On this episode of the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re talking to Lizz Hellinga, Salesforce MVP and change enabler. We’ll go over everything she’s looking forward to that’ll help us help users.
Join us as we talk about how the platform has evolved with automation and assistance, all the new setup guides and assistants that make things easier, and why you should start playing with Tableau.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lizz Hellinga.
Lizz has recently pinch-hit for LeeAnne on the Admin team at Salesforce, and getting a look behind the curtain has given her a lot of insights into what’s coming up and what admins should pay attention to in the new year. “When you think about some of the new things with In-App Guidance, In-App Learning, Notification Builder, Dynamic Forms,” she says, “all that is to help admins increase adoption and help their endusers do what they need to do when they need to do it.”
For Lizz, the new MFA assistant coming out in Spring ‘21 is especially exciting because it helps you focus by giving you a ready-to-go adoption checklist. The bottom line is that you can add the guidance and extra help you need right where your users need it the most. “I remember when I had to do my first implementation, and I created all of these little working guides to help people when we launched,” she says, “and then I realized they would be stale after just a few weeks or months, depending on how much change we added to the platform.” Now you can add a single prompt to keep people up to date, helping your users actually focus on how to use the platform rather than worrying about how to work it.
Lizz worked with pod regular John Demby and his team on Tableau video content, and she got an insider’s perspective on just how easy it is to incorporate into your org. The biggest thing she learned is that you should just get started trying it out—there are data sets already there to play around with, and sample dashboards so you can see how everything works. “Don’t be afraid, just hop right in,” Lizz says, “Tableau can combine data streams for your organization to give better insights but you just have to start doing it.”
For next year, Lizz wants to learn a lot more about MuleSoft Connector. “Admins work on multiple features at one time, we toggle between different features, and we’re constantly using them to enable our end users and enable successful processes,” she says. She’s also psyched about Service Setup, which makes it so much easier to get acquainted with Service Cloud.
Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins podcast, where we talk about product, community, and career to help you become an awesome admin. This week we’re talking with Lizz Hellinga, Salesforce MVP and change enabler. In this episode, you’ll hear from Lizz about the fun stuff that she worked on. The exciting new opportunities for admins. And the features she is most excited to learn more about this year. So with that, let’s get Lizz on the pod.
So Lizz, welcome to the podcast.
Lizz Hellinga: Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m thrilled to be here.
Mike Gerholdt: Lizz, you did a ton with our admin team over the last, I will say, it’s specifically 249 days, coming on to help us out while LeeAnne was on parental leave. And we wanted to have you on the pod to help send forth admins and give them some wisdom that you gained and insights that you have on where they’re going and things they should pay attention to. That’s kind of how I’m kicking off our discussion.
Lizz Hellinga: Great. It’s been such an adventure to support all of you over the last… How many days was it? 259.
Mike Gerholdt: 49, but-
Lizz Hellinga: 49 days.
Mike Gerholdt: … maybe feels longer. We have a pandemic going on.
Gillian Bruce: And Salesforce years, it’s like dog years, right.
Mike Gerholdt: Yes.
Lizz Hellinga: Right. It was truly an incredible opportunity. And I think before we really get started into what I’ve learned, I just would love to give a shout out to all of you on the admin team, what you do every day to support and promote admins. To be on the inside and see how you always have admins at the forefront is incredible to know. And I just want others to know that as well, how thoughtful you all are and how they’re always top of mind.
Mike Gerholdt: Well, thank you very much.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. Thank you. I mean, Lizz, thank you for all the work that you’ve done for us because I don’t know how we would have gotten by without that. So kind of back at you. I would love to know Lizz, Hey you got to work on a lot of things this year. You probably learned a lot that you didn’t expect to learn. What are some of your kind of top insights for admins based on kind of where you’ve seen the platform evolve over the last year and kind of things that admin should be looking at and paying attention to these days?
