data because who doesn't have clean data? But let's start off first with a little bit about you, Chris. How did you get into Salesforce and why are you so passionate about clean data? Chris Emmett: Yeah. Before I start that, you said who doesn't have clean data? It really should be the other way around. Mike: I know. It was a rhetorical question to get people to listen and be like, oh, but there could be that one person that tunes into the podcast, like I don't need to listen to this. My data is sparkling. Chris Emmett: You know what? If there is a company out there with five

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jonathan Fox, Head of Salesforce Architecture at IntellectAI. Join us as we chat about why we should rethink how we label, structure, and maintain Salesforce metadata. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jonathan Fox. How do you know if your metadata needs to be cleaned up? When we were trying to implement Agentforce on the Admin Evangelist org, we came to a sobering realization. Despite all the content we create on how to do things the right way, it turns out that we all approach metadata a little differently. That's why I was so excited to sit down with Jonathan to talk about how to clean up your metadata for AI. Training an agent is like showing your org to someone who knows nothing about your business. Suddenly, it's really important what the labels mean and that they're consistent. Start small with metadata The thing about technical debt is that it's not a problem until it becomes a problem. Your metadata is probably fine for most of your users, who have a working knowledge of your business processes. It's only when you try to implement Agentforce that you realize you have a problem. Jonathan recommends that you start small when you're trying to clean your metadata. Roll out Agentforce for a small use case and only clean up the metadata associated with that specific task. If you need to generate buy-in, try running Agentforce as-is and then show your stakeholders just how much difference a little bit of cleanup can make. Metadata is the foundation "Your metadata is the foundation of your Salesforce org," Jonathan says, "you don't want to get it wrong, you don't want to make it worse. So it needs to be treated with that respect and that kind of importance when you're changing it." Documentation is the key to making sure that you're keeping things usable for human and AI employees alike. You need to make sure that you fully understand the impacts of any changes you're implementing, or you risk breaking all sorts of automations in your org. Jonathan had so many more great insights about how to start cleaning up your metadata for AI agents, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jonathan on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admin's podcast, and hey, how did we do last week? Did you listen to that episode to see how our 2025 admin predictions were holding up? If not, add that to your play next list, because that was a fun look back. I like listening to things from the past, but let's go ahead to the future. So in this episode this week, we're joined by Jonathan Fox, who takes us behind the scenes on something every admin deals with, and maybe you don't think you do, but it's metadata. And in fact, in next week's episode, we're going to talk about cleaning data, so buckle up folks. It's summer cleaning time. But the fun thing is we start off with a conversation around a barbecue that sparked Jonathan's career and got it into amazing directions. How many people talk Salesforce over barbecue? And Jonathan also helps us rethink how we label, structure and maintain Salesforce metadata. So whether you're prepping for Agentforce or just going through an org and wondering what some of those data labels mean, I promise you, this episode is for you, and if you love what you hear, be sure to give us a favorite or a review on iTunes. But with that, let's get Jonathan on the episode. So Jonathan, welcome to the podcast. Jonathan Fox: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be on. Mike: Well, I'm excited to tackle this because we've bounced around and I've done a few episodes on cleaning data and cleaning metadata and back and forth and back and forth, and I think it hit our team like a truck when we were working on implementing Agentforce in our org, and Josh, who was working on it, came to the realization that despite having three or four evangelists on the team, we'd all named fields differently and we'd all done things a little different. And he's like, "We really have to talk to people about metadata." And we'll get into that and we'll have a follow-up episode on data data, but Jonathan, let's hear about you. How did you get started with Salesforce and what do you do? Jonathan Fox: My journey into Salesforce was, well, most people say this, a little bit unorthodox. My background is the military in the British Army, and I stumbled across Salesforce, family barbecue. My brother-in-law brought me into the Salesforce world and taught me how to be a developer basically, and I worked my way up through- Mike: At the barbecue? Jona

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Lee, Joshua Birk, and Kate Lessard from the Admin Evangelist team at Salesforce. Join us as we revisit the team's predictions from the beginning of the year for how Agentforce will change the game for admins in 2025. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Lee, Joshua Birk, and Kate Lessard. Agentforce content highlights from 2024 I started by asking the team which content from 2024 still holds up. Between "Automate This" and "How I Solved It", Jenn puts a lot of great stuff out there. However, she pointed to her modular flows walkthrough on the blog. By breaking complicated processes down into smaller chunks, you make it easier to reuse bits and pieces of them in future solutions. Kate was more focused on the big picture. In her blog, "Introduction to Agentforce for Salesforce Admins," she explains why admins are the perfect candidates to become the go-to AI expert in their organizations. Unsurprisingly, Josh got a little more technical with his answer, highlighting the growing importance of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and simple prompt engineering. He points to his interview with Nochum Klein about how he uses Agentforce to organize and search information security documentation at Salesforce. How Agentforce will help admins in 2025 The team also looked ahead to 2025, and I think it's fun to look back on how things are shaping up now that it's July. Kate was focused on how Agentforce will affect admins' core responsibilities. The agents you build make life easier for both you and your users. However, she pointed out that security and AI governance will be critical as it becomes easier for more people to interact with your data. Jen was excited to launch two new video series in 2025. If you haven't yet checked out "Automate with Agentforce", it's been incredibly helpful in showing all the cool new solutions you can build with AI. She also has a series about how she's learning Agentforce, which is a great place to get started. Finally, Josh was excited about building AI agents that interact with documentation and metadata, enabling faster support, onboarding, and troubleshooting experiences. When combined with Slack integration, you can save your users so much time. What we'll be saying at the end of 2025 To finish out the episode, I asked the team to make predictions for what we'll be saying at the end of 2025. Josh: "It's the end of 2025, and I can't believe Salesforce Admins found Agentforce so easy to work with." Kate: "It's the end of 2025 and I can't believe Salesforce Admins are creating dynamic experiences this advanced!" Jen: "It's the end of 2025 and I can't believe Salesforce Admins can now do things like troubleshoot user management issues faster than ever before!" It's halfway through the year now, so how did we do? And how is your 2025 going? Are you working with Agentforce? Navigating new AI tools? Hit us up in the Trailblazer Community and share your admin wins and lessons. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Jen's 2024 blog post: Embrace Modular Flows to Build Smarter Automation for Agentforce Kate's 2024 blog post: Introduction to Agentforce for Salesforce Admins Kate's other 2024 blog post: Advance Your Admin Career With Dev Fundamentals Josh's 2024 Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Agentforce Transforms Customer Interactions at Salesforce Blog: 6 Tips To Help You Troubleshoot Agentforce With Confidence Blog: How Admins Drive Innovation With Core Responsibilities in the Agentforce Era Video Series: Automate with Agentforce Video series: Automate This! Video series: How I Solved It Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jen on LinkedIn Josh on LinkedIn Kate on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Hey, Salesforce Admins! It's July, and we're officially halfway through 2025—which makes it the perfect time to hit pause and reflect. Back on January 1, we gathered the Admin Evangelist Team—Jen Lee, Kate Lassard, and Josh Burke—for a special kickoff episode full of predictions, priorities, and plans for the year ahead. So today, we're rebroadcasting that conversation as a mid-year check-in. Were we right? Were we way off? You decide. Give it a listen, and then let us know how your year as a Salesforce Admin is shaping up. Stay tuned—and see how far we've come. Welcome, everybody, to the podcast. There's a lot of people to introduce, so I'm going to go in reverse order. Jen, let's start off with you. Can you give us a brief introduction and some of the cool content you've created last year at Salesforce? Jennifer Lee: Sure, absolutely. I am Jen Lee, Lead Admin Evangelist, and you all probably know me as the host of Automa

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Brinkal Janani, Director of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how Generative Canvas will help admins create dynamic, personalized user experiences. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Brinkal Janani. What is Generative Canvas? Brinkal was on the team of engineers that built Dynamic Forms. Since then, he's been looking for new ways to help admins build dynamic user experiences without code. That's why I was so excited to sit down with him and hear about his latest project: Generative Canvas. Generative Canvas allows Salesforce Admins to create interactive, persistent layouts by prompting AI agents. Basically, you ask an agent to run an analysis or summarize some records and it'll respond with a Lightning Component that you can drop into your layout. Admins configure the agents, connect the data, and suddenly, their users can build their own dynamic, personalized UX. Persistent and personalized user experiences One of the biggest challenges for admins is anticipating what your users are going to need in terms of data and workflows. Static tools like Lightning Page Builder and Dynamic Forms are great as long as you have the right requirements. But making adjustments means a lot of back-and-forth, especially when you have to balance the needs of several different users. Generative Canvas UIs are persistent, but they're also personalized. The admin still has control over what data can be used, but the user has control over how they see it. Instead of going through all those extra steps, they just need to ask an agent for what they want and drop the Lightning Component directly into their own individual, personalized UI. A hybrid future for admins Brinkal envisions a hybrid future where static and dynamic tools coexist. Admins might start building with Lightning pages, but move into Generative Canvas when deeper interaction is required. This hybrid approach ensures flexibility while harnessing the power of AI-driven customization. If all of this sounds a little vague to you, I highly recommend watching the demo video to understand what it looks like in action. As Brinkal says, the future is dynamic, personalized, and built with no code. For more about Generative Canvas from Brinkal, make sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Generative Canvas demo video Help Article: Visualize Your Data with Generative Canvas (Preview) Release Notes: Generative Canvas (Preview) Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Brinkal on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're diving into the future of AI-powered customization with Brinkal Janani. Now Brinkal is a product manager here at Salesforce and he's leading the charge on Lightning App Builder and AI-generated apps. Today, specifically we're talking about Generative Canvas, forward-looking statement. I bet it's going to get renamed. So we're going to call it Generative Canvas for now, but literally watch the video that's in the show notes. This thing is so cool because it's going to reimagine how admins, how our users can interact with data and build dynamic experiences. And my two most favorite words, without code. Now, before we jump in, I want to make sure you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. That way when a new episode like this drops, boom, you can listen to it. I don't want you to miss out, so be sure to pay attention in whatever app you are using to either press that follow or subscribe button. So with that, let's get Brinkal on the podcast. So Brinkal, welcome to the podcast. Brinkal Janani: Thanks, Mike, for having me. Mike Gerholdt: Well, we're fresh off the heels of TDX and with AI and everything going on, I feel like the metaphor I've used of how fast technology changing is jumping out of a plane, it's moving very fast. I feel like it's jumping out of a plane and skydiving superfast towards the earth because with AI, everything's changing. And we're going to talk about some of the really cool stuff that you're working on on the platform, but let's get started with just learning a little bit more about Brinkal and what you do at Salesforce. So why don't you tell us what you do and some of the stuff that you work on? Brinkal Janani: Sure. Mike, as you guys know, I'm Brinkal Janani and I've been at Salesforce for a little over than nine years now, and throughout my career at Salesforce. I've played various roles. I started my career as a software engineer in test, eventually transitioned to full stack software engineer, and now I'm a product manager overseeing a couple of product portfolios, namely Lighting App Builde

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Kurtis Kemple, Senior Director of Developer Relations at Slack. Join us as we chat about what's possible when you combine Slack, Salesforce, and AI agents. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kurtis Kemple. Starting at square one in tech Kurtis's path to his career in tech is truly inspiring. Not only is he a completely self-taught programmer, but he learned those skills while incarcerated. It was hard to get any sort of job when he got out, let alone convince someone to take a chance on him as a software engineer. Today, Kurtis is the Senior Director of Developer Relations for Slack. His role is primarily focused on advocacy, with a focus on improving the developer experience through thoughtful product design and community input. So he's the perfect person to talk to about what's possible with Slack, Salesforce, and AI agents. Slack is the OS for work When it comes to collaborating with your team, Kurtis sees Slack as the OS for work. It's a space to bring together everything you need—your communications, your documents, your data—all in one place so you can start getting things done. Switching contexts can be a productivity killer. That's why Slack's integration with Salesforce is so powerful, because it allows you to have everything right at your fingertips without needing to go back and forth between windows. Whether you're looking at Salesforce data in Slack to have a conversation with a co-worker about an opportunity, or updating your team on what you're building in Salesforce, seamless authentication means you can do everything from wherever you happen to be working without having to switch back and forth. Agents and automation inside Slack The possibilities are even more exciting when you throw Agentforce into the mix. As Kurtis points out, Slack actions are part of the list of standard actions. That means you can build custom agents that use data from either platform to launch workflows, run a quick analysis, and much more. Kurtis also gets into how you can customize Agentforce by plugging in various LLM libraries, or connecting it with external services or authentication providers. As he explains, prompt templates are powerful tools for controlling your agents' responses so that they fit into your business processes. This episode is a deep dive into everything you can do with Agentforce and Slack, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Blog: Getting Started With Slack and Agentforce Integration Trailhead: Connect Your Agentforce Org with Slack Trailhead: Learn How Agentforce and Slack Work Together Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: What Can Salesforce Admins Do with Slack Integrations? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Kurtis on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full Transcript Josh Birk: Hello, Salesforce admins, your guest host Josh Birk here. Today on the show, we're going to welcome Kurtis Kemple, who's overrunning developer advocacy at Slack. We're going to talk about Slack, we're going to talk about AI, we're going to talk about Kurt's beginnings, and this was a great interview. Very happy we got it on tape. And so, let's go right over to Kurt. All right. Today on the show we welcome Kurtis Kemple of Salesforce Developer Advocacy. Kurt, welcome to the show. Kurtis Kemple: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Josh Birk: So let's start, I usually start talking about people's early years. And you have a very, let's not say unique, but a very interesting early days of getting into computing. You're self-taught in web development and you learn that in prison. Correct? Kurtis Kemple: Yeah, that's correct. I prefer to think of it more as self-guided. I'd like to take all the credit, but I was still reading books, watching YouTube videos, paying for courses. So you're still creating a learning environment more so than just I had... Well, in prison I did have nothing, but then I just opened a laptop and just essentially went at code with nothing. I don't want to essentially leave out all the people who I wouldn't be here without them. Josh Birk: Did you have an interest in computers beforehand or was it just sort of a, "Here's this moment in my life and I want to make changes, and I want to learn something new"? Kurtis Kemple: Well, it was definitely that second one, but not related to code. So it was pure happenstance. Prior to incarceration, I had very limited experience in technology. I had a pager once when I was 18, cell phones were coming out, and I would download music off LimeWire. That was it. I had to type with two fingers, like pecking at the keyboard. Josh Birk: Did the looking over the

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Michael Rose, Senior Director of SMB Solution Engineering at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the ever-evolving role of the Salesforce Admin and why now's the time to start exploring what AI can do for your org. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michael Rose. The parallel between admins and solution engineers It's always a pleasure to sit down and talk about Salesforce with Mike Rose. In his new role as Senior Director of SMB Solution Engineering, he has a lot to share with the admin community about what he's seeing with small to medium-sized businesses coming onto the platform. Mike points out that admins and his team of solution engineers share a core responsibility: evangelism. For both, your job is to make the case for how Salesforce implementation can help your organization achieve its business goals. The integration challenges of smaller orgs As Mike likes to joke, many SMBs are running some version of what Mike jokingly calls POIM (Post-It On Monitor) integration. As in, someone comes over with a sticky note (or Excel file) and asks you to put that info into Salesforce. "That's all integration," he says, "it is taking that data and putting it somewhere where it can be more valuable." These workflows can be hard to change, and that's because they work well enough to get the job done. As Mike explains, the opportunity cost of things like errors, bottlenecks, and latency doesn't factor into the equation. It's hard to envision a world where an entire business process could happen automatically. For Mike, the next frontier of this conversation is Agentforce. You can develop bespoke, enterprise-grade AI solutions tailored specifically for your business, but that kind of power is hard to wrap your head around when you're still trying to limit the number of sticky notes circulating around the office. Why admins are the key to unlocking the power of AI As AI solutions continue to evolve, Salesforce Admins will play a critical role in bridging the gap between humans and technology. As Mike says, "there is always going to be a border that has customs agents and couriers and envoys working across that human intelligence and machine intelligence boundary." Agentforce is evolving so rapidly that even the Solution Engineering team is struggling to keep up to date. So Mike recommends getting your hands dirty as soon as possible, either by spinning up a developer org or turning on Salesforce Foundations. There's a lot more great stuff from Mike in this episode, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Foundations Setup Get Started with Developer Edition with Agentforce and Data Cloud Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Mike Rose on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Michael: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're thrilled to welcome back Mike Rose, a 12-year Salesforce veteran who has a new role and some fresh insights. Mike and I get into the real talk about what it's like supporting small to medium businesses, the ever-evolving role of the Salesforce admin, and how tools like Agentforce are really changing the game. Now, whether you're a full-time admin or you're wearing five hats in your org, this episode speaks your language. Mike also shares why now is the best time to roll up your sleeves and start exploring AI in your sandbox. So you've already hit play on this episode, get ready to feel seen, and let's get Mike back on the podcast. So Mike, welcome back to the podcast. Mike Rose: It's such a pleasure, Michael. I have been a long-time listener and repeat caller, but very glad to be back after years. Michael: I know. I feel like we used to do World Tours and we'd run into each other like we need to do a podcast together. Mike Rose: It's true. Michael: And then we'd do a random podcast together. And then this last time I just saw you on Slack. I was like, I haven't had Mike on the podcast in a while. Mike Rose: It's true. And I actually said, "Yes, absolutely, let's do it." And then, I think it was a month of gap before I got back to you and then you were on vacation. By the way, folks, if you find yourselves running into the consequences of your own inaction, say, in the middle of the night on a weekend, and you say, "Oh, I really should reach out to that person, but I don't want to do it right now, because that's just awkward." Slack's scheduled messages are your friend. Michael: I'm telling you, I use Slacks' scheduled messages all the time, especially when I go on vacation, I can schedule stuff. Or the best is when you have a team that's in a different time zone. So we'll have a team, let's see when th

