Optimizing Salesforce with Kelly Walker

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Kelly Walker, Senior Lightning Adoption Consultant at Salesforce.

Join us to learn about the power of Salesforce Optimizer, why Console Apps are so important, and where to go to find out everything you need to know about Lightning at Dreamforce.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kelly Walker.

Making the Grade

Growing up, Kelly always thought she was going to follow in her aunt’s footsteps and become a teacher. She graded tests and papers and even taught her own fake class on holidays and snow days. “If you were bad in my real class you were definitely bad in my fake class and, let me tell you, your grades suffered.”

These days, Kelly is a Lightning Adoption Consultant reporting to Salesforce Admins Podcast superstar Mike Orr. She works with customers to help them understand why they should move to Lightning, and what steps they need to take to implement a successful rollout. This means that she’s still teaching, just maybe in a way she didn’t envision when she was in 4th grade.

She hits the road with the Lightning Now Tour, working with Admins to understand how the Lightning Experience changes things. She also does a fast track for sales, “It really helps you understand all of the great features that are available to you in Lightning Experience and how to customize those for your users.” A version for Service Cloud users is also on the way soon.

The Secret of the Salesforce Optimizer

Kelly is a big fan of the Salesforce Optimizer: “It’s the one tool that I feel is under-utilized because so many people just don’t know about it, so I try to recommend it everywhere I can.” Like the Lightning Readiness Report, you can run the Optimizer in your Salesforce instance to generate a report that gives you metrics on everything from usage and storage units to unassigned custom profiles and page layouts, helping you do some spring cleaning.

The Salesforce Optimizer is also super helpful if you’re trying to move to Lightning, especially in you run it in conjunction with the Readiness Report. “You really get a good idea of where the gaps are that you’ll be encountering, as well as where you can spend some time cleaning up your org and really planning your rollout project.” You can see what’s there and what’s actually being used to get a great idea of how things are working and where there’s room for improvement.

Lightning at Dreamforce

Coming up at Dreamforce 2017 there will be a dedicated Lightning area where you can take advantage of one-on-one consultations with Lightning experts in Moscone West (just up the stairs from the Trailhead area), so if you’re looking for Kelly you can find here there. She’ll also be offering some broader-based sessions geared towards Lightning Experience. There are a ton of activities planned, so don’t miss it.

If you can’t make it to Dreamforce, there are a lot of activities happening around Lightning that you might be able to check out. You can look up the schedule for the World Tours, as well as the Lightning Now Tour which has a lot of stops planned for Q4. There’s a free two-day workshop where you can hear from Product Managers about Lightning Experience and get some hands-on experience as well. As Kelly says, “We are trying to make Lightning everywhere.”

Beyond that, you can use Lightning in a Box to make the case for your company to make the switch. Finally, when you run the Readiness Report you can sign up for a consultation, which lets you put your questions to an expert, almost like office hours.

For more insights, make sure to follow Kelly on Twitter (@HeadInTheClowdz).

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

Links

• Lightning in a Box
• Develop Your Lightning Experience Rollout Strategy
• Salesforce Optimizer Increases Productivity and Drives Salesforce Usage

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