Salesforce Admins Podcast

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, it's time for a deep dive with Josh Birk, who talks to Raveesh Raina, Principal Solutions Engineer at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about what Prompt Builder can do and how to write effective prompts. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Raveesh Raina. Intro to Prompt Builder Raveesh is the perfect person to talk to about Prompt Builder and all the cool stuff you can do with it. As a Solutions Engineer, he works with customers to implement the latest and greatest Salesforce innovations and right now, that's Prompt Builder. Prompt Builder takes all the power of LLMs and combines it with your Salesforce data. You can use it to help you write personalized emails to customers, build out records with more information, and much, much more. The four prompt template types and what they do Right now, there are four prompt template types in Salesforce: The sales email template drafts an email you need to send to your customer. Some examples include introducing them to a new product, or reminding them about an appointment. With the field generation template, you can quickly and easily populate or complete a specific field on a record page with a summary or description created by an LLM. The record summary template does exactly what it says it does: summarizes a record. This one is really easy to use via Einstein Copilot, and his clients love it for meeting prep. Finally, there's the flex prompt template. This can be used anywhere and everywhere on the platform to create a customized prompt template that incorporates records from multiple objects simultaneously. An example would be to create a personalized product recommendation for a customer based on an Einstein Next Best Action. With all of these prompt templates, you can dynamically ground them with data from Salesforce or Data Cloud. That gives the LLM the power to pull data from records or, with flows, from pretty much any object—standard or custom—in your Salesforce org. How admins can write effective prompts So how do you write effective prompts that do what you want them to do? Raveesh has four tips to share with us: Be explicit about your expectations and goals. What are you hoping to get out of the response? The AI needs a clearly defined goal in order to generate a good response. Contextualize the information. State if you want to add related records to contextualize the response. Specify your role. What is the persona for which this prompt template is built? Add limitations and set boundaries. For example, "do not exceed 500 characters." The AI needs to be told, and sometimes told again, what not to do. This is especially important to think about as you test and refine your prompt in order to get consistent results. There's a lot more great stuff from Raveesh about building better prompts and how Salesforce protects your data, 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 Blog: The Ultimate Guide to Prompt Builder | Spring '24 Trailhead: Get Started with Prompts and Prompt Builder Video: Salesforce Admins Innovate with Prompt Builder Podcast: Get to Know Prompt Builder with Marissa Scalercio Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Connect with Raveesh Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Josh Birk: Greetings everybody. Guest host, Josh Birk here, to take another deep dive into a topic. And this week, the topic is going to be Prompt Builder and Building on Prompts. I am joined by my good old colleague, Raveesh Raina, who is one of the people who wrote, for instance, our Ultimate Guide to Prompt Builder. Now, with no other hesitation, let's get over and talk to Raveesh. All right, today on the show, we welcome Raveesh Raina to tell us about all things Prompt Builder. Raveesh, welcome to the show. Raveesh Raina : Thank you very much, Josh. It's an honor to be here and thank you for having me. Josh Birk: Excellent. Well, let's start off with a little bit about you. Tell me, what is your current role at Salesforce? Raveesh Raina : So I am a Principal Solutions Engineer. I work predominantly with our account executives and account directors to helping customers get inspired with our latest and greatest innovations that we are publishing and that we are releasing into the market. So I have a specific focus towards financial services. I'm based out of Toronto, Canada, so I work with all of our major enterprise banks with a lot of the different innovations and as far as financial services cloud is concerned, which is our flagship industries product. So helping them get inspired and sharing ideas on how we can help them better meet their goals. Jo

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we sit down for an Admin Evangelist roundtable discussion with Josh Birk, Jennifer Lee, and yours truly. Join us as we chat about how AI can help you be a better Salesforce Admin and what you can do to improve your prompts. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Josh Birk and Jen Lee. Practice your AI prompts With everything going on with Einstein Copilot and Prompt Builder, I wanted to bring the Admin Evangelists together to find out how they're thinking about AI and what you should do to get ready. The number one thing that everyone agreed on is to start practicing your AI prompts. Josh recommends seeing if you can get your LLM of choice to tell you a dad joke. Then try and get it to tell you a better one. Just like how we had to learn how to write a good Google query, you'll quickly find out that some prompts are more effective than others. Jennifer shares the story of how her husband used ChatGPT to help with their itinerary on their trip to Italy. They still had to double-check that the restaurants it recommended were still open and that the timing of everything made sense, but it was a great starting point for planning their vacation. How Salesforce Admins can get help from AI Both Josh and Jennifer also use AI to help with work. Jennifer's found ChatGPT to be really helpful for writing formulas. She used to spend hours on Google trying to find an example that matched the exact scenario she needed. These days, she can just write a prompt with her specific parameters and get back something useful in seconds. If Salesforce gives her an error, she can tell ChatGPT about it and it'll try to fix the code. Josh, meanwhile, has been using AI to help generate Apex code from scratch when he's spinning up a demo org. As he's quick to point out, it's not necessarily helpful for the maintenance and debugging tasks that most developers do on a daily basis, but it's perfect