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Lee, Lead Admin Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about what's coming in the Summer '25 release and the features that will make your life easier as an admin. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Lee. The Summer '25 release is coming soon It's that time of year again. The time for popsicles, backyard barbecues, and the Summer '25 Release. So I've brought none other than Jennifer Lee on the pod to tell us what's coming for admins. As always, Jen has a great blog post covering all of the changes with animated gifs that show how they work. I'd highly recommend scrolling through it as a visual companion to this episode, but the big takeaway here is that admins' lives are about to get a whole lot easier. Jen's highlights from the Summer '25 release At a high level, Summer '25 means fewer clicks and more control for admins. Jen highlights some key changes: The Close Case button: No need for custom buttons—you can add a Close Case button to the Case Details page and save your reps the extra clicks. Better custom object deletion: When you delete a custom object, you'll see a detailed page listing any relationships it has to other objects. The new Permission Set Summary page: You can now update user, object, field, and custom permissions directly from a permission set's Summary page, without navigating to multiple pages. Expanded Salesforce Go: Your guided tour for how to enable/configure features in your Salesforce edition, with resources to help you get started. As always with releases, the little things add up. And these changes help you effortlessly manage your org like never before. Powerful new features in Flow Of course, no episode with Jen would be complete without diving into the changes coming for Flow. She draws our attention to a few key enhancements for Flow: Get related records (beta): Instead of dealing with multiple Get Records and Update Records elements, you can now get entire hierarchies of related records, such as an Account and all of its Contacts and Opportunities, in a single Get Records element. Expanded resources search in Flow Builder (beta): When you enable this feature in Setup, you'll be able to quickly find resources like fields from records and outputs from actions. New Time data type: You can now reference the new Time data type for things like scheduling reminders, routing records based on specific times of day, and triggering time-sensitive actions with pinpoint accuracy. Debug enhancements: Debugging your flows has never been easier, with element-level summaries, and search capabilities within the debug to help get your flow flowing. Approval Wizard: It's complicated to build an approval process, so we've made it easier to get started with up to three approval levels, final actions, and even a recall path. There are a lot more great insights from Jen about screen flow enhancements and other changes coming in Summer '25, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog: Jen's Top Summer '25 Features for Admins Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group r Jennifer on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. This week, Jennifer Lee returns to the pod to break down what's new in the summer '25 release. And trust me, it's more than sunshine and good vibes if you read her blog post that she put out earlier in May. From long-awaited case close buttons to a major user management upgrade, I promise you Jennifer is going to walk us through some features that make your admin life easier. Plus we dig into flow enhancements, better debugging and why thoughtful resource naming still matters. I mean, we can't not talk flow with Jennifer Lee, that's just how it works. If you've ever been wondering what to focus on with your attention to this release cycle, this is your episode. Super fun to go through. Now, if you enjoy this episode, be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button on whatever podcast platform you're listening to. So with that, let's get Jennifer back on the podcast. So Jen, welcome back to the podcast. Jennifer Lee: Always love being here. Mike: I mean, it's summer already. It feels like it was just spring. We were just talking about spring and now it's summer. Isn't this how it always works? Jennifer Lee: Well, now I'm actually feeling summer for real in Boston. It's hot out, I'm wearing shorts. Mike: Yeah, I mean, every time I've been to Boston it's either snow, really hot or snow. Jennifer Lee: And it was cold probably a few days ago too, so I'll take it. Mike: Right. Yep, that's okay. But with summer comes summer rele

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joshua Birk, Admin Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about why your metadata is crucial for building effective AI agents. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joshua Birk. Why multi-tenancy still matters for Agentforce As the Admin Evangelist team has been helping people get started with Agentforce, we've noticed that the key to unlocking this new technology is to revisit some of the oldest concepts about the Salesforce platform. That's why I brought Josh Birk on the pod to talk about metadata and multi-tenant architecture. If you need a refresher, that's the idea that Salesforce is like an apartment building where each org is an apartment. Your stuff is in your individual unit, but the entire building shares resources like water and electricity. So what's the difference from 2010? As Josh explains, it's that every apartment comes standard with an Agentforce-powered robot butler. Quality data leads to better automation Imagine you're sitting down for dinner, and you want your robot butler to set the table—how does it know where the forks are? And what happens if they're buried in your junk drawer? Clearly, a robot butler will be more helpful if you keep your apartment organized. And, as Josh points out, the same is true for your Salesforce org. AI agents rely on your metadata, like description fields and field types, to help them respond correctly and find what your users are looking for. With longstanding orgs, there can be an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset, but that's the equivalent of throwing everything in the junk drawer. Doing a little spring cleaning and organizing your metadata helps Agentforce help you. Why you're already an AI builder The key thing Josh wants you to realize is that you're already an AI builder. An agent is just another user in your org, and so the work you do to make your data easy to use is also what powers the solutions you build in Agentforce. That's why it's so important to fall back on Salesforce fundamentals. Building an agent is the easy part. The hard part is making sure your metadata is in a good place to support your AI solutions, but that's the work that admins do every day. There's so much more great stuff from Josh in this episode, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailhead: Custom Metadata Types Basics Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Josh on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full Transcript Mike: Hey, Salesforce admins. Ever wonder what multi-tenancy AI and your junk drawer have in common? Luckily, Josh Birk is back to explain it all, from forks, to metadata. Yeah, we even throw in some robot butlers. This episode's a ride through the architecture that makes Salesforce magic happen with, I promise you, enough analogies to stock your kitchen. So, if you've ever said, "Wait, where are the forks?" This one's for you. And when you listen to it, that sentence will make sense. So give it a listen, send it to your friends. Be sure to hit that follow subscribe button to get brand new episodes downloaded on your mobile device. And without waiting any longer, let's get Josh Birk back on the podcast. So Josh, welcome back to the podcast. Josh Birk: Thanks, Mike. Glad you're back. Mike: It's been a while, but you've been working on stuff. Josh Birk: I have been working on stuff. It's been a busy little quarter. This thing called AI never really stops sleeping. I guess it's one of its benefits. But yeah, trying to catch up with all things AI, and data cloud, and especially trying where there's a wealth of stuff happening before Dreamforce, and we really would like to get our admins community armed with that information. Mike: You mentioned Dreamforce. Dreamforce start till October. Josh Birk: Well, I know, but I thought July was a really far away away, and I realized I have a trip to Montreal next week because it's June, and it's like, "Okay, right." The months, they're collapsing away. Mike: It literally, it's like one minute you're like, "Yay, it's February," and the next thing you know it's like 4th July. Josh Birk: Right. Yeah. And you have a TDX going over. Mike: All the hangovers. The first thing that I think we want to talk about, so what's crazy is we brought this stuff up, what are we going to talk about, and you're like, "Let's talk about the multi-tenant analogy." And I was thinking back to, whoa, that was like 2010 when I first learned about multi-tenant, and hearing the Salesforce apartment analogy. Josh Birk: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It's actually, I think, a testament to the platform, that you can use it for years and not really understand. And I used to understand not

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Amit Malik, the Content Portfolio Lead for AI within Product Education at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how admins should approach learning Agentforce and bringing AI to their organizations. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Amit Malik. Learning AI starts with filtering out the noise We often get asked where admins should get started with learning Agentforce, so I brought Amit on the pod to get the inside scoop. In his role as a Content Portfolio Lead for AI in Product Education at Salesforce, he's in charge of planning the courses that are offered globally about Agentforce and Data Cloud. For Amit, the challenge with teaching AI is what he calls the "knowledge explosion." There are so many different things that Agentforce can do, and that list is growing daily, so it's hard to know where to get started. What's needed is "knowledge distillation." So the key to learning Agentforce is to focus on the core concepts of how AI works before getting into the specifics. A framework for building with Agentforce Amit goes through five questions you should ask when you're thinking of building a solution with Agentforce: Is an AI agent the best way to solve this problem? Would it be easier to build a flow? Just because you can solve something with Agentforce doesn't mean you should. What agent type do you need? Salesforce has several pre-built agent templates for specific use cases, like Service Agent, Employee Agent, or Guided Shopping Agents. Consider those options before trying to build something more complicated. What topics do you want to assign to this agent? Define the set of business problems you want your agent to solve. There are standard pre-built topics like FAQ or escalation, but you can make a custom topic if needed. How will you provide data to your agent? AI is only as good as the data you provide it, so you need to make sure you have everything you need in Data Cloud and set up access with the Agentforce Data Library. What actions do you want the agent to perform? "This is where the magic happens," Amit says. There are four types of actions: Flow, Apex, API, and Prompt Template. Learning Agentforce is about understanding the layers you're working with. As Amit explains, an agent is really an aggregation of the topics you decide it can solve. Those topics can be broken down into the specific actions your agent can perform, which it does based on the data you give it access to via Data Cloud. The art of learning is to become curious With twelve years of experience as a Salesforce instructor, Amit's biggest piece of advice for admins trying to learn Agentforce is to cultivate curiosity. Where many people go wrong is that they approach AI as a solution in search of a problem. That can be like trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. Once you start getting curious about the business problems you're trying to solve, you'll find use cases all over the place for AI. But that comes from understanding, specifically, how an AI agent can improve the experience for your users. This makes learning Agentforce simple because you know what you're trying to do with it. There's a lot more great stuff about learning, teaching, and working with Agentforce in my conversation with Amit, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Architect Courses for Admins with Amit Malik Trailhead: Discover Agentforce Trailhead: Review Agentforce and Data Library Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Amit on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. This week, we're joined by Amit Malik, a cloud content portfolio lead at Salesforce. Guess what we're digging into? That's right. Agentforce and Data Cloud, but we're going to talk a little bit different. It's about how admins can confidently navigate AI in their orgs. Amit brings over a decade of instructional experience and delivers a fresh, clear-eyed framework of thinking about AI agents. Trust me, you're going to want to hear this framework. So whether you're new to Agentforce or looking to level up your implementation game, I promise you, Amit breaks down the essentials with clarity and care for us. Plus, we also talk about why doing not just watching is a key to learning because as admins, we do some instruction as well. So it's good to learn from an instructor. Before we start the show, just a reminder to press follow on that podcast platform that you're listening to us. That way you get new shows right on your mobile device so you

Why Secure AI Starts With You: What Admins Must Know About Agentforce Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Sri Srinivasan, Senior Director of Information Security at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about what admins need to know about Agentforce and how to build secure AI experiences. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Sri Srinivasan. Quick heads-up before we get started: This episode may include forward-looking statements—things we're excited about, but not yet available. So please make any purchasing decisions based only on products and features that are currently available. For all the legal details, visit salesforce.com. The hidden job of AI security: admins build the brakes Sri gave a great TDX presentation about AI security and the crucial role admins play in the future of Agentforce. "Admins are key to everything that we do," he emphasizes, "they understand everything that's happening within their environment. They know which actions, what permissions, what they do, and agents are just another avenue to expose and interact with this crux of it." As Sri puts it, Agentforce is like a sports car in terms of what it can do with your data. But how fast would you drive a sports car with no brakes? That's why admins are so important in the age of AI. We can build the brakes for Agentforce to make sure our agents are behaving correctly. Five questions to ask when building secure Agentforce experiences Security conversations can get very scary very quickly, but Sri boils it down to five questions admins should ask when they're building with Agentforce: What is the agent's role and scope? What data will the agent have access to? Which actions should be public and which should be private? Do you need to build any extra guardrails? Which channels will the agent use? The key here is practicing the principle of least privilege. And for admins, that comes down to managing permissions and profiles in Salesforce and following security best practices. Every agent runs as a user—and that user needs to be tightly scoped. Test before you trust: scaling with the Agentforce Testing Center Going back to the idea of brakes, Sri cautions that just because you built an agent fast doesn't mean that it's ready. Luckily, his team has been hard at work on new tools to help you make sure your agents are working as intended. The new Agentforce Testing Center helps simulate and validate agent behavior at scale—without needing a QA army. You're also able to peek under the hood to understand why an agent made a certain choice—turning debugging into decision-making clarity. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more on what admins need to know about Agentforce. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Sri at TDX: 5 Easy Steps for Secure Agentforce Implementation More from TDX: Security Best Practices with Agentforce Trailhead: Trusted Agentic AI Blog: Best Practices for Building Secure Agentforce Service Agents Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Sri on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking with Sri Srinivasan about secure, reliable AI experiences with Agentforce. Now, Sri is a leader on the security compliance customer trust team at Salesforce, where he helps customers understand and implement security best practices. Of course, before we get into this episode, be sure to follow the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. That way you get a new episode every Thursday delivered right to your phone or your mobile device. So with that, let's get into our conversation with Sri. So Sri, welcome to the podcast. Sri Srinivasan: Thanks for having me here, Mike. Super excited for it. Mike Gerholdt: Well, I love the presentation that you gave at TDX, and I'm sure more people would love to hear about it too, which is why I wanted to have you come back on, because everything now is Agentforce and security is always top of mind. I've always preached security ever since I started at Salesforce. I've had, I think, Laura Pelkey on quite a few times. But that was the compass of what you talked about at TDX. But I'm jumping ahead. Let's talk about you a little bit. Tell me kind of where you got started and how you got to Salesforce. Sri Srinivasan: Let me try to make it very sweet and sharp. So I have always been in security. I have a master's in information management specializing in security. I worked for big four accounting firms, but not doing accounting. I did security for them, data security and data privacy. Then I ended up working for a little gaming company where I really got involved in security, due diligence. Was a small company based out of

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Dana Walton, Senior Manager of Credential Programs and Operations at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how the certification experience is evolving with smarter personalization, easier access, and a learning journey built just for you. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Dana Walton. Certifications are moving to Trailhead Academy Dana has been working on the certification team since 2015. When she started, Salesforce had nine certifications. Today, they offer 83. I sat down with her for this episode because her team is finishing a two-year project to overhaul the certification experience. The biggest change coming is that certifications are moving to Trailhead Academy. While you can still go completely self-guided with your learning, Dana and her team are making it easier to find the help you need—whether that's an instructor-led course or curated Trailmixes and modules. Why skills are the most important factor in choosing new certifications One thing that Dana wanted to know during testing was how her team could help people figure out which certifications they should work on next. She asked Salesforce MVPs how they choose new certifications to target: are they looking for things that fit a specific role? A particular product? The answer was none of the above. The Salesforce MVPs in Dana's testing group look for certifications based on what new skills they can learn. Armed with that knowledge, her team added a skills breakdown for each cert to make things easier to browse. They're also adding more personalization to your Salesforce learning journey, with AI recommendations to help you plan your roadmap. Dana emphasizes that these are recommendations, not requirements. Your certification experience can still be completely self-guided; they've just added a helping hand. Why certification is the final step on your learning journey If she could give one piece of advice to admins looking for the next steps in their Salesforce learning journey, it's that you need to look at every possible pathway. "Certification is not how you learn," she says, "it's how you prove the skills and knowledge that you've already learned." Go to Trailhead, reach out to the community, or find a mentor who can help you understand what you're getting into and create achievable goals for yourself. And then, when you're ready, certification will be a breeze. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from my conversation with Dana about what's coming next for the certification experience. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us in your feed every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more New Salesforce Certification Experience FAQ Certification: Salesforce Associate Certification: Strategy Designer Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Dana on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Today we're sitting down with Dana Walton from the Salesforce certification team. Dana is here to share how the certification experience is evolving. I want you to think smarter personalization, easier access, and a learning journey built just for you. We'll talk about the exciting move to Trailhead Academy and how it's making certifications more accessible than ever. Be sure to stick around. I promise you're going to walk away and be ready to take your next step in that Salesforce ecosystem. And hey, if you enjoy this episode, go ahead and give us a follow wherever you listen to podcasts. So with that, let's get Dana on the podcast. So, Dana, welcome to the podcast. Dana Walton: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Mike: I'm excited to talk about certification. I've been talking about it ever since 2008 when I first got certified, which is a super long time ago. But let's get started with you. Tell us a little bit about how you got to Salesforce and what you do at Salesforce. Dana Walton: Happy to. You predate me just a little. Yes, but I mean, I think in terms of longevity, I hit Koa this year, so I'm very excited. Mike: Congrats. Thank you. And for those of you that don't know, Koa is 10 years. Dana Walton: Yes. So my 10-year anniversary will be in June, and I have been a part of the certification team for almost all of my tenure. I joined in October 2015 because I started as a contractor and then got hired on through the certification team, and I have been a part of the growth of this program since then, and it's been really excited to see when we first were in a very... When I joined, we only had nine certifications. Mike: Only. Only nine. Dana Walton: Only nine. Now we have 83. It's been quite a journey.

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Melissa Hansen, Co-Founder and Principal Architect at HiFi Consulting Group, RAD Women Curriculum Lead, and Salesforce MVP. Join us as we chat about her journey from fixing printers to developing an agent-powered scheduling tool in the TDX Agentforce Hackathon on Team MH4. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Melissa Hansen. How Melissa started her career as a Salesforce Developer Melissa started her career at a nonprofit, where she was the go-to person for troubleshooting tech issues. "You just become the person who's best at fixing the printer, and then fixing the database, and then, before you know it, you're a database administrator," she says. These days, Melissa is a developer, a consultant, and a Salesforce MVP for her work with RAD Women. She's also a member of Team MH4, and I brought her on the pod to hear what building a conference scheduling agent in 16 hours was like from the dev side of things. Building an agent-powered scheduling tool at the TDX Agentforce Hackathon Melissa is not someone who wants to be up until midnight coding, but she was so excited about the solution they were building that it was worth the sacrifice. Like most people on the team, it was her first time making something with Agentforce, and this was a great use case to learn more about it. One of the biggest challenges for Melissa in going from building with code to grounding an agent is that the output is nondeterministic. In other words, if you run an automation, you expect to get the same results every time you give it the same data. Agents don't work that way, they'll give you something slightly different every time, and so you need to account for that in how you build and test your solution. To code or not to code, that is the question We don't always have a chance to talk to devs on the pod, so I wanted to hear what Melissa thinks about admin and developer collaboration. For her, the most important conversation to have is around automations. Flow is a powerful tool for automations, but it's not the only game in town. Melissa's seen her share of scary flows for things that would be fairly straightforward in Apex. For her, the biggest determining factor is who will maintain the automation after it's up and running. As no-code tools like Flow and Agentforce continue to improve, it's especially important for admins and devs to help each other out. There are so many more great insights from Melissa on where Agentforce is headed and how to work with developers, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Transforming Conference Scheduling With Agentforce MH4's presentation at the TDX Hackathon Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Melissa on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full Transcript Mike: Ever gone from changing printer ink to writing Apex code? Melissa Hansen has and she's here to tell us all about it. So, today's episode, I am chatting with Melissa Hansen, Salesforce MVP, RAD Women Curriculum lead and longtime champion of nonprofit tech. We talk about her journey from, well, fixing printers to architecting agent-powered scheduling tools and what she learned working on the team of MH to the Power of Four at the TDX Hackathon. Now, she shares her thoughts on building ai, designing for users, and what every admin should ask their developers. So, you don't want to miss this one. Now, be sure to follow this podcast on whatever platform you listen to so that you never miss an episode. And with that, let's get Melissa on the podcast. So, Melissa, welcome to the podcast. Melissa Hansen: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Mike: I'm excited. This whole series of talking to the MH to the Power of Four team has been such a thrill because I know we've done hackathons... by the time this episode comes out, we've done a hackathon at TDX in India. I know there's a virtual hackathon we've done. I feel like we've done hackathons everywhere, but it's such an interesting perspective because I was at TDX in San Francisco. I saw some of the teams working, but to sit down with each of you, and hear the perspective and what happened through your eyes is such a neat way of hearing the story and getting the full vibe of what's going on. So, before we get into that though, Melissa, tell us a little bit about yourself, and what you do in the Salesforce ecosystem and how you got on this Power of Four team. Melissa Hansen: Oh, sure. Yeah, I've bee

