Salesforce Training - Basic User

[This document provides a close approximation of the training outlined we use for Salesforce basic user training. Typically, the outline would contain some customatization to describe specific features of the Salesforce instance established for the organization receiving the training, including customization of the exercises suggested at the end of the document.]

We frequently find a graphical/diagrammatic representation of relationships between major and heavily used SF objects is useful during training. The following linke provides a PNG representation of a graphical data model diagram (often called an entity-relationship diagram or ERD of a standard NPSP V2 Salesforce database:

SF_NPSP_V2_Main.png

The representation in the diagram linked above also contains a represenation of Fund and Tribute tables we find are often desired by our clients

A generic PDF version of our typical outline of topics presented in a Basic Salesforce User training is presented here (PDF format):

NWDC SF Training Checklist - Basic

Purpose

This document provides a checklist of topics to be covered during training of users for SalesForce.

The current version of this document may require some editing to remove references to the previous organization using this outline, and to replace those with [Org abbrev]-specific text.

Overview

Why SalesForce?

"cloud" location
accessible from anywhere

nhanced physical data security
3d party integration software available
mass emailing tool integration

event management software data transfer/coordination

email/database integration (such as MailChimp)

land easement tracking

on-line payment processing

volunteer management
SalesForce foundation donation of 10 free user licenses to nonprofits, with a donated 1 Gb of storage space provided free of charg
Customizable

Training Checklists

Topics to be covered in training are listed in subsections below.

Checklist - Data Structure

The overall data structure of the most important SF objects for your organization has been diagrammed in several documents provided during the data migration work performed for your organization. These are available in the BaseCamp project used to manage your data migration project and can be downloaded for your reference.

[ORG ABBREV] ERD SF Main.png
Provides a high-level depiction of the overall structure of the main data objects in your SF instance, and the most important relationships defined between these objects.
SF Schema Builder
The Schema Builder allows you to construct visual displays of any set of Salesforce tables you select.

Access the Schema Builder by navigating to Setup/App Setup/Schema Builder

This checklist covers tasks expected during typical use of SalesForce by a general-purpose user.

SalesForce standard data structure
(Show high-level data model diagram)
1. Organizations/Accounts ([Org abbrev] Organizations)
  The information hub of SalesForce data
  
  Can represent a business, organization, foundation, committee, or an individual
  
  Can indicate another organization as a parent
2. Contacts (Persons)
  1. Direct link to Organization
    SalesForce typically associates a contact with one and only one organization using the contact OrganizationName field
    
    Represents the primary or official organization associated with the contact
    - Employer
    - Officially designated contact for an organization/business
    For individuals an organization record is created to represent only that person.
  2. Organization/contact affiliations
    Can enter role played by contact with regard to the organization, and start/end date of the time period when that role is applied
    
    Provided as a customization to standard SF configuration with installation of the SF Non-Profit Starter Pack packages
    
    Not required by SalesForce
  3. Contact/contact relationships
    Represents relationships between one person and another person
    
    Provided as a customization to standard SF configuration with installation of the SF Non-Profit Starter Pack packages
  4. Activities/Tasks
    Typically used to record communication actions taken towards the contact. Might be used to log records of phone calls, email communications, etc.
    
    Can also be used to record other types of actions
    
    Can be set to provide reminder emails
3. Donations/Opportunities (Gifts and Pledges)
  Can be used to represent a variety of opportunities, either potential or actually realized:
  
  Donation, grant, volunteer action
  1. Opportunity/organization linkage
  2. Opportunity/contact role
    Link to contact record for responsible cultivator?
4. Payments
  Represents a specific payment associated with a donation. Each donation can have multiple payments associated.
  
  Provided as a customization to a standard SF instance with installation of the SF Non-Profit Starter Pack (NPSP) packages.
5. Documents
  Stores email templates, mail merge templates, tip sheets, etc for general access by SalesForce users.
6. Campaigns
  Except for umbrella campaigns used as parents to other Campaigns, each campaign typically represents an outreach effort providing a single message using a single communication method.
  1. Campaign parents
    Each campaign can designate another campaign as a parent. This can be very helpful in tracking various actions taken during different portions of an umbrella campaign.
    
