The role of the Salesforce Admin is more important than ever. As customers’ expectations continue to grow, more companies look to digital transformation to deliver that highly personalized, responsive, on-brand experience. At the center of delivering a Salesforce Customer 360 view sits the Awesome Admin—building, configuring, and automating solutions to drive productivity, innovation, and efficiency at their companies.
As many of you in the community have seen, the role and responsibilities of Salesforce Admins have evolved over the last 10 years. What started as supporting a smaller number of core features has transformed into gaining expertise on a huge number of business-transforming products and tools, like App Builder, Flow Builder, and Prompt Studio. Along the way, you’ve leveraged a learner’s mindset and enablement tools like Trailhead and the Salesforce Admin Skills Kit to be successful.
As those products have evolved, so have the technology and the needs of your organizations.
The impact of having an admin within an organization is undeniable. Last year alone we witnessed staggering numbers: 1.3 trillion automations monthly, 2.7 billion reports run per month, 230k objects created in August 2023, and over 1 trillion artificial intelligence (AI) predictions run weekly. These figures speak volumes about time saved, productivity increased, and insights delivered.
On an individual level, we hear real admin impact stories every day. One customer has taken it a step further to track their productivity and impact in an app. Erick Mahle, VP of Revenue Operations at Lendz Financial, built a solution to track how much time his team’s contributions save the company by utilizing Cases, custom objects, and Flow. Mahle shared, “Our productivity tracker does wonders for SalesOps and RevOps to track their accomplishments.” Read more about productivity tracking and how you can get started with this in the new year to track your own impact.
While the core responsibilities of admins remain, the tools available have evolved drastically since the inaugural Admin Keynote in 2014, where we introduced game-changing tools like Process Builder and App Builder.
Since then, Salesforce has made significant strides in low-code tooling so that admins can use clicks, not code to drive significant business outcomes and return on investment (ROI) for their companies.
App Builder is more powerful than ever, admins can automate anything with Flow Builder, and tools like Prediction Builder and now Prompt Builder empower admins to deliver the latest technology and productivity tools to their organizations—AI being the latest and most important.
As the Salesforce product portfolio expanded, the admin identity grew with it, creating space for new roles in technology. The Awesome Admin identity is inclusive of folks with varying titles and skills, from CRM manager to business system analyst.
However, with this growth, the surge in admin capabilities has made role expectations somewhat ambiguous. The need for specialization within the admin space has become increasingly apparent, as highlighted in a 10K report.
Amidst this evolution, we’re excited to see roles within the “clicks, not code” identity evolve to stand on their own in the job market. For instance, we’ve witnessed a surge in the Business Analyst role within the Salesforce ecosystem, emphasizing the critical role of business analysis in successful Salesforce implementations. To support all those embracing the “clicks, not code” identity, we’ve been revisiting our content and enablement strategies to ensure everyone can learn the skills required to thrive in today’s dynamic market.
All of a business’s customer data is in the hands of the CRM system admin, and now, in the world of connected data and AI, the reach and scope increase exponentially. As AI technology advances, security complexities soar, necessitating skilled and supported admins to confront this challenge head-on. It’s not merely about proactive collaboration with IT/security and leadership teams to prioritize security; it’s also about maintaining unwavering vigilance over data integrity within Salesforce and safeguarding users against AI-generated phishing attempts.
Enabling and guiding user access and usage becomes pivotal. This spans from formulating policies for using Salesforce data in generative AI systems to empowering users with best practices for prompt writing. Find more insights on this crucial aspect here.
Admins recognize the paramount importance of their role in AI and data security. Notably, the most consumed content on the Salesforce Admins YouTube channel centers on data-related topics, exemplified by sessions such as “Dive into Data Cloud,” featuring Software Engineering EVP Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, and “Error Handling in MuleSoft Composer.”
Salesforce continues to evolve the platform to meet high customer expectations and maintain the highest standards of trust. With the Einstein 1 Platform and Einstein Trust Layer, admins build secure, intelligent, and trusted experiences for their companies. These tools not only ensure the protection of your data but also offer the capacity to establish fundamental guardrails for added security.
As company implementations grow more complex, the requirements for admins expand, emphasizing the importance of specialization. In 2024, the Admin Relations team will embark on research to define the role’s future and develop career paths in order to champion the ecosystem’s administrators, builders, and strategists. If you’re interested in being a part of this research and discussion, head over to this post in the Admin Trailblazer Community, to raise your hand.
In the interim, whether you’re specializing in CRM design, business analysis, or product management, the Salesforce Admin Skills Kit stands ready to help you define your role and inspire your career goals. For insights on building a resume, explore this blog.
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