Nana Knows Some Stuff

Might Not Seem Like It Some Days, But You Got This.

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Nana

Despite what your Facebook and Instagram feed displays, there is not one person around you who isn’t going through some shit.

Some people just choose to cover it up, gloss it over, or ignore it. They carefully cultivate a different visual for the world to see.

And that’s ok. It’s what works for them. Maybe it’s what works for you.

And when I talk about ‘going through some shit’, I am not just talking about big stuff. There is a wide variety of crap, big or small, that you could be facing:

Stress about Money
Unhappy at Work
Anxiety about school or classes or certifications
A broken down appliance or car
Not enough time in the day to get it all done
Feeling pulled in too many directions
Health issues for you or a family member
Grief
Relationship issues (this includes bad relationships, lack of relationships, complicated relationships, that uncertain period when you start a relationship, or that emotionally wrenching time when one is ending)
And a gazillion other things you could insert here

Some of us are going through one or two of these, some of us relate to every bullet. Around the holidays especially, it tends to pile up and feel weightier with what seems like everyone sharing how perfect their lives are on social media.

But I want you to know that whatever you are going through, you will get through. It might not be in the way you expect or hope, it might be in a different way altogether. But you are resilient and strong. And, while it might not always feel like it, there are people rooting for you.

On one of my darkest days three years ago, I opened an envelope and inside was this banner. It brought me to my knees. I had lost my home, my vehicles and possessions, hadn’t been to work in weeks dealing with tragedy, and had that very morning called in Hospice for my dying mother.

Yet someone believed in me.

Someone saw this and thought of me.

In no way did I believe that ‘I Got This’ at the time, but knowing that someone else thought I did, that they thought I could get through was motivation. And continues to be my motivation every day.

So this has become my mantra and I hope it becomes yours:

You've got this.

You've got it when you hear it can't be done.
You've got it when it feels like it's just too hard.
You've got it when unexpected shit happens and
you're not sure what the next step should be.

And, just so you know...
You've got me there to help in any way I can.

We've got this.

Posted in Salesforce Stuff | Tagged Holidays, Motivation, Stress | 2 Comments

Become Your Own Self-Innovating Hero

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Nana

My daughter and I have been training for a quarter marathon at a local walking trail. Yesterday we stopped to take a break and I suggested we turn around and backtrack the way we’d come since we always go the same way.

I said, “When you look at it from another perspective – you’ll get to see something different!”

After rolling her eyes and calling me Dr. Suess, we started back up the path and did indeed notice things we hadn’t before and experienced a different workout than we would have otherwise.

It was just a small thing, but we made a change and did something in a new way; we were innovative in our approach.

When I hear the word ‘innovation‘ I usually think of it in the context of business don’t you?

According to Merriam-Webster, the terms innovate and innovation mean the following:

Innovate : to make changes : do something in a new way

Innovation : the introduction of something new

We are always hearing about an innovating new product or a revolutionary innovation that will transform our customer’s experience. And hopefully we are in careers where innovation is encouraged and rewarded. Where we can be called innovators.

Now let’s think about innovating and innovation in a new way. {<—- Bonus points if you saw what I did there?}

We do the things we do today because it works. It’s so easy to get caught up in the way we’ve always done things, or the way we were taught to do things, or the way people expect us to do things. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you are content with the outcome.

But in order to get a different outcome, there has to be something different on the input. Again, we all understand this from a business sense, but think about something personal in your life where you’d like to see a different outcome.

It could be something to do with your health, or a relationship or a career goal. It could be something super simple like wanting to drink more water everyday or get up from your desk more often.

Now take that thing and examine what you might be able to do differently to get that outcome. Look at it from every angle (not just the obvious ones). If you want to exercise, there are hundreds of things you can do. Find the one small thing that works for you, with your schedule and your challenges and make a small change. Then go with that change. Commit to it. You might not see immediate results or drastic results. But you have started down the path of change which, in turn, makes future changes so much easier! Then pat yourself on the back – you’ve become an innovator of your own life!