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Marisa Hambleton, Chief Delivery Officer and Founder of MH2X, and a member of the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. Join us as we chat about her experience in the TDX Agentforce Hackathon as a member of team MH4 and why clean data is essential for AI. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marisa Hambleton. The intense Tetris of conference scheduling Marisa is a co-leader of the Phoenix Developer Group and the lead organizer for Cactusforce, a community conference for Salesforce Developers and Architects. In other words, she knows how much work goes into scheduling speaker tracks and getting everything organized. Juggling speaker availability and placing them in the correct conference rooms without double-booking anyone takes up hours of time behind the scenes. "It's an intense game of Tetris," Marisa says, "and that's a gross understatement." So she was thrilled when Melissa Hill Dees asked her to join team MH4 and build a conference scheduling agent for the TDX Agentforce Hackathon. Why data hygiene is foundational for Agentforce With only 16 hours to build a working agent, the team had to split up responsibilities so they could hit the ground running. Marisa's focus was on the data, which they brought in from Cactusforce and Midwest Dreamin'. Marisa's biggest takeaway from her first time building an agent is that data quality is foundational for any work you do with AI. That needs to be the starting point. Even though they were working with a relatively small data set, they had a lot of cleanup work to do if they wanted their agent to work right. How to get your org ready for advancements in AI If you're looking to implement Agentforce in your org, Marisa recommends starting with the Salesforce Well-Architected Framework. We're only scratching the surface of what will be possible with AI, but you need to do everything you can right now to make your data easy to work with. There's a lot more great stuff from Marisa Hambleton about data hygiene and what's next for Agentforce, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story Trailhead: Salesforce Well-Architected Framework Cactusforce Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Marisa on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admin's podcast. Today, we're chatting with Marisa Hambleton, Chief Delivery Officer at MH2X, and a longtime leader in the Salesforce ecosystem. Now, this is part two of the MH to the Power of Four episodes where we talked to the team that participated in the TDX Hackathon about the agent that they built. Boy, I got to tell you, if you ever organized a community conference or just wrestled with a gnarly spreadsheet, Marisa's insights into scheduling and automation using Agentforce technology we're really going to hit home. I love that she's going to walk us through how she and the Hackathon team built the agent from her perspective and what she did. Plus, she shares why clean data and a well-architected mindset are must haves for any admin looking to build for the future. Make sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss out on more great conversations like this one. With that, let's get Marisa on the podcast. Marisa, welcome to the podcast. Marisa Hambleton: I'm glad to be here. Mike Gerholdt: You are the second MH of the MH, I believe it's MH quad, right? Isn't that what Melissa Hill Dees told me? It is MH to the Power of Four. Marisa Hambleton: MH to the Power of Four. Mike Gerholdt: Power of Four. Marisa Hambleton: Yes, or MH four. You can just read it MH Four, but MH to the Power of Four, to the Fourth ... Mike Gerholdt: I know, but I like the Power of Four. It sounds a little more strong. Marisa Hambleton: Yes. Mike Gerholdt: We talked with Melissa Hill Dees on the last episode about the TDX Hackathon and the agent that you built, but just per chance, if somebody didn't listen to that episode, can you tell us a little bit about, well, first, who you are and what you do, and then a brief overview of that project that you built at the Hackathon. Marisa Hambleton: Sure. Marisa Hambleton, I am the Chief Delivery Officer of MH2X. That is my consulting firm. I've been in the ecosystem over 15 years. I'm a Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame, and I am also the Phoenix developer, one of the leaders. I am the lead organizer of Cactus Force, a community conference for Salesforce developers and architects. My role in Cactus force is one of the things that led me and Melissa to connect around this agent that we built for the Hackathon. Mike Ge

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Melissa Hill Dees, nonprofit Salesforce consultant and Salesforce MVP. Join us as we chat about how her TDX Hackathon team built a conference scheduling agent from scratch in 16 hours. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Melissa Hill Dees. How to help nonprofits define goals for Salesforce Melissa majored in computer science back when you still programmed with punched cards. However, she didn't really start her career in tech until 2008, when the nonprofit she was working for started using Salesforce. She was hooked on how she could help these organizations use technology to do more with less, and quickly pursued an MBA in digital entrepreneurship. One thing that came up in our conversation was the difference between how nonprofits and businesses approach Salesforce. In particular, Melissa emphasizes the importance of defining measurable goals for any tech project so you have common ground when prioritizing requests. As the capabilities of Salesforce continue to grow with Agentforce, admins need to help their organizations maintain focus. Building an agent in 16 hours at the TDX Hackathon Melissa is fresh from the TDX Hackathon, where she put together an all-women team of Salesforce MVPs called MH4. Why the name? Because everyone on the team has the same initials: Melissa Hill Dees, Michelle Hansen, Marisa Hambleton, and Melissa Hansen. Together, they had 16 hours to make a working agent, but Melissa was the only person on the team who had built one before. However, from their experience as Dreamin' event volunteers, they had a pretty good idea for a problem they could solve: scheduling a conference. Finding the right-sized room for each talk when there are several concurrent speaker tracks gets complicated, especially when people are presenting more than once. It's a problem that everyone on the team could rally around. As Melissa explains, building the agent wasn't the hard part. It was setting up the backend to make sure it had the right information and permissions to accomplish its goal. Why admins should get the Strategy Designer Certification If you're looking to learn more, Melissa highly recommends getting the Strategy Designer Certification. You can learn tons of valuable tactics, like consequence scanning, that help you align a group of people around an idea and allow everybody to feel like they have input. Finally, Melissa emphasizes how crucial it is for admins to start learning Agentforce now, even if your organization is hesitant. "Admins have to see the big picture," she says, "so start learning it now so you don't have to play catch-up when everybody comes around and wants to use AI." Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from my conversation with Melissa, and don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Certification: Strategy Designer MH4's presentation at the TDX Hackathon Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Melissa on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: You've got a dream team when everyone's name starts with MH, and you're building a functioning AI agent in 16 hours while laughing and having fun at it. This week we've got Melissa Hill Dees on the pod, and the vibe is totally Agentforce, nonprofit tech, and I even talk about the future of Salesforce admins in the era of AI. And we also talk about the little thing that she built at the hackathon. It's just a scheduling tool that is really cool for all the dream and events. But let me tell you this, if you've ever said, "I'm not a developer, but ...", you're going to feel right at home. So with that, let's get Melissa Hill Dees on the podcast. So Melissa, welcome to the podcast. Melissa Hill Dees: Thank you, Mike. I'm so glad to be here. Mike: Well, I'm glad to have you on, and we're going to kick off ... I'm going to call it a few weeks of MH4s. Melissa Hill Dees: I love that Mike: All of the MH4s because you guys were such a cool little group that got together for the hackathon at TDX, which we're going to talk about. But before we get into that, Melissa, which spells out some of the MH4, tell us a little bit about yourself. Melissa Hill Dees: Oh goodness. So a little bit about myself. I found Salesforce in 2008 after becoming a stay-at-home mom for a little while and not knowing what to do with myself and trying to help small businesses improve what they were doing from a customer relationship management side. I didn't really get very deep into Salesforce then but a couple of years later, I went to work for a nonprofit and they had Salesforce and I became the classic accidental admin. Which was ironic considering that back in the dark ages when dinosaurs still roamed the e

Level Up: The Admin's Action Plan for Thriving in the Agentforce Era Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Dorian Earl, Salesforce Admin and Founder of Development Consulting Partners, LLC. Join us as we chat about the 5 steps admins can take today to lead the charge in the Agentforce era. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Dorian Earl. Admins are at the center of the Agentforce era I always love having Dorian on the pod because he has an amazing origin story. He started out as a traveling sales rep for medical and dental equipment. He had to keep track of over 100,000 products and 300 clients, all in paper notebooks, until one day he left his Franklin planner on the roof of his car and realized he had to find a better way. That's when he started looking into a new digital CRM platform called Salesforce. These days, Dorian helps organizations with digital transformation through Salesforce, and he sees admins as the linchpin for driving organizational change in the Agentforce era. In fact, he flagged me down at a recent event because he was so excited to share his 5-step action plan for how Salesforce Admins can lead the charge on AI. 1. Build awareness beyond the buzz While most people have talked to an LLM by now, Dorian has noticed that most of his clients don't quite grasp what it could mean for their organization. Admins are in a unique position to translate the buzz into action. Start by educating your teams, surfacing practical use cases, and bringing the conversation into team meetings. This isn't about replacing people—it's about making everyone 10–20% smarter, faster, and more capable. 2. Prep your data for Agentforce AI is only as good as the data you give it. And we're not just talking about client data, though that needs to be in a healthy place. As Dorian points out, consumer-facing agents need to know things like your operating hours, company values, and brand voice. Prepping your data for Agentforce makes it easier to try new features and build something that works. 3. Identify the quick wins Admins don't need to wait for long-term projects to start making an impact with AI. Agentforce comes with ready-to-use features that drive value today. Dorian points to two in particular: Record Summaries: AI-generated account overviews save time and provide instant context, especially for reps managing hundreds of accounts or taking over a book of business. Quick Reporting: Need to know how many leads are in New York with a certain status? You can just ask. No more report-building marathons—admins and users alike can get insights on demand. These tools aren't just time-savers—they're credibility builders. They show stakeholders the value of AI quickly and easily without much heavy lifting. 4. Find internal processes to improve The biggest thing that should be on your radar is how Agentforce can overhaul internal business processes. There are so many places where an internal-facing agent can save clicks and smooth out a workflow. Dorian brings up the example of processing a return. An agent can take care of all the little steps, like creating a case, logging information, and authorizing a refund, instead of that being a multi-person business process. 5. Lead the AI transformation Admins are no longer just behind-the-scenes builders—they're transformation leaders. You understand the org's data, its pain points, and its goals. That makes you the ideal person to customize and scale AI across departments. As Dorian puts it, success with Agentforce isn't just about features—it's about alignment. Help your teams adopt AI by showing them how it can support their goals, simplify their day-to-day, and elevate their performance. There were so many great tips in my conversation with Dorian for how admins can thrive in the Agentforce era, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday morning. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Keeping Processes Fresh in Salesforce with Dorian Earl Salesforce Admins on YouTube: Agentforce Decoded Trailhead: Einstein Work Summaries for Service Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Dorian on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, I'm thrilled to welcome back Dorian Earle, founder and CEO of a thriving consultancy that has over 450 clients and just a massive wealth of Salesforce experience and knowledge. Dorian has been the Salesforce ecosystem for nearly two decades. He started as a sales rep who needed a better way to track his deals and opportunities and really turn that into a career empowering companies to e

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Mehmet Orun, SVP, GM, and Data Strategist at PeerNova. Join us as we chat about how to use Data Cloud to create trustworthy AI experiences. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Mehmet Orun. How Data Cloud powers trustworthy AI experiences The last time we had Mehmet on the pod, the big concern with AI was hallucinations. How can we be sure that the agents we create don't start making stuff up? What's more, how do we know that they won't share data they shouldn't? In short, how do we create trustworthy AI experiences? As we've learned time and again, AI is only as good as the data you give it. But, as Mehmet explains, Data Cloud has changed the game for admins in terms of control over who sees what and in what context. Admins can create personalized experiences with Agentforce, constrained by the permission model and capabilities of Flow to ensure that everything is working as intended. How data management best practices have changed with AI One thing Mehmet reflects on is the way that data management techniques have changed over time. Several best practices no longer make sense in today's context of AI. For example, duplicate records that used to be a mortal sin make more sense when you're trying to constrain what a customer can see vs. your employees vs. your vendors. However, the personalized engagement that is possible with Agentforce requires a complete understanding of what's happening with someone. At the same time, you want your agents to only act on information they're "allowed" to see, or generate insights that are relevant to the outcomes you want to achieve. As Mehmet explains, "good" data and "bad" data is really about making sure your data is structured in a way that makes it easy to use. Data unification made easy with Data Cloud The good news is that it's never been easier to take care of your data with Data Cloud. Mehmet's seen this with the nonprofits he works with. Data unification projects that used to take months or even years are now relatively simple affairs. You can identify bad data, filter out irrelevant data, and put the right data standardizations in place all in setup. Mehmet's biggest piece of advice is to measure your data quality in terms of the business outcomes you are trying to achieve. As he points out, the amount of data you need to open an opportunity is different than what you need to close an opportunity. The same principle applies to AI agents. If you make sure they get everything they need and nothing extraneous, you'll get good results. There are a ton of great insights about data management best practices for AI in our conversation with Mehmet, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And make sure you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Understanding the Importance of Data Health in Salesforce Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Mehmet on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on TikTok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome back to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Today we're catching up with Mehmet Orun, longtime friend of the pod and true expert in data and AI. I'm going to tell you, a lot has changed in the world of artificial intelligence since our last chat. And Mehmet's here to break it down from hallucination risks to the role of data cloud in creating trustworthy AI experiences. If you've ever been wondering how to make your data more meaningful and your AI outputs more reliable, well, you are in for a treat. So, make sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss a single episode. And with that, let's get Mehmet back on the podcast. Mehmet, welcome back to the podcast. Mehmet Orun: It is wonderful to be back, Mike. Mike Gerholdt: I know. You just come by with all these wisdoms and knowledge that you have in the world. Last time we were on, and I'll link to that show, we were talking about hallucination risks. And it's been a year. And boy, I tell you, a year in AI time, everything's changed. So, what's new in your world? What are you paying attention to in terms of AI and Agentforce? Mehmet Orun: To be honest, one of the interesting things about having been around a while is while the technologies are new, our overall objective haven't really changed. And one of the things I've been really trying to look back to is what were past challenges we overcame, what were the parallels, and what were some of the best practices that people newer to the field around data integration, artificial intelligence, may not know about, so we can share this knowledge while absolutely picking up new ways of doing things? Also, because we definitely have

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Sri Srinivasan, Senior Director of Information Security at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about his recent presentation at TDX and how to build secure, reliable AI experiences with Agentforce. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Sri Srinivasan. Quick heads up before we dive in: This episode may include forward-looking statements—aka things we're excited about that may not be here just yet. So, as always, make your purchasing decisions based only on what's currently available. For the full legal scoop, check out salesforce.com. Five questions to ask when you're building with Agentforce I caught up with Sri fresh off his TDX presentation about secure Agentforce implementation to pick his brain on how admins should think about security and AI. For Sri, there are five things to think about in order to build secure AI agents: What is the agent's role and scope? What data will the agent have access to? Which actions should be public and which should be private? Do you need to build any extra guardrails? Which channels will the agent use? As always with security, the key concept here is the principle of least privilege. Running through Sri's questions helps you build an agent that can't do something you don't want it to do. What's coming next for security in Agentforce Sri also gives us a sneak peek at the new tools his team is piloting to help admins build secure AI agents. You'll be able to look at metrics like instruction adherence, coherence, how factual the responses are, and how grounded the agent is. They're also trying to simplify how user permissions work with AI agents in order to make it easier to keep things limited and secure. It's easy to turn things on and off when you're trying to get something to work, but you need to revisit your permissions from time to time and apply the principle of least privilege. The role of admins in the future of Agentforce Finally, I asked Sri about how admins fit into the future of AI on Salesforce. "Admins are key to everything that we do," he says, "they understand everything that's happening within their environment. They know which actions, what permissions, what they do, and agents are just another avenue to expose and interact with this crux of it." How fast would you drive a car with no brakes? Sure, Agentforce is a sports car in terms of everything it can do. But it's up to admins to build the brakes and make sure that AI agents are only doing the things you want them to do. And that starts by understanding the systems and data behind them and then asking the right questions. There's a lot more great stuff in my conversation with Sri, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Sri at TDX: 5 Easy Steps for Secure Agentforce Implementation More from TDX: Security Best Practices with Agentforce Trailhead: Trusted Agentic AI Blog: Best Practices for Building Secure Agentforce Service Agents Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Sri on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking with Sri Srinivasan about secure, reliable AI experiences with Agentforce. Now, Sri is a leader on the security compliance customer trust team at Salesforce, where he helps customers understand and implement security best practices. Of course, before we get into this episode, be sure to follow the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. That way you get a new episode every Thursday delivered right to your phone or your mobile device. So with that, let's get into our conversation with Sri. So Sri, welcome to the podcast. Sri Srinivasan: Thanks for having me here, Mike. Super excited for it. Mike Gerholdt: Well, I love the presentation that you gave at TDX, and I'm sure more people would love to hear about it too, which is why I wanted to have you come back on, because everything now is Agentforce and security is always top of mind. I've always preached security ever since I started at Salesforce. I've had, I think, Laura Pelkey on quite a few times. But that was the compass of what you talked about at TDX. But I'm jumping ahead. Let's talk about you a little bit. Tell me kind of where you got started and how you got to Salesforce. Sri Srinivasan: Let me try to make it very sweet and sharp. So I have always been in security. I have a master's in information management specializing in security. I worked for big four accounting firms, but not doing accounting. I did security for them, data security and data privacy. Then I ended up working for a little gaming company where I really got involved in security, due diligence. Was a

