Louise Lockie's Letters from London

I'll shortly be starting the long journey from London to San Francisco for my 4th Dreamforce and I'm getting my ducks in a row (and packing a large suitcase). I think it is safe to say that my three past Dreamforces have been quite different. I wrote about year one in my post Solo in San Francisco and Dazed at Dreamforce , I was extremely overwhelmed and found the whole experience too much. Year two as captured in Dreamforce: My Second Attempt , was still a challenge but I knew what to expect and had more contacts to share the experience with. Last year was on a different scale and was all about spending time with people and event after event after event, with quite a few highlights as I wrote about in My DF17 Highlights . Now I ask myself how I can make the most out of my Dreamforce experience this time, what have I learnt from attempts one, two, and three? Here are my recommendations: Get Organised Know where you want to be when. Once each day starts you are going ...

They say hindsight is a wonderful thing and they are right, we can't go back and do over, but we can share what we have learnt and allow others to benefit from our experiences. This was my approach to the session I presented at the Admin Theatre at this year's London World Tour. My talk was entitled  Best Practices and Recommendations for New Salesforce Admins . The role of Salesforce Admin brings with it a lot of responsibility, but thankfully also all the tools and support to enable each of us to be successful. When we start our Salesforce journey, however, we don't come with all this knowledge fully formed so here are my recommendations and tools to help everyone make the most of the available features. For ease I am splitting my tips up into Best Practices, Recommendations, and Tools, and then into Setup, Reporting, and Productivity. Part one  here  covers Setup Best Practices. Part two  here  covers Reporting Recommendations. Part three here cov...

They say hindsight is a wonderful thing and they are right, we can't go back and do over, but we can share what we have learnt and allow others to benefit from our experiences. This was my approach to the session I presented at the Admin Theatre at this year's London World Tour. My talk was entitled Best Practices and Recommendations for New Salesforce Admins . The role of Salesforce Admin brings with it a lot of responsibility, but thankfully also all the tools and support to enable each of us to be successful. When we start our Salesforce journey, however, we don't come with all this knowledge fully formed so here are my recommendations and tools to help everyone make the most of the available features. For ease I am splitting my tips up into Best Practices, Recommendations, and Tools, and then into Setup, Reporting, and Productivity. Part one  here  covers Setup Best Practices. Part two  here  covers Reporting Recommendations. Part four here covers To...

They say hindsight is a wonderful thing and they are right, we can't go back and do over, but we can share what we have learnt and allow others to benefit from our experiences. This was my approach to the session I presented at the Admin Theatre at this year's London World Tour. My talk was entitled Best Practices and Recommendations for New Salesforce Admins. The role of Salesforce Admin brings with it a lot of responsibility, but thankfully also all the tools and support to enable each of us to be successful. When we start our Salesforce journey, however, we don't come with all this knowledge fully formed so here are my recommendations and tools to help everyone make the most of the available (#Safe Harbor) features. For ease I am splitting my tips up into Best Practices, Recommendations, and Tools, and then into Setup, Reporting, and Productivity. Part one here covers Setup Best Practices.    This post (part two) covers Reporting Recommendations. The Sal...

They say hindsight is a wonderful thing and they are right, we can't go back and do over, but we can share what we have learnt and allow others to benefit from our experiences. This was my approach to the session I presented at the Admin Theatre at this year's London World Tour. My talk was entitled Best Practices and Recommendations for New Salesforce Admins. The role of Salesforce Admin brings with it a lot of responsibility, but thankfully also all the tools and support to enable each of us to be successful. When we start our Salesforce journey, however, we don't come with all this knowledge fully formed so here are my recommendations and tools to help everyone make the most of the available (#Safe Harbor) features. For ease I am splitting my tips up into Best Practices, Recommendations, and Tools, and then into Setup, Reporting, and Productivity. This post (part one) covers Setup Best Practices. Number one in my list of setup best practices rela...

I am sure everyone is bored of me telling them that May is my favourite month, but it is, and here is why: The sun comes out in London and life feels slightly lighter. In the UK we get two extra days off work (two Mondays no less). It is my birthday month (read as an excuse for meeting up with friends and family). It's when the Salesforce World Tour road show hits London. World Tour in London is a big deal.  A rather small percentage of Salesforce users and professionals, even employees, from London get to attend Dreamforce, the cost of flights and accommodation involved make it a tough sell. This means that World Tour becomes to the main event of the year. It sells out weeks in advance, before we even get to May. As an active member of the London community for a number of years now my World Tour week (yes the fun spreads over the entire week) is always chock-a-block. I am asked to be involved in a number of ways and I am only too happy to say yes to everythi...

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 ...