Salesforce CRM Administration Handbook: A comprehensive guide to administering, configuring, and customizing Salesforce CRM

Preface

Greetings! Welcome to the world of Salesforce administration. The Salesforce CRM Administration Handbook is a comprehensive analysis of the functionalities of Salesforce that you need to know to become a Salesforce Certified Administrator. This book also includes practical tasks that you will be able to perform with us.

As you may already know, Salesforce is a platform that empowers businesses with its robust automation and management capabilities. In the realm of Salesforce, administrators play a pivotal role in overseeing the platform’s functionalities, ensuring smooth operations, and driving business success. This book serves as your comprehensive guide to mastering Salesforce administration, specifically tailored to prepare you for the Admin exam.

Many resources cover features related to Salesforce, but in this book, we also focus on exam preparation and future career development. Additionally, we detail two of Salesforce’s most popular products, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, so this book serves not only as a resource for Salesforce Certified Administrator exam preparation but also as a first step toward obtaining additional Salesforce certificates, such as Sales Cloud Consultant and Service Cloud Consultant.

Drawing from years of experience in the Salesforce ecosystem and insights gathered from interviews with industry-leading Salesforce administrators and consultants with whom we have worked over the years, this book provides practical advice, best practices, and real-world scenarios to equip you with the skills needed to excel in Salesforce administration.

As per the latest analyst reports, Salesforce is a leader in the CRM space, with continued exponential growth projected in the coming years. With this growth, the demand for skilled Salesforce administrators is set to skyrocket. This book prepares you not just for the present but also for the future, ensuring you’re equipped to handle the evolving challenges and complexities of Salesforce administration.

Whether you’re embarking on a new career path or seeking to enhance your existing skills, this book is your roadmap to success in Salesforce administration. Let’s dive in and unlock the full potential of Salesforce together.

Who this book is for

This book is for those embarking on their journey with Salesforce for the first time, aspiring to become Salesforce Certified Administrators in the future, and all Salesforce users who want to extend their current knowledge related to Salesforce.

The primary focus of this content is directed towards three key personas, namely the following:

People without hands-on experience with Salesforce – If you’ve ever thought about working in the Salesforce ecosystem but don’t know where to start, then this book is for sure for you. It’s sufficient to have a basic understanding of how the software works. The rest you will learn from us.

Salesforce beginners wanted to pass the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam – People with a few months’ experience with Salesforce who want to prepare themselves for the Salesforce exam.

Salesforce junior consultants – These people will be able to complete their knowledge with this book, as we cover elements that can easily be overlooked in our day-to-day work.

What this book covers

Chapter 1

, Getting Started with Salesforce, offers a thorough introduction to Salesforce, the premier CRM platform. Discover its powerful features for enhancing sales, service, and marketing processes. Learn about the Salesforce Admin role, essential skills, and the prestigious Salesforce Admin Certification Exam. We provide step-by-step instructions for setting up your account and efficient navigation techniques. Additionally, a comprehensive glossary helps you master Salesforce terminology.

Chapter 2

, Salesforce Architecture, uncovers Salesforce’s platform architecture in detail. This chapter covers topics such as multi-tenancy, understanding Salesforce Orgs’ role in managing users and customization, and Salesforce instances and pods. You will gain insights for building a robust Salesforce environment.

Chapter 3

, Getting to Know Data Management, offers a deep dive into Salesforce’s data realm. It covers the data model, including objects and fields and their organizational roles. You’ll explore data import/export techniques, mapping, and best practices for maintaining integrity. By the chapter’s end, you’ll master managing objects and fields, as well as importing/exporting data within Salesforce.

Chapter 4

, Lightning Experience, covers the move from Salesforce Classic to Lightning Experience and how to personalize Lightning pages. Explore the benefits, plan for user adoption, and learn to create custom Lightning components. This chapter describes how to use the Lightning App Builder for page customization to gain skills to transition smoothly and enhance the user experience in your Salesforce Org.

Chapter 5

, Objects in Salesforce, delves into the world of Salesforce objects to discover standard and custom objects, junction objects, and external objects. The chapter covers how to tailor Salesforce to your business requirements.