for his particular use case. The human in the loop One last thing we talked about that I want to highlight is the importance of the human in the loop. We used the example of someone calling a power company to find out why their electricity bill is higher. If a human has realized that the weather has a major effect on usage rates and created a screen flow to call the right API, then an AI might be able to give the customer the right answer. But you need a human in the loop to do that second-order thinking. We'll have even more about how Salesforce Admins can use AI next week in Josh's deep dive episode, so be sure to subscribe to hear more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailhead: Get Started with Prompts and Prompt Builder Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jennifer on X: @JenWLee Josh on X: @JoshBirk Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: So in the world of AI and GPTs, and I think one's called Hugging Face, maybe it's Hugging Chat, I don't know. There is a lot to learn and people maybe you're afraid of it or you haven't tried something out. I don't know. We've heard a lot as evangelists on the admin relations team. And so this week I wanted to dive in with all of the rockstar evangelists that I have. Josh Birk, our Senior Admin Evangelist, and Jen, our Lead Admin Evangelist. Also, everything flow about let's dive into prompts and let's start learning about prompts and what should we be afraid of or what shouldn't we be afraid of, or what should we start doing? So that was a really long, highly caffeinated intro, but welcome to the show, Jennifer and Josh. Joshua Birk: Thanks for having us. Jennifer: Hey. Mike Gerholdt: So I won't name names, but I have been around in the community, and I have heard people like, "Cool, oh, you've done something with ChatGPT." And to be frank, if you follow me on Instagram, you'll realize that my feed, sometime in March, quickly took over crazy images generated by Dall-E. Because I find it fascinating that I can give it words to a 1970s music classic rock and say, "Make a picture." And it will produce something that would take me years to put together. And sometimes it's crazy, and I have to share that with the world because I think that's just so cool. But I guess I'm not afraid to try things out. So that's where I was with the world of AI. Where do you guys fall? Joshua Birk: Well, first of all, I want to go back to something you just said about what's dangerous about talking to something like let's just call it ChatGPT. Just use that as the generic one since it's the most famous and most popular. But I go back to- Mike Gerholdt: It's like the Kleenex of AI. Joshua Birk: Yeah, exactly. M

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Chris Zullo, Global Practice Director of Customer 360 and Marketing at AllCloud. Join us as we chat about integrating Marketing Cloud and Data Cloud and how you can do more with your data. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Chris Zullo. Bring all your customer data together in Salesforce Chris is kind of my go-to Marketing Cloud guy, so I wanted to bring him on the pod to talk through how Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud go hand-in-hand. In his role as Global Practice Director of both Customer 360 and Marketing at AllCloud, he's seen firsthand just how much of an impact Data Cloud can have by allowing both departments to work in tandem. There are so many applications businesses use in today's environment that each store data about your customers. But there's a problem. As Chris puts it, "The likelihood of all of those systems talking to each other in any cohesive fashion is slim to none." That's where Data Cloud comes in. It allows you to bring all of that data into one place in Salesforce, and that's where the magic happens. Data Cloud creates a consistent customer experience When a customer interacts with your business, they don't care who they're talking to—they just want to be treated consistently and as if they're the same person. If they had a conversation with a sales rep about a certain product or feature, they expect the customer service rep they call to know what they're talking about. With Data Cloud, your customer service rep can look at all the communications a customer might have had with sales so they're on the same page. And if they notice that there's an email sequence scheduled next week to remind them about their warranty, maybe they can cancel it ahead of time and head things off at the pass. That's why it's so important to give everyone a seat at the table when you're establishing Data Cloud at your organization: marketing, sales, service, eCommerce, IT, and your data team. You want everyone working together to create a unified experience for your customers. Data Cloud makes your data actionable Some business units get really attached to their data. Sure, they'll build you an API to provide a one-way glass view of their data, but why do you need them to integrate it with Data Cloud? "It's all about making it actionable," Chris says, "it's a verb, it's an action. Just because I have a view doesn't mean I can do something with it." Data Cloud lets you do segmentation and targeting at scale without having to copy-paste into a bunch of pivot tables. And with AI features like lookalike segments, the possibilities are endless. There's a lot more great stuff from Chris about how Data Cloud can transform your organization 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 Trailhead: Explore Data Cloud Watch: Data Cloud Decoded Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Chris on Twitter: @ChrisZullo Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Mike: With Data Cloud, you can organize and unify data across Salesforce and other external data sources. After data has been ingested into Data Cloud, it can be used to drive personalization and engagement through the creation of audience segments. So that's what our help documents say. And I wanted to find out from Chris Zullo, who is a business puzzle solver, Salesforce MVP and Global C360 and marketing practice director at AllCloud. What he's seeing when he's helped other admins integrate Marketing Cloud and Data Cloud and all of the benefits across the organization from having visibility into that. Also, what are some of the questions that admins should be asking in order to get that integration going? Now, before we get into the podcast, I want to be sure you're doing one thing and that's following the Salesforce Admins Podcast. And the reason I ask is if you're doing that on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or iHeartRadio, then the newest episode will automatically be downloaded right to your phone so you can listen to it on your bike ride or your dog walk, or maybe you just walk around the neighborhood to clear your head. But let's talk about integrating data with Chris and get Chris on the podcast. So Chris, welcome back to the podcast. Chris Zullo: Thanks for having me. Mike: It's probably been a while, but you're my go-to Marketing Cloud guy, and I feel a lot of people have seen you present in the ecosystem and talking Marketing Cloud. But catch us up. What have you been up to? What do you do? What's your exciting passion in the Salesforce ecosystem? Chris Zullo: Sure. So I mean, right now, I am doing a lot of things around Marketing Cloud

