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5 Goals for Every Salesforce Admin in 2024
January 22, 2024
As I sat down to write this article, I thought it would be easy to create five goals for Salesforce Admins in 2024, but I have to confess that 2023 has left me feeling less than inspired and a tad jaded by the overwhelming amount of AI news. It’s not that AI isn’t amazing and exciting – it is! But the time from announcement to the launch of products can be long, and with many products an extra cost, not all Admins will get to enjoy them.
I feel an overbearing sense of needing to “keep up” with all the shiny new features, to be a Flow-pro and an AI whiz, but in doing so, I sometimes feel like I am losing the ability to spend time on the simpler things. In 2024, my overall goal is to reclaim the joy that being a Salesforce Admin can bring. I want to revel in the feeling of accomplishment that creating a new dashboard or automation can bring – and I wish the same for you.
In this article, I put forward five goals that I believe will be important for all Salesforce Admins in 2024. These goals are designed to help you stay ahead of the curve in terms of skills, certifications, and features – and, more importantly, reignite your passion for Salesforce administration.
1. Double Down on AI
Overwhelming as it may be, there is no getting away from the fact that AI is set to be a permanent fixture in the tech world. To stand out, you’ll need to be able to prove your AI skills.
It’s not all about the features though, the moral implications of AI are even more important, and I would encourage you to understand Salesforce’s trusted AI principles.
To get up to speed with Salesforce and AI, the Salesforce AI Associate certification is a great place to get a solid foundation and bag yourself a shiny new cert.
By mastering key topics like data pre-processing, machine learning, Salesforce Einstein, model deployment, ethical considerations, and maintenance, you’ll be well-prepared to ace the exam and demonstrate your AI skills to potential employers.
Resources:
2. Find the Fun (Again) in Salesforce Administration
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day or miss notifications about handy new features when they aren’t getting the same level of publicity as AI. The past 12 months have seen numerous new features that I think Admins will love. Here are a few of my favorites…
Align Fields Horizontally in Field Sections
This change horizontally aligns fields with their neighbors in the same row, improving the look of pages. In the example below, the image on the left is without alignment and the image on the right is with alignment – notice the spacing and alignment of the “Phone” field!
There is something so satisfying about this simple change!
Create Personalized Report Filters
Think of this new capability as a bit like creating a dynamic dashboard, where the dashboard is set to view as the logged-in user, giving every user who looks at it their own personalized view.
You can now create a dynamic report filter based on the viewing user so that they view records pertinent to them. For example, instead of creating multiple reports that are filtered by specific opportunity owners, you can use a relative value to filter by Opportunity Owner equals $USER (the current user viewing the report).
Transfer Dashboard Ownership
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this enhancement! Historically, when the owner of an important dashboard left the company, you had the hassle of cloning and recreating the dashboard. From Winter ‘24, you can transfer ownership of a dashboard and the new owner has complete control of the dashboard.
You can also transfer in bulk to save time.
Track Field History for Activities
You can now (finally) track up to six fields for Tasks and Events when you turn on field history tracking for Activities.
Dynamic Forms
As promised at Dreamforce ‘22, Salesforce has extended Dynamic Forms to support hundreds of standard objects! Specifically, support has been extended to the majority of LWC-enabled standard objects (Lighting Web Component enabled).
Dynamic Forms will also be generally available for mobile from the Winter ‘24 release. From the Salesforce Mobile App Setup, enable “Dynamic Forms on Mobile”.
With Dynamic Forms now readily available on most standard objects and mobile, 2024 could be a good time to assess your existing page needs and have fun re-designing and re-building with Dynamic Forms, Actions, and Lists.
Resources:
- Salesforce Dynamic Forms: Overview & Deep Dive Tutorial
- Salesforce Dynamic Actions – Overview & Deep Dive Tutorial
- Ultimate Guide to Salesforce Dynamic Related Lists
3. Get Certified
Job market saturation and the layoffs in 2023 have created a ripple of nervous energy throughout the ecosystem. It is increasingly more difficult for both entry-level and experienced Admins to find roles and I see people looking for ways to stand out.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. A quick search of LinkedIn or hiring boards shows there are many open roles and the latest IDC report predicts the Salesforce economy will create 11.6M jobs between 2022 and 2028.
In a job market where everyone and their dog seem to have the Admin certification, I think it is imperative to consider gaining additional certifications to make your application stand out.
I also strongly believe that studying for new certifications is a sure-fire way to relight your passion for Salesforce. Certifications can inspire you with new features, concepts, and best practices and allow you to enjoy things you may not use day to day.
If you are currently a certified Admin and are not looking to specialize in a niche skill, my current top five certifications are:
- AI Associate
- Platform App Builder
- Sales Cloud Consultant or Service Cloud Consultant
- Business Analyst
- Data Architect
4. Exploring a Niche
There are certain Salesforce products with a real shortage of skilled professionals that can administrate them. Becoming a specialist in a niche product could increase your chances of securing employment.
Many Salesforce Admins will be proficient in Sales and Service Cloud but far fewer have experience with Marketing Cloud, CPQ, OmniStudio, Tableau, or Data Cloud. As these skills are niche and in demand, there is far less competition for roles and they command higher salaries.
5. Re-engage Your Users
Re-engaging users is crucial for long-term adoption and effective utilization of the Salesforce platform. This involves consistent efforts to educate users about evolving features, functionalities, and best practices, address issues, and ensure your users are confident using Salesforce. Without consistent re-engagement efforts, users may become disengaged or stop using the platform altogether.
As well as informing your users about new features, don’t forget to collect feedback to identify areas for improvement.
Intelligence View
Intelligence View for leads, contacts, and accounts is a great way for users to simply and easily identify prospects and customers that need attention. This will save them time, with less need to wade through every record and they can also take action directly from the Lead, Contact, or Account tab. Fewer clicks = happy users.
- Metrics
- Activity Actions (Email, Call)
- Additional Actions (Edit, Delete)
- Filters
- Return to List View
Dashboards
You and your users can now create visually stunning and engaging dashbaords with images, rich text, and dashboard widgets that are bound to impress your users and key stakeholders. Increased user adoption and engagement! To get started, click “+ Widget” and select the type of widget to add when editing a dashboard.
You may add up to five filters (instead of three) from the Spring ‘24.
If you want to change a filter on a report, you can now select the new field you wish to filter on. Previously you would have had to delete the filter and add a new one.
Mass Quick Actions on Related Lists
Supercharge your related lists and delight your users by streamlining the actions available and adding quick actions directly to related lists. These changes mean that your users can create related records for items in the list without leaving the page, as well as perform mass updates for up to 100 records!
Manager Judgement
The Manager Judgement column can be added to forecast types based on opportunity, opportunity product, or Line Item Schedule. Manager Judgements are not supported for forecast types based on opportunity splits or product splits.
With this additional column, managers can select whether an opportunity is in or out.
They can then see a more accurate forecast:
Summary
That’s a wrap on my five goals for every Admin in 2024. What did you think? Are you excited for the year ahead? What are your goals for 2024? Let us know in the comments!
If you were wondering what else to expect in 2024, check out Ben’s Salesforce Jobs trends article:
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