Lizz Hellinga: What I’m thrilled to see is how the platform is evolving to help admins manage and support adoption within their orgs. When you think about some of the new things with In-App Guidance, In-App Learning, Notification Builder, Dynamic Forms, all that is to help admins increase adoption and help their end-users do what they need to do when they need to do it. And when I think about, for me, my personal perspective, I love change management. It’s one of the things I love to talk about with others, looking at the new MFA Assistant that’s coming out in spring ’21 and how it even has change management components built into it. So that admins have this great, ready to go checklist to help them help their end-users adopt change.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah, I would say I love how getting started everything feels now. Before, a lot of the tools came out, and it was, “We’ll figure out how to make it go.” And now, with MFA and we saw in spring ’21 was Service Cloud Setup and Macros Builder, everything has that kind of coaching component to it. I think of it akin to all of the apps that we have on our phones now that let us stream information. There’s almost like a walkthrough of everything.
Lizz Hellinga: Exactly. And the thing too is that it saves admin’s time so they can focus on enabling business processes and efficiencies because they can start to add that adoption right inside the app and support their end-users. When you think about In-App Learning and In-App Guidance walking their end-users through processes. But then also with dynamic forums. Having them just fill out what they need to fill out correctly at the right moment. It’s just incredible how it can support the end-users.
Gillian Bruce: Well, and Lizz, I’d like to maybe… you’ve been working in the Salesforce ecosystem for a while. You’ve been an MVP for a while. I mean, I’d love to, maybe, hear a little bit of your perspective of the evolution, right, because a lot of the things you described are kind of new within the last year. Do you see kind of the admins’ day-to-day functions shifting a little bit as the platform has evolved?
Lizz Hellinga: A hundred percent. I remember when I had to do my first implementation and I created all of these little [inaudible] guides to help people when we launched. And I did all these end-user trainings to just help them be able to use the platform correctly. And then I realized quickly, “Oh, these are a little bit stale after just a few weeks sometimes or months,” depending on how much change we add in to the platform. But now, I mean, you can deliver information with just a single prompt to let people know, “Oh, Hey, we added this picklist value, or now you can do this,” all within the app. Saving the admins time. Saving them phone time, response time. It’s incredible.
And ultimately what that means is that they can really focus on creating real change with the platform, deeply analyzing some of the processes that need improvement, collaborating with their stakeholders to understand how they can improve it and what needs to be done. Yes. I mean, I can’t wait to launch a new org with the new… Oh my gosh, what is the name of it? Admin guide, guidance center for admins. That’s incredible. And based on your skill set, it will evolve the information to what your experience is. So even tenured admins can learn something from it.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. And speaking of launching new and kind of reaching out to stakeholders. One of the projects that you worked on a lot was working with the Tableau team and specifically John Denby, who if you didn’t watch any of the Trailblazers Innovate or DreamTX or TrailheadTX stuff that we put out. He put out some amazing video content that you helped him with on Tableau. I’d love to get kind of your perspective on what admins can do this year with Tableau.
Lizz Hellinga: Oh, Tableau, that was just such a fun opportunity to work with John and to collaborate with him and how admins can use Tableau. I think the biggest thing that admins can do is just try it out. You have data that you can work with on it. Don’t be afraid, just hop right in. There’s datasets that you can download to play around with it that you can do a trial org. All of that can help you start to see how Tableau can combine data streams for your organization to get better insights, but we just have to start doing it. I think that’s my biggest piece of advice. Don’t wait. Just start trying it out.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. I mean, we’ve got so much coming all the time that if you wait, you’ll kind of be behind the curve a little bit, right.