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joe Sterne, a Solutions Architect and Salesforce contractor. Join us as we chat about his tips for job interviews, what to look for in a job description, and how you can use AI to help you prep. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joe Sterne. Contract work in the Salesforce ecosystem Last month, we talked to Jason Atwood about how to prepare for a Salesforce job interview. That episode was fantastic because Jason interviews job candidates all the time, but I wanted to hear from someone who's had experience sitting on the other side of the table. That's why I was so excited to hear from Joe Sterne about his experience as a contractor. Contracting is becoming more common in the Salesforce ecosystem, and it can be a great way to get experience to land that next-level position. "At the end of the day, certifications are great," Joe says, "but certifications aren't the be-all, end-all—it's also experience." Of course, being a contractor means that you're constantly looking for that next gig, so Joe has a lot of great tips to share from going out on so many interviews. What to look for in a Salesforce job description Looking for a new position usually starts with reading through a bunch of job descriptions. Joe recommends taking a close look at what responsibilities are actually listed because it doesn't always match the job title. It can happen for any number of reasons, but it's important information to know going into the interview process because it can affect the salary band. Joe also suggests investing the time to make sure you have something to talk about once you land that big interview, especially if you're bound by an NDA. It could be Superbadges, or work you've done for a nonprofit, or, as Joe says, "maybe it's something you did for fun just so you could talk about it in an interview." No matter what, you need a way to demonstrate your skills and knowledge and how they're a fit for your new role. How to prep for a Salesforce job interview When you're prepping for an interview, Joe recommends taking some time to learn about the business and the industry they're in. Who are their clients? What problems are they trying to solve? And, most importantly, why are you a good candidate for them to help them address those problems? At the end of the day, that's what you're selling. As Joe says, you want to be able to walk into the interview and say, "Here are your problems, I understand them, I'm going to be able to fix them, here are some ways I should be able to fix them, and here are other ideas I have that I could work on with other people as I learn more to evolve those solutions." There's a lot more great stuff from Joe in this episode about how to deal with weird interview questions and how he uses ChatGPT to help him prep, 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 Listen: How to Prepare for a Salesforce Job Interview Listen: Being Neurodivergent in the Salesforce Ecosystem with Joe Sterne 5 Ways to Make Your Sales and Service Reps' Lives Easier with AI Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Joe on Twitter: @MrJoeSterne Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Mike: So let's say you're out there as a Salesforce admin and you're interviewing and you get a crazy question like, "If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?" Well, I won't tell you the answer that Joe Sterne gave but Joe Sterne is on the podcast today and he's going to help us flip on the other side of the coin. That's right. So it's June. If you remember back in May, I had Jason Atwood on the podcast. He's from Arkus and he was talking about what he does to interview Salesforce admins. My hope was to get you in the mindset of what a hiring manager is looking for. Today, I got Joe Sterne, who is out there in the job market and he's interviewing as a Salesforce admin, at least he was at the time that we reported this. And gave some tips to help you get ready for your interview, some things that he's doing. Also, you know what? We talk about contract work because I think that's a very viable solution as a new admin. Now, of course, before we get into the episode, I want to make sure you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it be Apple Podcasts or Spotify or iHeartRadio. Go ahead and click that follow button and the reason is then a new episode will be put on your phone right away when you wake up Thursday morning. So with that, let's get to our conversation with Joe. So Joe, welcome back to the podcast. Joe Sterne: Hello. Mike: Good to have you on again. It's

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we have another deep dive with Josh Birk, who talks to Shoby Abdi, Principle Architecture Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the Well-Architected framework, why you should start using Data Cloud, and what you need to do to get ready. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Shoby Abdi. The Well-Architected framework Shoby is the Principle Architecture Evangelist at Salesforce, and he's come on the pod to tell us about the Salesforce Well-Architected framework. And he's here to tell you that the framework is not just for Salesforce Architects—everyone should take a look at it. As Shoby puts it, if your customers or users open Salesforce and it scares them, that's how you know you need to use the framework. It can help you identify anti-patterns in your org and fix them by building solutions that are trusted, easy, and adaptable. Those are the essential ingredients for a healthy org, and that's what puts you in the best position to take advantage of everything Data Cloud has to offer. If Data Cloud was a parking lot We've talked a little about Data Cloud on this podcast in the past, and that's linked below, but Shoby helped explain why it's such a big deal. The main point he makes is that by bringing all of your