Surround yourself with other innovators. Other people who like to see things from a different perspective. People who aren’t afraid of doing something new or differently than before. Because these people will be your cheerleaders. They’ll help you by providing a different take on things and by trying new things with you. They’ll be there when the thing you tried didn’t work out the way you’d hoped and help you figure out a new way to get to the outcome you seek.

Before long, you will see that by looking at things differently, by introducing something new or doing things a different way, you can transform as a person.

And when you apply what you’ve learned about how innovation can transform to all areas of your life, everyone around you benefits. Think about the possibilities:

Innovation can transform products.
Innovation can transform companies.
Innovation can transform industries.
Innovation can transform ideas.
Innovation can transform communities.
Innovation can transform politics.
Innovation can transform countries.
Innovation can transform relationships.
innovation can transform careers.
Innovation can transform people.

Innovation can transform YOU!

So I challenge you, today, to commit to making changes. To look at things in a new way. To introduce something new in your life.

It doesn’t have to be big or earth shattering. Small changes can lead to big things.

Think with an innovator’s mindset and become your own self-innovating hero!

Posted in Salesforce Stuff | Tagged Advice, Business, Community, Family, life, Life Lessons, Motivation, Politics, work | 2 Comments

Lightning Powers Activated!

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Nana

If you’ve been reading my blog posts you know about my journey launching Salesforce Lightning in our org.

Initially I was pretty resistant to switching. I knew it was going to be a lot of work. I was overwhelmed by the perceived magnitude of switching. Classic was familiar. Lighting was some new-fangled UI those darn kids liked and they needed to get off my lawn! Wait…I think I just aged myself there!

activate

But we went there. We hitched up our pants, set aside the fear of the unknown, researched, put together a plan and leaped into Lightning.

And that is where the fun began!

As a self-described Admineloper with no developers on my team and not a lot of budget for contract work, there have always been things our users have asked for or things we have wanted to do that just weren’t feasible.

Things like displaying a banner or pop-up at the top of a record to highlight something. Or showing a screen flow on a record when more info is needed (but only when missing info or only to subset of users). Or providing executive team leads with less clutter (ie fields and related list info) and more analytics (charts/graphs) when viewing a record.

And then there was Lightning…

If you haven’t figured out by now I am enamored with the Lightning experience and the power it has given me (as a non-developer) to provide value and efficiencies for my users and processes.

A few examples:

With the Rich Text Lightning Component and the ability to set the visibility of it based on a field on the record I can now display or hide a banner at the top of any record to alert my users about something. Maybe the Account is a key account or the Project is at Risk, show the component. Boom! Instant message to your users that there is something important to know.
- Take that even further and display or hide ANY component based on something on the user record.
Need to gather additional info if an Opportunity is over a specific amount? Sure you can add extra fields and validation rules to make them required, but how about creating a screen flow with the required fields you need, then, again, set the visibility of the Flow Component to only show on the page when the opportunity value is over the required amount and the fields haven’t been set? The user doesn’t even have to leave the record to fill it in, saving time and keeping the rest of the opp information at their fingertips.
Create an Executive app where all the Lightning Record Pages are optimized for analytics. Remove or hide the details/related lists behind tabs and add report charts filtered to the Record ID to the page. Now a leader can click on an account and immediately see the pipeline for that account, the historical sales, the forecast, and whatever else they might want to see at a glance. Talk about eye-candy!

And this just scrapes the surface of what an admin can do with the Lightning Experience!

So, yes, it might be daunting to think about switching over. It will be some work, sure. But what you get out of it, for your users, for your company, for your own growth and career will be worth it all!

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Posted in Salesforce Stuff | Tagged Accomplishment, Admineloper, Lightning, Lightning App Builder, Lightning Record Pages, Salesforce, Super Powers | Leave a comment

Skin in the Game

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Nana

So as we’ve been telling our story about our Lightning implementation, it has become apparent that we aren’t alone in initially being scared of what seemed like a daunting task to move to Lightning.

