Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

TrailblazerDX – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #486

Welcome to my Salesforce Tip of the Week #486

 

Tip 1 – TrailblazerDX 2022

TrailblazerDX

Say hello to TrailblazerDX…

So it’s New year, new name for TrailheadDX.

“Uniting developers across Salesforce Customer 360, MuleSoft, Slack, and Tableau, TrailblazerDX (formerly TrailheadDX) is a world-class learning experience you won’t want to miss.”

TrailblazerDX will be on 27th to 28th April 2022 – in person and online.

Don’t forget to save the date for the ‘the developer event of the year for all Trailblazers in the Salesforce ecosystem‘.

 

Tip 2 – Release Notes

Release Notes

Take a look here for the Spring ’22 release notes, just 550 pages of light reading this time.

“The latest innovations in the Spring ’22 release deliver seamless customer and employee experiences, empowering your company to
work smarter and succeed from anywhere.”

Or click here for the details in the Help documentation which are split into searchable sections & easy to navigate.

 

 

 

 

Final Tip Of The Week – Sign Up

Remember if you have enjoyed this Tip of the Week then sign up for the weekly Friday email, direct to your inbox here. And feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas for future Salesforce tips!

What is Elastic Compute? - Sorry, Functions

What is Elastic Compute? – Sorry Functions!

Here’s a quick blog from one of our Technical Architects at Cloud Galacticos, Mike Gill. He was interested to see that Salesforce Functions is now generally available. Here’s his initial thoughts:

 

Mike Gill

Mike Gill

What is Elastic Compute? – Sorry, Functions!

A couple of years ago, our COO Paul wrote one of our most popular blogs ever on Salesforce Evergreen after it was announced at Dreamforce 2019 calling it a game-changer for Salesforce developers. A little over 2 years have passed since then and Evergreen has now finally become Generally Available and has a new name – Salesforce Functions. But what are “Functions”? Elastic Compute; sometimes called Serverless, or now simply put “Functions” is Salesforce’s answer to services already provided by other major cloud providers.

It’s little more than that. It has been talked about for ages; why can’t Apex be more like Java? Well now you can now use proper Java in Salesforce!! And if you have been expanding your Node.js skills like I have, you now have the ability to build out solutions leveraging the wealth of Node.js npm libraries out there.

 

What are the benefits of Functions?

Whilst you have been able to integrate with Salesforce using other languages for a long time, the big difference here is that with Functions all your code runs within the “Salesforce trust boundary.” This means all of your permissions and security are handled for you. Also, it doesn’t even count against your Salesforce request limits!

 

Get involved

Why not start playing around with it today? The keys to the kingdom are now unlocked!

 

Why not sign up?

If something is too good to be true, then it probably is! We’ve heard this before with Salesforce… Well, not this time if seeing is believing.  Functions have landed and you can start your New Year off with an exciting new tool!

Sign up here and try it out  https://functions.salesforce.com/signups

 

About Cloud Galacticos

Cloud Galacticos is a  Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our Salesforce consultancy has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?

Phil's Salesforce Tip of the Week

Good Advice – Phil’s Salesforce Tip of the Week #485

Welcome to my Salesforce Tip of the Week #485

 

Tip 1 – Good Advice

Good Advice

Looking for some good advice?

Perfect for new year, here is a great article from the Guardian “100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying”.

Better than making lame ‘join the gym’ resolutions!

 

Tip 2 – Using Data Loader?

Using Data Loader

Late last year it was announced that a major security flaw had been found in the Apache Log4j library which affected almost every computing organisation in the world – with Salesforce being no exception.

One of the benefits for Salesforce customers is that Salesforce can rapidly patch and rollout fixes across all its services meaning that for customers very little needs updating as we don’t have software from Salesforce running on our machines.

One small caveat to this however is the Data Loader application which does have this issue. Salesforce recently release a bulletin instructing customers and partners to download version 53.0.1 or later of the Data Loader (i.e. a version after December 20th 2021) to ensure that you stay safe.

So if you are a Data Loader user, best make sure you keep up to date! See here for the Help page..

 

Final Tip Of The Week – Sign Up

Remember if you have enjoyed this Tip of the Week then sign up for the weekly Friday email, direct to your inbox here. And feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas for future Salesforce tips!

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Highlights

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Highlights

Welcome to our Cloud Galacticos 2021 team highlights blog

Even though it’s been an eventful year for many reasons, at Cloud Galacticos we had plenty to be grateful for. From getting married to passing certs, and climbing mountains, to finally getting to meet each other in-person.