data together in one place, it can start to tell a story. As he puts it, "What is your customer doing? Where are they? And then how do you interact with them next?" When we talk about Data Cloud, it can often sound like it's some sort of parking lot for all of the information you have about your customers. But as Shoby points out, it's so much more than that. It's more like if your parking lot had a valet that could tell you everything about who's parked there, what kind of car they drive, how long they're staying there, and exactly when they plan to leave. Einstein and Data Cloud If you're a Salesforce Admin looking to enable Data Cloud, Shoby recommends working through the Well-Architected framework to make sure that your org is healthy. After all, these tools are only as good as the data you give them. If you've done all that, there's a lot to get exited about. Data Cloud brings everything into Salesforce as standard objects, which means you can build all sorts of interesting things with flows and everything else you're already using. And with Einstein Copilot and other AI tools, the possibilities are endless. There's a lot more great stuff from Shoby in this episode about how Data Cloud works, so be sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to hear more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Well-Architected Framework Making Data Cloud Work With Your Existing Salesforce CRM Data Salesforce Architects Blog Podcast: Well-Architected Automation with Tom Leddy Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Shoby on Medium Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Josh Birk: Greetings, Salesforce admins. It's Josh Birk here, your guest host for this week. This week on a deep dive, we're going to dig into data cloud and then talk about data cloud. I brought one of my good friends and old colleagues, Shoby Abdi. All right. Today on the show we're going to welcome back Shoby Abdi to talk about data cloud. Shoby, how you doing? Shoby Abdi: Not too bad. Just doing well. Connections is right around the corner. Just to timestamp this for everybody. Josh Birk: It's a Connections week. It's a DevOps streaming week. Everybody here is in Chicago and I'm still at home talking to you. So that's my social calendar. Shoby Abdi: Exactly. That sounds very similar. I am also in Chicago. Josh Birk: Nice. Okay. So introduce yourself a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your current role. Shoby Abdi: Sure. So my name is Shoby Abdi. I am a principal architecture evangelist on the Salesforce's Architects and Well-Architected team or the other way around. Essentially, if anybody has ever gone to or if you're a Salesforce architect or if you've ever gone to architect.salesforce.com or if you've ever heard of the Well-Architected framework, my role, along with a few others is that we are evangelists. So it's very similar to the work that Josh does or on the admin side or developer advantage to the developer size, except our audience is firmly architects. Architects of all kinds, whether that be our internal ones, customers, partners, architects all over the place. Josh Birk: There's a nice overlap between admins and architects. So actually let's give you that this is the Tonight Show portion where you get to do your own plug. Tell me a little bit about the Well-Architected framework. Shoby Abdi: Sure, absolutely. So the Well-Architected framework in a very simp

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Brandon Walton, President, Owner, and Principal Consultant at Cypress Learning Solutions. Join us as we chat about discovery, building trust, and why building with core Salesforce features is the best option for small organizations. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Brandon Walton. Creating a puppy pipeline in Salesforce Brandon started his career as a car salesman and support tech in the Redmond, Washington area when a fateful call with a tech executive who liked how he explained things led to a job offer. That company used Pardot and, when it was acquired by Salesforce, he had the opportunity to become the implementation partner. The rest is history. Today, Brandon's a Salesforce Consultant for small businesses. One of his clients is Family Bred Puppies, which works to maximize the quality of life for dogs by matching families with small breeders. I wanted to bring him on the pod to share how he created a Salesforce implementation for them that's scalable and easy to maintain. After all, who doesn't love talking about puppies? Creating a low-maintenance, scalable Salesforce implementation As Brandon explains, when you're working with a small team they want Salesforce to help them do what they do best. They often don't have the resources to hire a full-time admin or developer. However, as he was doing discovery, Brandon realized that there was a way to map their already-existing business process onto basic Salesforce architecture. Family Bred Puppies needs to go through an application and interview process to qualify families looking to adopt, which are handled with the standard Salesforce lead and lead status objects. If they've found a suitable candidate, they can upgrade that lead to a contact and use the stages of an opportunity to track the adoption process. There is, however, a custom puppy object for puppy-specific information like vaccinations and genealogy. Because almost everything is built with standard Salesforce objects, the implementation is extremely low maintenance. It's also easy to upgrade and expand. In fact, Brandon just came from a meeting to talk about adding case management and Marketing Cloud, and AI features like Einstein Next Best Action just work because it's all standard. How to build trust with clients While all of this is good in theory, I really wanted to know how Brandon was so successful at getting his client to follow his advice. That's the real challenge, isn't it? You can explain all day why an opportunity would work better than building a custom adoption object, but how do you get them to believe you? For Brandon, it comes down to building trust. "When someone believes that you're listening to them and have their best interests as your top priority, that's the foundation of trust," he says. Keep asking questions instead of jumping to a solution right away, and get them involved in the process of creating a Salesforce implementation that works for them. There's a lot more great stuff from Brandon in this episode about scalability, user training, and puppies, 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 How I Solved It: We Turned Salesforce Into a Puppy Adoption