    Examples:
    
    Umbrella event with different locations, sessions, etc.
    
    Fundraising event with different outreach approaches used and tracked
  2. Campaign members
    Stores linkage between campaign record and contacts who are targeted by the campaign
    
    Indicates status of the member in the campaign (for example planned contact, message has been sent, has responded, etc.)
Customizations for this organization
1. Legacy Customizations
  {Will present data structure customizations adopted for the specific organization that is receiving the training}
2. NPSP V3 Customizations (for orgs adopting the V3 of the SF Nonprofit Starter Pack
  1. Address
  2. Affiliation
    Each record represents a link between an Account ([ORG ABBREV] Organization) record and a Contact (Person).
    
    It's possible to specify what sort of affiliation is documented (board member, owner, etc) as well as start and end dates for the affiliation or the status (current/former)
  3. Batch
    Used in batch data entry processes that are provided by the NPSP
  4. Household
    Not used under structuring of [ORG ABBREV] data, which instead uses Account ([ORG ABBREV] Organization) records with a record type of Household Account to represent households that persons are associated with.
  5. NPSP Data Import
    Used by special data import wizards provided with NPSP V3.
  6. Payment
    Each record represents an individual payment that is a component of a single Opportunity (Gift)
  7. Recurring Donation
    
    When used, each record provides details of a recurring donation promise made by a donor. A recurring donation promise differs from a pledge - pledges have a finite number of donations promised, so that the total expected revenue is known from the start. Recurring Donations by contrast are open-ended, with the donor not specifying how long these promised regular donations will be maintained.
    
    With NPSP V3, pledges are typically stored using an Opportunity (Gift) record, with linked NPSP Payment records used to represent each individual payment expected from that pledge.
    
    Recurring payment promises that are established with assistance of on-line payment processors typically store records describing these arrangement externally. Organizations then often opt to avoid any manual effort required to create parallel records in the NPSP Recurring Donations object.
  8. Relationship
3. 3d-Party Application Customizations
  {Will present data structure customizations created by apps installed for the specific organization that is receiving the training}

Checklist - Basic Use

1. Search functions
1. A) Always search before entering new records
  Most effective searches use a part of a record name that can be depended on to be reliably present on the record you're searching for.
  
  It's sometimes helpful to avoid searching for parts of names that might have been abbreviated when the record was first entered:
  
  Corporation, Foundation, etc.
2. B) Restrict search to appropriate information area to get most concise results
  If you know you're looking for an Organization, set the search to exclude display of matching records from Donations, Contacts, etc.
Data entry
1. Consistent naming approaches help a LOT for Campaigns, Donations, Documents
  Examine other records that you know have been named well to understand the approach that should be consistently used
2. Distinction between direct organization/contact link and links via affiliation
3. Entering Organizations and Contacts
  1. To avoid creating duplicate entries, search for both Organization and Contact records that might have been previously entered before creating new records
    Need to have a clear idea of how you want organization/contact links represented, and how your desired representation compares to any preexisting records you find in the database.
    
    Primary relationship of contact to organization generally indicates link using contact OrganizationName field
    
    Secondary relationship, or a need to store the role the contact plays at the organization might indicate a need for entering contact/organization affiliations
    
    There's some judgment involved here - be thoughtful and talk to others as needed to understand how to make that judgment.
  2. If a new contact is being entered as an individual without a primary relationship to some business or organization:
    1. Create a new contact record directly
    2. Leave the OrganizationName field blank
      SalesForce will automatically create a linked Organization with the same information you enter on the Contact record. (This automation is not standard SF functionality, but is a part of the installed Non-Profit Starter Pack applications.
  3. If a new organization contact is being created, the most sure-footed approach is to create new contacts from the organization that will be linked by the contact OrganizationName field.
    This approach automatically copies information like address from the organization record to the new contact record - often reduces data entry effort/errors.
4. Entering Campaigns
  Not every user can work with Campaigns (to create new Campaigns, etc). Only users with marketing user privilege can perform these functions.
  
