Dreamforce Lightning Takeaways from a New Salesforce Admin

If I had to use one word to describe my very first Dreamforce experience it would be—LIGHTNING! Lightning Launchpad. Lightning Sessions. Lightning Roundtable. Lightning Swag. Lightning Consultation. Lightning, Lightning, Lightning!

For the past 6 months I have been focused on consuming as much Lightning content as possible in preparation for leading the Lightning Experience migration project at Blue Star Families, where I’m the Salesforce Certified Administrator. Luckily, the resources available to admins preparing to make the switch are comprehensive and plentiful, from webinars to blog posts to Trailmixes to podcasts to Lightning Now! Tour stops.

But, after all of that preparation and content, it took coming all the way to Dreamforce to have my big “Lightning Revelation”. More on that revelation below, but first I’d like to share a few tales, tips, and takeaways from my Lightning-focused Dreamforce.

• The “Related List – Single” component is the dark horse of Lightning components. At Dreamforce I was fortunate to be included in a small Lightning roundtable discussion with some #AwesomeAdmins from the community to discuss our experiences with Lightning and provide feedback to the Lightning team. (Thank you Shawna Wolverton and Mike Rosenbaum for the lively discussion!) During the roundtable session, the “Related List – Single” component was mentioned and it was clear there were many die-hard fans in the group.

If you have not yet had a chance to build Lightning Pages using the Lightning App Builder, let me fill you in on the magic of the “Related List – Single” standard Lightning component. In Classic, Related Lists are all grouped together at the bottom of a page layout. In Lightning Experience, admins have the power to put Related Lists where they make the most sense for the user. And to level up the productivity for your users, by using the “Related List – Single” standard component you can place a single related list anywhere on the Lightning page that makes the most sense for your users’ workflow.

Pro Tip: The “Related List – Single” component can even be configured to display a related list from a parent record!

• Answer your users’ biggest question: What’s in it for me? Change is hard. And for your users who see learning Lightning as a roadblock in their workflow, it is imperative to answer the question at the forefront of their mind—what’s in it for me? Being able to communicate the value that Lightning will bring to their role is paramount to getting user buy-in from the start.
• Start planning your migration NOW. If you wait until after a specific feature is released your rollout plan will be delayed. If your organization or one of your teams is not ready to be migrated to Lightning because a specific feature has not yet been released, don’t wait until after the feature is generally available, start learning and planning now! (Lightning Experience Roadmap)

Shell Black stated in his Dreamforce session on Lightning that I attended (and blog post) that an admin’s lack of Lightning knowledge can become a major blocker in an organization’s migration plan. By preparing now, before having a specific rollout date, your migration plan won’t be delayed by needing to train yourself on everything Lightning related. You will be prepped and ready to hit the ground running as soon as that coveted feature you’ve been waiting for is added to the roadmap.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to occasionally peruse the AppExchange for Lightning components that may solve your use case!

• Recruit an Executive Sponsor. On the final day of Dreamforce, minutes before the doors of Moscone Center were closed, I participated in a 15-minute one-on-one Lightning consultation. After quickly getting answers to a couple of org-specific migration questions, I asked for overarching tips for my upcoming migration. She said what made the most difference in her own migration was the support of an executive sponsor. Not just an executive that gives the approval for a migration plan, but a sponsor that will be there during the rollout to communicate to users that Lightning is the expected path forward because it is an improvement to the overall business.
• The Lightning Experience Readiness Check is constantly improving. I was shocked to see that in the few short months that it’s been since I ran the Lightning Experience Readiness Check, there have been some substantial improvements and additions. My advice is to keep running the Readiness Check throughout your rollout.

Ah, yes, and finally, my “Lightning Revelation”. The best way I can describe my revelation is the same way I felt after I finally had the LASIK procedure done a few months ago, which was “Why in the world did I wait so long to do this!” After getting executive buy-in to make the switch to Lightning, attending the Lightning Now! Tour, months of building Lightning pages and testing various components, letting in our first group of beta testers, and being mere weeks away from our entire organization being on Lightning—I realized that I was no longer intimidated by something that at one time seemed like a massive shift for our users.

After working in both Classic and Lightning for many months, I am blown away by the sharp uptick in productivity that I have experienced from leveraging components using the Lightning App Builder. Being able to build dynamic Lightning pages that have an immense amount of context and customizations for our users has been a game changer for me. While I wish we would have made this transition sooner, it makes me one happy admin to hear the praises and excitement from our users.

Well, what are you waiting for? Preview your very own org with the Lightning Experience Migration Assistant’s Preview feature!

Favorite Lightning Resources

Webinar: Get Nerdy with Page Layouts in Lightning Experience by Kristi Guzman

Lightning Now! Group in the Trailblazer Community

Lightning Enablement Kit for Admins

Blog post: ”Migrating to Lightning Experience from Classic” by Shell Black

Make the Move to Lightning Experience Trail on Trailhead

Lightning Experience Readiness CheckLightning Migration Success Resources