Here we are with our final digest of the annual Salesforce megafest, AKA Dreamforce! For some of us this was our regular escape off to San Francisco for the learning event of the year – the equivalent intake of knowledge to an MBA degree in the space of four days – but for our Dreamforce virgins this was the moment you experience what is the largest tech conference in the flesh, with circa 170k attendees. In fact, it’s so big now that perhaps the only way it could get any bigger is to, say… have another conference? TrailheaDX anyone?
As we wave goodbye for another year, we wanted to leave you with yet more more content, this time some content which is curated by us or, better still, features – you guessed it- us!
Process Automation Showdown
This year, we semi-reinvented our Process Automation Showdown session from DF16 by expanding on the success of this fun session where Chris and I went toe to toe with fellow MVPs Jen Lee and Rakesh Gupta. This time around we split out the session into two and invited four more individuals to join us on stage to showcase their process automation prowess and skills.
Here are the links to see our process automation use cases in action:
Click to watch the recording of Process Automation Showdown – Session #1 (starting at 7min 50secs)
Make the Jump to Lightning …And Get It Right First Time
Many people have been wondering when Lightning would reach the tipping point and gain real traction within the ecosystem. Well here is what we think: that point is here or, in fact, may even have passed now.
Most likely the latter, if we read a little bit into a handful of recent farewell announcements…
Firstly, we say farewell to a driving force behind the Lightning transition… Shawna Wolverton, who is leaving the Salesforce fold after 15 amazing years. We feel her job is done and she can leave knowing that the Salesforce experience for the next 15 years is finally ready for the masses.
Secondly, we also say farewell to one of the nicest and possibly one of the most approachable EVPs you are ever likely to meet – Adam Seligman! His herculean efforts helped grow the ecosystem ten-fold and this why I say he is one of the most approachable chaps you will ever meet – often people of his level are difficult to connect with, let alone talk too.
Adam is very much an ‘in the trenches’ kinda guy who is also not scared to have a laugh and wear many hats, quite literally…All that is left to say is thank you very much for being amazing, you will be missed.
Sorry for the digression! Back to our final thoughts… So, Lightning is here and more and more people are switching over than ever before. Something which we’ve picked up through talking with people in the community over the last year or so, is that more often than not people are trying the ‘suck it and see’ approach, i.e. flipping it on, seeing it didn’t work, and saying, it’s not ready for me yet,.
Obviously that’s a strategy, just one which is extremely unlikely to work. These sorts of discussions helped fuel the idea for our session: Make the Jump to Lightning …And Get It Right First Time!
Now the timing of this session being accepted for the Admin Track at Dreamforce was perfect – because it nicely coincided with the Salesforce Weekly blog relaunch and the introduction of the wonderful Ines Garcia into the fold. Ines really didn’t know what she had let herself in for, we think… but after a little persuasion, she joined the session making us a trio. Now, speaking to large crowds and at an event tipped as one of the largest in the world is a scary proposition for anyone. But, we all survived!
Our session was pretty much a packed house and as we were reminded by our session leader: it’s always a good sign when people stay to the end. I remember the kind words of one lady who came up at the end to tell us it was one of the best sessions she had seen on Lightning – thank you, whoever you are.
Here is the link to the session recording, so you can judge for yourself:
Make the Jump to Lightning …And Get It Right First Time!
And here are our slides from the talk, if you’d prefer to to quickly leaf through our main tips:
Finally, I thought we would round this post out with some handpicked Trails in the shape of a Salesforce Weekly Trailmix plus a curated YouTube playlist that pulls together some of our favourite sessions from Dreamforce:
Salesforce Weekly DF17 Trailmix
Click here to work through our custom-made DF17 Trailmix
Our Trailmix brings together topics we have been talking about in this series plus some areas/features which you can now tangibly touch and get some hands-on learning under your belt. Here’s a selection of what the mix covers…
- Here is your chance to build your first Einstein predictive solution and make yourself look really clever.
- What if the Salesforce mobile app is just too boring for you? Well, learn how you could brand it as your own and, better yet, pop it on an app store.
- Everyone knows IoT is a bit vapourware, but it’s real, you can touch it and play with it inside a normal Salesforce org, so this will at least show one half of the IoT dream.
- I’m not normally a betting man, but I bet Quip is about to skyrocket off the back of LiveApps, so why not jump ahead here and check those out.
- Now Lightning is maturing, so are its associated trails. Here is a recently updated one with the new Lightning Experience customisation features
- And then we round off with some Trailhead playground management, so if you find yourself spending time running from playground to playground, this can help you.
Salesforce Weekly DF17 YouTube Playlist
Next, we have some of our favourite videos of Dreamforce – which starts out with long-term favourite True to the Core:
Enjoy the content! And adios until next Dreamforce, which will be around the corner before we know it, since it’s earlier next year, in September. Until then, happy trails!