Real Talk for Admins on Content, Conferences, and Agentforce Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joy Shutters-Helbing, Senior Manager of Salesforce Practice at Captech and Salesforce MVP Hall-of-Famer, and Mike Reynolds, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Slack. Join us as we chat about creating community content, navigating conference submissions, and their new podcast, the Jam Pod. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joy Shutters-Helbing and Mike Reynolds. Catch Mike and Joy (and me) on The Jam Pod Mike and Joy are movers and shakers in the Salesforce community. Joy's in the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame, hosts MVP office hours on the first and third Friday of every month, and has spoken at Dreamforce, TDX, and tons of community conferences. Mike has helped create 13 different Salesforce certifications as a Credential Ambassador, and he's a regular speaker at conferences big and small. Together, Joy and Mike are the dynamic duo behind the Jam Pod, where they talk to folks in the Salesforce ecosystem about everything from hiring to technical talks to highlights from the release notes. In fact, they just had me on the pod to talk about the Salesforce community, so be sure to check that out at the link below. How to come up with ideas for Salesforce presentations and content As veteran speakers and content creators, Joy and Mike want to know that you have what it takes to give a Salesforce presentation. In their experience, most people fall into one of two camps: I don't feel like anything I have is important enough to share with anyone. I have something to share, but I don't know where to start. If you're in camp number one, it's important to remember that you're an expert on your own business's problems, and how you solved them can help someone else facing a similar issue. "When you've toiled over a solution and, all of a sudden, it works and you stand up and do some sort of victory dance, that is the thing you should be sharing," Joy says. If you're ready to give a Salesforce talk but don't know where to start If you're in camp number two, where you think you could share something but you don't know how to get started, Mike recommends following Salesforce Evangelists & Advocates and event organizers on social media to hear about calls for speakers. I've included a few links below for Midwest and Florida Dreamin', and Mid-Atlantic Dreamin' is right around the corner. Smaller events like community groups and conferences are a great place to polish your presentation and practice your public speaking skills. And while you might not feel ready for the Dreamforce stage just yet, you can submit topics you'd like to hear more about or even nominate someone to give a talk. There's a lot more great stuff from Mike and Joy about giving presentations and creating great Salesforce content, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Listen to Mike on The Jam Podcast here Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Unlocking Salesforce Efficiency with Joy Shutters-Helbing How I Solved It: Get Agentforce Ready: Move From Profiles to Permission Sets | How I Solved It with Mike Reynolds Squire Kerschner on the first episode of The Jam Podcast Midwest Dreamin' Call for Speakers Florida Dreamin' Call for Presentations Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Joy on LinkedIn Mike on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on TikTok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're jamming, literally, with Joy Shutters-Helbing and Mike Reynolds about creating community content, navigating conference submissions, and yes, even launching a podcast of their own. It's called The JAM Pod. I listen to it, do you? Joy is a longtime Salesforce MVP Hall of Famer, community group leader, and admin extraordinaire with over 21 years of experience. Mike is a Salesforce credential ambassador, known for his deep knowledge on permission sets, permissions, and profiles, and now, he works with Slack. Before we get into this episode, be sure to follow the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. That way, you get a fresh episode every Thursday, right on your phone. With that, let's jump into the conversation with Joy and Mike. Joy and Mike, welcome to the podcast. Joy Shutters-Helbing: Hi. Mike Reynolds: Thank you. Joy Shutters-Helbing: Thank you. Mike Gerholdt: Joy, let's start with you. You've been in the community, you've actually been on the Salesforce Admins Podcast before, but for listeners, just finding out who you are and probably missed your wonderful TDX presentation, can you tell us a little bit a

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Brinkal Janani, Director of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the future of AI-powered customization that's coming with Generative Canvas. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Brinkal Janani. Build dynamic experiences for users with no code Brinkal has always been fascinated by how admins can build dynamic user experiences without code. He was on the original team of engineers that built Dynamic Forms, and as a product manager, he's been leading the charge on Lightning App Builder and AI-generated apps. Today on the pod, we're going to take a sneak peek at what Brinkal's working on right now. Think of all of this as one big Forward looking Statement™ but right now, they're calling it Generative Canvas. How admins can create AI-powered dynamic layouts with Generative Canvas I've been in the ecosystem long enough to remember how much of a game-changer things like Lightning Forms, Lightning Page Builder, and Dynamic Forms were for admins. These tools put admins in the driver's seat to guide users to the insights they need. However, as Brinkal points out, it's difficult to anticipate what users will need in terms of data and workflows. The concept of Generative Canvas is to leverage AI agents to go beyond static user interfaces to something more dynamic and responsive. The user prompts an agent that responds with Lightning Components that can be slotted directly into the UI. As an admin, you build the agents, connect the relevant data, and Generative Canvas takes care of the rest. Suddenly, without any coding, you've built AI-powered dynamic layouts for your users. Generative Canvas in action You really have to see a video of Generative Canvas in action to get how big this is going to be. But imagine a team is collaborating for a sales meeting. You can drop the pitch deck into the UI and ask for an outline to work from. Another person can pull up data about the customer from Data Cloud, and maybe a chart built from public data showing growth in the market. And this is just scratching the surface of what Salesforce Admins will be able to build with no code. If all of this is exciting to you, make sure to listen to the full episode for more from Brinkal. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Generative Canvas demo video Help Article: Visualize Your Data with Generative Canvas (Preview) Release Notes: Generative Canvas (Preview) Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Brinkal on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're diving into the future of AI-powered customization with Brinkal Janani. Now Brinkal is a product manager here at Salesforce and he's leading the charge on Lightning App Builder and AI-generated apps. Today, specifically we're talking about Generative Canvas, forward-looking statement. I bet it's going to get renamed. So we're going to call it Generative Canvas for now, but literally watch the video that's in the show notes. This thing is so cool because it's going to reimagine how admins, how our users can interact with data and build dynamic experiences. And my two most favorite words, without code. Now, before we jump in, I want to make sure you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. That way when a new episode like this drops, boom, you can listen to it. I don't want you to miss out, so be sure to pay attention in whatever app you are using to either press that follow or subscribe button. So with that, let's get Brinkal on the podcast. So Brinkal, welcome to the podcast. Brinkal Janani: Thanks, Mike, for having me. Mike Gerholdt: Well, we're fresh off the heels of TDX and with AI and everything going on, I feel like the metaphor I've used of how fast technology changing is jumping out of a plane, it's moving very fast. I feel like it's jumping out of a plane and skydiving superfast towards the earth because with AI, everything's changing. And we're going to talk about some of the really cool stuff that you're working on on the platform, but let's get started with just learning a little bit more about Brinkal and what you do at Salesforce. So why don't you tell us what you do and some of the stuff that you work on? Brinkal Janani: Sure. Mike, as you guys know, I'm Brinkal Janani and I've been at Salesforce for a little over than nine years now, and throughout my career at Salesforce. I've played various roles. I started my career as a software engineer in test, eventually transitioned to full stack software engineer, and now I'm a product manager overseeing a couple of product portfolios, namely Lighting App Builder and generating apps using AI. And that's w

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Megan Tuano, Sr. Business Analyst at Accenture Federal Services and an amazing YouTube content creator. Join us as we chat about how she uses AI in her consulting and Salesforce Admin work, and how she's built a career in tech without a traditional tech background. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Megan Tuano. The misconception about tech careers Megan started her career at UC Berkeley as an admissions and career counselor for a data science program. Watching her students break into the tech industry without a traditional tech background inspired her to make a career shift of her own. She didn't have to look far for inspiration—she was already using Salesforce every day to move students through the admissions process. Many people believe a career in tech requires a background in engineering, but Megan shares a different perspective. You don't need to know how to code to be a business analyst, a product manager, or a Salesforce Admin. And AI is transforming the landscape even further. AI's impact on consulting and problem-solving One thing that stands out to me about Megan's story is how well she prioritized her learning. She started with her career goals, and then worked backwards to figure out which Salesforce certifications she needed to achieve those goals. And the biggest difference-maker in her career has been learning how to use AI in her consulting and Salesforce Admin work. When she's solutioning, Megan uses AI to help her brainstorm. For example, if she's building something to solve a specific business problem, she might ask ChatGPT to suggest other use cases she hasn't thought of. AI helps her generate ideas beyond her personal experience, making her consulting work more effective. The importance of soft skills in tech We also touched on soft skills and why they're so important for Salesforce Admins. Getting your users to buy in to what you're trying to do and how it can help them is all about showing that you care and that you're here to help them. One way you can do that is by asking questions. Don't be afraid to ask about a business process that you don't understand—it shows that you care and want to get it right. In tech, your soft skills will make you stand out. If you want to hear more from Megan, be sure to check out her YouTube channel. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Megan's YouTube channel Megan's article on Salesforce Ben: Can ChatGPT Replace a Salesforce Consultant? Trailhead: Prepare for your Salesforce Certified AI Associate Credential Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Megan on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admin's Podcast, we're talking to Megan Tuano about navigating career transitions in tech, the power of AI, and making your mark in the Salesforce ecosystem. Now, Megan is a senior business analyst team leader, and let me tell you, a prolific YouTube content creator with a knack for turning really complex concepts into engaging lessons. But before we dive into this insightful conversation, make sure you're following the Salesforce Admin's podcast on your favorite platform. I don't know which one that is, but I bet you have yours. And if you do that, you're never going to miss an episode because it's just going to show up every Thursday morning. All right, enough of the promo. Let's get to our conversation with Megan. So Megan, welcome to the podcast. Megan Tuano: Hey, I'm happy to be here. Mike Gerholdt: Well, I came across your YouTube channel. We did a military... What was the official name of that? Was it a happy hour that we did? Megan Tuano: It was the military trailblazer office hours. Mike Gerholdt: Office hours. I keep calling everything happy hour, maybe it's wishful thinking. Megan Tuano: It was happy. Mike Gerholdt: It was happy hours, office hours, but it was fun doing that with you. Jennifer Lee was on, there was quite a few people on. Warren Walters, former podcast host. It was like a roundup, and I was like, "Wait a minute. Megan hasn't been on the podcast, so it's not a true family reunion, vet force, happy hour unless I had Megan on the podcast." So I had to have you on the podcast to talk about career and life, your YouTube channel and all of AI and Agent Force that's coming in everywhere in the Salesforce ecosystem. So let's get started there. How did you get started in the Salesforce world? Megan Tuano: Yeah, so taking me back. So basically I was actually working for UC, Berkeley at the time. I was an admission's counselor slash career counselor. I was helping a lot of students at the time really figure out if they wanted to start the data science

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Gillian Bruce, Director of Developer Marketing at Slack. Join us as we chat about how to combine Agentforce with Slack and all the cool new things you can do with custom AI agents. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Gillian Bruce. If you can build on Salesforce, you can build on Slack Peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, cookies and milk—some things just go together. That's why I've brought Gillian Bruce back on the pod to talk about her new role as Director of Developer Marketing at Slack. Gillian's still a Salesforce Admin at heart, and she's constantly seeing new ways that Slack can help admins with low and no-code solutions. If you can build in Salesforce, you can build in Slack. And with powerful features like Slack Canvas, Slack Lists, and Workflow Builder, you have a ton of flexibility to communicate information effectively and save time for your users. She also has another great combo to add to our list: Agentforce and Slack. How to combine Agentforce with Slack Slack has over 2600 integrations, allowing you to bring in data from Jira, Workday, Salesforce, and more. This lets you build workflows for users and share information with them without needing to set them up on every platform you're using. But how can you help them interface with all of that data? That's where Agentforce comes in. With Agent Builder, you can create custom employee-facing AI agents for Slack to cut through the noise. These agents can update information in Salesforce, pull data your users need to know, give them a summary of service interactions with a customer, and it all happens in Slack. Get started with employee-facing AI agent templates If you need some help getting started, we've got you covered. Slack has built a plethora of templates for employee-facing AI agents that you can adapt as needed. For example, there's a product specialist agent that can ingest documentation and answer questions from your users so they don't have to pull up a bunch of PDFs. If there's one thing Gillian wants you to know, it's that every Salesforce Admin should be building in Slack. "It's going to not only set yourself up to be super valuable to your organization in this era of agents," she says, "but it also is going to open up so much more possibility for you career-wise." Be sure to listen to the full episode about more cool things you can do with Salesforce and Slack, and why you might see Gillian at your next Dreamin' event. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more slack.dev Slack Developer Program Workshop: Build an automated workflow Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: What Can Salesforce Admins Do with Slack Integrations? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Gillian on LinkedIn Gillian on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're thrilled to have Gillian Bruce back with us. Gillian, who now leads the Slack ecosystem marketing team and is on a mission to show why every Salesforce admin should be jumping into Slack and using it to not only build custom agents, but also amazing workflows and incredible integrations that Slack can do. Gillian explains why learning and leveraging Slack is simply a must for an admin. I mean, it's so easy to use. I love it. Now, before we jump in, I want to make sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. That way, you can catch every new episode immediately when it comes out on Thursdays. So be sure to hit the follow button on whatever podcast platform you're listening for. So now, let's welcome Gillian back and talk about Slack and Agentforce. So Gillian, welcome back to the podcast. Gillian: Mike, thanks for having me. Mike: I know, you've been over overly communicating with people. Gillian: It's been a while since I've been on the pod with you, it feels like I just rewound the clock quite a while. Mike: I know, in the Wayback Machine. Don't forget, we have the Wayback Machine. I don't have the fancy noisemaker, you just got to put it in your head and envision that. What have you been up to since we've last talked on ye olde podcast? Gillian: Oh, just a few things, you know? A few changes. Mike: Okay. Still all about admins, obviously. Gillian: Admins are always in my heart, and it's actually been quite fun, because about, what, eight months ago at this point, I have transitioned over to Slack to lead up their ecosystem marketing team, which includes developers, community, and partners. And one of the big things I'm focused on is, as I've gotten to know the Slack community over here, is helping all Salesforce admins understand how awesome Slack is, and how important it is that you learn

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Lee, Kate Lessard, and Brittney Gibson from the Admin Relations team. Join us as we chat about what they're looking forward to at TDX 2025 and the keynotes, sessions, and how to make the most of your time. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Lee, Kate Lessard, and Brittney Gibson. Don't miss Jen and Kate's sessions at TDX We're looking forward to seeing you at TDX next week, and we want to extend a personal invitation to friends of the pod to come to our breakout sessions. In Unleash the Power of Modular Flows for Agentforce, Jen will be teaching you how to break down flows into smaller, modular components, so you get the most out of them. She's also running another session, "Elevate Prompt Template Agent Actions with the Power of Flow," where she'll look at how to use flow to enrich your prompt templates with data. Kate will be in Theater 2, presenting Demo to Deployment: Engaging Stakeholders with Agentforce. She'll go over how to create a demo that shows your stakeholders everything Agentforce can do, enabling you to get better input and transform your organization with AI. Where to learn more about what's next with Agentforce Kate's also been working on the demos you'll see in the keynote. We'll be looking at how Agentforce has enabled builders with low code, no code, and pro code solutions to create agents and problem-solve for their organizations using AI. You can also stop by the Agentforce Zone, where we'll have plenty of introductory content to get you started with AI. You can learn about Agent Builder, find out more about Service Agents and Headless Agents, and how to use AI to test what you've built. We'll also cover how you can get data from PDFs with RAG 2.0, and what happens when you combine Agentforce with Data Cloud and screen flows. How to keep up with everything at TDX If you're not able to attend in person, Brittney's got your back. You can catch key sessions on Salesforce+ and she'll cover all the TDX action on our socials. We're also sharing must-attend sessions and opportunities to get hands-on with Agentforce to help you plan ahead. Listen to the full episode for more on how to get the most out of your time at TDX, and don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Blog: A Salesforce Admin's Guide to TDX 2025 Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jen on LinkedIn Jen on X Kate on LinkedIn Kate on X Brittney on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, well, I hope you took the over on the over-under of number of admin relations team members that can fit on a pod, because I've got the second most or maybe the most, but we're all here to give you a roadmap to get prepared for TDX. I almost said Trailblazer DX, but then it was Trailhead DX. I'm going to go with TDX, that's probably the most current name right now. But we're going to talk about keynotes. We're going to talk about sessions. We're going to talk about stuff to walk around and look at and put your fingers on the keyboards. And then also, everybody's got a phone in their pocket and you've got to be on social. So Brittany's back from 100 years ago when I first had her on the podcast to help you engage in social and share all the fun pictures and stuff. So Kate, Jennifer, Brittany, welcome to the podcast. Kate: Thanks for having me. Brittany: Thank you. Jennifer: Glad to be here. Mike: Let's get started with sessions because I don't know about you, but every time I sign up for a conference, it's like I got to figure out what sessions I'm going to. So Jen, Kate, I know you're both working diligently on some amazing sessions. Jen, you have the most, and that's no surprise. But let's start with you. What are the two breakout sessions you're working on for TDX? Jennifer: Yeah, very excited for this. So my first breakout is called Unleash the Power of Modular Flows for Agentforce. I know that sounds a lot, but it's your admins, you're building out those flows. Now you could maximize those flows by building them modularly, and what I mean is breaking them down into the smallest components. So I will show you how you can go from a big flow down to a small flow and really optimize it for use with your agents. So that's the first one. And then the second one is called Elevate Prompt Template: Agent Actions with the Power of Flow. So there is a theme that you see flow, flownatics, right? I love flow. I love the ability to leverage that flow magic in our prompt templates to really enrich your prompt templates and ground them in data. So I'm going to step through how to do that, how to use that power of flow in your prompt templates, and then further enrich your AI agen

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about Salesforce Foundations and why it's the key to unlocking the power of Agentforce. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Eddie Cliff. Introducing Salesforce Foundations Everyone's excited about Agentforce and everything you can do when you combine Salesforce with AI. But what about smaller orgs? How will EE or UE orgs be able to keep up without access to all of the bells and whistles? That's exactly what Eddie and his team have been working on with Salesforce Foundations. It's a free way to add the basic capabilities of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data Cloud, and Agentforce to your org. How Salesforce Foundations supports AI and Agentforce Salesforce Foundations eliminates the need for 3rd-party solutions to do that one little thing, like creating a payment link, or triggering a marketing campaign based on Commerce data. You can get all this cool cross-cloud functionality without having to upgrade your org, allowing you to start building that full Customer 360 in Data Cloud. And this is crucial because Salesforce Foundations also gives you access to a freemium version of Agentforce. "What's really cool," he says, "is that as you do more and you use more of these cross-cloud capabilities, your data in Data Cloud gets richer and more powerful and so does Agentforce." And did I mention it's free for Sales or Service EE and UE users? How to activate Salesforce Foundations Getting started is as easy as going into Setup and clicking on the Salesforce Foundations node. You'll go through a checklist of everything you need to get going. From there, you're in for a whole new world of segmentation, personalization, and automation. Listen to the full episode for more from Eddie on Salesforce Foundations and what's coming next, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailhead: Salesforce Foundations: Quick Look Help docs: Considerations for Salesforce Foundations Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Eddie on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, we're talking with Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management at Salesforce, about some exciting developments in Salesforce Foundations. It was the subline to Agentforce that you heard at Dreamforce this year. Eddie has been at Salesforce for nearly 14 years, transitioning from roles in go-to-market and solution engineering to now product management. And in this episode, Eddie shares insights into the evolution of Salesforce products like Starter, Pro Suite, and we learn about Salesforce Foundations. Now, before we get started, I just want to make sure that you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins podcast on whatever platform you get your Salesforce podcast on. Go ahead and click that subscribe, or sometimes it's a follow button. And that way, when new episodes come in every Thursday morning, they will be downloaded to your phone. So with that, let's jump into our conversation with Eddie where he explains how Salesforce Foundations is designed to give customers access to even more capabilities within sales, service and beyond, including all of their existing Salesforce implementations at no cost. So Eddie, welcome back to the podcast. Eddie Cliff: Hey, thanks for having me again. Good to be here. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, absolutely. Well, product managers that work on good features that admins love, we love to have on the podcast. So if people aren't avid listeners, let's refresh their memory. Tell me what exactly you do at Salesforce and how you came to be? Eddie Cliff: Yeah, definitely. So my name is Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management, leading product for our Starter, Pro and now Foundation Suite, which I'm really excited to talk about today. I've been at Salesforce for almost 14 years now, and I've done a variety of roles, from go-to-market and sales and solution engineering and customer success prior to moving into product management about eight years ago now. Mike Gerholdt: Wow, I didn't know you were an SC. I don't think you said that in the last podcast. That's awesome. Eddie Cliff: Yeah, SCs are amazing in what they can bring from their technical understanding and how Salesforce works, but also working with our customers to understand their requirements and needs, and ultimately designing the solutions that they can present back to the customer to hopefully prove out the value of Salesforce as they look to explore it. So actually, have a couple of SCs on my team... Well, former SCs that are now

