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Let's be clear: For nonprofits Salesforce is "free."
It's free like a puppy. Not free like a beer.
If you work for a Nonprofit or Educational Organization you've come to the place to learn how to use Salesforce wisely, effectively, and cheaply.
Thing I Learned: NPSP Contact Role Triggers
The NPSP triggers that automate opportunity contact roles are built on the assumption that nobody will ever manually update those roles.
Michael Kolodner
Apr 305 min read
A State Processing Engine
This is how I built a flow-based state processing engine using platform events. It allows for high volume asynchronous processing of records
Michael Kolodner
Mar 57 min read
What I've Learned about Platform Events
Platform events can be a powerful addition to the Salesforce Admin's toolkit. I share some learnings and limitations.
Michael Kolodner
Feb 195 min read
Id Key Prefixes
Discussion of the use and format of Salesforce key prefixes, the three characters at the start of a record Id that tell you what object tabl
Michael Kolodner
Dec 11, 20244 min read
Reading Salesforce URLs
A guide to Salesforce URLs, including what's in them and how to reconfigure them to go to other records.
Michael Kolodner
Nov 27, 20244 min read
Thing I Learned: Enabling Files Upload in Mobile
Enabling users to upload files to records in the Salesforce mobile app works...differently than you might expect. Here's how to do it.
Michael Kolodner
Oct 16, 20244 min read
Whiz-Bang at What Cost?
It's not yet clear what the price is going to be for organizations to use Salesforce's genAI features like Agentforce and EinsteinGPT.
Michael Kolodner
Sep 18, 20245 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Aug 21, 20242 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Aug 7, 20245 min read
Design for User Success: Button Order
How to apply design sensibility to the placement and order of buttons on your Salesforce pages.
Michael Kolodner
Jul 24, 20246 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Jul 10, 20243 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Jun 26, 20244 min read
🌈 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.
Michael Kolodner
Jun 5, 20243 min read
Design for User Success: Field Placement
Key principles of field placement and page design to enhance user experience and efficiency in Salesforce.
Michael Kolodner
May 22, 20246 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Apr 24, 202410 min read
Deeply Skeptical About Person Accounts
Despite being the official solution for dealing with individuals on Salesforce, Person Accounts are difficult to use.
Michael Kolodner
Mar 27, 20246 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Feb 28, 20242 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Dec 20, 20235 min read
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.
Michael Kolodner
Nov 21, 20233 min read
Platform Events — My New Favorite Tool
An introduction to Platform Events and the cool things I've found to do with them.
Michael Kolodner
Oct 25, 202310 min read
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