Chapter 6

, User Management and Security, guides you through the intricate world of user permissions. The chapter discover the roles of user profiles, roles, and permission sets in defining access, explores sharing settings, organization-wide defaults, and field-level security to ensure data protection. You will also learn about login policies and two-factor authentication for enhanced security.

Chapter 7

, Automation Tools, provides a comprehensive guide to mastering three critical aspects: approval processes, Flow Builder, and Apex triggers. This chapter brings practical insights and step-by-step instructions to streamline Salesforce customization. Additionally, the chapter will explore the AI features available in Salesforce.

Chapter 8

, Reports and Dashboards, covers creating reports, report types, and building dashboards. The chapter gives insights and guidance on generating powerful reports and customizing them. The chapter also covers building interactive dashboards for data-driven decisions.

Chapter 9

, AppExchange and Custom Applications, explores AppExchange, Salesforce’s marketplace for pre-built applications. The chapter covers navigating AppExchange, selecting and installing apps effectively, and managing and maintaining apps.

Chapter 10

, Service Cloud, provides a comprehensive guide to Salesforce’s Service Cloud and delves into the intricacies of case management. The chapter covers key features and capabilities, as well as effective case management techniques, including case creation, assignment, escalation rules, and resolution best practices.

Chapter 11

, Sales Cloud, provides a comprehensive guide to Salesforce’s Sales Cloud, focusing on lead and opportunity management. This chapter explores key Sales Cloud features, including campaign management, lead capture, qualification, and opportunity management. The chapter also covers Account and Contact management and pipeline forecasting.

Chapter 12

, Salesforce Administrator Exam Preparation, provides a comprehensive guide to preparing for Salesforce certification exams. The chapter offers insights into the exam format, scoring criteria, study strategies, and tips for exam day. This chapter helps you understand the exam structure, develop a study plan, and practice with sample questions. This chapter also covers the techniques for managing exam-day stress and maximizing performance.

Chapter 13

, Continuing Education and Career Development, explores continuous education and career development in the Salesforce ecosystem. The chapter covers strategies for staying updated with Salesforce releases and leveraging resources. The chapter explores the benefits of joining the Salesforce community and offers insights into advanced certifications and career pathways.

To get the most out of this book

When reading a book about Salesforce, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of the Salesforce platform and its fundamental concepts, such as data management, automation, and customization. Familiarity with IT application administration, support, and monitoring will also be beneficial for comprehending more advanced topics covered in the book.

The Salesforce test environment, called Salesforce Developer Edition, should be created. This can be done at https://developer.salesforce.com/signup

. Additionally, the reader should have access to the Salesforce Trailhead platform (accessible at https://trailhead.salesforce.com/

), as access to both will be needed to perform the tasks described in the book.

Disclaimer on images

Some images in this title are presented for contextual purposes, and the readability of the graphic is not crucial to the discussion. Please refer to our free graphic bundle to download the images. You can download the images from https://packt.link/gbp/9781835085691

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Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: The use of the setPassword() API for resetting passwords.

A block of code is set as follows:

trigger myLeadTrigger on Lead (before insert) {

    // Your code here

}

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: Place some action buttons on the record page such as Edit, Clone, Delete, and so on.

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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1

Getting Started with Salesforce

In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive introduction to Salesforce, the leading CRM platform. We’ll explore the features and capabilities that make Salesforce a powerful tool for streamlining sales, service, and marketing processes. Delve into the Salesforce Admin role, understanding the primary responsibilities and essential skills required for success. Learn about the prestigious Salesforce Admin certification exam, including its format, the covered topics, and the benefits it brings to your career. Discover how to set up your account with step-by-step instructions, ensuring a smooth entry into the platform. Dive into the interface as we guide you through efficient navigation techniques, allowing you to explore Salesforce’s features and functionalities effortlessly. Furthermore, master the Salesforce terminology with a comprehensive glossary that demystifies key concepts and empowers you to communicate effectively within the platform. By the end of this chapter, you’ll have the tools and knowledge needed to confidently embark on your Salesforce journey and unlock its full potential.

In this chapter, you will learn about the following topics:

Starting with Salesforce

The Salesforce Admin role – primary responsibilities and needed skills

The Salesforce certification exam

Setting up your Salesforce account

A tour of Salesforce – getting around the interface

Starting with Salesforce

We have always tried to record all kinds of information, sometimes to immortalize it, other times to show it, but most importantly, to not forget this information.

