In this episode of “How I Solved It” on Salesforce+, #AwesomeAdmin Jen Cole solves an inefficient fulfillment and sales process using MuleSoft Composer. Learn how she approached building her solution and her tips for developing admin skills.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was asked to fix an inefficient sales and fulfillment process. Part of this process required Salesforce orders to be replicated in our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, which was the system that shipped out the orders. The problem was that the Account model in Salesforce—where we store addresses related to brick-and-mortar locations—didn’t match the billing and shipping addresses for accounts in the ERP. That made it impossible to map orders from Salesforce to the ERP.
Well, an #AwesomeAdmin (aka me) came to the rescue! I created a way to sync the billing and shipping address data between the two systems using the parent-child object model—including a custom object—in Salesforce and by building some integrations with MuleSoft Composer.
You can see the full solution in action by watching my episode, but while you’re here, I’ll share how I approached the problem using a few of my favorite skills from the Salesforce Admin Skills Kit: data management, product management, and process automation.
One of the most important responsibilities for any #AwesomeAdmin is making sure data is managed correctly. If you’ve got duplicative, missing, or misleading data, you’re not going to be able to rely on the story that data tells. In designing this solution, I was focused on how to optimize the platform to maintain clean data that told a clear story. I made sure that I was capturing the correct information from the correct sources so that I could paint a clear picture of what customers were doing so the business could understand.
In my book, it’s crucial to have a basic understanding of the platform’s overall functionality. I don’t believe it’s feasible to understand every in and out of each feature, but understanding its general function will help you a lot when it comes to addressing business problems. I use Trailhead as a way to learn more about features and a safe place to practice. In building this solution, I used my sandbox to put my ideas to the test. I spend a lot of time “breaking things” in our sandboxes. It’s a great place to play out real-life scenarios with new tools and features without impacting the day-to-day business. The platform is vast, and we cannot know every nitty-gritty detail of every feature, add-on, plug-in, or app out there. We’d get nothing else done if we tried. I will often turn to the community to ask for help and “how did you approach this?” or “can it do this?” questions to learn more because I know I’m not alone in solving the problem at hand.
I think #AwesomeAdmin should actually be #AwesomeAutomatingAdmin because automating processes is one of the most powerful skills we have at our disposal. Automation saves time, and that means also improving the day-to-day experience for our users. Along with this, automation saves money! Smells like the secret ingredients to adoption to me! In building this solution, I used MuleSoft Composer to ensure that the business processes that sometimes slip through the cracks got done so the business kept moving in the right direction. Using automation to drive processes, collect information, and gather details can improve data quality, help users and execs make good business decisions, and ultimately, deliver success!
Make sure you check out my episode and the rest of “How I Solved It” on Salesforce+!
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