A Day In The Life Of A Salesforce Admin: How To Elevate Your Training

The role of Salesforce admin has become a crucial part of any enterprise. The job itself has a 400% annual growth rate, making it an attractive career prospect. But it's also a complex role that requires the right personality and a unique combination of skills to succeed. A look into a day in the life of a Salesforce admin gives us insight into the duties, challenges, and training opportunities that make these individuals stand out. 

A Day in the Life of Salesforce Admin: Roles and Responsibilities

Salesforce has more than 150,000 customers worldwide. Behind every one of those is an admin in charge of users, data, and security. An average day in the life of a Salesforce admin will include the following tasks and challenges. 

Daily Tasks 

• User management: This includes managing existing users, establishing credentials for new ones, and retiring credentials for former users. 
• Support tickets: Admins may address support tickets themselves or assign them to another party. 
• Analysis: Admins are responsible for developing new solutions and features. They will be in charge of gathering the information needed to create these features. 
• Configuration: The administrator manages all changes to configurations across the Salesforce suite of products and tools. 
• Maintenance: System maintenance will also be the responsibility of the admin, as well as keeping proper records of changes. 
• Training: Creating programs that teach low-code users how to develop is an essential part of day-to-day management. 
• Connecting business and tech: Above all, the admin translates various business processes into applications that work in Salesforce. 

Regular Challenges

• Conflicting priorities: The Salesforce admin is responsible for all development on the app, but different departments will have conflicting priorities. Someone in operations may want an app centered around workflows or supply chains. Marketing may lean toward more consumer-facing options. Both will believe their project should take priority. It will be up to the admin to decide. 
• Information silos: Departmental silos will always be a problem for Salesforce admins, as they have to collaborate across the organization to set and reach goals. 
• Learning barriers: Salesforce is a low-code platform, but it's still complex and often introduces new features. Like any other platform, there will be different levels of user proficiency, which the admin must navigate. 
• Errors and misconfigurations: Misconfigurations and errors happen in any development environment. Low-code is no exception. The Salesforce admin will be in charge of rooting out these issues and correcting them. 

To be successful in the role of Salesforce admin, you'll have to be prepared to address many of the above challenges from day one. While many skills can be learned, successful admins bring certain qualities to the table.

Essential Qualities of a Salesforce Admin

The right person to lead an enterprise Salesforce initiative will have a unique combination of hard and soft skills. Some essential traits include: 

Communication and collaboration

A Salesforce admin must excel in a team environment. They must be able to work with individuals across departments, resolve disputes, and clearly explain decisions and goals. 

Technical knowledge 

While a Salesforce admin doesn't have to be a developer, there should be some base level of technical understanding. Even more important is the ability to learn new tech skills as Salesforce adds new features often. 

Business process expertise

Salesforce is an easy program for the right person to learn. Meanwhile, it takes years to learn the ins and outs of a specific business. Because admins manage business-critical Salesforce initiatives, they must have a deep understanding of business processes. 

Adaptability

In this age of Agile development, a Salesforce admin will rarely do the same thing twice. Their role will be ever-evolving and changing along with the technology they support. 

Attention to detail

In development, a misplaced comma or extra line break can break code and introduce defects. While this is less risky in a low-code environment, it's important not to get complacent. The Salesforce admin must uphold the same attention to detail and high standards as if they were working in a traditional development environment. 

Someone with these attributes has the baseline skills to be a Salesforce administrator. One final key component is professional curiosity. Good Salesforce admins will seek out ways to improve their skills. 

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Expand Your Skill Set

There are a few different credentials that Salesforce admins can obtain to expand their skills and highlight their knowledge. Salesforce offers its own credentialing program, Trailhead. Admins typically start here, but this should just be the first step. Admins must pursue continuous education to adapt to platform upgrades and changing development trends. 

Low-Code Skills are in Demand

Right now, low-code is a major focus in the development community. Certifications centered on it are highly sought after. The best credentials to have are ones that demonstrate you can fill existing skill gaps in the development process.

Salesforce testing is the perfect example. Many admins are great at creating new solutions and programs, but they don't have a lot of experience in testing or automated testing. One development best practice powered by automation is continuous testing. In this, testing occurs early and often to catch problems when they are small and manageable. This is an area of opportunity in Salesforce. However, many automated testing solutions require extensive coding knowledge and heavy maintenance. This means you’ve simply shifted the skills gap from development to testing.

Organizations can solve this problem by bringing in low-code test automation solutions. Copado Robotic Testing is quickly rising as the go-to solution for testing on the Salesforce platform. It allows admins to create the tests they need in a low-code environment. A certificate course to learn this tool eliminates a common skills gap for Salesforce admins. Individuals who would like to pursue the Copado Robotic Testing certification will need to complete the modules in the Copado Robotic Testing Certification Trail to prepare. You can learn about different trails, including testing and CI/CD training, by exploring Copado's various certifications.

With a Copado Robotic Testing Certification, Salesforce admins can demonstrate they have essential skills that will grow more critical in the years to come. Development is accelerating, specifically with regards to low-code. Testing is vital but, without the right training, it can be time-consuming and difficult. Administrators who get certified in Copado Robotic Testing make their development process more resilient and make testing more efficient. 

Stay Ahead of Changes 

Credentials can prove skills, but they alone won't completely prepare Salesforce admins for the future. The best way to stay proactive is to communicate with other Salesforce administrators. Insights about their organizations, the solutions they've created, and how they've used the program can help guide your own decisions. Salesforce's Trailblazer community can be an excellent resource for finding other tools, forums, and expertise. The Copado Academy includes paths to help admins master both testing and CI/CD. There are also industry blogs to follow, including Salesforce's own and tech-focused publications, like TechCrunch, WIRED, VentureBeat, etc.

A day in the life of a Salesforce admin is rarely the same from one to the next. There will always be new challenges and opportunities to grow. The most successful people to take on this role are heavily focused on continuing education so they can meet these challenges head-on.