Michael Kolodner
- 5 days ago
- 7 min
Freebie's Dreamforce Tips
My tips for surviving and thriving at Dreamforce and other Salesforce conferences and events.
208 views
Michael Kolodner
- Aug 21
- 2 min
Cooler Than Validation Rules
Before save Flows can show a custom error component to serve as validation. A powerful feature, but validation rules still have their place.
306 views
Michael Kolodner
- Aug 7
- 5 min
Design for User Success: Think About Text
Text is an important part of your Salesforce page design. Think about placement and balance in field labels, types, and even help text.
206 views
Michael Kolodner
- Jul 24
- 6 min
Design for User Success: Button Order
How to apply design sensibility to the placement and order of buttons on your Salesforce pages.
185 views
Michael Kolodner
- Jul 10
- 3 min
Design for User Success: Screen Flows
Screen flows can be elements you use to design your record pages, adding options beyond the standard layout controls.
323 views
Michael Kolodner
- Jun 26
- 4 min
Design for User Success: Eye Movement
When designing your Salesforce page layouts, think about the ways people's eyes move around the page and use that to guide users.
421 views
Michael Kolodner
- Jun 5
- 3 min
🌈 Design For User Success: Add Interest through Color
Suggested tools and ideas to add visual interest to your Salesforce pages by taking color into consideration.
328 views
Michael Kolodner
- May 22
- 6 min
Design for User Success: Field Placement
Key principles of field placement and page design to enhance user experience and efficiency in Salesforce.
472 views
Michael Kolodner
- May 8
- 3 min
Band-Aid for New Cloud Reporting
I've built a workaround to allow fundraising reporting the Nonprofit Cloud otherwise doesn't support.
512 views
Michael Kolodner
- Apr 24
- 10 min
Extension Objects: There’s Nothing to Like
Extension Objects are the "on core" place to put fields that really belong on objects like accounts and contacts. They are a problem.
841 views
Michael Kolodner
- Apr 10
- 7 min
These Are Not The Components You're Looking For
Salesforce's "Industries" solutions come with access to many new components. I wish they worked better.
525 views
Michael Kolodner
- Mar 27
- 6 min
Deeply Skeptical About Person Accounts
Despite being the official solution for dealing with individuals on Salesforce, Person Accounts are difficult to use.
1,105 views
Michael Kolodner
- Mar 13
- 15 min
The Emperor's New Clouds
New Nonprofit Cloud and Education Cloud are more expensive and less functional than NPSP and EDA. Most nonprofits should stay away.
4,751 views
Michael Kolodner
- Feb 28
- 2 min
Thing I Learned: Email Encoding Has Changed
Salesforce's default email encoding has switched to UTF-8 (unicode). Make sure you update yourself and all existing users.
271 views
Michael Kolodner
- Feb 14
- 5 min
My FlowLog Object
I use a custom object to log when automation fires and what steps are completed. Here's what I built and how I make it easy to reuse.
364 views
![Email to someone not [yet] in Salesforce](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/77ee92_2f0868da58db485ea0f16730deba9a89~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_1260,h_948,fp_0.50_0.50,q_90,enc_auto/77ee92_2f0868da58db485ea0f16730deba9a89~mv2.jpeg)
Michael Kolodner
- Jan 31
- 7 min
Email to someone not [yet] in Salesforce
How I solved the challenge of emailing someone that might not be in Salesforce and still relating that message to the right record.
295 views
Michael Kolodner
- Jan 17
- 3 min
Things You Don’t Need: Sales+Service
Nonprofits should only pay $432/user/year, a Lighting Enterprise Edition or Sales Cloud license. They're often sold more expensive licenses.
442 views
Michael Kolodner
- Jan 3
- 4 min
Things You [usually] Don’t Need: A Full Sandbox
Nonprofits rarely need or should pay for a full copy sandbox. Unless you have a specific project that's going to need it, save your money.
338 views
Michael Kolodner
- Dec 20, 2023
- 5 min
Things You Don’t Need: Premier Success
Nonprofits do not need to pay for Premier Success. Save your money to give your admin professional development.
277 views
Michael Kolodner
- Dec 6, 2023
- 3 min
Things You Don’t Need: Unlimited Edition
Why nonprofits should not pay for Unlimited Edition. Save your money because the benefits are not worth the cost.
675 views
Michael Kolodner
- Nov 21, 2023
- 3 min
In Praise of "Clicks not Code"
The fact that Salesforce is easy to build and automate without code is a gift that has built community and careers.
190 views
Michael Kolodner
- Nov 8, 2023
- 4 min
Prices Go Up (Discount Goes Down)
News Flash: Salesforce announces 9% price hike. Nonprofit prices rise 14.6%. I try to understand why.
765 views
Michael Kolodner
- Oct 25, 2023
- 10 min
Platform Events — My New Favorite Tool
An introduction to Platform Events and the cool things I've found to do with them.
1,099 views
Michael Kolodner
- Oct 12, 2023
- 2 min
Unlimited Edition Means No P10!
A quick update about an unethical AE sales tactic.
258 views
Michael Kolodner
- Oct 11, 2023
- 8 min
Spoiler Alert: AEs are Salespeople
The sales incentives at Salesforce do not always result in the best outcomes for nonprofits. Buyer beware!
545 views
Michael Kolodner
- Sep 27, 2023
- 3 min
No Dreamforce Wrap-up From Me
If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I didn't publish a post-TDX wrap up, nor anything in particular...
221 views
Michael Kolodner
- Sep 13, 2023
- 1 min
Smiley Faces Form
A cool javascript update to a FormAssembly that my son helped figure out. Rate something 1 to 5 using emoji faces!
172 views
Michael Kolodner
- Aug 30, 2023
- 3 min
Free Things I Always Install: Unofficial SF
UnofficialSF is a treasure trove of flow extensions, code snippets, and more. There are some tools I always know I'll need and others I keep
986 views
Michael Kolodner
- Aug 16, 2023
- 1 min
Free Things I Always Install: DLRS
I always install DLRS into new orgs or existing ones. It's just a great tool that can solve so many needs!
292 views
Michael Kolodner
- Aug 2, 2023
- 2 min
Free Things I Always Install: Mopsy
Another free thing I always install: Mopsy. It improves upon the Today's Tasks component so your users see their To Do items.
624 views