  It is typically wise to restrict this privilege to a subset of users to ensure that the persons creating and maintaining campaign records are those who are well-practiced. Very much of the power of Campaigns is obtained only with a skillful and very consistent approach being applied.
  
  Consistent, systematic naming approaches are particularly helpful with campaigns. For instance,
  1. If you use child campaigns, it is helpful that children are named with the name of the parent campaign as the prefix. For instance Capital Campaign 2014 as a parent, and Capital Campaign 2014 12-01 Email as a child.
    This naming approach can be used to advantage in reports and in searches
  2. The letter tabs provided for the user to quickly find Campaigns work to greatest benefit if Campaigns are not named with year as the prefix. If the year (2014, 2000) is used as a prefix, all Campaigns will be on the first tab. If year values are used later in the name (Capital Campaign 2014, George Smith Fundraiser 2012), then the C or G tabs can allow a user to very rapidly navigate to a campaign of interest.
5. Entering Donations
  1. Search first for the Organization and/or Contact records you want to associate with the donation.
    For most efficient data entry, if either an Organization or Contact record need to be created, that task should be completed before you begin entering the donation itself.
  2. Navigate to the record representing the donor.
    If the donation is from a person, navigate to their Contact record. If the donation is from a business or organization, navigate to their Organization record.
  3. On the Organization/Contact layout, use the create... donation button to begin the creation of a new donation record
  4. Double-check the construction of the donation name and fill in other field values appropriately
    It is usually recommended that SF donation names should be constructed to include: the donor name, an indication of the type of donation, and the date of the donation.
    
    Examples:
    - Joe Smith Donation 1/1/2010
    - Acme Painting Pledge 1/31/2011
  5. If appropriate, enter a link to the Campaign that is identified as the primary motivation for the donation.
  6. If desired, add contact role records using the related list located near the bottom of the donation page layout
Reports - general use
1. When you navigate to the Reports tab, reports you have recently used will be displayed.
2. Users can run any report that your administrator has shared as public
3. Users can store and run any reports they create for themselves
  A user's private reports are usually NOT available for use by other SalesForce users
  
  Only an administrator can alter a public report to change fields that are provided, or to change selection criteria
4. Users can open a report, run it and then customize it for one time use or can then save the customized version using a new report name
5. Consistent naming of reports is a big help in keeping your system of reports easy to use and understand
  Probably wise that only your administrator create, name and store public reports designed for general use by staff.
6. It is very helpful to adopt the practice of always entering a report description when you save a report.
7. Selecting the correct report type is important when constructing a completely new report
  SalesForce provides a lot of report types. Each of these represents a different combination of information from different information subjects in SalesForce.
  
  It might take some time exploring the many report types before you find the correct type for a specific reporting need. Be patient during the time you're learning SalesForce.
Activities/Tasks
Typically, represent an action taken or planned towards a contact

Typically assigned to a user represented by a SalesForce user account

Can be established to generate automatic reminders for the assigned SalesForce user

Can indicate specific campaign, donation, organization as related to the activity

SalesForce will archive Activity/Task records that meet certain criteria. For instance, Tasks that are over a year old. Search the SF online help for archived task for additional information. Archived tasks are typically not displayed in SalesForce reports or in related lists.
Chatter
Provides discussion-type messages associated with activities of objects or persons you indicate you want to follow.

Type of objects/monitoring provided can be customized by your database administrator.

