This week it’s our monthly retro, bringing you the highlights from November’s feast of tasty Salesforce content. For this episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we spotlight all the blog posts, videos, and everything else from this month that you won’t want to miss.
Join us as we talk about great Salesforce content from November and our favorite things about Fall.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation between Mike and Gillian.
For Gillian, Samantha Shain’s “How I Solved This: Dive Deep Into the Debug Log” was a standout blog post. “You don’t have to know how to write code, but you can know how to learn a little bit from the naming conventions you’ll uncover in the debug log,” Gillian says. The post that stood out to Mike in November was “Salesforce Release Notes Have a New Home: Salesforce Help!” by Geri Rebstock, about why we’ve moved the Release Notes to a new place.
This month, Gillian was thrilled to speak to Ariel Ridley about how she built her own app and got it listed on the AppExchange. “I hope that some of our listeners got inspired to build their own apps and share them with the community by listing them on the AppExchange as well,” she says. Mike wanted to highlight his conversation with Mia Pacey, where they talked about her unique “campfire” approach to weekly meetings and user check-ins.
“When we make a video, we really make a video,” Mike says, and this month we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss our seven tips on how to pass your Salesforce Administrator Certification exam. Reach out to us on Twitter to let us know which tip helped you the most—or your favorite thing on Gillian’s shelf.
Listen to the full episode to hear about Mike and Gillian’s favorite Fall activities, and how to make a hot apple pie cocktail.
Full Show Transcript
Gillian Bruce: Welcome to the Salesforce admins podcast, the monthly retro with Gillian and Mike episode, where we review the top beast worthy product, community, and careers content from November to help you become an awesome admin. I’m Gillian Bruce.
Mike: And I’m Mike Gerholdt who can’t believe it’s November already. Holy cow!
Gillian Bruce: What a year it has been.
Mike: Eleven months just flying by all of a sudden. Really just since maybe August, I guess.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. In some ways I feel this year counts as five years. It’s like a dog year.
Mike: Right. [crosstalk 00:00:51] I would like fall-
Gillian Bruce: I guess it would be seven years.
Mike: …Could I get fall back? Because fall was just a day, where I live.
Gillian Bruce: Oh, right. Because it’s already winter there?
Mike: Well, periodically, and then it becomes summer. Today it was 65, which in the Midwest in November you’re, “Yay! Shorts” and a hoodie.
Gillian Bruce: Fur, says the San Francisco girl.
Mike: I know.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. Oh man. [crosstalk] Well Mike, we had a lot of awesome admin content this month to talk about starting with some of our amazing blog posts. Now, one of the ones that I got pretty excited and nerdy about was the bog post of How I Solve This by Samantha Shane, all about how she used the debug log to help solve a form issue that she had.
I really liked this because it’s super nerdy and it’s definitely a great way push your awesome admin skills to the next level because she talks about how you can use the debug log to prove… You don’t have to know how to write code, but you can know how to learn a little bit from the naming conventions that you’ll uncover in the debug log. And what’s great about this too, is this was inspired by another trailblazer, Jess Lopez did a session at Dreamforce to help inspire Samantha to do this and it’s a great use case. And then a great example and I think it’s a good way for any admin to go play with the debug log and see what you can figure out and you’d be surprised what you already know.
Mike: Yeah. I love the How I Solve This series. I think it’s great. It ties right back into what we heard at Dreamforce from admins last year of being problem solvers. And to your point of reading the debug log, I feel like it’s when you took a foreign language in college, I could always read and understand what was going on, but just don’t ask me to regurgitate it or especially write it in a sentence. It’s always better reading a foreign language.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. I took way too many years of Spanish to admit that I can’t speak it very well unless there are some margaritas involved. So I-
Mike: Then everybody can
Gillian, I chose what I thought was really cool announcement, especially for people getting into the ecosystem. And even some of the long time Salesforce admins who have been around for a while. And that is that the Salesforce release notes have a new home and they’re in help. And up until that point, it always made sense that you search out release notes and then you always went over to this help area. And now they’re hanging out their quarantining together, forever.
Gillian Bruce: In true 2020 style.
Mike: In true 2020 style. But if you think about it, it makes logical sense, right? Go to one location for everything, and it’s all in help. And I think as a new admin coming in it so helps as… See it’s literally in the description it so helps because now you know where to go for help. Where [crosstalk] your release notes?
Gillian Bruce: And you do one of the things that I think everyone experiences, especially if they’re newer to the Salesforce world is we have so many resources and so many places that you can go to get information about all the things. So to be able to tie these two very, very useful, probably our most useful resources together, I think is really awesome. It’s a move in the right direction.
Mike: Yep. A hundred percent agree. Gillian, we did a bunch of podcasts in November. What was one of your favorites? I know we had many, they’re all our favorites. Just to be clear.
Gillian Bruce: We don’t like picking favorites.
Mike: How about we say that highlight.
