Nana H. Gregg

Admin Day! Admin Zone! Admin Keynote!

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Nana

So I don’t know if you guys have heard, but at Dreamforce this year Thursday is the most special day!

It has been declared Admin Day to celebrate the people who are the heart and soul of every Salesforce org! The Admin Zone will be hopping that day with swag and awesome celebrations!

AND…there is an official, sanctioned Admin Keynote this year, held on (you guessed it) Thursday afternoon at 3:30 so block your calendar. I heard from a super reliable source that THE Parker Harris will be kicking off the keynote! Spread the word and let’s fill up that 5000 seat space!

And to top off this spectacular day, the Dreamforce Gala will round out the evening with the Foo Fighters concert! What a spectacular way to celebrate the awesomeness of the Admin Community!

And, I’m not sure if it is Kismet or not, but September 17th also happens to be MY 3rd anniversary with BRG as their awesome admin! It’s like a party just for me!

I’ll try not to let it go to my head!

So mark your calendars for ADMIN DAY! Greatest day of the year! And celebrate with me!

Posted in Salesforce Stuff | Tagged AwesomeAdmin, career, Celebrate, Salesforce | 4 Comments

Subscribe to ALL the things!!!

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Nana

As an admin and a mom, I am constantly faced with trying to ensure that my users (and kids) are doing the right things at the right times.

Users:
- Project records are created with the ‘right’ fields
- Updates are being made in a timely manner
- Billable/non-Billable time is being logged accurately (and approved accurately)
Kids
- Chores are being done as instructed (those last two words are important)
- They are treating each other with respect
- Social media guidelines are being followed

The lists for each could go on and on! In Salesforce, we have a plethora of reports and dashboards and workflows to help stay on top of anomalies. Validations don’t always work because sometimes there is judgment involved – example: We have a team of users that create project records. They fill everything out based upon our SOWs and then turn the project over to the PM to manage. They sometimes forget to change the record owner to the PM. Sometimes they will forget to uncheck a box. Those are things you can’t always capture with a validation rule.

So we (as admins) would setup reports to show ‘All Projects Owned by the Project Creation Team’, and ‘All Opportunities Closed Won without a Related Project’ and ‘Timecards Manually Excluded from Billing with no Audit Notes’. Next was to create a dashboard with elements linked to each of these reports. I’d pop the dashboard on my Home page and keep my eye on it – the goal is to always have it show nothing. If something popped up on the dashboard I would get with the right person to correct the data.

ENTER Report Subscriptions! <insert raucous cheers here>

Now I can simply setup subscriptions to my reports. Just add a filter to say when the record count is greater than zero, send me an email!

My Six Sigma/Kaizen brain LOVES this Concept – it’s like JIT (Just in Time) production. I don’t ever have to go looking for anomalies again. They get PUSHED to me by the system. Every day, at a time of my choosing, the reports are run with my filter in place and if there are more than zero records showing, I get an email telling me there is an issue! Who doesn’t love that! No more checking the dashboard! Wait – even better – no more dashboard to maintain!

Now…if I could figure out how set this up with my children? Hmmm….

Have you used Report Subscriptions yet?

It’s a very simple way to empower your users and let the system do work for you!

Posted in Everything Else, Salesforce Stuff | Tagged AwesomeAdmin, Chores, Salesforce, SixSigma | 6 Comments

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood!

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Nana

“I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let’s make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we’re together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?”

Hi neighbor, I’m glad we’re together again….

I’ve been thinking a lot the past few weeks about Communities. How incredibly pivotal they are to every aspect of our lives. The community and neighbors you surround yourself with have so much impact on your own personal well-being.

I tell the teenager all the time, “The people you surround yourself with become molds for the person you become!” Not just family. Friends, co-workers, colleagues, fellow tweeters, the list goes on and on! We rub off on each other and an evolutionary shift takes place.

There are a few communities that have really been instrumental for me over the past few years and helped me grow:

First up is the community of people that I rely on as a mom. My other mom friends who I can commiserate with over homework and PTA woes. Teachers who help me grow as a parent. School/community volunteers who exhibit self-less attitudes and remind me that for things to get better, someone has to step up!
Next up is the community of people who know me well. Family members I may or may not see often, long-time friends who I can laugh with about ‘old times’, best friends who know what I am thinking and can read me like a book, and a husband who supports me in every way.
Finally, there is my #AwesomeAdmin community. This one is hard to explain to people not involved with Salesforce. Through mediums like the Success Community, Twitter, and the FinancialForce Community Forum, I’ve met and forged bonds with some awesome people. We live all over the world and have incredibly varying backgrounds and demographics, but all of that is irrelevant to the simple fact that we love what we do and we love to share and help each other succeed!

Through these communities, I’ve learned to trust my judgment as a mom, not be so hard on myself (both as a parent and as a Salesforce Admin), take time for me (personally and professionally), and embrace the small victories because they add up into big wins!

When a community is not thriving and your neighbors are doing more taking than giving you sometimes have to pull up your roots. Making the decision to ‘move’ is hard, but sometimes necessary.

Does the community you live in look like mine? Have you surrounded yourself with the kind of neighbors that build you up and help you to be a better person?

“Won’t you please,
Won’t you please,
Please won’t you be my neighbor?”

Posted in Everything Else, Salesforce Stuff | Tagged Advice, AwesomeAdmin, Community, Mom, Neighbor, Parenting | 1 Comment

Custom Junction, What’s Your Function?

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Nana

After taking part in the ‘now infamous’ Success Community post about Junction Objects, kicked off by Robert Strunk’s awesome blog post of the same name, it became clear to me that the idea of junction objects is, well, a bit unclear!

So I decided to break it down, Salesforce Rock style:

“Lookup”: That’s a field type, like “date/time” or “text”.
Boom!
It links to another object,
Not this but that.
And then you create another
Lookup, and you have a link!
Between “This” and “that”.
A custom object and two lookups,
Get you pretty far.

Custom Junction, what’s your function?
Hooking up two objects and relating them right:
Classes & Students, Jobs and seekers, leads and campaigns. Hey that’s not lame!

Tickets for concerts, products I’m buying,

A simple object will do: not one lookup but two,
Master-detail is great, but it restricts you, Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

Custom Junction, what’s your function?
Hooking up records with a custom object!
Custom Junction, how’s that function?
I got 2 set of objects and I need to connect them.
Custom Junction, what’s their function?
With a lookup to A and a lookup to B it’ll get you far!
Custom Junction, watch that function.
I’m going to get you there if you’re very careful.
Custom Junction, what’s your function?
I’m going to get you there if you’re very careful.
Custom Junction, what’s your function?
I’m going to get you there if you’re very careful.