Here are some of the Cloud Galacticos team’s 2021 highlights.

 

Pippa Cox, Project Manager

Pippa Cox Art

I think my work highlight for 2021 has to be finally meeting some of my colleagues face-to-face after spending a year building relationships and working on zoom. I am looking forward to more opportunities to meet up in 2022.

On a personal level I have enjoyed the time to start being creative again and trying new crafts like embroidery pieces. Although the majority of my creativity has probably been spent decorating and gardening.

 

Vetri Manoharan, Developer

Vetri

The best thing happened to me in 2021 is joining the Cloud Galacticos team. I am so grateful to Phil for providing me this opportunity. Before joining the company, my career was more leaning towards project and team management. It’s almost 8 months now and the journey is still very exciting. I got to chance work on LWC (which I never learnt or got chance to work on before), worked on multiple projects, and so happy to be back on the development side of things.

On the personal front, I really feel that I am able to manage work-life balance (work from home really affected me big time), able to spend time with family, reading books, meditating, being mindful with the thoughts. Also I got engaged and going to get married in 2022. Looking forward to an exciting journey the next year hopefully!

 

Kully Dosanjh, Salesforce Consultant

I think my highlights for 2021 would be joining the wonderful Cloud Galacticos team, I have already learnt lots and have lots more to learn from such amazingly experienced people.

Amazingly, outside of work my main highlight for 2021 has to be ‘climbing Ben Nevis’ with 2 kids in tow! This was by far the most challenging undertaking of all time for me. I had to have many pep talks with my poor legs to keep me motivated to finish.

I’m glad to say I smashed it and reached the summit!

 

Mark Jones, Salesforce Consultant

Mark Jones's User Experience Designer Cert

It’s been a really big year for me in the Salesforce ecosystem, to say the least, so it’s hard for me to pick out just one highlight.

Over the course of this year I’ve become a 5x Ranger on Trailhead, earned three different Salesforce certifications and spoke at a number of community events spanning four different countries (all done virtually).

To top it off, I became a Salesforce Consultant working with the team here at Cloud Galacticos. This has been a great year. Here’s to a good 2022!

 

Luke Menzfeld, Salesforce Consultant

Luke Menzfeld's wedding

This year has certainly been a year to remember. It marked my first full working year at Cloud Galacticos after joining in October of 2020. I’ve had lots of great opportunities to tackle interesting business challenges and learned a lot through my practical experiences.

Meeting the majority of the Galacticos team in London recently was my biggest professional highlight. I’ve developed virtual friends and colleagues throughout 2021, but to get together face to face was great.

On a personal note, I also have a number of highlights. Firstly, my wife and I got married in June with an intimate mix of family and friends. We made the best of it despite the Covid restrictions.

In July we moved house, and to top it all off we found out in September that our family would be growing in size in 2022! Overall a great year.

 

ABOUT CLOUD GALACTICOS

Cloud Galacticos is a  Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our Salesforce consultancy has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why get in contact?

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Company Review

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Company Review

Welcome to our Cloud Galacticos 2021 company review. We started 2021 after a challenging 2020 due to the pandemic and various lockdowns. Therefore, our aim for this year was to stay strong, bring the team together, and make sure we keep on delivering for our customers. Here’s the thoughts from our board on this year, 2021.

 

Phil Walton, CEO

Looking back it almost seems like a different world…Christmas 2020 was ‘cancelled’, the new year was still led by watching Joe Wicks and Rob Biddulph with the kids, we applauded the spirit of Sir Tom Moore, and we still had one lockdown to come. 

We were determined to battle though as best we could and ensure nobody would need to be furloughed… And it’s fair to say as we reach the end of 2021 we exceeded our goals! Not only did we keep all our team together, we expanded massively, we skilled up, we climbed the Salesforce Partner ladder, and feel like we have come out of a tough time in an even healthier position. 

Although Covid, Zoom, Tiger King, and remote working are here to stay, it is great to meet people again!

 

Cloud Galacticos Zoom Coffee Breaks

Cloud Galacticos Zoom Coffee Breaks

 

Paul Battisson, COO

For my Cloud Galacticos 2021 review, it’s has been a year that has driven a lot of optimism, both personally and in my role as COO. There is no escaping that the past two years have been extremely tough for everyone. 