Let’s start with the main question – what is CRM? Its software, named after the acronym derived from customer relationship management, helps companies manage customer interactions. Every business needs a database where it can record the data of its contractors and their history, transactions, and price lists. This used to be recorded in notebooks and notepads, later in Excel spreadsheets (some companies still use them as their main customer database), and now, one of the leading CRMs in the world is Salesforce.

Is Salesforce like a crystal ball that will boost sales, and phone calls and emails will make themselves? No! (Although emails can be sent automatically.) But thanks to CRM, businesses will be able to do the following significantly:

Serve the customer better: Automation will do all the necessary tasks for us, remind us of a forgotten customer, and free employees from repetitive actions that always take up precious time and divert attention from the key elements of the business – such as relationships.

Understand the customer better: The system enables understanding and anticipating the needs of customers, generating sales trends, and most importantly, taking care of them and the business’s relationship with them.

Increase customer engagement: With tools that allow tracking of customers and their interactions with the business, personalizing content directed to them, and knowing their preferences and tastes, businesses are able to get to know their customers. Consequently, businesses can direct and adjust their business strategies to the style of their customers.

Achieve better sales results: As we have already pointed out, Salesforce is not a crystal ball predicting the future, but if we know our customers, then those customers know us and our product. And that is already another step toward achieving excellent sales results.

"Well, give me a CD with this system and let’s install it," some customers might say. But Salesforce is not software that we install on a server or local disk; it is a cloud solution. Thanks to this, everyone can have access to their data.

Salespeople can check their customers during business trips, the marketing team can check the results of their campaign during an event, and the service technicians can make necessary notes from anywhere in the world. The system is a multi-layered ecosystem that is scalable and meets the needs of the customer. What does this mean? This means that customers who want to use sales support elements do not have to purchase the entire solution along with marketing and service desk support.

The available system functions are included in individual licenses. Purchasing a Salesforce license is a subscription model. The customer purchases a specific type of license that offers a certain range of functionality for a period of 12 months.

The prices of the license at the time of writing for the Sales Cloud range from $25 to $300.

Salesforce servers are located in many parts of the world such as the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia.

Is customer data safe? Of course; Salesforce is certified for compliance with many security standards, including ISO 27001, SOC 2, and FedRAMP.

The Salesforce solution is directed to customers of different sizes. From greenfield-type customers who have no previous experience with the system, to huge corporations that expand their systems to enormous sizes, whose administration and maintenance are handled by large, specialist IT teams. Currently, this cloud solution is used by over 150,000 customers in 190 countries. Among the customers using Salesforce, we will find companies such as Spotify, Amazon, Canon, Toyota, Walmart, Uber, and many others.

Salesforce is a multi-module tool. This means that it has many different modules dedicated to specific needs, which will now be described briefly, and in the following chapters, you will learn much more about them:

Sales Cloud is a solution tailored to the needs of commerce. With it, you can manage the sales cycle from acquiring a lead to winning an opportunity and selling products/services and much more. This module, thanks to its built-in tools, enables the use of forecasting and numerous reporting tools.

Service Cloud is a tool dedicated to every service/help desk. Everyone has had to call a hotline to get help with a particular matter of life at some point. It’s highly likely that your data has been recorded in Service Cloud. Thanks to its structure, it stores your data and your query in cases.

Marketing Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is a marketing pair that will manage marketing aimed at B2B or B2C. Automated emails and marketing paths are just a fraction of what you can achieve in the software of the marketing duo.

Commerce Cloud is nothing more than a booster for your online store. It helps manage online stores, both for B2B and B2C. It personalizes product recommendations and facilitates promotion management, and can do much, much more.

Experience Cloud, formerly known as Community Cloud (for many, this name will forever remain in their hearts), allows you to create pages, portals, forums, help pages, and others for customers, partners, or users. The drag-and-drop editor facilitates page management for administrators.

Are these all the clouds? No. There are many solutions that facilitate work in various business sectors. Thanks to this, Salesforce easily adapts to even the most complex tasks and needs.