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Marianna Torres, Associate Salesforce Labs Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the Salesforce Labs AI Library and how it can get you started with implementing AI agents in your org. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marianna Torres. What is Salesforce Labs? Growing up, Marianna was always interested in more creative pursuits and had never considered a career in tech. That all changed during the COVID-19 lockdown when she enrolled in a workforce development program called Year Up United and landed an internship with Salesforce. Today, Marianna works on the Salesforce Labs team, curating the Salesforce employee-built apps, components, and flows that are available for free on AppExchange. Now with the release of Agentforce, the team has put together the Salesforce Labs AI Library as a resource to help you get started with AI. How the Salesforce Labs AI Library helps you get started with Agentforce If you've been keeping up with the pod, you know that prompt engineering can be tricky business. But what if you could copy all the best, most useful prompts from Salesforce product experts? That's what the Salesforce Labs AI Library is all about. It gives you everything you need to get AI agents up and running. When she's going through submissions, Marianna asks three simple questions: Will this help the customer? Does this simplify something that historically takes a lot of time? Is it easy to use? If the answer is yes, it gets included in the library, ready to help you implement Agentforce AI in your org. More resources for Salesforce Labs If you don't know where to start, Marianna recommends going through the Salesforce Labs Basics on Trailhead. You can also listen to the full episode, where she walks Josh through the process of looking something up in the Salesforce Labs AI Library. That's it for this episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast and we'll catch you next week. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more The Salesforce Labs AI Library Trailhead: Salesforce Labs Basics AppExchange: Salesforce Labs Year Up United Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Marianna on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Josh Birk: Hey, gang, Josh Birk, your guest host here for today. Today we're going to talk to Marianna Torres about a project that I am very, very excited about. It's live now, it's called the Salesforce Labs AI Library. I'm really not sure if I'm getting that name right, but I will ask Mariana here in a second. All right. Today on the show, we welcome Marianna Torres to talk about the Salesforce AI Labs library. Do I have that title right or is there are more official one? Marianna Torres: The Salesforce Labs AI Library is the official title. But yeah, you did a good job. Yeah. Josh Birk: Okay. Welcome to the show. First, I want to talk a little bit about your early years. Was computers and software engineering, software in general something you always wanted to get into? Marianna Torres: Honestly, no. I'm actually surprised about how I ended up here at Salesforce. But yeah, so growing up and stuff, I was always more of a creative person, so I was drawing, singing, doing all that. Basically anything that's creative, I was doing. So as I got older, it kind of got to the point where it's like you kind of realize that, okay, it's like I can go to school, I could pursue this, I could potentially do something. But at the same time, I had graduated and it was shortly before COVID. Josh Birk: Oh. Marianna Torres: Yeah, so instead of going the traditional route, I had just joined a workforce development program. The program was called Year Up. Yeah, so through that I did the six-month corporate training. They had transitioned it to virtual and everything. So yeah, I actually started my internship here at Salesforce in 2020, so peak COVID. And from there one thing led to another, I was a contractor for a couple years, and then I got full time. Josh Birk: Nice, nice. What was the connection to get into the AI labs job itself? Other than the fact that we get paid a nickel every time we say the word AI. Marianna Torres: Yeah. So yeah, the team that I'm with now, it's the exact same team that I had joined five years ago as an intern, and that is the Salesforce Labs team. So primarily, our job is to provide our customers with some free employee-built apps, components, and flows on AppExchange. Then this past whole year, AI became huge, and then we had to pivot and we're like, "Okay, the customers want AI, what can we give them?" Seeing as how AI wasn't packageable yet, so- Josh Birk: Right. Marianna Torres: Yeah, we actually just launched Actions, I believe. So Agent Actions are now packageable, prompt templates are not though

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Lee, Lead Admin Evangelist at Salesforce and the host of How I Solved It and Automate This! Join us as we chat about everything coming with the Spring '25 release and what's new for Agentforce and AI on Salesforce. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Lee. Jen's highlights from the Spring '25 release Every year, Jen's release readiness blog post is our most popular piece of content. So I thought I'd bring her on the pod to talk about Spring '25 so we can hear it straight from the source. She shares [number] areas where there will be big changes: 1. Agentforce for all with Salesforce Foundations With Spring '25, more orgs than ever before will get access to Agentforce for free with Salesforce Foundations. This is a game changer for smaller orgs and solo admins, allowing you to use AI to harness the power of the Sales, Service, and Marketing Clouds to transform your business. One thing Jen wants to highlight is the ability to add agent quick actions right on a record page. Prompting is an art, but sometimes your users just need the AI to do the thing. Now you can give them a magic button to give the agent the correct prompt. If you have Einstein Bots, you can easily convert them into templates for agents to save some steps getting started with Agentforce. 2. Einstein AI for flows For the flownatics out there, there are a ton of new ways that AI enhancements in Spring '25 can help you build flows. You can describe what you want a formula or flow to do, and Einstein will build it for you. While you'll need to go in and iron out the details, it can get you 80% of the way there. No more googling to look up how to write a specific formula. If you're like most admins, your Salesforce org is probably full of flows that you didn't build yourself. With Spring '25, you'll be able to get Einstein to summarize what they do, which makes documentation and debugging much easier. 3. User management made easy Meanwhile, there are several user management changes coming in Spring '25 aimed at minimizing clicks and making permissions easier to manage. The group summary page lets you view all the sharing rules and list views in one place, so it's much simpler to figure out why someone can see something but someone else can't. 4. Better screen flows in Spring '25 Action buttons let you automatically trigger a flow when your user clicks a button, but what if you could pull up the output without any other user interaction? That's where screen flows come in. For example, when your user selects a contact you can automatically pull up the associated cases or opportunities. How to get ready for a Salesforce release Jen's advice for going through release notes is to start with your org. What features do you rely on? Search through the release notes for those things, specifically, and make sure you know what's new and what's changing. Two things that will affect every org are security updates and release updates. These security and performance enhancements will improve your org across the board, so be sure you know when they'll be enforced and how to test them. Remember, a sandbox org is your best friend. There's a lot more great stuff from Jen to get ready for Spring '25, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Blog: Jen's Top Spring '25 Release Features | Be Release Ready Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Can Small Teams Benefit from Salesforce Foundations and Generative AI? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jen on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admin's podcast, we're thrilled to welcome back Jennifer Lee to talk about the Spring '25 release and all of its exciting features. Now, as you know, Jennifer is lead admin evangelist here on the admin relations team at Salesforce and host of the How I Solved It and Automate This video series on YouTube. She's also known for this blog post, which comes out with every release. I know you find it incredibly helpful. I do. Now, before we jump into the conversation with Jennifer, I want to make sure that you are following the Salesforce Admin's podcast on your favorite platform so that you never miss an episode, which could include really cool features like this one. So with that, let's get Jennifer on the podcast. So Jen, welcome back to the podcast. Jennifer Lee: Thanks for having me, Mike. Glad to be back. Mike: Well, it's almost spring. It doesn't feel like it where we're at- Jennifer Lee: No. Mike: ... but isn't that how it always is with all of our releases? Jennifer Lee: I just want it to fast-forward. Mike: Yes. Jennifer Lee: Get me to spring. Mike: Right. But you

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Erick Mahle, VP of Revenue Operations & Digital Transformation at Lendz Financial. Join us as we chat about how he's using AI to drive digital transformation and how he started FlowFest, the largest global Salesforce flow competition. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Erick Mahle. Solving business problems with Salesforce Erick was always interested in technology as a kid, helping his dad build computers. However, he originally started his career in marketing. Everything changed when his manager asked him to take over Salesforce for his organization and he saw what he could do with declarative solutions. "I thought it was the grownup version of Legos," he says. In his role at Lendz Financial, he's combining those problem-solving skills with the power of AI to spearhead digital transformation. The mortgage lending industry is full of complicated business processes that need to be checked and re-checked, so it's the perfect place to put new AI capabilities to the test. How AI can streamline mortgage lending If you've ever bought a house, you'll know that getting a mortgage is incredibly complex. With so many steps and regulatory requirements, Erick and his team are using AI to streamline these business processes and limit costly errors. They call it Project Lexi. Obviously, with mortgages involved, they're not ready to turn everything over to AI just yet. However, they've already found several wins by eliminating handoffs with automation and training the AI to flag potential problems. For Erick, the key to any successful digital transformation initiative is to focus on the humans you're supposed to be helping. FlowFest, the largest global Salesforce flow competition Erick also runs FlowFest, a competition where Flownatics can strut their stuff. It started with the idea that although Trailhead is great at teaching you how to build things, a big part of your job as a Salesforce Admin is to fix broken flows. Contests are put through several rounds of debug challenges, culminating in a livestreamed event where the finalists race to be the first to find a working solution for the final flow. It's basically an esport, complete with live commentary and dramatic photo finishes. They just did their first in-person FlowFest at Mile High Dreamin', and it may be coming soon to an event near you. Erick had a lot more to share about how he's thinking about AI and some of his favorite FlowFest stories, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Video: FlowFest V6 Mile High Dreamin' on YouTube Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Erick on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full Transcript Josh Birk: Hello, admins, your guest host Josh Birk here. Today, we welcome Erick Mahle to talk a little bit about AI, digital transformation, and a lot about one of his projects, FlowFest, and how people can learn Flow in a really fun and interactive way. So, without any further ado, let's go welcome Erick. All right. Today on the show, we welcome Erick Mahle to talk about, of course, probably a little bit of AI since that's what we have to do these days and Mile High Dreamin' and FlowFast. Erick, welcome to the show. Erick Mahle: Well, thanks for having me, Josh. Josh Birk: So, let's start with your early years. Did you always want to get into software? Erick Mahle: No, I had no idea I was going to get into software. Although, when I was a very young kid, my father used to build computers and I know I used to do a little bit of the same as well like getting all the video cards, the motherboards, getting all the components, joining them together. But that wasn't something that stuck with me throughout all these years. So, I went to school for marketing, but somehow ended up as the accidental admin and here we are 15 years later. Josh Birk: Got it. Well, that kind of segues to the next question. How did you first get introduced to Salesforce? Erick Mahle: Well, since accidental admin is the default answer for most folks... Josh Birk: Right. Erick Mahle: I will basically say, I joined a company as a marketing analyst. It was a small company. And like most small companies, you get to wear many hats and they basically said, "Hey, we have Salesforce, why don't you manage Salesforce?" And really had a great experience there. We had brought in my boss at that time who was a Silicon Valley-type global sales director, and he really challenged me a lot. He used to say, "Hey, at SuccessFactor, Salesforce used to do this, or at Zuora, Salesforce used to do that. And really, challenged me to kind of reverse engineer Salesforce and I found a lot of joy in that. I thought it was the grown-up version of Legos. I

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Dorian Earl, Salesforce Admin and Founder of Development Consulting Partners, LLC. Join us as we chat about the 5 steps you can take to prepare for Agentforce and AI. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Dorian Earl. Preparing for big changes with AI Dorian started his career as a medical and dental equipment sales rep. He had over 100,000 products and 300 clients to keep track of, and he was looking for something to replace his paper notebooks. That's when he came across a new CRM platform called Salesforce and a new career in tech. Today, Dorian runs a consulting firm that helps organizations leverage their tech stack to improve their business processes. The changes that are possible with AI are just as big as switching from paper planners to a CRM, so I wanted to sit down with him to find out how Salesforce Admins can get ready for Agentforce. 1. Awareness Dorian is seeing a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity from his clients about AI, but most organizations are unsure about how best to use it. He compares it to when search engines were first coming out. The idea of being able to search the entire internet with a query was so groundbreaking that it took time for people to understand the business implications, even at Google. 2. Preparedness Since the possibilities of AI applications are so broad, the best thing we can do is to get any data that an AI agent might need into Salesforce. That can be anything from your operating hours to your company values to your brand voice. Essentially, the same sorts of things you'd go over with a new hire. That way you don't have to start at square one every time you want to build a new agent. 3. Quick wins and usage AI implementation starts with finding quick wins for your organization. Dorian's found the summarize record action to be particularly useful for just about everyone who works with customers. He also recommends taking advantage of AI's ability to do quick reporting for users without the admin needing to get involved. 4. Internal process improvement The biggest changes AI will bring are to internal business processes. Essentially, this comes down to saving clicks and smoothing out workflows. Dorian brings up the example of processing a return. An agent can take care of all the little steps, like creating a case, logging information, and authorizing a refund, instead of that being a multi-person business process. 5. External tasks outsourced to AI The final thing to look at is whether or not any external-facing tasks can be outsourced to AI. Something like prospect nurturing can be handled by an agent that summarizes a record, drafts an email based on that summary and your business information, and then sends it. And then a second agent can schedule a phone call with an actual sales rep for anyone who replies. Obviously, you want to be fairly confident in the agent you've built before you put it directly in touch with customers. But that's why you need to get started now. For Dorian, Salesforce Admins are uniquely positioned to transform their businesses with new AI solutions. There's more great stuff from my conversation with Dorian, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you stay up to date. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Keeping Processes Fresh in Salesforce with Dorian Earl Trailhead: Einstein Work Summaries for Service Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Dorian on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, I'm thrilled to welcome back Dorian Earl, founder and CEO of a thriving consultancy that has over 450 clients and just a massive wealth of Salesforce experience and knowledge. Dorian has been the Salesforce ecosystem for nearly two decades. He started as a sales rep who needed a better way to track his deals and opportunities and really turn that into a career empowering companies to embrace better CRMs and smarter systems. Now in today's episode, we dive into Dorian's five steps to prepare for Agentforce and AI. Now, from understanding the buzz around AI to implementing quick wins and long-term strategies, Dorian shares invaluable insights to help you, the Salesforce admin, and/or organizations you work for stay ahead of the curve this year in 2025. Now, of course, before we jump in, I want to make sure that you're following or subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so that you never miss a great episode like this. New episodes drop every Thursday morning. That way you've got them, boom, right on your phone before you head off for your dog walk or your commute to work. So with that, let's get Dorian on the podcast. Dorian, welco

Agentforce's Best Friend: Clean, Reliable Data Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Lizz Hellinga, a Consultant and Salesforce MVP. Join us as we chat about why clean data is essential for leveraging generative AI and how you can get your organization moving. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lizz Hellinga. Generative AI thrives on clean data Lizz has a clear message: clean data isn't optional anymore. She stresses, "If your data isn't ready for generative AI, your business isn't ready." As organizations eagerly adopt generative AI tools, Lizz cautions that the insights and outputs from AI are only as reliable as the data feeding into it. Simply put, poor-quality data undermines the potential of these powerful tools. What constitutes "bad data"? Bad data comes in many forms, and Lizz highlights the usual suspects: Duplicates Inaccuracies Incomplete records Outdated information Hoarded data The concept of hoarded data stands out as particularly problematic. Many organizations have accumulated large amounts of data they no longer use but are reluctant to delete. According to Lizz, the solution starts with collaborating with stakeholders to establish a robust data governance policy that defines data quality standards and retention policies. Reporting, she adds, can be a powerful tool to illustrate the value of clean data and spotlight areas of improvement. Steps to prepare data for AI Lizz has four steps you can take to start your journey toward clean data: Document your processes: Map out key workflows to find the key points where data enters the system. How can you make it easier to get high-quality data at these moments? Engage your stakeholders: Explain why clean data is vital for AI initiatives. Use examples to illustrate how high-quality data enables AI to deliver actionable insights that can make their work easier and more efficient. Prioritize key areas: Focus on cleaning data critical to processes where AI will have the most impact, such as sales or customer engagement. Start with essential objects and gradually expand to other areas. Leverage your tools: Use reports, dashboards, and tools like Salesforce's "Clean Your Room! Dashboard" to gamify data-cleaning efforts. Friendly competitions can motivate teams to tackle bad data without feeling overwhelmed. Proactive data management strategies Preventing bad data is just as important as cleaning up existing records. Lizz suggests: Using paths and dynamic forms to streamline data entry. Highlighting key fields on page layouts to emphasize their importance. Integrating email tools like Einstein Activity Capture to ensure accurate, up-to-date information. Customizing user interfaces to make data entry intuitive and error-free. Why data quality matters Clean data isn't just about fixing reports; it's about future-proofing your business. "Data is an asset," Lizz explains. For organizations looking to adopt AI, ensuring that data is accurate, current, and relevant is a crucial first step. Without it, even the most advanced AI tools won't deliver meaningful results. Get started today Lizz advises admins to start small but think strategically. Build baseline reports to identify problem areas, engage stakeholders to define what good data looks like, and focus on key processes that need improvement. With these steps, you'll not only prepare your organization for AI but also elevate your role as a Salesforce Admin by demonstrating leadership in data governance. We get into a lot of specifics with Lizz on the podcast, so be sure to take a listen to learn more. And make sure to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Resources Podcast: Sarah Flamion on Generative AI McKinsey Article: The data dividend: Fueling generative AI Clean Your Room! Dashboard Social Lizz on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we are talking with Lizz Hellinga about why clean data is so important for AI. Lizz is a consultant and Salesforce MVP, and before you think, "I can skip this," it's probably going to be boring. Let me tell you, this is a fun conversation because you're going to learn about different types of bad data. One of them is super fun to understand. Also, Lizz shares with us a lot of tips and tools for cleaning up your bad data, and also making things a little bit more easy for your users, so I really enjoy this conversation. But before we get in the episode, can you just be sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast on iTunes or just wherever you get your podcast. That way, you get a new episode every Thursday right on your phone. So with that, let's get to the conversation with Lizz. So Lizz, welcome back to the podcast. Lizz Hellinga: Thank you, Mike, for