Gillian Bruce: Highlights. Yeah. For anyone who watches the crown, we’re not picking a favorite child. Okay. So this is one of the ones that I think learned the most and was the most inspired by this month was the podcast I got to record with Ariel Ridley. She is a really amazing PepUp Tech alum. She has got a great story about actually building a lightning transition app with Kelly Walker, who is our light or lightning champions expert here at Salesforce and getting it listed on the app exchange. And it was one of the tools she used to help learn the platform and learn how to build apps. And now she’s got an app on the app exchange. She is doing amazing things at Copado. She has really launched her career and the way she talked about how she approached building the app, iterating on it and going through the process of getting it listed on the app exchange to share with the world.
I thought was really inspiring. And I really hope that some of the listeners got inspired to maybe build their own apps and share them with the community by listing them on the app exchange as well.
Mike: Yeah. That was super fun pod to listen to. I’m going to go with, and I just realized that we did a commendable job of having quite a few APAC people on in the month of November because my podcasts that I picked was campfires with Mia. So Mia Pacey talks about what I feel is so vital and that’s sitting down and interacting with users and having stakeholder meetings and she calls them campfires because hello, isn’t it fun to be on brand with Trailhead? Maybe that’s just the marketing geek in me.
Gillian Bruce: Well, and that means S’Mores are involved. Right?
Mike: I brought that suggestion up to her and I’m hoping that she implemented, you can do virtual S’Mores. There’s a fun conversation about having S’Mores and fudge Stripe cookies. I realize, I think they call fudge Stripe cookies something different in Australia, but fudge Stripe cookies are a fun way to cheat S’Mores because then you just buy the cookies and the marshmallows and you get S’Mores. You don’t have to… It’s already half put together.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. I think they call them biscuits in-
Mike: Could be.
Gillian Bruce: Australia. And the UK our cookies are their biscuits. I don’t know. That’s from watching way too much of The Great British Baking Show.
Mike: I loved it. Listen to that episode because Mia gives you tips on how she communicates this out, how she deals with having lots of different users on a call, separating users out and how she worked with executives to get buy in to keep the branding of campfires going. And most importantly, to have executive support her effort of keeping campfires going, which I think is really key to driving adoption and to having attendance. So it was super fun to do that episode.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah, and we’ve got some good Asia Pacific representation on the podcast. I think we even have a couple more in the queue. So trying to make sure we still have our global admins represented on the podcast this year. But Mike, we may not have had a lot of videos this month, but there was one video where we try something a little different.
Mike: When we make a video. We really make a video. I was just watching this video. Gillian.
Gillian Bruce: Yes Mike. And how did you feel about it?
Mike: I feel like I learned seven things to help me pass my Salesforce admin certification.
Gillian Bruce: Oh, well, I’m so glad you learned those seven things to help you pass your admin certification exam. Because this was actually based on a blog post from a while ago, but we updated a little bit of the info and it holds true. It’s a quick digit nail style video on tips on how to pass the cert exam. And I had a lot of fun recording it. It’s a fun to play with some different models there.
Mike: Yeah, and we should definitely have anybody who has watched this video listening to the podcast now. I’d love to know what the favorite thing is in Gillian’s background because you got a few things to pick from back there.
Gillian Bruce: I’ve got quite a collection of- [crosstalk 00:08:57].
Mike: Falcon, maybe the Lego Cody?
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. My little snake plant over there in the corner. I got all kinds of weird stuff going on. I just keep adding to it at some point it’s going to be the shelves will just give out and be like, okay. Too much, too much, too much. But yeah, if you watch the video, please make a comment on the video or comment in Twitter. I’d love to know what your favorite tip is. Or like Mike said, putting out weird things in my background is always going to-
Mike: Or tell Gillian what the next digino video should be. That would be fun. What do you want to talk about next?
Gillian Bruce: Or When you take your cert exam? That’s really what I want to know because that was the whole point of the video. So we got your cheerleaders right here for you.
Mike: So Gillian, we end each of these episodes. I think it’s kind of fun to go retro-ish on things for the month that are appropriate. So I thought I’d pull out what a fall fun activity would be.
Gillian Bruce: I like that.
Now let’s also… We just talk about how global the podcast is. So we realized that in other parts of the world, fall is not exactly the same. It’s all here in the Western hemisphere. How about that?
Mike: Yep, absolutely. So I listed a few, ironically you would think Apple picking and going to a corn maize is what Midwesterners do. And a lot do, not this guy, not me. Haha I know a corn maze is just called a cornfield to me because they’re all of maize. I’ve ridden a hay ride once, I almost fell off. It was really cold, by the way if you’ve never ridden on a hayrack, they’re really cold. Even if it’s warm out, you walk outside, “Oh, it’s going to be fun. Hay ride today.” Bring extra layers because it is going to be cold.
But I will say my favorite fall activity. I always enjoy it all summer long, even in the spring. So for those of you that are in spring or different seasons, I do love going to a farmer’s market. And especially in the fall, I love going because there’s usually, at least in my area we get a little bit more of the artists that come out and they do fun, fall wreaths and ornamental, there is a little less produce and a little more crafts. So I always enjoyed the farmer’s markets.