Tip

Get a basic understanding of every Salesforce Cloud, its core features, and how it is helping the business to fulfill its goals, as questions related to this topic may appear on the Salesforce Certified Associate exam.

You already know that there is a Salesforce, how powerful it is, and how much it can bring to the life of any business. However, it is worth remembering that every system needs its own custodian, someone to look after how the system works and make changes to it. You will find out about this person in a moment – the Salesforce Admin.

Exploring the Salesforce Admin role

Every system requires a custodian, a person who can implement changes in structure, fix bugs, or create a new user. Although many of these changes can be automated, a human will always be necessary for system management or even its setup. That’s what a Salesforce superhero – a System Administrator – is for. The Admin role is extremely important, but it may differ across systems. Many companies may define the responsibilities of this role differently. Sometimes it involves system maintenance, sometimes user management, and sometimes deploying previously created system solutions. The main task of Administrators is to manage and adapt the system to the needs of the customer. Thanks to these changes, the system should also meet the business goals of the organization. System Admins often combine technical knowledge with the use of soft skills when in contact with the client.

So, whether it’s changes in the system, creating automation, or custom reports, the Salesforce Admin role is key to business. It happens that other roles, such as SF Developer or SF Solution Architect, perform administrative duties, but these are scenarios in which employees perform tasks dedicated to another position.

In conclusion, the Salesforce Admin is a key role for a business. Thanks to this role, the optimized system works better and more efficiently, and users can enjoy more efficient processes and a user-friendly structure. In the following points, we will look more closely at the main duties of the Administrator and what skills the ideal Sys Admin should have.

Main responsibilities of a Salesforce Admin

Once, Peter Parker (AKA Spiderman) heard from his uncle: "With great power there must also come great responsibility." It is the same with a System Admin. Remember, you are the company superhero and you need to help them. Here are your responsibilities.

User management

As mentioned earlier, administration equals user management.

But it’s not just about creating new users, but also about elements closely related to the user: License, Profile, Role, Permission Set. System Administrator is a role in which one of the main tasks is creating new profiles and assigning them to specific users. Knowing what necessary access users should have, the specialist can create a profile dedicated to them and assign it during the creation of new access permissions. If the profile does not meet all requirements, it can be supplemented with a Permission Set, in which access can be granted in a trimmed manner and given to individual users. When setting up new access to the system, it is important to check the license to be granted and the profile. If the company uses a hierarchy, the user should also have a role assigned to them.

But what would user management be without creating, updating, or deactivating users? With appropriate access, the System Admin can make these kinds of changes. Fun fact! You can’t remove a user from the system; the only option is to deactivate the user by unchecking the Active checkbox.

Roles/permissions management

Salesforce is a software in which roles and permissions play a huge role. As mentioned earlier, the main element granting access is profiles, but what if a given department, consisting of two groups, needs a default set of access, but also two separate access permissions data dedicated to them? Then the System Administrator creates a Permission Set, which is a set of access permissions to data elements, objects, or features in the system.

Assigning roles, on the other hand, plays an important role in the structure of the company, thanks to which the administrator will build a hierarchy of employees in Salesforce.

How often have you found data in your system such as Jane/Joe Doe or QWERTY? Often, users want to enter something quickly using so-called dummy details. That is, they enter incorrect data to quickly create a record in the system. And it is the System Administrator who stands guard over the integrity of the data (imagine them standing on a high building with a flowing cape and a large A on their chest). The Sys Admin must ensure that the data entered into the system is correct, unique, and above all, true. Salesforce has the appropriate tools that help achieve data cleanliness, such as the following:

Validation rules that check the correctness of data entered by users

Duplication rules that regulate the possibilities of creating (or not creating) records with the same data

Approval processes, which are requests for data acceptance on the record (e.g., the amount of discount on the opportunity)

To achieve high cleanliness and integrity of data, the Administrator will use the full range of tools offered by Salesforce.

But what if it turns out that users are exceptionally creative and find a way to create duplicated data and introduce Mr. QWERTY 321321321? Then, a red code lights up above the Admin’s head and a data audit needs to be carried out. Such audits may include checking for the following, among other things:

Duplicates (e.g., 2 x Mrs. Jane Doe with the same