Platform! Puppies: Family Bred Puppies Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Brandon on Twitter: @WaltonForce Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: I got a plan. How about this week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk about the Puppy 360 instead of the customer 360. That's right. So this week we're doing a follow-up. You might've seen Brandon Walton on How I Solved This with Jennifer Lee. If not, I'll include that link in the show notes. But Brandon helped a small family business that helps place puppies with the right people to use Salesforce. And so I'm having him on the podcast to talk about discovery, and building trust, and really building applications with native Salesforce features that require some, let's call it minimal maintenance, because I think there's parts of organizations that you build high maintenance or applications for because their business is constantly changing and ones that will require minimal maintenance. We also talk about the art of building trust, which is fascinating, but also puppies. So I'll warn you, there's a few puppy talks in there. But before we get into the episode, I want to be sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins Podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. It's super easy. Just click on the follow or subscribe button inside the app. And the reason I tell you to do that is then the app will automatical

How Can Solving Sudoku and Wordle Enhance Your Critical Thinking Skills? Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Rangsk, a Wordle and Sudoku YouTuber. Join us as we chat about critical thinking, problem solving, and why puzzles are a great way to practice and improve your thinking. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Rangsk. Who is Rangsk? I'm a big word puzzle fan. Sudoku, Wordle, Connections, I love 'em all! I think they're a great way to warm up your brain and stay sharp. That's why I was so excited to sit down with this week's guest, Rangsk. His YouTube and TikTok videos have helped me become a better puzzle solver, and I wanted to bring him on the pod to talk through his unique approach. Rangsk first got into puzzle solving via a recommended video on YouTube for Cracking the Cryptic. He fell down the rabbit hole and became obsessed with the logic game that happens behind the numbers. He created his own sudokus and started posting walkthrough videos of how he made them and how to solve them. Rangsk's channel has grown exponentially since then. The thing that sticks out to me about his content is the tone: he's positive, gentle, and clear. He really helps you become a better critical thinker, and have some fun along the way. Word games are logic puzzles "I approach word games as if they were logic puzzles," Rangsk says, "you're given information and you want to come up with the best possible guess to utilize that information and get as much information as you can." Some feedback Rangsk often gets about his solves is that he's "overthinking it." For him, that misses the point of doing these sorts of puzzles in the first place. Yes, you can brute force a sudoku or get a lucky guess on a Wordle. But what do you learn from that? As Rangsk puts it, "It's a single player game, there are no stakes to it. The only person you're cheating is yourself." Practice your critical thinking skills Instead, Rangsk recommends using puzzles as a low-stakes opportunity to practice thinking through things logically. It's an opportunity to build up your critical thinking skills for when there's more on the line than beating your high score. At the end of the day, it's all about learning. Whether you solve a puzzle or get stuck halfway through, Rangsk encourages you take a close look at your thought process and learn from it. Why did you solve it? Why did you get stuck? It's the chance to learn about yourself and how you think through things that makes these puzzles worthwhile. Listen to the full episode for more from Rangsk on when it's OK to hit the hint button, 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 on TikTok: @Rangsk_YT Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt 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:

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Michelle Blair, Community Manager at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about Salesforce Community Events, her work with local event organizers, and why you should attend one near you. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Michelle Blair. By Trailblazers, for Trailblazers Michelle is a part of the Trailblazer Community team, which helps millions of Salesforce users around the world come together and learn. I brought her on the pod to tell us about community conferences and how you can find an event near you. Salesforce community conferences are created by Trailblazers, for Trailblazers. As Michelle shares, over 40 events are happening this year around the world, and they offer a great opportunity to connect with other people in the community and learn more about Salesforce. Get personal at a Salesforce community event near you When you think of Salesforce events, you probably think of Dreamforce or TrailheaDX. These events are huge and offer so much. But all of those choices can get a little overwhelming. The cost can also be a challenge. I remember exactly how much budget I had for attending conferences when I was a solo admin—it was $0. If you've ever felt that way, Michelle recommends that you give community events a try. Because they're volunteer-organized, they have a more intimate, personal, inclusive feel. It's easier to talk to speakers and make those connections. You can also find one within driving distance so you don't have to take a flight or book a hotel. Most importantly, the quality of content and professional networking opportunities at community conferences is top-notch. Michelle and her team have put together a handy-dandy calendar so you can easily find a community event near you. Get involved in the Salesforce community Michelle's team is hard at work making Salesforce community events even better. They offer sponsorships to help with affordability and are connecting organizers with keynote speakers and Salesforce engineers. This year, they're bringing several hands-on workshops to community events to take your learning to the next level. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more on the Salesforce community events happening around the world and how you can get involved. And make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Community Conference Calendar Trailblazer Community Groups Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Michelle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleoblair/ Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Love our podcasts? Full show transcript Mike: Salesforce community events are a great way to connect with Salesforce people in your area, consume some amazing content, dare I say Dreamforce level content, and get connected with your local user group. So this week on the Salesforce Admins podcast I'm talking with Michelle Blair, who's the community major at Salesforce. And she helps all of these community event organizers really propel their event into the next level. We talk about what a community event is, how it's different than an actual Salesforce event, some of the stuff that Salesforce is involved and not involved in when it comes to that. And I'll be honest, why you should go. Now, before we get into that episode, just want to make sure that you're following the Salesforce Admins podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. That way when new episodes like this come out every Thursday morning, it's going to be right on your phone. So with that, let's get to our conversation with Michelle. So Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Michelle: Well, thank you, Mike. It's great to be here. Mike: Yeah. Well, I'm excited to talk about there's a lot of events that Salesforce does, but then the passion that runs through our community also exudes into them running their own events, which we'll talk about. But let's get started with you, how did you get started at Salesforce and what do you do? Michelle: Yeah, so it's been about three years that I've been at Salesforce now. And I actually was a customer prior to joining Salesforce and was implementing our marketing cloud and our social, using a lot of the social platform at the customer company. And came to Dreamforce back in 2018 and was able to lead a session at Dreamforce, and talking about our journey and working with a Salesforce expert within the company. And from there I really experienced the Trailblazer community and was so inspired and just like, okay, got to get in here somehow. And I was already working with our community at the customer. So kind of just got in there eventually and made my way in about three years ago now, and it's been quite a ride. Mike: And so at Salesforce

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jason Atwood, CEO and Co-Founder of Arkus. Join us as we chat about landing your first Salesforce Admin role, from finding good opportunities to nailing the interview and more. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jason Atwood. The 20/30/50 rule Jason has interviewed a lot of people for Salesforce roles in his 15 years in the ecosystem. His biggest piece of advice when looking for your first role is pretty simple: "Relax. It's going to be OK." But you still need to acquire skills and there's a lot to do, so Jason recommends following his 20/30/50 rule. Spend 20% of your time on Trailhead, 30% on certifications, and 50% finding some way to gain experience. This split loosely follows what he looks for on a resume when he's making a new hire. He also shared some advice about each step of your journey. Trailhead: Becoming a Ranger is your number one priority, followed by Superbadges. He also recommends taking the time to set up your profile with a photo, description of yourself, and custom URL. Certifications: Don't put off taking your certifications. Give it a go as soon as you're ready. If you don't get it this time, you can use your results to help you prep better the next time. And if you do pass, you can move on to the next one sooner. Gaining Experience: Volunteering isn't the only way to do this. You can enroll in a program where you build mock projects, or simply build something on your own that you're willing to demo in an interview. Preparing for a Salesforce Admin interview Jason interviews a lot of people so I asked him, how should you prepare for your first interview for a Salesforce role? The first thing is to be ready for some sort of assessment. Since there's often time pressure, Jason recommends doing a practice run. Talk to a friend, find out what kind of data they collect, and build them an app to track the books they've read or the distance they've run, anything will do. When you sit down in the room, Jason emphasizes the importance of listening and showing empathy. One way to do that is to ask good questions. What's their Salesforce roadmap and what can you build for them? What's their organization's approach to culture? You can also do your homework and bring up a blog post they wrote, or something specific their company has done. Admins are consultants Listening and empathy are so important to Jason because he sees that as the biggest part of the job. "Being an admin is being a consultant for one organization. What are you doing? You're talking to people, they're coming to you with their problems, you're getting their requirements, you're satisfying their needs, you're working with them, you're iterating, you're updating things, and then you're presenting it back to them." We touch on a lot more in this conversation about looking for Salesforce jobs, listening, 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: @JasonMAtwood Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Mike: 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: 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: Snuck in, only proximity. I'm going to say. So catch peop

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, Admin Evangelist Josh Birk sits down with Kat Holmes, Chief Design Officer and EVP at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about diversity, accessibility, and her book, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kat Holmes. What is a mismatch? I brought Josh on the podcast to host this special deep dive episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, and we couldn't think of a better guest than Kat Holmes. At Salesforce, she's in charge of User Experience. But she's also the author of the amazing book, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design. The title of the book comes from the World Health Organization. In 2011, they redefined disability as "a mismatched interaction between the features of a person's body and the features of the environment in which they live." As Kat explains, thinking of design as a way to solve mismatches leads to innovative solutions you wouldn't otherwise find. The problem with designing for the "average user" For decades, designers have tried to make things for the "average user." Kat