Can use to provide:
1. General notes about what you're working on
2. Comments associated with specific account/contact records, etc.
3. Files to be shared with other Chatter users
4. Messages can include topics that all users to quickly view a list of only/all messages making use of that topic
  Topics are entered as text following a pound sign (#)
5. Messages can include references to a SalesForce user that serve as links to that user's SalesForce Chatter profile. Can be used to provide references to persons that should be contacted in relation to a Chatter message.
Single-recipient emails
NOTE: Integration with Outlook, MacMail, other email client software, or Gmail and integration of Vertical Response, MailChimp or other bulk emailing services will probably make sending of BULK emails directly from SalesForce undesirable or obsolete. (There may still be SOME reason to send smaller volume emails directly from SalesForce if standard, previously developed email templates are to be used, etc.)
1. If you want to use a merge template for the communication, verify that an appropriate template has already been created
2. Navigate to the Contact record describing the recipient
3. Move to the Activity History related list
4. Verify that there is no preexisting record indicating that a similar communication has already been sent
5. SalesForce will provide tools for choosing an email template to be used with the letter.
  
  Alternatively, you can construct an email specifically for this single communication. The text of the email will not be saved as a template
  
  If you continue through the entire process for sending an email, SalesForce will create an activity record to represent the communication. You may want to check the Activities related list for the contact to verify that the activity is listed in the way you wish.
6. If the communication targets a member of a campaign, you may need to edit the associated Campaign Member record to update their status from planned to sent (or some similar change).
Single-recipient mail merge letters
NOTE: Future, planned email integration with iContact or other bulk emailing services will probably make sending of emails directly from SalesForce undesirable or obsolete.
1. If you want to use a merge template for the communication, verify that an appropriate template has already been created
2. Navigate to the Contact record describing the recipient
3. Move to the Activity History related list
4. Verify that there is no preexisting record indicating that a similar communication has already been sent
5. Click the mail merge button
  SalesForce will provide tools for choosing an email template to be used with the letter.
  
  Alternatively, you can construct an email specifically for this single communication. The text of the email will not be saved as a template
  
  If you continue through the entire process for sending an email, SalesForce will create an activity record to represent the communication. You may want to check the Activities related list for the contact to verify that the activity is listed in the way you wish.
6. If the communication targets a member of a campaign, you may need to edit the associated Campaign Member record to update their status from planned to sent (or some similar change).

General Tips

Consistent naming is important for ease of use with SalesForce
Search first before entering new records of any type
Construct useful views to speed access to restricted subsets of data
1. Views can be created on nearly any tab in SalesForce
2. Views can access and make use of only the data that is located within their own specific information area
  For example, a Contact view can specify record selection criteria using any contact field. But organization fields cannot be used for this purpose in a view created on the Contact tab.
3. Users can create their own views that are not accessible to other staff members
4. Administrators can create views that are shared among all staff members
Use the on-line help system enough to become good at it
Tip sheets on some key tasks will be available on the Documents tab
Staff responsibilities in using SalesForce - data is only as good as it is up to date:
Make sure that you:
1. Make sure any time you hear about a staff person leaving or an organization moving, that you update Affiliations linked to that person's Contact record in SalesForce - or email appropriate staff to make the update
2. Make sure to add new organizations and contacts or update as you interact with them (or send to messages to designated staff to make the update).
3. Send any lists from group events like webinars, annual meetings, etc. to the appropriate staff members for establishment of appropriate campaign records, etc.
4. Log your interactions with contacts and organizations (particularly partners) using the Activities tab or in association with the contact/account or other SalesForce object most closely associated with the activity
5. Make sure your staff/organizers/etc keep their lists up to date
6. Send any ideas for improvements to your designated SF administrator (new reports, different functionality, etc)
Relationships between SalesForce objects may be viewed in diagram form using the schema builder. To access the schema builder, navigate to setup/App setup/schema builder.

Exercises

Review and edit your personal profile
Revise the tab display within your SalesForce account to change tab order or to add/remove tabs
Perform several searches for organization or contact records you expect to find in the system
1. Take a look at a few recognizable Organizations and Persons already present in the database and try a variety of searches to gain an understanding of what approaches will find those records for you.
Click on the provided links in the search results to view the records matching the search criteria. The use your browser's back function to return to the search results.

Try only PORTIONS of names, wildcards, etc to be sure you understand how these faster approaches work, and how they may in fact be preferable.

