Salesforce Event Monitoring - Bring out the Sherlock/Bond in you!

Event Monitoring - Another great module in Trailhead and one of my dream job related stuff - Detective!

Salesforce.com provides many ways to keep your data secure with security settings like Org Wide Defaults, Profiles, Field Level Security, etc. There are Prevention and Tracking methods – prevention to keep away data from being exposed to unwanted users/sources, and Tracking to find out the culprit.

Apart from the conventional Audit Trail and Login Hours/IP Ranges Tracking there are loads of other “event” tracking provided by Salesforce.com. Event Monitoring in Salesforce provides 29 types of events such as Login, Logout, UI Tracking (SF1), API Calls, Report Exports, etc. Ever wondered if you could find the culprit who exported a report? With Event Monitoring you can!

All log files of Event Monitoring are available in Enterprise, Unlimited and Performance Edition at an additional cost, while login and logout log files are available for free. The good news is,the Developer Edition has free access to all 29 log files. Note that it is available only after 24 hours and is stored for only 24 hours in DE. This is an API-only feature for now;it’s not available in Setup area. That means to view various “events” you need to access EventLogFile through Workbench or any other similar tools.

Using the Workbench you can query the number of EventLogFile records. Also you can explore the attributes and fields of this object to understand it a little deeper. All these are simple and straight forward. Now, viewing the event records in Workbench is challenging, especially because of the format of the output provided by REST Explorer or SOAP (SOQL Query Editor).

There are many ways to view these files in a more ‘readable’ format like .csv. Easiest of them all is event log file browser application. This downloads the log into .csv file. If there are too many event log records, going through each of them in excel/csv is cumbersome. Some of the tools that will help in reading/understanding the data - Salesforce Analytics Cloud, Splunk App, CloudLock and CloudLock Viewer, ezCloudAudit.

After strong prevention, if still there were some loopholes in securing your data, with these techniques you can trace them easily. 

Trailhead - the best learning tool for Salesforce out there!

I am a huge fan of Trailhead. I have no doubt in saying it is indeed the "best" learning tool for Salesforce. Till Trailhead came there was only Partner training videos (which is only for Salesforce Partners), lots of docs and videos out there. Now there is Trailhead - one stop for everything. Other channels which I mentioned are still there, as Trailhead is in beta. The way it is structured - the contents, the challenges, the points and badges - is just perfect. For checking the challenges, one or more Developer Edition can be connected. Trailhead connects to this DE to validate if you have completed the challenge.

I have been tweeting about how good it is for experienced for brushing up and for freshers. We at Extentor, have in house training program for the freshers. Now, Trailhead is integral part of that. It makes the training so much easier and measurable. It covers from basics of Force.com to Apex and Visualforce basics to testing, including Chatter and Change Management.

Now, there are 16 modules. There are more awesome ones coming... soon, very soon. Check them out:

My favourite out of 16 are......................... all 16! But if I have to choose one, then it would be Process Automation.

 It has 5 steps:

1. Choosing the Right Automation Tool - Explains the various automation tools in Salesforce. There is a beautiful chart/table which breaks down of all the features and actions that are supported. It is super helpful in identifying right tool for specific use case.
2. Automating Processes with the Lightning Process Builder - This module enabled me to go for Lightning hands on. I took this much seriously than other modules. Boy, its a great tool, truly has lightning power. Point to note that this was released exactly couple of weeks before the famous #lightningdevweek.This module has the step by step instructions for creating automated process, in the awesome Lightning Process Builder. Here the challenge at the end of module is hands on, which is the best part of Trailhead. This challenge showed me that it takes less than 5 minutes to do task which used to take 30 minutes - 1 hour, writing triggers, test classes. Future is fast and bright!
3. Creating Wizards with Visual Workflow - I loved this module for the simple reason that it connected me back to Visual Workflow. I used it when it was released and for some weeks when it was hot. But had lost touch since I wasn't using this tool. The write up is awesome with steps to enable us to work with Flows. There screenshots which makes it much easier to understand and navigate. It has great hands on challenge, for which I had to take help from the Discussion Forum to resolve.
4. Automating Time-based Actions with Workflow - Again the instructions, the way of explanation is very good, again with screenshots, bullet points and videos. Then there is the challenge which was easy since I use workflows regularly.
5. Routing Records with Approvals - Similar to workflows, I regularly use approvals. But the module helped me to brush up my knowledge and make it stronger.

All the modules had an example use case, step by step instruction on creating it with each tool. Along with that each module also has "Tell Me More..." section in the end which provides additional information of each module. Also it has the "Resources" section with links to various articles, PDFs, in case if you are interested in learning deeper.

I am very much excited about the new modules and aim to contribute to topics to the Trailhead team. A big kudos to the entire team for providing Trailhead for us. You guys are awesome :)

Lightning Developer Week - Bangalore Salesforce Developer Meetup

#lightningdevweek

#golightningfast

#SalesforceDGBangalore

My goodness, what an amazing energetic week it was! This was as part of Salesforce's initiative to meet the power of Salesforce1 Lightning. Lots of buzz was created around this prior to the Lightning Week – week of March 9. This helped to spread the news in lightning speed! From the beginning I was keeping an eye open for number of RSVPs across all participating Meetup Groups. We, Bangalore Salesforce Developer Group, were always ahead. Finally we were the highest, with 500+ people registering (I am sure its a world record, in Salesforce world).