Gillian Bruce: It’s pretty good. I don’t think I’ve done aside from the farmer’s market because I do live in San Francisco. I don’t think I’ve done any of the other things. I’ve never picked apples except for maybe off of a Apple tree in a friend’s yard. And-
Mike: And that’s exactly what Apple picking is by the way.
Gillian Bruce: Especially go to an orchard and you’re supposed to get a basket and look all picturesque. I never done that [crosstalk]
Yeah.
Yeah. And the corn maize thing, I have never done one of those. We don’t have a lot of corn fields in the Bay area.
Mike: No, I’ve never seen one, to be honest with you.
Gillian Bruce: And aside from riding basically a trailer you’d put a car on. one of those flatbed trailers, with two bales of hay on it, around in a parking lot. That’s the closest I think I’ve ever come to a hay ride.
Mike: it’s pretty, pretty close to what a hayrack is. you’re not missing much.
Gillian Bruce: There you go. Well, I will say that one of my favorite fall things, and again, we don’t get a lot of this here in the Bay area because we don’t really have that drastic change in seasons. But I do love looking at TikTok videos of dogs, jumping through big piles of leaves. That is my one of my favorite fall activities because the glee they get on their faces. They just pop, pop, pop through the big piles of leaves. It looks so fun. So that is pretty great. Especially when all you see is either their ears or their tail sticking out of the pile and the sound, anyway.
The biggest change that we get here in the Bay area is we get a little rain. It actually started raining here just last week. And so those cozy, rainy days, we can curl up on the couch and just watch the rain outside and put on all your layers. And I love it. And you get to wear boots. I love boots. So it’s the season that you finally get to pull out your boots here in San Francisco. Not that you really need them, but it’s an excuse to wear boots.
Mike: I don’t know. Some of those step offs of the curbs are pretty high. And if the street is flooding a little bit, then you would want a boot.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah, also fun boots. I like boots. I’m not leaving my house anytime soon, so I don’t really need any boots this year.
Mike: You could buy them, look at them. “Oh, remember when we used to wear boots?”
Gillian Bruce: “Remember those boots”
Mike: Well, staying inside on cozy rainy days, sounds like a favorite fall beverage. So I think the big trend…geez, I saw pumpkin spice Cheerios the other day.
Gillian Bruce: ugh.
Mike: We don’t have to pumpkin spice everything, one or two things is fine, but-
Gillian Bruce: Isn’t Pumpkin pie enough.
Mike: It’s more than enough for me.
Gillian Bruce: Okay. Yeah. I’m not, I’m not a big pumpkin flavored person.
Mike: No, no, no. I do like hot cider. That is nice, it feels cozy.
Gillian Bruce: You maul it with some spices. It makes a whole house smell good.
Mike: Yeah. that’s fall.
Gillian Bruce: And then you could up your hot cider game by adding a little Tuaca and whipped cream and turn it into a hot Apple pie cocktail, which is one of my favorite fall drinks. Seriously. It’s like drinking dessert. It tastes like an Apple pie. It’s so good.
Mike: We can definitely try that but not going to pumpkin spice the rest of the stuff. Cocoa maybe. So it is interesting. When I looked this up, hot cocoa came up as a fall beverage. I don’t know about you? You can tell me on Twitter different. Hot cocoa to me is when it’s got to be winter and there has to be snow on the ground or really cold, but hot cocoa to me, isn’t a fall drink.
Gillian Bruce: I am on the same page Mike. I think of hot cocoa as something you get when you go to the ice rink and you need a warm up and you pull off the gloves on your hands and you have the hot cocoa and it burns the top of your mouth
Mike: Ski lodge stuff. But not when there is crunchy leaves out with dogs flying through them.
Gillian Bruce: I wish it could always be like that. Can I get a big pile of crunchy leaves delivered to my front yard? That would be fantastic.
Mike: There’s the next billion-dollar startup idea
Gillian Bruce: Be like, look at those bougie weirdo, San Franciscans, ordering piles of leaves to be delivered so their dogs can jump through them.
Mike: Well, we used to be able to order kittens from Uber. How is this any different?
Just add to it. I’d like three kittens and 100 pounds of dried leaves
Gillian Bruce: And you get to come clean them up after too- [crosstalk]
Mike: Yeah. that’s got to be part of it. Maybe that’s a separate app
Gillian Bruce: And it can be called better be-leaf it.
Mike: There you go. See, free million dollar advice. Go out, get some investor money. See how that works for you. You got at least one customer, Gillian. So there’s your pitch.
Gillian Bruce: I don’t know if the rest of the household would agree with my decision, but-
Mike: No, it doesn’t have to. Oh, fun stuff. Anyway, if you want to learn more about all the things that we talked about in today’s episode, minus the billion dollar leaf delivery app, please go to admin.salesforce.com to find those links and so many, many more resources. You can stay up to date with us on all things social for admins. We are at Salesforce admins, no I on Twitter. I’m Mike Gerholdt on Twitter and Gillian is at Gillian K Bruce. So with that, stay safe, stay awesome and stay tuned for the next episode. We’ll see you in the cloud.
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