Looking back on our prep, development and implementation I can see why we had those fears, but I can also see that most of them were due to not fully understanding some of the Lightning concepts. So it was hard to wrap our heads around them.

My fearless leader and product owner, Marshall King and I got to present our story on a recent Salesforce Admins podcast and it was clear in the questions we got after the webinar that this seemed to be a common thread.

One question we got a lot, that I wanted to see if I can help make a bit more clear, is about Lightning Record Pages. In our Webinar we indicated that we made our changes and adjustments to them in production and lots of people were shocked, or maybe surprised is a better word.

They wanted to know how we could do that in production and not effect the classic users and I think this very question points to the root of some misunderstanding.

So we all know that Page Layouts are what controls the fields displayed, the order and sections of those fields, what Related Lists show up, buttons, etc. This is true (with minor exceptions I’ll outline below) in Classic and in Lightning.

Lightning Record Pages are NOT the same thing as Page Layouts.

I repeat: Lightning Record pages are NOT the same thing as page layouts.

It took me a while to wrap my head around this but here is where I ultimately got the Ah Ha! moment:

The Lightning Record Page is a SKIN designed around the Page Layout.

Elements of the Page Layout (Details & Related Lists) are displayed using components you add to the Lightning Record Page
Those Components are like add-on features that give us more functionality to provide our users, in addition to the traditional Page Layout elements.

You could think of it like a car.

The Page Layout is the base model of the vehicle. You’ve got a general body type, you’ve got an engine that makes it run and the rest of the standard features.

The Lightning Record Page is where you get to customize the ‘Extras’ – add a Sunroof or a Navigation System.

Still the same engine and car underneath it all, but now it’s got some great new features that will make your experience driving a better one.

Or to make it super simple – it’s like the case (skin) you put on your phone. Didn’t do anything to the phone but changed the look and feel of it.

So don’t be afraid of working on those Lightning Record Pages in production in fear that your Classic Users will notice something! They will only notice if you actually drill into the Page Layout, rearrange fields, rearrange related lists or move the buttons. So stay away from that and you’ll be fine.

If your users are using mobile, there are a couple of minor things to be aware of:

The buttons/actions and order of those on your Lightning Record Page are the same as mobile. So if you make a change it will cascade to the mobile experience.
The fields showing on the Highlights Panel on a Lightning Record Page are also the same ones displayed on Mobile so if you rearrange those it will cascade to the mobile experience.

And don’t forget to create that Beta App (explained in my previous blog post) – where you can re-skin Lightning Record Pages to your hearts content and show all the awesome options to your test users and focal groups to help them visualize the possibilities!

Time to get your Skin in the Game!

Posted in Salesforce Stuff | Tagged Business, Fear, Lightning, Lightning App Build, Lightning Record Pages, Programming, Salesforce, Scary | 1 Comment

Getting Comfy With Lightning

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Nana

“I’ll be honest, at first, working in Lightning was painful…I didn’t know where anything was. I didn’t understand fully how to manage object Lightning Pages and how to apply them to Apps and Profiles and Record Types. It felt like a LOT of work would be needed to get everything ready for our users.

But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!” – Lightning or Bust

In the above blog post, I outlined the approach we took to launching Lightning in our org. Our first step was to get comfortable with Lightning ourselves.

I mean, who wants their wine pairing selected by someone who doesn’t drink wine? In order for us to roll out this new UX, we really needed to work in it, learn it, and be advocates for it. Otherwise are we really serving up the best experience for our users?

Looking back, there are some significant areas in setting up Lightning that we needed to learn how to use and really understand, not to mention functionality in Classic we needed to have an answer for in Lightning:

Apps: Whether to promote Classic Apps to Lightning or create new Lightning Apps
Classic Sidebar: Best way to replicate this functionality in Lightning
Lightning App Builder: Object Record Pages (this was a LARGE focus)
- Lightning Page Templates (default vs. from scratch)
- Standard Lightning Components
  - Quick Links vs Related List(s)
  - Highlights Panel (changing fields that display)
- Buttons and Actions (where the heck did they go and how do I fix them?)
- Activation Options (cause they are clear as mud aren’t they??)
As well as other features such as Home Page options, List View Considerations, Using the new Lightning Email Templates, and the upgraded Notes functionality

So we got out our plastic pails and shovels and applied the sunscreen liberally and jumped into our sandbox to play and LEARN! I’ll share below some of our thought processes as well as tips, tricks and links we learned along the way!