I am extremely proud of the entire Cloud Galacticos team for the way we have managed to continue to deliver great work for our customers and grow the organisation throughout the pandemic. For me the biggest highlight of the year has been starting to visit customers and spend time with team members again. Nothing beats face to face interactions to ensure everyone is happy and on the same page, and it has been great fun getting to do this again in a safe way. I am hoping that things will continue to open up and return to “normal” next year to spend even more time catching up with people properly.

 

Cloud Galacticos York Catch Up

Cloud Galacticos York Catch Up

Neel Meghani, CTO

Coming out of 2020 both personally and professionally my mind frame was very much “OK that was a difficult year and we did very well. Now things can only get better!”. Then we went back into lock down. At that point I put to the back of my mind all of the things I was looking forward to….traveling, seeing clients and colleagues, getting back to normal…

BUT despite all of that we continued to grow through the year, ending the year in a fantastic place. We managed to win new clients and recruit some amazing new people. Despite being apart I felt the company coming together even more. I could not be more proud of the people that make up Cloud Galacticos and the work they do. The vision we have of the Galacticos ethos is now a reality. So I guess the hard times of the past year have made us be even better.

In recent months we have now begun to meet the team face to face. Even though we spent plenty of time on Zoom, the in-person meetings we have had so far have really left me on a high. Looking forward now to even more client and colleague meetings and keeping up the momentum of growth!

 

Cloud Galacticos London Catch Up

Cloud Galacticos London Catch Up

Some poignant words from our board for their Cloud Galacticos 2021 Company review. We’ll also be asking our team members their highlights from 2021. Watch for the blog coming soon!

 

ABOUT CLOUD GALACTICOS

Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our Salesforce consultancy has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?

 

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Blog Highlights

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Blog Highlights

As another year draws to close, we thought it’d be a good time to look back at some of Cloud Galacticos 2021 blog highlights. As well as the weekly Friday Tip of the Week from our CEO Phil Walton, we also had guest blogs from our growing team and much more…

 

Cloud Galacticos 2021 Blog Highlights

Meet the Galacticos Blogs

Adam and Storm

Adam and Storm

 

Vetri

Meet the Teams: James / Vetri / Adam / Ali / Pippa / 

 

Phil Walton’s Salesforce Tip of the Week Blog

Sign up to Tip of the Week

Continuing his weekly blog, our CEO, Phil has now done 478 (and counting) Salesforce Tip of the Week blogs!

 

Team Galacticos Guest Blogs

We like to encourage our team to get involved and write guest blogs for our website. Here are just three for you to check out:

Einstein Automate / Flow Orchestrator Review (Val)

Learning and Mastering Salesforce Apex (Paul)

How can you give back to the Trailblazer Community (Mark)

 

Salesforce Event Highlight Blogs

Dreamforce 2021 New World

London’s Calling 2021 Review

Highlights from Dreamforce 2021

 

Cloud Galacticos 2022 Blogs

Hope you enjoy reading our blogs. Don’t forget to let us know what kind of blogs you want us to write about in 2022!

 

ABOUT CLOUD GALACTICOS

Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our Salesforce consultancy has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?

James MacRae, Salesforce Consultant - Meet the Galacticos

James MacRae, Salesforce Consultant – Meet the Galacticos

Welcome to the latest in our series of Meet the Galacticos blogs to learn more about our growing Cloud Galacticos team. Say ‘hello’ to James MacRae, one of our recent Salesforce Consultants. We caught up with James to ask him a few questions.

 

James MacRae, Salesforce Consultant

Hi James, can you give us a bit of background about yourself and your work history?

I got involved in Salesforce back in 2007 while working on an integration project at a media end user as a data migration analyst. I have worked at several end users as well and also as a contractor.

 

James at our Cloud Galacticos London Team drinks

James at our Cloud Galacticos London Team drinks

What’s your story behind joining the Cloud Galacticos team?

I reached out to the team over Linkedin and had initial conversation with Phil. Once I had met the wider team I really liked the approach they took towards the people side of the the business for both employees and clients. It felt this was a company that I’d like to work for.

 

What’s it like joining a new company during these Covid times?

Not easy. I think people have found starting new jobs in Covid times tricky, however Covid made me re-evaluate my career goals. I had never considered working at a consultancy, but thought it would be the best move to further my experience with the Salesforce platform. Hence the decision to move to Cloud Galacticos.