Try using email addresses, phone number, portions of mailing addresses, zip codes etc to be sure you understand the full scope of the search functions.

Salesforce search functions can be powerful and very helpful to Salesforce users. It's wise to take enough time become very comfortable with these functions.
On the contacts tab, use the views named TRAINING phone display to display contacts with associated phone information.
NOTE: I've adopted the convention of naming views designed for general staff access with a prefix of [ORG ABBREV].... I find it is useful to use a naming convention like this to clearly differentiate views that have been constructed by system administrators for general staff use. I'll recommend that personal views be named with a prefix indicating the initials of the person who constructed the view. In general, only database administrators will have the authority to create views for sharing with all staff.
1. Examine the view to be sure you know how it works and save revised copies as your personal views
  You might consider changing the displayed columns, their ordering or adding an additional selection criteria like last name begins with 'B'.
2. Click on contact links displayed by the view to display contact details
3. Use the browser back function to return to the displayed view
4. Change one of the contact settings for one Contact (Person) field and create a view that looks for this particular setting. Confirm that the individual in question DOES show up on the results of your new view.
5. Revert the field setting on that same record to remove the new setting you established. Then rerun your view to confirm that this individual is no longer listed in the results
6. To gain an understanding of how the individual phone fields are linked. Edit a contact to change their preferred phone setting, then return to this view and note the change to the phone field.
On the contacts tab, use the views named TRAINING email display to display contacts with associated email information.
NOTE: I've adopted the convention of naming views designed for general staff access with a prefix of [ORG ABBREV].... I find it is useful to use a naming convention like this to clearly differentiate views that have been constructed by system administrators for general staff use. I'll recommend that personal views be named with a prefix indicating the initials of the person who constructed the view. In general, only database administrators will have the authority to create views for sharing with all staff.
1. Examine the view to be sure you know how it works and save revised copies as your personal views
  You might consider changing the displayed columns, their ordering or adding an additional selection criteria like last name begins with 'B'.
2. Click on contact links displayed by the view to display contact details
3. Use the browser back function to return to the displayed view
4. Change one of the contact settings for one Contact (Person) field and create a view that looks for this particular setting. Confirm that the individual in question DOES show up on the results of your new view.
5. Revert the field setting on that same record to remove the new setting you established. Then rerun your view to confirm that this individual is no longer listed in the results
6. To gain an understanding of how the individual email fields are linked. Edit a contact to change their preferred email setting, then return to this view and note the change to the email field.
On the contacts and organizations tab, create some personal views (not shared with full staff) to display filtered subsets of records. Alter those views to display different columns and different orders of columns.
Create some test organizations
Run the Training/TRAINING Org Created Today report to see if the organizations you just created are displayed.
1. Customize the report to display a date range that excludes the date when you created your new records
2. B) Customize the report to display only those organizations with a specific letter starting their name
3. C) Create a customized version of the report for your own use which adds or removes columns from the display
Create some test organizational contacts linked to the test organizations you created
Run the Training/TRAINING Contact Created Today report to see if the contacts you just created are displayed.
Create a new contact who is of interest only as an individual rather than as an organization contact.
You'll typically do this by creating a new contact WITHOUT specifying an Organization during your record creation. [LB - NPSP automation will automatically create an Organization record with record type Household Account and will link the Contact record to that household account record.
On the contacts tab, use the TRAINING Phone Display view.
1. Enter additional phone numbers on one of these contacts, change the preferred phone setting and then display the view again to see the effect on the phone field.
2. Create a similar view which instead displays contact with last names starting with a different letter.
Spend some time creating your own custom reports (store them in your own personal reports folder) that might be useful to you.
It takes a little time to become adept at constructing SalesForce reports. Allow yourself a little familiarization time to learn their use before you face important reporting deadlines. You'll probably need to examine the data available for display in various report types to start gaining a clear understanding of how to use report types and to understand WHICH report types are likely to be useful to you...

Last modified: 18:37:20 16-Mar-2015