Apps: Whether to promote Classic Apps to Lightning or create new Lightning Apps

When we first began to test, we realized that the concept of the Lightning Apps was so much more important than how Apps work in Classic. In Lightning, you can use the Apps to drive how Lightning record pages appear. This really became the axis for how we approached our Lightning Rollout. Because of this we decided to focus on the ‘Personas’ our users take on every day – what functions they are using the system for and how we could design for those.

Our Classic Apps had become a bit of a mishmash of apps that no one really used (since they could customize their tabs anyway), so although we knew we could ‘upgrade’ a Classic App to Lightning, we opted to start fresh with new Functional Apps.

Another couple of reasons to consider starting fresh:

You can’t add a utility bar to an upgraded classic app (as of the writing of this post)
Your users can’t take advantage of customizing their tabs if the App is an upgraded Classic App (as of the writing of this post)

With brand new apps in the Lightning Experience we are also able to start turning off Classic Apps as we herd our users toward Lightning!

Here are some resources to learn more about Apps in Lightning: Lightning Apps on Trailhead; Salesforce App Considerations

Classic Sidebar: Best way to replicate this functionality in Lightning

This was a biggie for us. We had several links on our sidebar that were heavily used. And not just links to website, but links that opened reports in the context of the logged in user, as well as links for very specific tasks (example: Log A Timecard) that every single user accesses each week.

We actually tackled this one a couple of different ways:

Rich Text Lightning Component on Home Page: Many of the general links we were able to replicate by just creating a Rich Text Component and embedding the hyperlink as needed. Plop it on the Home Page and you are good to go!

Utility Bars in Lightning Apps: Similar to above, you get some great options with the utility bar. Just add a Rich Text Component here as well with the links you need. The great thing about the utility bar is it is app specific, so you can serve up links/info based on the function of the user rather than the security profile which is how the Home Pages are assigned. This gives you more flexibility to get people what they need as they wear different hats in your org.

For User Specific Reports we retooled some of the reports to make use of either the standard ‘My Records’ report functionality or adding some dynamic ‘My Record’ indicators using formula fields on the specified object. (We use this extensively – here is a great blog post that describes the use case.)

Lightning App Builder: Object Record Pages

This was really a big source for my anxiety. The thought of having to touch all of our objects to set up a Lightning Record Page, to know what will be useful to the users (not just what I prefer) and not be caught in some unending hell of Record Layout changes was a little bit daunting. Frankly it made me want to run and burrow into the ground somewhere where no-one will find me.

But my boss said I gotta eat the elephant so I’m taking this one bite at a time!

Lightning Page Templates (default vs. from scratch)

When you first turn on Lightning, your records default to a very slim Lightning Record Layout. It varies by object, but generally is a tabbed wide left panel, then a narrow right panel. The highlights panel isn’t there; if chatter or activities are enabled, then those components will be there along with the record details and related lists. And it’s not super-clear or obvious that you can choose a different template to start from.

What would be great is if there was some sort of emulator for the admin – where you could try out different templates and page configurations on the fly, then edit from there – almost like we got with the various default themes for MyLightning that we can use and test. But, alas, if it were just that easy admins like us would be out of a job!

So one of the first things we did was go to Settings>User Interface>Lightning App Builder where you can create a new Lightning Record Page from scratch and see which ones you have created so far. But that was pre-Spring ’18! Now you can get to New Lightning Pages directly from the Lightning App Builder (and see which pages are relevant for that App). For testing purposes, we created a Lightning Record Page for every template (wide-left/narrow-right, wide-right/narrow-left, 3-column, etc.), then started adding Lightning Components. It is always better to show something to your beta user group so we prepped all kinds of options!