 

What is your role as a Salesforce Consultant at Cloud Galacticos involve, and what do you enjoy about it?

Since joining I have been working with a couple of Not for Profit organisations as a hybrid Salesforce Admin/Business Analyst.  I enjoy the variety that the role brings – the reward of delivering technical solutions as well as the people element of the role, and working with end users to understand what their requirements are.

 

Do you have plans to take any Salesforce certifications in the near future?

Definitely. Next on my list is the Salesforce Not For Profit certification and hopefully the Service Cloud cert after that.

 

Cloud Galacticos is a remote working focussed company. What advice would you give people to make the most of working remotely and staying motivated?

I think working remotely, it’s easier to work longer hours than you might in a non-remote environment.  Having a separate space where you can work in your home helps.  Keeping in touch and having conversations during the day is also important. An activity to do in your lunch break can really help and boost motivation too; if its a walk or a cycle or anything similar.

 

Aside from Salesforce and working at Cloud Galacticos, what else do you enjoy doing?

I like my tennis. I try and play two to three times a week. By having a desk job I really appreciate getting outside and doing something active – even took my hand to gardening and DIY (not particularly successfully) during the pandemic.

 

Favourites:

– Food: Anything except mushrooms 🙂

– Drink: An americano in the morning

– Music: Anything on the radio really. Absolute 80s, 90s and 00’s are the radio stations I tune into.

– Animal: I’m going to go with Hedgehogs because I saw one for the first time recently.

– Place to Visit: Sagres in Portugal

 

ABOUT CLOUD GALACTICOS

Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. Our Salesforce consultancy has people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?

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How Can You Give Back to the Trailblazer Community

At Cloud Galacticos we are a growing team of Salesforce geeks and are big fans of the Trailblazer Community. So we’re glad that one of our latest recruits, Mark Jones, fully believes in this ethos. He’s already an active member within the Salesforce community. He’s one of the co-leaders of the Salesforce Newcastle User Group, along with Luke Menzfeld (another of our Salesforce consultants). And he’s even got his own Medium blog page – Ragamuffin Admin. It has articles covering his thoughts and opinions on a variety of Salesforce topics.

 We thought we’d give you a taster of his latest blog ‘How can you give back to the Trailblazer Community’…

 

How Can You Give Back to the Trailblazer Community

Mark Jones Salesforce Community Blog1

When I first started working in a role that used the Salesforce Platform for its chosen CRM system I honestly had no idea the Salesforce Community was even a thing. Fast forward to five and a half years later – I find myself as someone who is quite heavily involved in the community in a number of ways.

In this post, I will highlight some of the ways that you (yes, you) can get involved in the community. This is not by any means an exhaustive list. Rather, this list are areas where I am actually involved in the community, so I feel I can speak on these relatively well. I want to share this list to hopefully act as an encouragement to those in the ecosystem, as well as possibly acting as a bit of a signpost for those who are a bit newer and are trying to figure out their place in the Salesforce Ohana.

Here are my four ways you can get involved in the community.

 

1. Get Involved in the Trailblazer Community

The Trailblazer Community is most certainly the primary way you can give back to the community. There is always a need for Trailblazers to come and give back. Whether it be through leading a Community Group, speaking at a Community Event or Conference or be it through simply just attending events held throughout the community and being there to be a supporting presence. There is always going to be something you can help with in the community. 

At the time of writing, I’ve had the pleasure of doing a number of different things within the community this year. This includes speaking at three different Community Group events (not including ones ran by the group I co-lead), speaking at two different Community Conferences, and participating in two sets of event series’ covering a couple of different topics. 

I’m just a guy from a small town in the North East of England, there’s nothing all too special about me. So if I can do all of this, then you certainly can do it too.

 

2. Take Part in a Salesforce.org Community Sprint

Mark Jones Salesforce Community Blog3

Honestly, the Salesforce.org Open Source Commons Virtual Community Sprints are one of my favourite things to do in the Salesforce Ohana.

If you’re in the Nonprofit space and have worked with some of the additional NPSP Modules such as Programme Management and Outbound Funds what you might not know is that those were built through previous Sprints. They are routinely worked on and enhanced at the Virtual Community Sprints.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet a number of great people through the Sprints. I’ve also got to know people through Salesforce.org #CoffeeChat, and EMEA AMA’s a bit better. Plus people I met when I spoke at Nonprofit Dreamin’.