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to John Wall, co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast. Join us as we chat about how tools like generative AI are reshaping workflows, strategies, and content creation for marketing. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with John Wall. AI and the future of marketing Most Salesforce Admins need to work hand in hand with marketing to give them the tools they need to do their jobs. As we continue our conversation about Agentforce and the impact agents can have across an organization, I thought it would be great to hear from John Wall about the future of AI and marketing. He co-hosts the great Marketing Over Coffee Podcast, with guests like Simon Sinek, Seth Godin, and Debbie Millman. Most marketers are already using AI for data analysis and insights, with a little help from their admins. However, the game is changing fast with the proliferation of LLMs and the ability to build custom AI agents. How AI will revolutionize marketing personas Recently, we've been hearing a lot about how Agentforce can help you manage your documentation or take the load off your customer service reps. So what can admins build for marketers? John brings up the idea of marketing personas. "Right now, that's four people in a conference room coming up with cute nicknames like Sally Shopper or Wally the Weekend Warrior," he says. But with AI, you can use its classification and summarization abilities to pore over your customer data and generate personas based on statistics, not spitballing. Where it gets even more interesting is how you can use that information to create customers on demand. John suggests building an AI agent for each marketing persona, which can answer questions as that type of customer to give you insights or plan a new campaign. The human in the loop Just like with any new technology, some businesses will rush to adopt the new shiny tool and mistakes are bound to happen. John emphasizes the importance of "the human in the loop," which is a key role for Salesforce Admins going forward. AI advancements are probably not going to put you out of a job, but they'll definitely make your job easier. "The big thing is you have to be curious," he says, "go play with something and see what you can make it do and what kind of results you can get from it." There's so much more great stuff in our conversation with John Wall, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more John's Podcast: Marketing Over Coffee Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: 2025 Roadmap for Salesforce Admins: AI, Agentforce, and Emerging Trends Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Agentforce Transforms Customer Interactions at Salesforce Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Agentforce Is Changing the Career Landscape Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social John on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full Transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're joined by John Wall, co-host of the long-running Marketing Over Coffee podcast. That's right, we're starting 2025 off on the right foot, because John shares with us insights into the ever evolving landscape of AI in marketing, including how tools like generative AI are reshaping workflows, strategies, and even content creation. I bet admins, you know about this. Now, before we jump into the fascinating discussion that we have with John, I want you to be sure to jump over and press that subscribe or follow button, depending on what kind of app you're using. It's probably on your favorite platform. And then that way you don't miss a single episode, because new ones come out every Thursday and I would hate for you to miss something like this discussion that I'm going to have with host of the ever-popular Marketing Over Coffee podcast, John Wall. Let's get John on the podcast. So, John, welcome to the podcast. John Wall: Mike, it's great to be on the mic with you again. Mike Gerholdt: I know, it's been a while. I feel the last time we recorded was in Boston, 100 years ago. John Wall: Yeah, downtown Boston. I remember we were live on Newbury Street. That was like the heart of all the action. Mike Gerholdt: Yep. We were recording the old style podcast. We had an Edison, it was putting it on a phonograph and some wax tubes. John Wall: That's right. Sitting there with my ear trumpet listening. Mike Gerholdt: Ear trumpet, I love it. For those people, like the two people in the world that don't listen to Marketing Over Coffee, can you give us a brief overview of what you do and what Marketing Over Coffee is? John Wall: Yeah, sure. So, my whole career I worked in marketing and tech, and God, going on what, 16, 17 years ago when p

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Lee, Joshua Birk, and Kate Lessard from the Admin Evangelist team at Salesforce. Join us as we ask our guests three questions about what Agentforce means for admins, content they want to highlight from 2024 to help you get started with AI in Salesforce, and what they're looking forward to in 2025. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Lee, Joshua Birk, and Kate Lessard. What is your Agentforce content highlight of 2024? If you know anything about Jennifer Lee, it's that she puts out a lot of great content for admins. Between "Automate This" and "How I Solved It", she also finds time to write some pretty great blog posts. Her highlight for 2024 is her walkthrough on how you can build modular flows, breaking things down into smaller chunks that make it easier for your organization to take advantage of everything Agentforce has to offer. Kate Lessard is the newest member of our team, and she makes a strong case for why you as a Salesforce Admin might be the best-positioned person in your business to become an AI specialist. She gets into all this and more in her intro to Agentforce blog post. Finally, if you're a regular listener to the pod, you've heard some of what Josh Birk has been up to. He's been digging into the technical side of AI, including LLMs, RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), and why prompt engineering is easier than it sounds. If you want to learn more about RAG, take a listen to his recent episode with Nochum Klein about how he's using an AI agent to help with information security documentation at Salesforce. What are you looking forward to in 2025? Moving into 2025, Kate is interested in how emerging AI technologies fit into admins' core responsibilities. In particular, she anticipates that security and the need for AI governance will become increasingly important. Jen, meanwhile, is expanding her video empire with two new series for 2025. The first is about automation and how to build things with an eye toward what will be possible for your business with Agentforce. She'll also be doing a series about how she's learning Agentforce, so you can follow along. And if the idea of RAG is getting you excited, Josh has even more in store for you in 2025. It's going to be very, very doable to build an AI agent to interface with dense documentation and make everything faster and easier for your users. "It's the end of 2025, and I can't believe Salesforce Admins _____!" "It's the end of 2025, and I can't believe Salesforce Admins found Agentforce so easy to work with," according to Josh. He thinks you'll be surprised how simple it is to build your own AI agents, once you get started. You can download a free version of Agentforce right now and jump in with Trailhead. For Kate, "It's the end of 2025 and I can't believe Salesforce Admins are creating dynamic experiences this advanced!" She compares Agentforce to what happened when dynamic forms were released. The possibilities for creating customized, dynamic user experiences are incredible with Agentforce. Finally, for Jen, "It's the end of 2025 and I can't believe Salesforce Admins can now do things like troubleshoot user management issues faster than ever before!" Agentforce isn't just about helping your users—there will also be agents that help you, too. There's so much more in this conversation with our Admin Evangelists about Agentforce and how to get the most out of Salesforce events, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And make sure to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Jen's 2024 blog post: Embrace Modular Flows to Build Smarter Automation for Agentforce Kate's 2024 blog post: Introduction to Agentforce for Salesforce Admins Kate's other 2024 blog post: Advance Your Admin Career With Dev Fundamentals Josh's 2024 Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Agentforce Transforms Customer Interactions at Salesforce Video series: Automate This! Video series: How I Solved It Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jen on LinkedIn Josh on LinkedIn Kate on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're kicking off 2025 with an amazing lineup of guests. So today I have on the Admin Evangelist Team, Jennifer Lee, Kate Lassard, and Josh Burke. We dive into the year ahead looking at topics such as Agentforce, emerging AI technologies, and best practices for Salesforce admins navigating this transformative time. Now, before we jump in, I want to make sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you listen to, that way you never miss an episode. So let's dive into our chat with Jen, Kate, and Josh. Welcome, everybody, to the podcast.

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Nochum Klein, Director of Information Security at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how Agentforce can make customer interactions and interacting with your organization's documentation much, much easier. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Nochum Klein. A rabbi, a mainframe programmer, and a data security expert… Nachum might have one of the most interesting paths to the Salesforce ecosystem of any guest we've had on the pod. Before he ended up as Director of Information Security at Salesforce, he originally trained as a rabbi. However, after he graduated, he realized that it wasn't for him. Instead, Nochum wanted to get into computers. By day, he was a coupon broker, buying and selling frequent flyer miles. By night, he went to school to learn mainframe programming in COBOL. Eventually, he got into mainframe integration and parlayed that into a career at Salesforce. How Agentforce can help you manage your documentation Salesforce is SOC 2 compliant, which means that Nochum's team gets audited twice a year. As a part of the process, they have to prepare pages and pages of PDF documentation about their security measures. And while this information is also handy for fielding customer questions, it's not exactly the most user friendly way to keep track of everything. What the Security team used to do is take the information in their PDF documentation and compile a response database. Essentially, it's a list of questions and their answers. But that means you needed someone to update the answers every time something changes, and things at Salesforce change fast. With Agentforce, they've been able to take their documentation PDFs and break them down into a vector database, making it legible for AI. That means they can chat with an agent to get the most complete, up-to-date answer to a customer's question in moments. For Nochum, it means he can spend less time digging through PDFs to make sure his language is correct and more time making sure his customers have the answers they're looking for. Building AI agents you can rely on None of this would be possible without the confidence that the agent they've built is only pulling from the correct information. That comes from thorough testing, and thinking about edge cases where you might be able to get it to give you the wrong answer. For Nochum, building an agent isn't just about what you want it to do, it's about being explicit about what don't want it to do. There's so much more great information in our conversation with Nochum about building agents and how to think about security with Agentforce, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Build Effective Agentforce Agents for High-Impact Automation Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Nochum on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full Transcript Josh Birk: Greetings, admins. It's your guest host, Josh Birk here today. Today, I'm gonna bring Nochum Klein to the mic. He's the director of security here at Salesforce and he has found a transformative experience with agents, shall we say. Uh, we're gonna talk about use cases, we're gonna talk about building agents, we're gonna talk about, uh, security around agents and, um, I hope you have a lot of fun listening to that. So let's go to the tape. All right, today on the show, we welcome Nochum Klein. Um, am I saying your name correctly? Nochum Klein: Yes, you are. That's perfect. Josh Birk: Alright. Uh, we are gonna be talking about agents and building agents and maybe even a little bit about security around agents, but first of all, Nochum, welcome to the show. Nochum Klein: Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Josh Birk: Let's, uh, let's talk a little bit about your early years. Uh, what did you go to college for? Nochum Klein: I became a rabbi. Josh Birk: Ah. (laughs) Nochum Klein: So I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household, and so throughout my years of school, I never went to public school, I went to the Jewish religious school system, which prepares you for one thing and one thing only. Josh Birk: (laughs) Nochum Klein: (laughs) So I finished and, uh, I did my thing and became a rabbi and I said, "No." Josh Birk: (laughs) Nochum Klein: "I don't wanna do this." Josh Birk: (laughs) So, so you're saying that, uh, you didn't have access to a lot of computer labs right out of the gate? Nochum Klein: No, uh, i- it's funny you say that, because as a child, we were really poor. Josh Birk: Yeah. Nochum Klein: Uh, so, yeah, I had no access to that. And we had, I remember as a kid, and I'm gonna age myself- Josh Birk: (laughs) Nochum Klein: For those who can't see me, I've got kind of salt

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Megan Tuano, Sr. Business Analyst at Accenture Federal Services and an amazing YouTube content creator. Join us as we chat about navigating career transitions in tech, the power of AI, and making your mark in the Salesforce ecosystem. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Megan Tuano. Overcoming barriers to a career in tech Megan got her start working in college admissions for a data science program at UC Berkeley. "A lot of the students I talked to were scared about breaking into tech because they didn't come from a traditional tech background," she says. After seeing what her students were able to accomplish in tech, Megan got curious about what she could do with her career. She was already using Salesforce to get people through the admissions process, so she started looking into how to get certified. There's this idea that you can't work in tech if you don't need to know how to code, but there are so many roles out there where that's not important. You can be a business analyst, a product manager, a project manager, or even a Salesforce Admin. How Megan uses AI in Salesforce consulting One question that I always get is how to prioritize Salesforce certifications. For Megan, that comes down to setting clear goals for your career. What roles are you building towards, and what do you need to stand out? Megan's found that AI certifications and knowing how to use AI to help you with your work have been a difference-maker for her career. She likes to ask ChatGPT about other scenarios her solution could apply to. The AI has had conversations with many other people about similar problems, so she's bringing all of that knowledge into her solutioning process. Why soft skills matter for Salesforce Admins Megan highlights how important soft skills are for Salesforce Admins. We've all sat in a boring meeting, or a presentation where the speaker didn't seem to care. She always looks for ways to spice up her presentations with visuals and humor. Most importantly, you need to have passion for what you're doing with the platform and what it can do for your users. Passion is infectious. Finally, don't be afraid to ask questions if you don't understand a business process. There's often some fear that creeps up that asking too many questions will you seem incompetent or unqualified. But consider the opposite: asking questions shows that you care, that you're thorough, and that you're trying to find the absolute best solution for the business. There's a lot more great stuff in my conversation with Megan about shaping your career in tech, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Megan's YouTube channel Megan's article on Salesforce Ben: Can ChatGPT Replace a Salesforce Consultant? Trailhead: Prepare for your Salesforce Certified AI Associate Credential Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Megan on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admin's Podcast, we're talking to Megan about navigating career transitions in tech, the power of AI, and making your mark in the Salesforce ecosystem. Now, Megan is a senior business analyst team leader, and let me tell you, a prolific YouTube content creator with a knack for turning really complex concepts into engaging lessons. But before we dive into this insightful conversation, make sure you're following the Salesforce Admin's podcast on your favorite platform. I don't know which one that is, but I bet you have yours. And if you do that, you're never going to miss an episode because it's just going to show up every Thursday morning. All right, enough of the promo. Let's get to our conversation with Megan. So Megan, welcome to the podcast. Megan: Hey, I'm happy to be here. Mike: Well, I came across your YouTube channel. We did a military... What was the official name of that? Was it a happy hour that we did? Megan: It was the military trailblazer office hours. Mike: Office hours. I keep calling everything happy hour, maybe it's wishful thinking. Megan: It was happy. Mike: It was happy hours, office hours, but it was fun doing that with you. Jennifer Lee was on, there was quite a few people on. Warren Walters, former podcast host. It was like a roundup, and I was like, "Wait a minute. Megan hasn't been on the podcast, so it's not a true family reunion, vet force, happy hour unless I had Megan on the podcast." So I had to have you on the podcast to talk about career and life, your YouTube channel and all of AI and Agent Force that's coming in everywhere in the Salesforce ecosystem. So let's get started there. How did you get started in the Salesforce world? Megan: Yeah,

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Gillian Bruce, Director of Developer Marketing at Slack. Join us as we chat about how Agentforce allows you to bring Salesforce to Slack, and why every admin should learn how to build Slack solutions. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Gillian Bruce. Why Salesforce Admins should build on Slack If you're a longtime listener to the pod, you've got to be excited about this week's guest. Gillian was my co-host for years, and I thought we should bring the dynamic duo back together to talk about her new gig as Director of Developer Marketing at Slack. Ever since she went over to the Slack team, Gillian's been struck by how friendly the platform is for admins. There are tons of solutions that you can implement with low or no code, and powerful features like Slack Canvas and Slack Lists that give you a lot of flexibility without the need for customizations. All this is a cinch if you're used to building things in Salesforce. And when you hear what Gillian has to say about combining Agentforce with Slack, you'll want to get started today. Bringing Agentforce to Slack In our episode with Jim Ray about Slack integrations, he told us how Slack can be a multi-purpose tool. There are over 2600 integrations currently out there, letting you bring information from Jira, or Workday, or Salesforce, directly into Slack. While that could be a lot of information to sift through, Agentforce is here to lend a helping hand. You can now use Agent Builder to create employee-facing AI agents for Slack. There are special Slack actions, like searching and summarizing data in Slack, creating or updating a Slack Canvas, and sending DMs. This gives admins all sorts of new ways to integrate Salesforce into your business processes with less friction and more wow. The future of Agentforce and Slack Agentforce is new and we know it can be hard to get your head around everything that it can do. That's why Slack is building some templates for employee-facing AI agents. For example, a product specialist agent that can give you quick answers so you don't have to comb through pages of documentation. If there's one thing Gillian wants you to take away from this episode, it's that Salesforce Admins should start building on Slack. "It's going not only set yourself up to be super valuable to your organization in this era of agents," she says, "but it also is going to open up so much more possibility for you career-wise." There's so much more in this episode about tricks for Slack and why you should look out for Gillian at your next Dreamin' event, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more slack.dev Slack Developer Program Workshop: Build an automated workflow Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: What Can Salesforce Admins Do with Slack Integrations? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Gillian on LinkedIn Gillian on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're thrilled to have Gillian Bruce back with us. Gillian, who now leads the Slack ecosystem marketing team and is on a mission to show why every Salesforce admin should be jumping into Slack and using it to not only build custom agents, but also amazing workflows and incredible integrations that Slack can do. Gillian explains why learning and leveraging Slack is simply a must for an admin. I mean, it's so easy to use. I love it. Now, before we jump in, I want to make sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. That way, you can catch every new episode immediately when it comes out on Thursdays. So be sure to hit the follow button on whatever podcast platform you're listening for. So now, let's welcome Gillian back and talk about Slack and Agentforce. So Gillian, welcome back to the podcast. Gillian: Mike, thanks for having me. Mike: I know, you've been over overly communicating with people. Gillian: It's been a while since I've been on the pod with you, it feels like I just rewound the clock quite a while. Mike: I know, in the Wayback Machine. Don't forget, we have the Wayback Machine. I don't have the fancy noisemaker, you just got to put it in your head and envision that. What have you been up to since we've last talked on ye olde podcast? Gillian: Oh, just a few things, you know? A few changes. Mike: Okay. Still all about admins, obviously. Gillian: Admins are always in my heart, and it's actually been quite fun, because about, what, eight months ago at this point, I have transitioned over to Slack to lead up their ecosystem marketing team, which includes developers, community, and partners. And one of the big things I'm f

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Andrew Russo, Salesforce Architect at BACA Systems. Join us as we chat about Salesforce Foundations and why it's a game changer for solo admins and small orgs. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Andrew Russo. The solo admin guide to Dreamforce Andrew calls himself a Salesforce Archi-admin-eloper. At BACA Systems he's a team of one, managing a complex org with all sorts of flows and customizations. Despite his busy schedule, he also manages to get himself out there to all sorts of Salesforce events, so I wanted to chat with him about what caught his eye at Dreamforce as a solo admin. Like everyone else, Andrew is psyched about the possibilities for generative AI and Agentforce. He knows that data health and cleanliness are crucial in order to take advantage of these new features, and he's already started a project to implement Salesforce Knowledge in his org. But what he's really psyched about is Salesforce Foundations. What's so exciting about Salesforce Foundations? Like many smaller companies, Andrew can't easily do a pilot to test out larger features. "Having access to try things before you actually fully configure them is really helpful for us to look at where we can grow and move to with the platform," he says. Salesforce Foundations gives you access to all of the little features you wish you had from each cloud. For Andrew, they can swap over from using an external email marketing tool to doing everything in Salesforce. They're also looking at implementing Salesforce Payments instead of doing it over the phone. While they may not be the shiniest tools in the toolbox, the time saved with these little features adds up in a small organization like Andrew's. Manage requests with a Salesforce roadmap One thing that can get tricky as a solo admin is handling requests while keeping the org on track. Andrew keeps a Lucidchart roadmap for where they'd like to be with things like data cleanup and their Salesforce Knowledge project, which helps him balance short-term needs with long-term goals. "We're not trying to implement features just because we have them," he says, "it has to align with 'our company goals." Andrew has more to share about tips for solo admins, why you should get started going to Salesforce events, and the best cold pizza, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Andrew on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Hey there, Salesforce Admins. So, buckle up because today we got Andrew Russo on board, who's not just managing the Salesforce org, but is essentially the captain of a one-man cruise ship. That's the analogy that we made. So, you like that? I said on board. No, but seriously, this guy is juggling a lot of flows, customizations, and data, much like we all are, and he's steering the ship solo, so single Salesforce admin. Now, in today's chat, we're talking about everything from taming data gremlins to rolling out Salesforce Knowledge, but big is what he found impactful at Dreamforce this year, which was Salesforce Foundations. And we're also getting some insight into how Andrew's planning on keeping his org ready for the next wave of AI. And of course, we reminisce a little bit about Dreamforce, and it wouldn't be a Salesforce Admins podcast without food. This time we're talking pizza. No surprise. So, before we get Andrew on though, make sure you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast on your favorite podcast app or wherever you listen to podcasts. That way, as soon as a new episode becomes available, it will download. So, that being said, let's get Andrew on the podcast. So, Andrew, welcome to the podcast. Andrew Russo: Thank you for having me. Mike Gerholdt: Absolutely. Well, it's been a little bit since you've been on, so let's refresh everybody's memory. What have you been up to and what do you do in the Salesforce ecosystem? Andrew Russo: So, right now, my role is as the Salesforce architect, admin, developer. I mean, we're a small company at BACA Systems, so I'm the solo Salesforce resource. So, I kind of play a lot of hats and I manage our entire org. So, that's the main thing that I do here. We have a lot of flows, of customization. So, I've been trying to learn a lot about that and how to manage our complex org. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Captain of the ship, which is what most admins play. Andrew Russo: Yeah. It's a big ship though. It's challenging. Mike Gerholdt: I know. Yep. Well, the whole goal is to grow the ship and then maybe you get a fleet of people to help you. Andrew Russo: It started as