Just don’t get stuck thinking that out of the box Lightning Record Page is what you have to work with! Here is a great Trailhead Unit on Lightning Record Pages.

Standard Lightning Components

Next up was getting familiar with all of the Standard Lightning Components available. As I mentioned above, my team really just played with them all. Added them to page layouts, stacked components, used the Tabs on the wide panel, used them on the narrow panel, embedded tabs within tabs, and more! Here is a great blog post from Admin Hero about the out of the box components.

A few I’d like to focus a bit closer on here:

Quick Links vs Related List(s):

Prior to Winter ’18, we had a component for the Related Lists, and a component to show an individual Related List (that s is important). I love that you can display individual lists – this really allowed us to get the info our personas needed front and center without them needing to scroll through a set of lists. HOWEVER – one of the big drawbacks (IMO) about both of these is they only display 4 fields. Our users are used to seeing up to 10 across and we’ve worked hard to cultivate those lists to show the most important info. It was a big stumbling block of moving to Lightning.

But Winter ’18 gave us the Quick Links which was one of the tipping points for us. If you haven’t used them or thrown them on your page layout I encourage you to do so. You get the familiar ‘hover’ experience from Classic (making users feel more comfortable – bonus!), you get all 10 fields, and if you click on the name of the related list in the quick link section, it opens up on a new tab where you can scroll through all the records! WOOT! I can’t imagine life without it! (Dramatic, yes, but I can’t deny my truth!)

Highlights Panel:

You can add up to 7 fields on the Highlights Panel – the first field is the Header on your page, then the other 6 appear below. To add/change these fields, it’s not the section on the page layout labeled Highlights Panel. I repeat – it is NOT the section on the page layout called Highlights Panel. Why they are called the same thing but not used in the same way, I’m not sure. And to be honest it really bothers me. But surely it’s on someone’s list of things to address, right? Instead, you need to create a Compact Layout for the object.

A couple of things about compact layouts: You can’t edit the default compact layout. So you have to create a new one. Then you assign the compact layout by Record Type (not profile – which to me is SO strange – I really would prefer to assign by profile or even by App or page layout). Also note – the compact layout drives the first four fields that highlight in the Mobile app, as well as the expanded lookup dialogs you see in both mobile and Lightning. So keep this in mind. Here is a help doc that explains Compact Layouts.

Buttons and Actions

So once you play around with Lightning Record Pages a bit, you’ll notice that the buttons and actions are hiding and you can’t figure out how to change/add them. (And along with that, your related lists for Activities and Activity History are not in the Related Lists Lightning Component you added – and the new Notes Related list isn’t here either! Weird.)

Buttons and Actions – these appear in the Highlights Panel – by default 3 buttons will show with a drop-down list – but you can display up to 10 at a time. So decide how many you want to display. If you want to change the order of your buttons and actions, you’ll need to go to each page layout and edit the section for Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions. Here you can choose the buttons and actions and the order they display on the page.

To send emails and log tasks or create notes, since those Related Lists are no longer there with the applicable buttons, you have to add the appropriate Lightning Components to the page layout. Once you’ve added the Activities Component and the Single Related List for Notes, you might see the options to Log A Call, New Event, New Task, Send Email for activities, but you might not. Those need to be added to the same section as the buttons above. (So they make you think you are adding them as buttons, but these really appear as actions in the Activities Component. Clear as mud, right?) And the order in which you set them is the order in which they are displayed.

Now this needs to happen for all Page Layouts on an object. (Oye, I know!) I strongly encourage you to decide on the order of the buttons, actions and the order of the activities actions and set them up the same way for each object. Nothing more frustrating to a user than to be on an Account record and Log A Call is defaulted first on the Activities component, but when they navigate to a Contact record, the New Event action is the first one displayed. Users will appreciate a seamless experience.