Lizz Hellinga: And then there’s also some sample dashboards too that are available so that you can easily use those and play around with them and tweak them for your needs. So similar to how you would download dashboards from the app exchange for reports and dashboards within the app.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah, that’s a great resource. And there’s so many. I mean, I just remember when we had John on the podcast to talk about Tableau, and literally while we were talking to him, he was talking to us about all of the publicly available Tableau dashboards that people have built. And I went down so many rabbit holes. I was just floored. So yeah, there’s a ton of great resources that are out there for anyone, even if you’re not a Salesforce Admin, but you wanted to play with Tableau. There are ways that you can kind of start getting involved. But great perspective there, Lizz.
Mike Gerholdt: For DreamTX, we kind of threw something fun out there of how do we stitch together a whole bunch of features that we normally show, I’ll say, a la carte, and put them in one episode. And that was a fun episode. You got to work with SE Platform Judy Fang, who’s also based in Australia. I say, also, because we had a lot of guests from Australia on the pod recently. But I’d love to know your perspective on that. And some of those features that for sure you want to invest further in in this year.
Lizz Hellinga: Wow. I want to learn a lot more about MuleSoft Connector. I think that will be a powerful tool in the Admins Toolkit. You know what was so interesting to me about working on that presentation with Judy was admins do that. We do work on multiple features at one time in the short amount of span in that 20 minutes. We’re toggling between different features, and we’re constantly using them to enable our end users and enable successful processes. But Service Setup is a new thing that I think, especially for me I haven’t had a ton of exposure to Service Cloud and then having something like Service Setup where I get it off the ground and running quickly using industry best practices. It was probably the highlight of that session for me.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. I mean, Service Cloud has given us so many great things like I mean the Console View, Macros. There’s so many great things that originated in Service Cloud that now bleed over into all of the platform that are just so incredible. I mean, I remember the first time I built a Console app, and I was like, “Oh, this is amazing.” And so I think it’s really great to kind of get that exposure from different parts of the platform, because then you realize, “Oh, I could use this in this way. I can use that in this way.” Lizz, one of the things I would really, really love to know, especially since you have… you’ve got the perspective on being on the inside, so to speak, and being on the outside. I would really like to know what are the things that you see are most valuable for admins in terms of types of messaging or content. Knowing kind of how we come up with stuff and knowing how the community responds. What are some things that you think are maybe the most impactful and most powerful?
Lizz Hellinga: In terms of the admins? What content is out there and available for them?
Gillian Bruce: Yeah.
Lizz Hellinga: I guess, for me. I had always been impressed with Release Readiness and pulling them all together. For the admins I think it’s just such a great way for them to attend some of the… watch some of those videos, read some of the blogs and then go back to their orgs and their teams and their leaders talk about how these changes could benefit and impact their team in their instance. And how they can best use it to meet their business objectives. It’s a way for them to be proactive. I think about even just In-App Learning that’s coming out in spring ’21, being able to say, “Hey, we can now easily assign Trailhead modules through In-App Learning right in the panel so that they can take it right from there.”
And they get to be proactive and sharing that information with their company and seeing change happen as a result of it. So to me, the Release Readiness is some of the best content out there. But also just the quick, and I’m a little biased because I did some of the Did You Know videos. The short ways to see how to do something, how to accomplish something that may be new to you or that you hadn’t tried. I don’t know. I love all the content. The podcasts are great. I love hearing from other individuals in the industry and what they’re doing, and how they’re solving problems. Oh, the Essential Habits. I don’t know. It’s like asking me to pick a favorite child. Sorry. There’s just too much. But if I had one thing to focus on as a new admin, it would be the Essential Habits and Release Readiness Live and all that goes with it.
Mike Gerholdt: Wow. Well, that was literally where I was trying to think of what I would ask you is, you’ve got so much experience in the ecosystem that where would you spend your time? I would also expand on your answer and love to know from you because there’s a lot of ways and information to learn. Where do you spend your time in terms of community engagement?
