The start of a new year is a good jumping off point to get your Salesforce Org- and yourself- in order. If you are a new Salesforce Admin or a veteran Admin now is a good time to wipe the slate clean and take advantage of what January has to offer. In my post “The New Habits of a Successful Salesforce Admin” I wrote about daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly habits. Some of those yearly habits we can kick off this week and take advantage of a fresh new year. So how do Salesforce Admins get ready for the new year?
Simple. We start with these four major themes.
Clean up unnecessary files
I like to start by looking back internally at any folders or files I’ve created or stored on a shared drive to see if they are still needed. Now I know this isn’t directly related to salesforce, but if you were like me and did a ton of imports- it’s time to put those in the recycle bin or archive them according to your company’s data retention policy. Start 2014 with fresh folders so that when all those wonderful spreadsheets of data come flying you don’t accidentally import the wrong data.
Now clean files aren’t just for computers. Let’s not forget about Chatter files and Content. Are there old marketing materials that can be archived? What about content packs that are no longer relevant? Start this week by working with departments who are responsible for those files and see if you can’t make the user experience better by cleaning up those files.
Take advantage of (almost) clear calendars
Speaking of working with departments… I don’t know about you, but my calendar so far this year looks nothing like it did in December. And I think it’s fair to say most people start off the new year with fairly manageable calendars. So as a Salesforce Admin let’s take advantage of that and get some meetings scheduled!
- Schedule Eat & Deletes: One habit that happens in Salesforce orgs very quickly is that report folders become bloated and filled with abandoned reports. Let’s take advantage of clear calendars to schedule regular, monthly meetings with key departments to review those folders. I like to call them “Eat & Deletes”, scheduled over the lunch hour and held either in person or via an online meeting these are a great way to connect with departments to review report folders. And the best part- remove unnecessary reports and folders!
- Block your time: It’s easy to lose time once a new year or a new project gets rolling. So take time now to put a weekly repeating 30 minute time block on your calendar to review the AppExchange. This way you don’t have to squeeze it in when you can- the time is already blocked for you.
Do an Activity Audit
We are all guilty of letting tasks go overdue. It happens to me, and I’m guessing its happened to you. So to start 2014, let’s run an activity report for all overdue activities (excluding those from December) and help users get caught up. I’ve found this nice free app “Mass Close Tasks” that will help you out. One thing to remember – communicate with the user first to help them get activities cleaned up. Then be sure to post Chatter reminders about the importance of closing Activities.
Clean up unneeded Chatter groups
Too many of anything will lower user adoption- too many activities, too many Chatter files, and especially too many Chatter groups. With the Winter ’14 release Archiving Chatter groups is easy. And with Red Restore you can archive those chatter groups instantly- no more waiting for the 90 days of inactivity. Clean Chatter groups will make it easier for your users to find the information they need and keep the ‘noise’ to a minimum.
Those are the four themes I’m starting this year off to get my Salesforce org cleaned up and organized. What are you working on?