And here is another help topic on Finding Buttons and Actions in the Lightning Experience.

Activation Options

If you are like me, when you get to the point of activating your Lightning Record Page, this is where your eyes glaze over and you almost want to throw up your hands. The first time I saw the Activation options I pretty much wrote off the Lightning Experience. I was used to being able to assign a page layout to a record type and profile and that was enough! Now there are SO many options. And to have to make these decisions on an object by object basis really seemed like climbing up a steep hill.

But give yourself some time to play with it, tinker with the options and make a plan for your org. There is a big difference between the Activation options for the Lightning Record Page and Assigning security to your page layouts. In fact, that page layout assignment is still very vital – this drives what you see on the details component and in related lists by profile (and record types). The Lightning Page Activation, on the other hand, determines what Components are shown around those details and related lists.

We looked at this as a way to really enhance the ‘Persona’ experience we are cultivating with Lightning Apps and focused on activating most of our Lightning Record pages as App defaults. Let me give a detailed example to help explain: When viewing an Account record, depending on what hat you are wearing that day (what ‘Persona’ you are playing), you might want to see different information and you might be taking very different actions. If you are selling to that customer, you might want to see the Opportunities for that account front and center, you might want a chart or two about open opps and closed won opps and be able to quickly gauge where you are with that prospect or customer. If you are working on a project for that Account, you don’t really care about the sales, but instead want to quickly see customer contacts, active projects, and open cases. If you are in Finance and focused on billing for the Account, you might want to see an account balance, open invoices and have quick access to send emails for collection purposes.

So we created Apps for those functional ‘Personas’, then Lightning record Pages that met the needs described above and activated those pages for the applicable Apps. When I need to Manage Projects, I open the Project Management App and navigate to the Account; when I need to focus on selling, I can switch to the Sales App and voila, my Account view changes and I can now get to the info I need. I still see the same fields and details, but the components are rearranged in an order that better suits the functions I am performing based on the ‘Persona’ I am playing at the time.

You can get more detailed info about Page Activation here, but I also encourage you to just play with it, get comfortable with it and define how you will approach it in your org.

Other Lightning Features

There are SO MANY other features of Lightning to explore, you could easily fall down the proverbial rabbit hole. Since we had given ourselves a timeline to launch Lightning, we focused on a few features we know would give us some bang and deliver value to our users.

Along with those described above, we put time and effort into user Home Pages (since you can display whole dashboards on them and even have dashboards display or not display based on User fields – think of the possibilities!), and making sure we understood many of the new features such as List View Changes (Kanban view and displaying Charts), new Lightning Email Templates (these are tha-bomb-dot-com), and the upgraded Notes functionality.

Lightning Dashboards and Reports are vital to the Lightning Experience and provide a HUGE incentive for getting users into Lightning so clone a few dashboards, customize them in Lightning with new sizes, new chart options and color options (thanks Salesforce Wizard). These will help provide the ‘Wow’ factor.

I know the above seems a lot to digest – what did you expect when you tried to eat an elephant? Remember – one bite at a time.

For our Lightning Rollout we determined we needed

Apps with Utility Bars for our Personas
To setup Lightning Record Pages for the MAIN objects for those Apps
Home Pages with functional Lightning Dashboard embedded on it
A rollout and training plan that highlights how these changes delivered value to our users. How they could use Lightning to drive business decisions, to serve up the necessary information based on their persona, and how to create efficiencies so they can focus on their job, not trying to figure out the system.

We sat in a room, made a list of the changes to make and got to work. We didn’t tackle all of the objects – just the objects that get viewage – we have plenty of objects that are supportive so people rarely click into them – those can get by with the default for now. Some of it was tedious (I’m looking at you Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions on every page layout) but once we rolled through our list, we were experts at setting up Lightning Record Pages and really had a great grasp of how the Lightning UX is designed to work for our users.

Of course we aren’t done and will never be, but all of the extra goodness that we haven’t tapped into yet is just more opportunity to improve our user’s experience.

There’s nowhere to go but up from here.