takes us through the fascinating history of the bell curve, which goes back to a 19th-century Belgian astronomer who set out to apply the principles of statistics and probability to sociology. The problem, as she points out, is all of the different types of users that this approach leaves out. Kat's favorite example is the keyboard. It's an interface that's incredibly efficient and enables pretty much everything we do with computers. But it was actually invented to help a blind Italian countess write letters without the need to dictate everything. And there are tons of other examples, like bendy straws and curb cuts. These designs solved one person's specific mismatch problem but ended up benefiting all sorts of other people, too. Designing with inclusion and the potential of AI When you're building something, Kat recommends recognizing the abilities on your team and thinking about who might be excluded. As she puts it, "What abilities are missing that are important to the design we're making?" Then, find a way to include someone with those different abilities in your process. We also get into AI and what the future holds. As it becomes easier and easier for admins to build things, it's more important than ever to factor in things like accessibility and inclusion into the equation. And there's a lot of potential to adapt to the interface to the user to give each person a different experience. There's so much more in this deep dive episode, so be sure to take a listen for . Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes 99% Invisible: Curb Cuts Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Kat: @katholms Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full Transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, well, it's our Deep Dive episode. I said we're launching something new for April, and with a deep dive comes a guest host. Hey Josh, how are you? Josh: Hi, Mike. I'm doing pretty good. How are you? Mike Gerholdt: I'm excited because I listened in on this episode and I can't wait to see if this is the pilot episode of where the Deep Dive series is going. Buckle up, folks because it's going to be awesome. Josh: Right? I honestly think maybe we should just, I don't know if we're going to do better than this. This was a... And I hate saying things like when people are like, "Oh, who was your favorite guest?" I'm like, "I don't like picking the favorite of my children." Kat's going to get into the top five right away. I never thought I would talk about diversity when it comes to everything from the iPhone to bendy straws. Just almost [inaudible 00:00:58]. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, it's fascinating. Let's get into the episode with Kat. Josh: Today on the Salesforce Admin podcast, we are going to talk to Kat Holmes about things, diversity, inclusivity, and AI. Kat, welcome to the show. Kat Holmes: Thanks for having me. Josh: So let's talk about your early years. In one of your talks, you speak about growing up in Oakland, and that led you thinking and eventually promoting inclusion. Can you expand on that a little bit? What about Oakland fermented this for you? Kat Holmes: Yeah, in the way back machine. So growing up in a city that os incredibly diverse, all the way through my schooling, all of my community engagements, we really learned a lot about many different ways that people live. But the thing that was really interesting for me, all the way through college, so I went to college in the Bay Area as well. I never learned about the fundamentals of accessibility as part of my training as an engineer. I also studied pre

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Skip Sauls, Senior Director of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how Data Cloud can make it easier than ever to roll out enhancements to your org. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Skip Sauls. The challenges of working with external data sources Pulling data from external sources is always a challenge. For one thing, it usually requires a bunch of work on the backend to get things looking the way you want them to. What's more, it opens the door to all sorts of potential problems when things don't match up, not to mention the extra security challenges. That's why I was excited to sit down with Skip Sauls. He's the PM for Data Cloud, and he's here to tell us how his team has made working with external data sources easier than ever before. How Data Cloud simplifies data management Data Cloud allows you to combine your external data sources with what's in Salesforce without hacking together a series of customizations. Connectors allow you to import data from external sources as direct objects, or transform it into something more useful. You can run reports with it, use it in flows, embed it in Lightning pages, and much more, without needing to write specialized code. Skip's goal is to minimize the customizations you need to make and seamlessly combine your external data with what's in Salesforce. Using Data Cloud means that you'll be able to deploy enhancements to your org without worrying that everything's going to break, or rebuilding it from the ground up. As Skip says, "we don't want people to feel like they have to radically change everything in their day-to-day lives just to access something new." Get hands-on experience with Data Cloud Looking forward, Skip and his team are trying to further simplify how Salesforce works with external data sources. They're rolling out tools to minimize imports, so your data lives in one place but works the same as what you have in Salesforce. They're also working on Remote Data Cloud, which will help you consolidate data that's spread out across multiple orgs. If you want to learn more about Data Cloud, I have good news for you. Skip and his team are releasing dozens of new hands-on challenges to Trailhead over the next few months. There's never been a better time to get up to speed with everything that's possible with Data Cloud. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailmix: Get Hands on with Data Cloud! Salesforceblogger.com: Demystifying Data Cloud Concepts Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Skip Sauls on Data Cloud Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Skip: @SkipSauls Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Admins Podcast, we're talking lakes, well, not lake lakes, but I mean we do talk about lake-making kits, and I do think that would be a hilarious swag at Dreamforce. But Skip Sauls is back because data lakes and Data Cloud are on our mind, and he's got a bunch of new features that he's talking about. Not to mention, he also tells us how we can get hands-on with Data Cloud, which I'm a fan of getting hands-on anything because that really helps me understand it. That's what we're going to talk about. Before we get to the episode, just want to make sure you're following the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio. We're on all the podcast platforms. You don't have to follow them everywhere. Just one, your favorite one, and then the new episodes download automatically right to your phone. Every Thursday morning, you can get up head to work or walk the dog or go for a run and get your new episode just by pressing play. With that, let's get to our conversation with Skip. Skip, welcome back to the podcast. Skip Sauls: Thanks, Mike. I'm glad to be back, and as always, glad to talk to you and to the admin community. Mike Gerholdt: I was looking at my notes from the last time we talked, and the last real podcast that we did was about a year ago. To me, a lot of Data Cloud stuff was brand new, and also a lot of the concepts around data lakes and data silos was a new thing. It still may be new to many people in the audience, but I think we're starting to become even more exposed to it by just the sheer volume of amount of Data Cloud information that's coming out, and also the number of features that now Salesforce can support. Let's start with, what's some of the new stuff that you've been rolling out in Data Cloud since we last talked? Skip Sauls: One of the most exciting things for the admin community is how you can now leverage data from Data Cloud in your standard Salesforce org, in your lightning pages, in your reports, in your flows. That's been a big theme for the past year, which

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Lizz Hellinga, Consultant and Salesforce MVP. Join us as we chat about why product management principles Salesforce are crucial if you want to take advantage of new AI tools. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lizz Hellinga. AI enhancements and what they mean for admins The last time I had Lizz on the pod, we talked about why clean data is crucial for AI tools. But with everything that Einstein Copilot and Prompt Builder make possible, I wanted to bring her back to help us understand how to approach AI enhancements. The big thing to get your head around is that these tools make it easier than ever to implement changes to your org. However, as Lizz points out, that means it's even more important to think through how Salesforce fits with your business processes. How you gather requirements and communicate with your stakeholders is more important than ever before. Apply project management principles to your Salesforce org To get the most out of everything that's possible with AI enhancements, Salesforce Admins need to brush up on product management. "It's kind of like the operations around your operations of Salesforce," Lizz says. She wants everyone to think through three questions: How are you taking in change requests? How are you working with your stakeholders to determine if those requests are aligned? And, finally, how do you go through the process of enabling that change and then extending it for adoption? As Lizz points out, what you need to do hasn't changed. You might be able to do things faster with AI tools, but big-picture thinking is even more essential so you can deliver the right solutions at the right time. Communication with stakeholders is a two-way street So how do you get started? For one thing, you need to figure who you're trying to talk to. As Lizz puts it, "it's never too late to run a report and do a stakeholder analysis." You can look at profiles or roles to determine who the main people are in your organization and what they need from Salesforce. You need to build trust with your stakeholders, and that means establishing two-way communication about requests and what you're working on. Lizz recommends creating a transparent system for tracking requests, whether that's using case objects or custom objects in Salesforce, or even (gasp!) creating a shared spreadsheet. It can often feel like there's a lot of heat on you to get everything done as quickly as possible, but that's why bringing stakeholders into the conversation around enhancements is so important. If people understand why bumping something up on the roadmap will push other changes back, it can really turn the temperature down. It's all about creating a feedback loop that turns stakeholders into collaborators. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from Lizz, and don't forget to subscribe for more from the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Listen: Can AI Enhance Salesforce Architecture and Decision Making? Listen: Why Clean Data Is Non-Negotiable in the AI Era with Lizz Hellinga Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Lizz: @LizzHellinga Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Mike on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mikegerholdt/ Mike on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@salesforce.mike` Mike on X: @MikeGerholdt Full show transcript Mike: So we're talking about product management this week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast with returning guest Liz Hellinga. You may remember she was on in December and really focused us on getting data cleaned up to get ready for AI. Well, now it's, how do we manage Salesforce as a product manager and also take into consideration all of the things that we've got going on with AI? And really all of the tools that AI can provide us, like Einstein Copilot, Prompt Builder. What can we do? Before we get into that episode, I just want to point out if you're getting ready for all of the content that we've got lined up this month... So last week we had Tom Leddy on the podcast, check out that episode. Next week is Skip Solves. We're going to talk about Data Cloud updates. Skip was on last year. And then at the end of the month on the 25th, we're launching a new style of episode. It's going to happen at the end of every month, and it's... We called it Deep Dive and it's with a fellow evangelist, Josh Burke. He's going to deep dive into a topic a little bit more than I do. We're going to kick it off with our Katie Holmes, who is on our design team and talk about design and AI. It's going to be a really cool conversation. But for now, let's talk about product management and AI and helping Salesforce admins be good stewards of the platform. So let's get Liz on the podcast. So Liz, welcome back to the podcast. Liz: Thank you, Mike. I'm happy to be here. Mike: Last time you were here, we talked about how clea