About Me


I am a Londoner with a Salesforce addiction.

I started working with Salesforce in late 2012 when my then employer became a customer, but it feels like it has been part of my life for so much longer. 

 In my previous role as Salesforce Solution Architect and Head of CRM at Wilmington plc I juggled overseeing the support of 450 Sales Cloud users and 700 Chatter users with further developing the org and on-boarding new divisions. The challenges were endless but my days were never boring.

Starting off as a Solo Admin I threw myself into the online and London user group community to 'find my tribe' for some much needed support and advice, and of course I found it by the bucket load.

 I am very happy to give back to the community by leading the London Women in Tech Community Group, being one of the organisers of London's Calling, as well as writing a blog here at louiselockie.blogspot.com and by talking at community groups and events such as London's Calling (x4), Salesforce London World Tour (x7), French Touch Dreamin' (x2), Southeast Dreamin', WiTness Success, Midwest Dreamin', Yeur Dreamin', InspireEast (x2), Surf Force, and now six times at Dreamforce. See here for a full list of my speaking appearances.
In February 2017 I was named one of the Winter 17 class of Salesforce MVPs. It is an honour and a responsibility that I am proud to carry, and I was thrilled to be renewed for a 3rd term in 2019.

 I currently hold 10 Salesforce certifications including Advanced Administrator, Sales Cloud Consultant, and 4 of the Architect certs, and in May 2016 I was the London recipient of the #AwesomeAdmin Award which brings with it the prestigious Golden Trailblazer Hoodie.

Popular posts from this blog

Tips to Tackling Salesforce Certifications

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Exams are odd things and affect people differently, I have known several incredibly intelligent people who just don't do well in the exam situation. Yet exams are a part of life for the average Salesforce professional and it is definitely better to go into the test centre feeling prepared.

At the time of writing I have six Salesforce certifications. Several were achieved in the last year and I feel that I have developed a technique and approach in this time, which I will now share.

I answer these questions - 
Which certification should I tackle next?When will I be ready to sit the exam?Where should I take it?How should I prepare for the exam?How should I tackle the exam? Which certification should I tackle next?
Here in 2018 there are 25 different Salesforce certifications, grouped into 6 different roles and tracks. Whereas it used to be obvious which cert to go for next based on whether you were an Admin, Developer, or Consultant, now we have more options and I regularly see posts …
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It's fun (and essential) to play in the sandbox

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I sat for, and passed, the Development Lifecycle and Deployment Designer certification earlier this month and it really was a reminder of the importance of sandboxes for all Salesforce admins and developers. This exam, being part of the architect track, is pitched at a more technical level than that of your average admin, but proper use of sandboxes does not require this kind of experience and is definitely not just for developers.

Last year I wrote a series of posts entitled Best Practices and Recommendations for New Admins and one of the Tools from post four was Sandboxes. Here is a deeper dive into the world of Salesforce Sandboxes.

I was shocked recently to hear a tale of an end customer having no sandboxes in use at all. There really is no excuse, sandboxes are available to all customers. How many, and what type, depends on your edition. Here is a handy grid to tell you how many you have access to out of the box. You can, of course, buy more.


Why make it complicated and have four…
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Preparing for Community Events

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I am a big fan of a Salesforce Community Conference, I have so far managed to make it to French Touch Dreamin' (twice), WiTness Success, InspireEast, Surf Force, and each and every London's Calling. I already have my ticket for Southeast Dreamin' later this month, and both Yeur Dreamin' and Yeur Leadin' in June. Unlike Dreamforce community conferences are short, normally one or one and a half days. This means that time is precious and so a bit of planning is required. Here are my recommendations for your pre-event preparation:
Do Your Homework Take the time to review the schedule before the day. Both London's Calling (here) and Southeast Dreamin' (here) publish their sessions and schedule a month or two out. There are often 5 or 6 sessions per time slot. The organisers will have tried their best to offer something for everyone in each slot but that doesn't mean that your choices are already made. Take the time to pick out the sessions you want to attend …
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