Lizz Hellinga: Oh, the one thing that has been we’re all missing, right, all of the in-person events. But one of the neatest things is to be able to attend community events virtually. I’ve attended some in Boston, in St. Louis, in Texas. I’ve attended Salesforce Saturdays virtually. It’s been a wonderful way to connect with people. And I’ve made friendships this year that I would never have made because I attended things virtually. So that’s where I try to spend some time because I always have questions. What admin doesn’t have questions. And when they’re working on their org or working in another org. The peer group out there has so much support. You put it on Twitter. There’s even a informal OhanaSlack put in the Trailblazer community. Someone will answer your question.
Gillian Bruce: Yeah. I think that’s really a good plan Lizz because I think one of the challenges… I mean, gosh, we all miss going to events, right. We all miss meeting new people. And shout out to you because you’ve been a great advocate of this. For me especially is, taking the time to reach out to new folks and make new connections. Hey, a video call is still a connection. Getting to know a new person. And I think you exemplify kind of what that is. Is to continue to reach out and connect with folks. And it’s something this year that I have placed new value on is asking people, “Hey, do you have someone I should talk to because I will reach out to them, and I will make new friends on a video call.” So I think that’s really important, especially given the way that we’re all working these days.
Lizz Hellinga: Well, and just you miss out on things when you’re not in person. So I think everybody now is being more thoughtful about how we do connect with other people and how we can connect to others together. Like, “Oh, you should know, this person, right. Have you met with them?” I see that happening more and more, especially over the last four to five months.
Mike Gerholdt: Absolutely. Well, Lizz, I want to thank you for taking time out to be on the pod and for producing some amazing video content for admins on the YouTube channel and really helping the team out this last year.
Lizz Hellinga: It’s been incredible. You all are wonderful. I love how you keep the awesome admin at the forefront of everything that you do. And I know with the content that you deliver, it’s such high quality, [inaudible] it’s geared to help people be successful. And I think that’s what really matters to individuals that come to the blog or they listen to the podcast. It’s really helping people find their path to success.
Gillian Bruce: Well, Lizz, thank you for helping us help other people find their paths to success. The content that you delivered is definitely going to resonate for a lot of people for a while, and thanks for your contributions. And also, thank you for being such a great representative of the awesome admin community.
Lizz Hellinga: Thank you.
Gillian Bruce: Well, a huge thanks to Lizz for taking the time to chat with us on the podcast. So great to be able to recap some of the amazing things she did this year and some things she’s excited about coming up for all of us admins. So first, my top three takeaways for our conversation with Lizz is number one, Hey, the platform has evolved quite a bit. And in fact, it’s kind of changing the role of the Salesforce admin. Enabling us to do some more strategic, some more complex things because there is so much automation and assistance built into these features now on the platform. Stuff that you would normally spend hours, maybe even days doing couple of years ago, you don’t have to do that anymore. So it was pretty exciting to get that perspective. Also, pay attention to all of the new setup guides and assistance that are available for admins. There are so many admin tools.
And Lizz talked about a few of them here in the podcast, but I mean, it’s a continuation of that first point, right. It’s how much the platform has evolved to make our jobs easier because our job is to make users happy. And so all of these features are making it a lot easier for us to achieve that goal. And then, finally, step in and start playing with Tableau. I mean, Lizz had a really great opportunity to work closely with the Tableau team this year. And we learned a ton, and the Tableau team is very passionate about enabling admins to use the super-powerful Tableau tools. So, listen to Lizz. Go play with Tableau, get started, lots of resources there.
If you want to learn a little bit more about any of the stuff from this podcast or about anything Salesforce Admin related, go to admin.salesforce.com, my favorite website, to find more resources. You can also stay up to date with us on social for all things admins. We are @SalesforceAdmns, no i, on Twitter. You can follow our guest Lizz Hellinga on Twitter @Lizz L-I-Z-Z Hellinga. I’m on Twitter @GillianKBruce. And Mike my amazing cohost is on Twitter @MikeGerholdt. So with that, I hope you enjoyed this episode and we’ll catch you next time in the cloud.
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