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, Josh Birk talks to Jagan Nathan, Technical Architect with Customer Success at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about guest user anomalies and what you can do about them with the Threat Detection app. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jagan Nathan. The most important thing for a successful Data Cloud migration Jagan works as a Technical Architect with the Customer Success Group at Salesforce. He's focused on helping businesses use Data Cloud to de-silo their data so they can get a full picture of their customers. Jagan estimates that 60-70% of the time you spend on a Data Cloud migration is used to make sure you understand what needs to be done. That's because the most important decisions are around what objects and data sources you want to map and how it all fits together. If you need help getting started, his team has put together the Data Cloud Workbook Template to walk you through everything. What is a guest user anomaly and why is it dangerous for your data security? The biggest security issues Jagan encounters in orgs come from changes made to profiles and permissions over time. All those consultants can begin to add up! At some point, you need to do an audit of who can see what and apply the principle of least privilege. And that's the reason we brought Jagan on the pod, because one way this can happen is through something called a guest user anomaly. Essentially, it's when a guest user account has more access than it otherwise than it should. For example, an Apex class that allows them pull all of your data. It's the kind of thing that's difficult to identify but can leave you primed for a data breach if you don't know about it. How the Threat Detection app can help you identify guest user anomalies The good news is that there's something you can do about guest user anomalies. If your org has Event Monitoring, you can use the Threat Detection app to identify problematic accounts and take action. It uses the power of machine learning to figure out where the gaps are in your permissions and flag them for you. In fact, the Threat Detection app can help you monitor all sorts of other anomalies, too. Like if a user who does their reports in the same time window each week suddenly logs in at 3 a.m. to pull a bunch of data, or someone based in Albuquerque logs in from Finland. It can even monitor your APIs. And the best part is that enabling Threat Detection is as easy as turning on the permission set. Jagan gets into more specifics in our interview, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Security Guide: Threat Detection Salesforce Security Guide: Guest User Anomaly Salesforce Help: Best Practices for Investigating Guest User Anomalies Trailhead: Get Started with Event Monitoring Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jagan on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Josh Birk: Hello Admins, it's your guest host Josh Birk here. Today, I'm going to welcome Jagan Nathan to talk about some very specific things about security, specifically quirks in security that can sometimes be a little difficult to detect and how we're going to help you detect them. So without further ado, let's go to Jagan. All right. Today on the show we welcome Jagan. Did I do that right, Jagan? Jagan Nathan : Yes. Josh Birk: All right. We're going to talk about some very interesting security things, but first of all, welcome to the show. Jagan Nathan : Thank you, once again, for having me. Josh Birk: Thanks. All right, well, let's start, once again, in some of your early years. How did you originally get into computing? Jagan Nathan : Oh, yeah. So back then during school days, we used to play Counter-Strike. We have in-house network connected with a group of friends. Josh Birk: Nice. Jagan Nathan : So that is how we started into it. We started in a playful mode and then we slowly started programming and all those aspects to it. Josh Birk: Did you actually get into modding Half-Life and all that stuff? Jagan Nathan : Not really. Josh Birk: Got it. Nice. How did you originally get involved with Salesforce? Jagan Nathan : Salesforce, initially I got trained in the Java platform and then back then we got a new project on Salesforce and we have been asked if we could try this out and then I initially thought of giving it a try. I initially thought Salesforce is purely sales driven or some sort of MBA-related work, but that is how it was. And then slowly I got into it. It was quite interesting. And then back then it was even more interesting without Trailhead. We had a lot of learnings. We used to push in developer forums. It was quite challenging and interesting. From that poi

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to John Demby, Director of Solution Engineering at Tableau. Join us as we chat about Tableau Pulse, Tableau Einstein, and how easy it is to get started. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with John Demby. Getting to know Tableau Pulse and Tableau Einstein John leads a team of demo engineers for Tableau. What that means is they get their hands on all the new solutions and products ahead of time, and use them to make cool things. And two of the coolest, newest things out there are Tableau Pulse and Tableau Einstein. Tableau Einstein takes all of the goodness of Tableau, the powerful features of Data Cloud, a new semantic layer called Tableau Semantics, and brings that into Salesforce. There's also a Tableau Agent, allowing you to open up the power of business intelligence and analytics to everyone on your team through Agentforce. Introduction to Tableau Pulse "We started thinking about how people consume data," John says, "and I think it's changed." People want to consume data within the flow of their work. They don't want to have to go looking around for things, or sift through multiple dashboards to figure out what information is relevant. That's where Tableau Pulse comes in. It provides contextual, relevant insights from your data directly into Salesforce. With a simple KPI scorecard, you and your users can see what metrics are up, what metrics are down, and get insights about the next steps you should take. AI-infused and ready to share The scorecards Tableau Pulse provides are just the beginning because you can also ask it questions. Pulse is AI-infused, meaning you can ask plain language questions to generate specific insights about your data. It's also built for collaboration, so it's easy to take these insights and start a conversation with anyone else in your organization. Getting Tableau Pulse is as easy as installing a managed package in your Salesforce instance. "We've made it really for a Salesforce Admin to set this up with little to no Tableau experience," John says. There are nine premade dashboards to get you started, and it's easy to customize things to get something that works for you. John shares a lot more great stuff about Tableau Pulse and Tableau Einstein, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Get Tableau Pulse More about Tableau Pulse What is Tableau Einstein? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social John on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we've got the much loved John Demby, our resident Tableau guru, here to talk about some of the really super cool things that Tableau has come out with, specifically Tableau Pulse and Tableau Einstein. Now, you may remember John and his team create these amazing demos that really show all of the possibilities of Tableau Pulse and Tableau Einstein. And boy, we get into it, about how we're driving insights with AI, and of course we talk about why pie charts are so out. This is really a fun episode. Now before we get started just a quick reminder, if you want to hit that follow button, that way whatever podcast app you're listening to, every Thursday a new episode will be downloaded right to your phone. So with that, let's talk Tableau Pulse and Tableau Einstein and get John on the podcast. John, welcome to the podcast. John Demby: Hey Mike, it's great to be back. Mike Gerholdt: I know, it's been a while. So what have you been up to? What do you do at Salesforce, for the people that haven't run into you at our many events? John Demby: Well, I have I think today the coolest job in the world. I work in our pre-sales organization in solution engineering but what I do is, I lead a team of demo engineers. You might go, demo engineers, why is that really cool? Well, we get our hands on the solutions and the products ahead of our customers. We get to put it through its paces and figure out what it really can do and how it can do it, and then we build these just really ... pardon the expression, kick-ass demos to show to our customers and to anybody else that wants to see them. So yeah, that's what I do. I lead a team and they are all all-stars and amazing people, and we have just been killing it. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, it sounds like fun. I mean, that's also what admins do, get our hands on stuff and try and build killer demos to get our executives to fund it. John Demby: Yeah, we've got a lot of similarities there. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Well, I mean, also a very close kinship. You kind of started out with Tableau the same way I did, you were just a super admin power user that got hired on. John Demby: Yeah. My story goes back to a long ti

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, guest host Josh Birk talks to Katie Villanueva, Golden Hoodie winner and Salesforce Administrator at 10K Advisors. Join us as we chat about her work with mental health advocacy and mindfulness principles that you can apply to your work as a Salesforce Admin. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Katie Villanueva. Mental health advocacy in the Salesforce ecosystem Katie started out as an accidental admin, getting her degree in radio and television. These days, she works as a Salesforce Administrator for 10K Advisors, where she's hard at work updating legacy code with flows and improving workflow processes. Katie's also the founder of the Mental Health and Illness Trailblazer Community Group. It's a space in the ecosystem to make meaningful connections, share resources, and share stories. "We're not alone in our struggles," Katie says, and what's important is to build that support network and talk about it. Mindfulness principles for stress management and personal growth Recently, Katie gave a talk at Midwest Dreamin' entitled "Appreciate Your #AwesomeAdmin Self," based on Jon Kabat-Zinn's seven principles of mindfulness. The principles are a skill and something you have to practice, but they can help you overcome fear, doubt, imposter syndrome, burnout, stress, and negative self-talk. The principles are: Non-judgement Patience Beginner's mindset Trust Non-striving Acceptance Letting go In the talk, Katie gets into how you can apply those principles to your work as a Salesforce Admin. As seen on the Dreamforce stage At Dreamforce, Katie presented "Automate with AI: Prompt Builder, Flow, and Slack," about the magic you can make when you get all three working together. If you missed out, she recently covered the same topics on How I Solved It with Jennifer Lee. Katie has so many great insights to share, so be sure to listen to the full episode to learn more. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailblazer Group: Salesforce Mental Health + Illness Group (Virtual) How I Solved It: Harness the Power of AI, Flow, and Slack to Summarize and Notify Users Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Katie on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full Transcript Josh (00:05): Hello, Admins! Guest host Josh Birk here, and today I'm going to bring you my guest, Katie Villanueva. You may have known Katie Villanueva from her recent Golden Hoodie Win. Also, Katie and I share a long history of mental health advocacy, and indeed, today we are going to talk about mental health and wellness tips for the workplace. Now a quick note due to the Gravity, well, which is Dreamforce. We actually recorded this shortly before Dreamforce, but it is not coming out until well after Dreamforce. So just kind of imagine when Katie's talking about the session that she's going to do at Dreamforce that she already did it. I attended it and it was wonderful. Now over to Katie. Alright, today on the show we welcome Katie Villanueva to talk about her work with mental health advocacy and some of her upcoming presentations. Katie, welcome to the show. Katie (00:56): Hi, thanks for having me. Josh (00:58): Alright, well let's start with your early years. What did you go to school for? Katie (01:02): I went to school for radio. Television. Yeah. Well, no, actually a farmer. And then I graduated with radio, television, so I bounced around until I found my niche in the world, which is Salesforce being an admin. Josh (01:20): Okay. And what was your first involvement with Salesforce? Katie (01:23): I was an accidental admin, accidental on purpose admin. I wanted to do the job so they didn't have anybody doing the job. So at a company that didn't have a team or didn't have any experience with Salesforce, you always have that one person who ends up being the accidental admin. I sought out that position and said, I want to do it. Josh (01:49): So you were kind of a voluntold admin, but you sort of voluntold yourself? Katie (01:54): Yeah, yeah. I had a lot of really good ideas and nobody was going to execute 'em the way that I wanted to execute them, so I just decided to steer the ship myself. Josh (02:09): A classic form of if you want a job done. Right. Got it. Katie (02:13): Yes. Love it. Josh (02:16): And how would you describe your current job? Katie (02:18): Oh, my current job, I am no longer steering ships. I am absorbing all the things about Salesforce. I went to, the first role that I had was at a smaller company, no integrations, we only use Sales Cloud. It was a great role to wrap my arms around Salesforce and what its core capabilities were. But I graduated into this role. Now I'm with 10 K advisors. They're amazing, made up full of great peop

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about Salesforce Foundations and how it can give you access to even more capabilities within Sales, Service, and beyond. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Eddie Cliff. Introduction to Salesforce Foundations Eddie is the lead PM for Salesforce Foundations, and he's here to tell us how it can be a game-changer for orgs looking to incorporate AI. Now, if you're a longtime listener to the podcast you know that AI tools are only as good as the data you give them. And while Data Cloud is meant to help you bring all your data into one place, it's not always easy for customers to make the transition. That's where Salesforce Foundations comes in. It adds the basic capabilities of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Data Cloud, and Agentforce to your org, for free. How to get started with Salesforce Foundations The goal with Salesforce Foundations is to make it easy to get that 360 view of your customers. As Eddie says, their philosophy is "Easy by default, advanced by choice." And you'll find that as you start doing more with segmentation and personalization, you'll realize just how much further you can go. Right now, customers with Sales or Service EE or UE can get Salesforce Foundations for free. All you have to do is go into Setup and click on the Salesforce Foundations node, and you'll be presented with a handy-dandy checklist with everything you need to get started. Preparing for Agentforce Foundations makes it easy to get your org ready for Agentforce. That's why Eddie and his team have included a freemium version of Agentforce in Foundations. "What's really cool," he says, "is that as you do more and you use more of these cross-cloud capabilities, your data in Data Cloud gets richer and more powerful and so does Agentforce." There's a lot more in this episode about how Foundations was developed, what's coming in the future, and the ins and outs of sea kayaking, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailhead: Salesforce Foundations: Quick Look Help docs: Considerations for Salesforce Foundations Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Eddie on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, we're talking with Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management at Salesforce, about some exciting developments in Salesforce Foundations. It was the subline to Agentforce that you heard at Dreamforce this year. Eddie has been at Salesforce for nearly 14 years, transitioning from roles in go-to-market and solution engineering to now product management. And in this episode, Eddie shares insights into the evolution of Salesforce products like Starter, Pro Suite, and we learn about Salesforce Foundations. Now, before we get started, I just want to make sure that you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins podcast on whatever platform you get your Salesforce podcast on. Go ahead and click that subscribe, or sometimes it's a follow button. And that way, when new episodes come in every Thursday morning, they will be downloaded to your phone. So with that, let's jump into our conversation with Eddie where he explains how Salesforce Foundations is designed to give customers access to even more capabilities within sales, service and beyond, including all of their existing Salesforce implementations at no cost. So Eddie, welcome back to the podcast. Eddie Cliff: Hey, thanks for having me again. Good to be here. Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Well, product managers that work on good features that admins love, we love to have on the podcast. So if people aren't avid listeners, let's refresh their memory. Tell me what exactly you do at Salesforce and how you came to be? Eddie Cliff: Yeah, definitely. So my name is Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management, leading product for our Starter, Pro and now Foundation Suite, which I'm really excited to talk about today. I've been at Salesforce for almost 14 years now, and I've done a variety of roles, from go-to-market and sales and solution engineering and customer success prior to moving into product management about eight years ago now. Mike: Wow, I didn't know you were an SC. I don't think you said that in the last podcast. That's awesome. Eddie Cliff: Yeah, SCs are amazing in what they can bring from their technical understanding and how Salesforce works, but also working with our customers to understand their requirements and needs, and ultimately designing the solutions that they can present back to the customer to hopefully prove out the value of Salesforce as they look to explore it. So actually, have a

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Cole, Director of Business Intelligence and Automation at 908 Devices. Join us as we chat about how Salesforce Admins can bridge the gap between business processes and data accuracy. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Cole. The importance of understanding the 'Why' behind data entry Jen gave a stellar presentation about business processes and data strategy at World Tour Boston, and I wanted to bring her on the podcast to learn more. "Data isn't helpful if you don't know your process," she says, "it's just interesting facts on a screen that maybe make pretty graphs. But what does it tell you if you don't know what questions you're answering?" More often than not, the people doing a business process don't understand why they need to log data a certain way. That's why as Salesforce Admins, we need to understand the "Why" behind data entry. If we can bridge the information gap and explain why having accurate data is so important, we're more likely to get people on board. The impact of inaccurate data on business tools With new AI tools like Einstein Copilot or Next Best Action, having accurate data is more important than ever. As Jen puts it, "Inaccurate data creates inaccurate business decisions." But in order to get there, you have to explain why it's important. Jen supports a lot of sales teams, and it's a great example. Sales teams want to sell things, and they don't always understand why they need to log an email into Salesforce or create the next step on an opportunity because they don't know how that information will be used. It's up to Salesforce Admins to bridge this gap and spell out what the data is used for. If your sales team knows that logging their calls accurately will help you tell them the best time to call each prospect, they'll be a lot more attentive to how they enter that data into Salesforce. Strategies for improving data collection Jen points out that trainings are a great time to get started with explaining the why behind data collection. When they fill in this field, who else will use that information and how will it help the business as a whole? You need to get them invested in the process and help them see the broader picture. Finally, it's important to establish feedback loops that help your team stay invested in the process. If they can see how accurate data impacts their day-to-day, they're much more likely to be invested in the project of data collection. There's a lot more great stuff from Jen about how to look at your business processes and data strategy, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to hear more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Podcast: Solving Business Problems with Composer and Flow with Jennifer Cole Blog: How to Use Salesforce to Manage Your Documentation Blog: How to Write Great Documentation to Help with Future Problem Solving Podcast: Understanding the Importance of Data Health in Salesforce Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jen on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking with Jennifer Cole about data strategy and process. Well, yeah, a little something different because in the world of AI and a lot of tools just in general, not to mention automation tools, it's good to know what you're doing with your data and do you have a process in place to make sure you're collecting good data. Also, I ask her about bad data, so that's an interesting answer. But really understanding what data are you collecting, and does everybody know the process for data collection because as we know, it's going to be even more important to have great data so that AI can give us even better insights. But if we don't know the process, then I think we're in trouble. So Jennifer's going to help us with that. But before we get into the episode, just a reminder that if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, be sure to click the follow button, that way this podcast can automatically be downloaded right to your device so that when you're out on your dog walk, you don't have to worry about downloading it because it'll already be there. And of course, I always appreciate a good review, so let me know how we're doing. With that, let's talk process and data quality and maybe data strategies. There's quite a few things in this podcast with Jennifer. And let's get Jennifer on the podcast. So, Jen, welcome back to the podcast. Jennifer Cole: Thanks, Mike. I'm really excited to be back. Mike Gerholdt: Well, last time, and I'll put a link in the show notes because you won't hear that a thousand more times today, but we were talking about document