 

3. Become a Mentor to Somebody

Mentorship is a really great way in which you can give back to the community. If you’ve got the time to offer to help someone, you might just help someone to find their next job.

 

4. Go to Mark’s Medium page…

Want to know Mark’s fourth and final tip? Why not go to his Medium blog page to read the full article? And don’t forget to give him a follow!

 

About Cloud Galacticos

Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. We have people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?

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Highlights from Dreamforce 2021

As the dust settles on Dreamforce 2021, we take a quick look back at some of our highlights. The main change this year was that it was part in-person (in San Francisco) and part virtual (on Salesforce+). It’s a small step to getting back to ‘normal’ again after so many other events have been virtual only or simply cancelled or postponed.

 

Dreamforce 2021: Special Guests

As per previous events, Dreamforce delivered in terms of special guests. Jane Fonda spoke about ‘the movement to protect our oceans’. Will Smith was interviewed about his life and one of his personal causes, ‘Storytellers of Color’. While The Foo Fighters entertained attendees alongside some familiar faces…

 

Cloud Galacticos Dreamforce 2021 Highlights

Phil Walton, CEO

Our CEO, Phil Walton, did a ‘Dreamforce 2021 Special’ Tip of the Week with his highlights.

One: DF21 on Salesforce+

Two: Back it up

Three: Trillion Trees

Four: WFR RIP

 

Mark Jones, Salesforce Consultant

“The first one that I want to highlight is Trailhead for Slack. I love Slack and Trailhead, so it is fantastic to see a way that brings both together.

My second highlight is a personal one (and maybe a little selfishly) is when a question I submitted for True to the Core was answered live. I’m a self-diagnosed Flownatic, and when the eventual retirement of Workflow Rules and Process Builder was announced at the recent Admin Preview as part of Release Readiness Live ‘for Winter 22 the first question I wanted to see get answered was when will this happen? 

You can get more thoughts from Mark and his highlights from Dreamforce 2021 here.

 

Luke Menzfeld, Salesforce Consultant

“I enjoyed watching Dreamforce 2021 on Salesforce+. There’s definitely some cool things coming out of Dreamforce. In no particular order, I’d say: 1 – Slack First Analytics, 2 – Ask Data, 3 – Multi-Object Pages, and 4 – Dynamic Related Lists.”

 

Dreamforce 2022

So how was Dreamforce 2021 for you? Like many people from the Salesforce eco-system, we are looking forward to 2022 and fingers crossed we will be able to attend in person…

You can still catch highlights from Dreamforce 2021 here.

 

About Cloud Galacticos

Cloud Galacticos is a Salesforce Consulting Partner with an all-star team. We are user and developer group leaders, bloggers, MVPs and all round Salesforce nerds. We have people all over the UK including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, and London. If you are looking for a Salesforce partner with experience who can help you make the most of your org, why not give us a call?

 

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Salesforce Johannesburg User Group

One of our developers, Nkosi Ncube, has recently become a co-leader of the Salesforce Johannesburg User Group. He’s the latest team member to be involved in a Salesforce user group. We already team members who run groups in Manchester, Leeds, and Newcastle.

 

Hi Nkosi, when did you become a co-leader of the Salesforce Johannesburg User Group and what was your reason for becoming one?

I was approved as User Group leader in March [2021], I noticed that Africa is an emerging market with regards to Salesforce so I thought it would be good to share my experience that I have gained working for Cloud Galacticos.

 

What are you hoping to achieve with the Johannesburg User Group now that you’re a co-leader?

I am hoping to turn the user group into the biggest user group in the world! For it to have engaging sessions that will drive attendance which is very low at the moment, and it has has potential to be high.

You did a presentation on your ‘Salesforce Career Story’ at the most recent user group event. How was it?

The presentation was good and well received, I hope it inspired someone.

 

What kind of people have you got signed up to your group?

It’s still early days but I hope to have as diverse as possible a group of people. It needs to reflect the cosmopolitan nature of the South Africa region, and the international vibe of the Salesforce Ohana.

 

Anything you want to tell us about the Johannesburg User Group that’s different from other groups that you know about?

At the moment the difference is that it has potential to be massive. Unfortunately Covid has messed up a lot of things and virtual meetings have challenges this side of the world. I am sure when we can meet in person it will just grow and grow.

 

What kind of speakers do you have lined up for future events?

We have some Salesforce employees lined up. Obviously I am going to tap into the rich resources available at Cloud Galacticos in the near future.