Creating Training Resources: Top 5 Salesforce Admin Tools

Aside from customizing Salesforce via declarative mechanisms, a big part of being a Salesforce Admin is making sure end users leverage Salesforce the right way – to improve their own productivity, they need to be up to speed with the new functionalities. Having a Zoom call or sharing the information via a Slack message in response to a query are the usual ways to do this, but how can this be done at scale? 

In this post, we will explore five tools that can help you create and share content with your user base, whether it’s in Salesforce or outside of the platform.

Enablement Drives Adoption 

Getting users to properly use the CRM continues to be a widely discussed topic within the Salesforce ecosystem. It generally comes down to a team overseeing Salesforce and making sure their colleagues are equipped with the right knowledge, access, and confidence to optimize their workflow within the platform. 

The enablement process plays a pivotal role in driving adoption within your Salesforce instance – users who don’t know that a certain feature or button exists will be unable to make the most of the platform. Additionally, ensuring that the enablement materials are tailored for their role and experience can go a long way, as processes between sales and marketing teams for example can be completely different. 

While your ongoing support as a Salesforce Admin will be just as important during their Salesforce journey, it all comes down to providing the right resources to the right audience at the right time.

Let’s dive into a few ways you can create and easily deliver this tailored content.  

Tools You Can Leverage

While there are many tools out there to choose from, we narrowed down a few that are not only easy to get started with, but also offer you the option to do so at a minimal cost when it comes to time, money, and skill.  

1. Loom (Freemium)

Video instructions have seen a rise in popularity in recent years. Having the choice to follow a tutorial, pausing when you need to, and hearing explanations at the same time can simultaneously answer most of the simple questions that may come up. 

Loom is one of the tools that makes the video creation process a smooth experience. By using their free tier, you can record your screen, have the transcript available, and share this process to external customers or even users without a Salesforce license. Once you download this Chrome Extension, it’s just a matter of selecting it and customizing the experience to your liking. Of course, while Loom is great for Salesforce tutorials, you can use it for other products from your tech stack as well.

It’s also worth exploring all the other tools available within the platform. Loom also allows you to crop recordings, have comments, use emoji reactions, use variables for a dedicated experience, and review important viewer insights. You can also try out the LoomAi add-on before making a purchase decision, and enjoy features such as removing silences and filler words. 

2. Salesforce In-App Guidance

Salesforce users may work with a variety of records, apps, lists, and even buttons to complete their daily tasks. When new functionality is deployed, In-App Guidance is the perfect tool to leverage to draw their attention to a certain new feature or process. Having a pop-up come up while you’re trying to work may seem disruptive at times, so making sure the right audience has the right information is crucial. 

Luckily, this out-of-the-box Salesforce tool offers ways for you to control what comes up, as well as when and where it appears. With three types of prompts available, and up to three walkthroughs (series of up to ten prompts) to create for free, positioning options, and profile/permission user filters, the message is sure to reach your users the way you intend. 

For instance, you can utilize the new feature of adding target prompts to individual Fields. In situations where a new Field is created and marked as required, triggering an error when left blank, you can leverage this feature to provide helpful information to users, thereby preventing them from encountering the red validation error.

3. Iorad (Freemium)

When it comes to step-by-step tutorials, videos can be reliable, but what if the viewer could also type information and follow each click alongside you? Iorad’s tutorial builder can take your user guides to the next level by allowing you to walk them through every step of a certain process with clear instructions. 

To trigger the recording, make sure to install the Chrome Extension which will allow you to get started just by clicking on the pink square logo.  

Not only can you record the tutorials on any website, including Salesforce, but within the editor, you can also ensure that the result is exactly what you want – steps can be reordered, highlights can be changed, data can be masked, and more. While some of the functionality of the free plan is limited, we still recommend you try it out yourself before committing to any purchase, as most of the features come at no cost.

4. Jumpshare (Freemium)

Another alternative for recording videos or taking screenshots, which is more than just a screen recorder, is Jumpshare. You can use the tool either via their Chrome Extension or through their Desktop App, which allows recordings in 4K or screenshot annotations. 

The storage limit for the basic free plan is 2GB and it has a five-minute recording time limit. While some functionality, such as who viewed and downloaded your files, is not available, you still have plenty of features to use for your quick walkthrough to be a blast. Additionally, you can annotate on your screen during the recording or add shapes and text to further highlight certain areas. 

Within your personal space, not only can you store videos, recordings, and screenshots, but you can also have everything you might need to conduct an internal demo or share with your clients. Additionally, other premium features include file recovery, custom domain, and branding, as well as AI-powered titles or summaries, just to name a few. If you’d like to try these out as well, there is a 14-day trial for the Business Plan available. 

5. Capture to a GIF (Freemium Chrome Extension) 

While interactive tutorials and videos can be a great hit within your organization, keep in mind that there is a subset of people who find written documentation just as helpful. Also, if you are not the only Salesforce Admin in your team, your colleagues will also need documentation for the functionalities you enable or customizations you make for when you’re out of the office or when support tickets come through.

The main advantage of this approach is that they can quickly ctrl + F / command + F and find the right information. You can also always go back and amend with new changes or considerations as well.

However, this does not mean that the content itself has to be a wall of text, as you can easily reference videos you have recorded or even take a few seconds to record a GIF. There are a myriad of tools that can do this – a good example being the Chrome Capture extension. You can select to record a specific area, a tab, or even the full screen – shortcuts are also available to make this even quicker. 

After recording the GIF itself, the basic editor will allow you to free draw as needed, and even remove frames. There also is a premium version available for a one-time fee, which permits the increase of the FPS, cropping, and more. 

Conclusion 

Regardless of the tool you choose to enable your end users to correctly and productively use new or existing features, it remains certain that the training itself will have to happen one way or another. More often than not, the Salesforce Admin will get all the questions and issues via different channels, hence, having the content ready at hand and fully explained is sure to save countless hours of explanations.

What is your preferred way to create training materials? Let us know in the comments below!