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jim Ray, Director of Developer Relations and Advocacy at Slack. Join us as we chat about Workflow Builder, Slack integrations, and what happens when you put them together. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jim Ray. Slack as a multi-purpose tool Jim is here to tell us that Slack is much more than a chat tool. Automations and integrations can open a whole new world of utility for your organization. And while Slack integrations have always been a thing, you used to need some technical knowledge in order to build your own. All that's changed with the launch of Workflow Builder. This tool allows you to build automations in Slack without ever having to code or host an app. Once you get started with making your own Slack integrations, you'll never know how you got by without them. Empowering admins with Workflow Builder You can do a lot of cool things in Workflow Builder, like create a new channel or automatically post a formatted message at a certain time each week. But Slack integrations are where it really gets interesting. For example, let's say you have a weekly status report meeting. You can create a scheduled workflow that automatically drops the relevant Salesforce info into a Slack channel so everyone can refer to it for the meeting. Slack integrations go both ways, so you can also use a Slack automation to execute a flow in Salesforce. With Workflow Builder, you can bring your Salesforce data directly into Slack and vice versa, and the possibilities are endless. Enhancing Productivity with Slack AI Finally, Jim had a lot to say about Slack AI, which gives you the ability to search Slack with natural language queries and summarize or format the results. When he came back to work after his paternity leave, he needed to prep for a first meeting with a new skip-level manager. So he asked Slack AI, "What does this person think about the Slack platform?" It gave him a summary of everything they ever posted on the subject, complete with footnotes so he could look at specific comments. Most importantly, Jim points out that the automations you create in Workflow Builder are exactly the kind of structured data that Slack AI loves to work with. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for how you can share information across your organization without the need to put everyone on Salesforce. This episode is full of use cases and tips for how to get started with Slack integrations, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe for more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Amber Boaz on Slack Best Practices Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jim on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Okay, this week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we are going to have a lot of fun because we are talking about Slack automations with the director of developer relations and advocacy, Jim Ray of Slack. Now, you're probably a Salesforce Admin, you're like, "Oh, but we don't use Slack. I'm not going to listen to this." No! This is a fun episode and it's going to give you a ton of ideas for, hey, maybe we should think about using Slack. I'm not here to sell you anything. I don't get any commissions. I just love when I can give you ideas and creative answers to challenges that you're facing. And Jim talks us through a whole bunch of fun stuff that you can do in Slack and gave me a ton of ideas. We talked about canvases. I don't know if you use canvases, but it's a ton of fun. Now, before we get into that, I want to tell you about, hey, what we got coming up in April, because this is last episode of March. I have architect evangelist Tom Leddy coming on to talk about decisioning. I reconnected with Lizz Hellinga at TrailblazerDX. Remember, she was on a previous episode talking about the importance of clean data and why that's important for AI. She's coming back. I'm working on getting Skip Sauls with the Data Cloud update, so Data Cloud. And then I'm going to introduce a new episode at the end of April where I'm bringing my co-worker, Josh Burke, on, and he's going to do a deep dive episode with a product manager. We're working on getting somebody really cool to help you change the way you do some of your thinking. That's all I'm going to tease out for right now. But of course, if you're not already subscribed to the podcast, make sure you're doing that, make sure you're following it. It's a different word on every podcast platform. But if you do that, new episodes automatically get downloaded to your phone. That way when you wake up in the morning, you put the leash on the dog, you go out, boom! You press play, podcast is going, and you can get some great information. You don't

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Warren Walters, Salesforce MVP and host of the Salesforce Mentor YouTube channel and website. Join us as we chat about how we're all becoming adminelopers and why you should learn to code. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Warren Walters. What is an admineloper? Salesforce Admins and Developers are increasingly overlapping in their roles, leading to the rise of the "admineloper." AI has made it easier than ever to get things done with Apex, even if it needs some tweaking to get everything working right. A little coding knowledge can go a long way. For developers, declarative tools in Salesforce are becoming incredibly powerful. Using flows and formulas can often be a simpler way to solve a problem than creating something custom in Apex. In short, if you know a little about both admin and developer tools you can truly get the best of both worlds. Learning to code as a Salesforce Admin There's a common misconception that only geniuses can understand code. However, Warren says, some of the best developers he knows didn't go to school for computer science and are entirely self-taught. A little can go a long way. Basic coding skills can significantly enhance an admin's ability to implement more complex solutions and collaborate effectively with developers. Combining a working knowledge of how programming works with the declarative tools we all know and love can get you far. Soft Skills and Career Advancement Beyond technical skills, Warren emphasizes that soft skills are just as important for career growth in the Salesforce ecosystem. While he identifies as an introvert, he's made a focused effort to become a better communicator, and that's helped him grow into new roles and bigger opportunities. Warren also urges you to spend some time thinking about your personal branding. His YouTube channel has opened a surprising number of doors for him, but even a simple portfolio can do a lot to help you stand out. There's more from Warren about what he's learned as a consultant and as a mentor, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to hear more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more SalesforceMentor.com freeCodeCamp.org Video: Salesforce Mentor on YouTube Video: Salesforce Apex Hours on YouTube Video: Coding with the Force on YouTube Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Can Solving Sudoku and Wordle Enhance Your Critical Thinking Skills? Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Warren on X Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we are talking about mentorship and learning how to code. Surprisingly, not surprisingly, because admins and developers need to know the best practices for creating our apps and deploying the best technology for our organizations. So I'm going to bring on Warren Walters who is a Salesforce consultant. He's an admin, he's a developer, he's a mentor and a self-described general geek. Now, Warren's on because he runs a really cool YouTube channel, and I came across his TikToks where he does Salesforce tutorials to help you understand and master the concept of different things in Salesforce. He has this really cool site, salesforcementor.com, and just a really fun guy to talk about in terms of the world of mentorship, what a lot of skills are that he's seeing, and things that people should be paying attention to. Now, before we get Warren on the podcast, I just want to make sure that whatever you're using to listen to the Salesforce Admins podcast, make sure you hit that follow or subscribe button because then new episodes will show up on your phone or on your computer right away. So with that, let's get to our conversation with Warren. So Warren, welcome to the podcast. Warren Walters: Well, hey Mike, I'm happy to be here. Super excited because I've been listening to the podcast for such a long time and I'm finally on it, which is, I don't know if it's a dream come true or an honor, but I'm just happy to be here. Mike Gerholdt: It's destiny. Warren Walters: I'll take that. Mike Gerholdt: That's what I'll call it, it's destiny. Well, I ran across your TikToks when I was posting stuff about the podcast and really loved some of the videos that you're doing and the topics you're talking about. So let's just start off with what you do in the Salesforce ecosystem and how you got started. Warren Walters: Sure. So my name is Warren Walters. I am a Salesforce engineer. I do lots and lots of development. I probably talk too much about development. Some of you may or may not have seen my face on YouTube, and that's where I primarily host a lot of my content. And just from my side, I've

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Ben Sklar, Director of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how he's making setup into a better, more consistent experience. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Ben Sklar. The problems with Salesforce setup If there's one thing Salesforce Admins know a lot about, it's setup. It's time-consuming, complicated, and varies wildly depending on what you're looking at. Answering a simple question like what objects does this user have access to and why turns into an arduous process. That's why I was so excited to bring Ben Sklar on the pod to talk about how his team is fixing setup in Salesforce. We'll find out how they're laying the groundwork for faster updates and creating a more consistent user experience. Gradual improvements to setup A big question I had for Ben was how the changes he's making to setup will show up for those of us who use it every day. "All these amazing enhancements we're making to the setup platform are really behind the scenes," he says, "if we do this right way you don't really even need to know that it's there." However, you might notice a few improvements here or there. For example, there are new user summaries that allow you to see all the permission sets that a user has, all in one place. They're also working with the Sales Cloud Go team to make sure that you can turn on features, discover new ones, and assign permissions, all in one place. Creating a consistent experience At the end of the day, the goal is to make things easier for the people who use it the most (that's you!). "We've heard our admins often complain about inconsistent experiences," Ben says, "and by being able to reuse components across setup you'll be able to see more consistency." As Ben says, setup was turning into the "Wild West" and it would feel different across experiences. His team has done a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure that setup always has a consistent look and feel, and they've established a setup design council to create guidelines that make sense. The future of Salesforce Setup is bright, and a whole lot easier. You should listen to the full episode for more from Ben, including what's next for setup and why he loves ultimate frisbee. And subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Ben on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking about Setup, and I joked before I pressed record with Ben Sklar, Admins live in Setup. We probably could pay a mortgage based on the amount of time that we spend in Setup. And the reason I talk about Setup and Ben Sklar is Ben is one of the product managers who's tackling Setup and fixing Setup, and he's working very close with another product major that you may have heard of, Cheryl Feldman. And so that's how Ben came to the podcast. He was a suggestion from Cheryl. Hey, you got to talk about all the cool stuff that Ben's working on with Setup on the podcast. And so we cover that and I'm sure many of you probably have seen some of the very cool stuff that Ben and his team are working on in Setup, but at Dreamforce last week, and so we're going to talk about that. But of course, before we get into it with Ben, just a quick reminder, wherever you're listening to the Salesforce podcast, if it's in app, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button. That allows you to get new downloads anytime a podcast drops, and every time a new podcast drops, you what time that is? It's Thursday mornings, so that way new pod right on your phone. If you're listening on the website, you don't have to worry about it. You should sign up for our Admin newsletter though, because we highlight podcasts in the newsletter. But enough about that, let's talk about the exciting world of Setup. It's really where all of us Admins live, and all of the cool stuff that Ben and his team are doing. So let's get Ben on the podcast. So Ben, welcome to the podcast. Ben Sklar: Hey, Mike. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Mike: Yeah, well, when Cheryl comes knocking at the proverbial podcast door and recommends a guest, I can't turn her down, because every time Cheryl Feldman gets on stage to talk about the future of something in Salesforce, Admins flock to those sessions. So she recommended that we have a discussion. I'm very excited for this, but before we get into that, why don't we learn a little bit about you? So tell us briefly how you got the journey to becoming a PM at Salesforce. Ben Sklar: Yeah, absolutely. So I started at Salesforce a few years ago. I joined as a product manager in our backend data services area. I became the product manager for our UI API, or user int

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Douane James, Salesforce Application Product Manager. Join us as we chat about his Dreamforce presentation about how reducing profiles in your org can enable faster deployments. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Douane James. How permission sets can help you reduce Salesforce profiles in your org Douane's giving a talk at Dreamforce this year so I was excited to get him on the pod and hear more. He recently went through the process of reducing the number of profiles in his org from 11 down to only 2, so his talk is centered around why you can and should do the same. I know I don't need to tell you this, but Salesforce best practices change over time. Most Salesforce orgs are built to work right now, which is how you can wind up with technical debt. For example, permission sets have become a much more elegant solution to the problems we used to solve with profiles. Sounds like a big project, but Douane's here to tell you that reducing the number of profiles in your org is not as hard as you might think. Profile footprint reduction speeds up deployment A few years ago, Douane's organization started using a new dev ops process. And while this made it easier to identify what needed to be built and do it quickly, he couldn't help but notice how long the deployments were taking. More often than not, the delays were related to configuring profiles. He realized they needed to do an overhaul and reduce the number of profiles in their org. The first step was to get buy in. For Douane, the key was to emphasize how much quicker his team would be able to respond to requests if they spent time on cleaning up profiles. It also helped that they were committed to gradual improvements over time. Profile footprint reduction isn't something that happens overnight, but it takes less time than you might think if go step by step. How to move from profiles to permission set groups Douane and his team set out to move everything they could from profiles into permission set groups. They identified a representative for each user role they could interview to make sure everything was still working as intended throughout the process. When you're looking at your existing profiles, you need to find out: What are the permissions in the profiles? What permissions are common to each job function? Are there any special cases? For users that need a lot of special access, Douane recommends creating a "heavy" permission set that allows you to give them exactly what they need. If Douane has one message for you, it's that the hardest part of reducing their Salesforce profiles was getting started. And the impact was felt immediately in terms of much quicker deployments and better security. Make sure to catch Douane at Dreamforce and subscribe to the Salesforce Admisn Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailhead Module: Permission Set Groups Trailhead Module: Data Security Best Practices Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Douane on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jason Atwood, CEO and Co-Founder of Arkus. Join us as we chat about how to land your first Salesforce Admin role, from where to find good opportunities to how to prep for the job interview and more. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jason Atwood. How Salesforce Admins should split their learning time We're talking with Jason because he spends a lot of time interviewing and hiring people for Salesforce roles. So if you want to be a Salesforce Admin, how should you split up your learning time? Jason recommends following the 20/30/50 rule. Spend 20% of your time on Trailhead, 30% on acquiring certifications, and 50% on finding some way to gain experience. This split corresponds to how important they are on your resume. Trailhead: Becoming a Ranger is priority one, followed by getting some Superbadges. Take the time to set up your profile with a photo, a description of yourself, and a custom URL so that you look like you're an active member of the community. Certifications: When is the best time to take a Salesforce certification test? As soon as possible! If you don't get it this time, you can use your results to help you prep for the next exam. And if you do pass, you can get the next cert sooner. Gain Experience: Volunteering isn't the only way to get experience. You can enroll in a program where you build mock projects in Salesforce, or just build something on your own. The important thing is to have projects you've built in Salesforce that you can demo in your job interview. Interview preparation and skill assessments When you're going for your first Salesforce job interview be ready for some sort of skill assessment. Time pressure is usually a factor in these tests, so Jason recommends doing a practice run. Talk to a friend, find out what kind of data they collect, and then give yourself a day to build them an app. It could track the books they've read or the distance they've run, the important thing is that you don't know what it's going to be before you talk to them. All admins are consultants It's also important to realize that an interview isn't just about showing your skills—it's about showing who you are. It's a chance to listen and empathize with the person on the other side of the table. It's a chance to share something that stood out to you in your research about the company. And most importantly, to show who you are by asking questions. Why does Jason place such an emphasis on soft skills in a Salesforce Admin job interview? Because, at the end of the day, every admin is a Salesforce consultant for their organization. You talk to people about their problems to get requirements, come up with a solution, and then iterate on that solution. We touch on a lot more in this conversation about how to look for Salesforce jobs, developing listening skills, and what it's like to be a Salesforce consultant, so be sure to listen to the full episode and subscribe so you don't miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Pei Mun Lim on the Skills of a Business Analyst Salesforce Admins Blog: Develop Your Communication Skills as a Salesforce Admin Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jason on X Jason on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: I got an idea. How about we tackle the hardest question on the Salesforce Trailblazer community? That's right. This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're going to look for advice on finding your first admin job and doing the interview, getting experience, and more. And we're going to do all that with CEO and co-founder of Arkus, Jason Atwood. Jason and I chatted at TrailblazerDX and really wanted to dive into this topic. Now, before we bring Jason on, I just want to make sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast on iTunes or Spotify. That way, when new episodes like this one come out, they're automatically downloaded to your phone. But enough about that. Let's talk about finding that first job or even finding your next job as a Salesforce administrator. Oh, I almost forgot to mention we tackle the myth of "but it's just an admin job." So with that, let's get Jason on the podcast. So, Jason, welcome to the podcast. Jason Atwood: Thank you for having me. It's been a long time since we've podcast together. Mike Gerholdt: I know. I was thinking back; well, we were just reminiscing of the days at the Marriott Marquis and the Arkus podcast. Jason Atwood: Yep. You were on an episode of CloudFocus Weekly. We had it as part of our trivia once there was only four or five guests ever on the podcast, and you were one of them. Mike Gerholdt: Snuck in, only proximity. I'm going to say. So catch people up. What have you been up to? Jason Atwood: Well, since then

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Rangsk, a Wordle and Sudoku educational YouTuber. Join us as we chat about how solving puzzles every day can help you sharpen your critical thinking skills. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Rangsk. The role of puzzles in critical thinking development I'm addicted to word games. They give me a chance to practice my problem solving skills and, hopefully, get better. That's why I was so excited for this week's guest, Rangsk, because he makes some of the best educational content out there on how to get better at solving puzzles. For Rangsk, puzzles are a way to develop your critical thinking skills. They give you an opportunity to think about how you think. "Overthinking has a negative connotation," he says, "all I'm doing is thinking, and there's nothing wrong with thinking when you're solving a puzzle." Practicing your problem solving skills in a low-stakes environment like a puzzle gives you the experience to fall back on in high-pressure situations. The process over the result A key part of using puzzles to develop critical thinking skills is taking the time to reflect on your thought process. When you solve a problem, don't just move on to the next one. Instead, Rangsk encourages you to do a postmortem so you can learn something about how you think. Look through each step of a solve and analyze your decision-making. Where did you get stuck or tricked and why? What could you have done differently? And where did you make good choices that got you closer to the solution? If you take the time to internalize what worked and what didn't work you'll improve your critical thinking skills over time. How to know when to ask for help When I'm solving puzzles, one thing I always struggle with is when to hit that hint button. Rangsk's advice is to make an honest assessment of your mindset. Are you well and truly stuck? Or have you hit a snag but are still enjoying the process of working through it? In puzzles and the workplace, we might not be able to solve every problem we encounter on our own. Maybe there's some trick that we don't know about or some key piece of information we don't have. Puzzles help you teach your brain how to learn, and that's something Salesforce Admins need to do every day. Listen to the full episode for more from Rangsk on his approach to teaching and some other word puzzles you might like if you're already hooked on Wordle. And don't forget to subscribe to hear more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Connections and Wordle games from the New York Times are wildly popular. Can they improve cognitive function as you age? Follow Rangsk on YouTube Cracking the Cryptic on YouTube Other word puzzles Cell Tower Squardle Squaredle Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social @Rangsk_YT on TikTok Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Wordle, Strands, Connections, not just random words, but word games. And I am addicted to them. So, this week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, I had to get arguably the best word and logic solver I can find from TikTok and YouTube on the podcast. He goes by Rangsk on TikTok, and I'll put a link below. But David and I are talking about critical thinking and problem-solving using word games. Also, just how that applies to life. This is a phenomenal conversation. Don't be scared about the time because this is such a fun discussion. Also, how looking for answers and the journey of problem solving really applies to just everything that we do, not only as Salesforce admins, but in our learning journeys and as we navigate life. So, this is fun. Let's get David on the podcast. So, David, welcome to the podcast. Rangsk: Well, thank you. Mike Gerholdt: I'm glad to have you on. I feel this is one of those times where I'm way more the super fanboy because I have seen a ton of your TikTok videos and your New York Times solves. But without tipping too much, how did you get into word gaming and solving word games online? Rangsk: Well, it's a long story, but I can give the short version. Basically, YouTube likes to give random recommendations, and one day it recommended me a Sudoku video by Cracking the Cryptic. And I was familiar with Sudoku because it was a huge craze in the early 2000s. Do you remember that? Mike Gerholdt: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Rangsk: Everyone was doing Sudoku. Mike Gerholdt: On the planes, there were books. Every airport had a Sudoku book. Rangsk: Yeah. And so, I got into that craze back then, but then I burned out of it. And now, I realize it's because of the way I was solving it. It's because of the way everyone was solving it, it burned out quickly. But I was like, "You know what? Sudoku, I'm familiar with that." I clicked the video and I just immediately got hooked beca