After lots of preparation and planning (which I have noted in the bottom of this post), the day (14/03/2015) arrived. We were given 200 (yes 200!) t-shirts from Salesforce. Thanks a ton to April, our pillar for all the meetups. I bet that was one of the key booster for the record number of RSVPs. Thanks to Tavant for the making the venue look awesome. We expected 50% attendance, as per our experience. To our pleasant surprise there were 300+ amazing rockstars attended :) As a surprise gift in return, along with Salesforce's Lightning t-shirt, attendees were given a kit which included 8GB pendrive by Tavant. It was definitely one of the key highlights. The remaining folks' email IDs and details were taken so that we can send the t-shirts when we get it.

First, I presented the welcome and introduction, which included about our meetup group, about agenda. Yes, I made sure that I announce about the highest number of participation and RSVPs. After that Tavant's Dipankar presented a brief about Tavant. Then I finally introduced and handed over to the presenters - Pratik and Kiran - Developer Advocate Engineer, India Developer Relations, Salesforce.com. They did a fantastic job in ensuring that each of the attendees followed the topics covered. Hats-off to both of you.

The covered topics were:

1. Lightning Overview
2. Lightning Connect - Hands on
3. Lightning Process Builder - Hands on
4. Lightning Components - Overview/demo
5. Lightning App Builder - Overview/demo

Feel free to click on the links above, which takes you to the tutorials. 

We agreed to keep the hands-on for Components and App Builder for our next meetup (April). Feel free to join our meetup group for exciting announcements.

Overall I am very happy and satisfied with results of the meetup. There were brilliant questions asked by the folks in between the presentation and during the hands-on. Bangalore crowd is always interactive and friendly. The folks grouped themselves to do the hands-on, since some of them did not have internet connection, which ensured the network/socialization was better. Great to know from the attendees that they enjoyed, as well as learned. Most attendees were able to do hands-on by themselves. It was great to see some rockstars finish the hands-on early and were able to help other folks. Kudos to you guys! In the end many of the attendees reached out to us with various questions regarding lightning, meetup agendas, sponsoring venues, etc. instead of attacking pizzas. Felt really good.

Some highlights according to me, presenters and attendees about this meetup:

• No. of RSVPs - 500+, No. of attendees - 300+
• Registration app for spot registration.
• Naming the event as 'Namma' (which means 'ours' in Kannada, local language Karnataka state)
• Hands-on is always interesting and is magnet for any tech event.
• The goodies - T-shirts, hoodies, pen drives.
• The Cloud Trivia - as always the most awaiting. The response was electric. I conducted it and asked more people to help me in identifying the first one amongst 50 (at least) hands raising at once soon after the question was asked.
• I had asked to vote for pizzas - Dominos or Pizza Hut. Majority had voted for Pizza Hut. We listened! [Salesforce Idea Exchange style :) ]. We brought more Pizza Hut pizzas and lesser number of Dominos pizza.

If you are organizing any meetup (especially if there are many attendees) following are some considerations:

• The basics: Ensure the venue has good internet connection (if not ask the attendees to arrange for internet), projectors, audio (microphones and speakers) are all working fine. Best if there are enough plug points for charging.
• Joining/registering for meetup:
• Registering (clicking on RSVP) for meetup is very easy. Folks tend to click on this and forget to update if they are not able to make it on the day.
• One of the feedback (thanks Sumeet Kawali), as well as from my experience, it is best that you create a registration app or a Google Form to capture more information. Most meetup groups(other than Salesforce) are using Google Form.
• Watch-out my blog - I am working on a small Salesforce app for this.
• Cloud Trivia: Prepare these questions in advance. Modify it according to the topics presented (there can be changes in plan). Have more than one person to identify the first person to raise the hand.
• Distribution of goodies/welcome kit: Always have volunteers do this. Don't allow attendees to pick for themselves. This is best done along with the registration.
• Snacks break: Again, best if the caterers or volunteers do this. If you let attendees help themselves, if the plan was for specific number of bottles/pieces then some last comers would miss. Encourage new people to socialize; request known faces to pull some shy members and talk to them.

We have noted some of the areas where, as organizers could have done better job, especially considering no. of people. We wont (& don't) repeat our mistakes!

I would be very glad if you can share your thoughts in the comments section.

See you in next meetup :)

Note: Photos coming soon..

Bangalore Salesforce.com Developer Meetup - January 2015

Finally, we were able to conduct the first meetup of 2015, with the help of Madan and Abhishek (and all of the enthusiastic crowd present). The venue and the sessions were fixed up 1 week prior to the meetup - which we are aiming to plan much ahead from next time.

As always, there were 100+ RSVPs for this time. Around 30-40 turned up. First we introduced each other, discussed about DF'14, till the start of the first session.

I, being the organizer, took up one of the sessions - My Certification Experience. This wasn't challenging for me, as I had to share about my experience before/while/after taking up the certification exams. I have 6 certifications, by the way ;)

Then we had a snacks/tea/coffee break. People mingled with each other, got to know more about each other. There were some customers who took part and asked benefits of Salesforce over other products. It was such a great opportunity for me to justify Salesforce.com. I hope they have clear answers now ;)

+Abhishek Tripathi positively took up the challenge and agreed to take up the 2nd session - Spring'15 release. It was great session, as there were some nice discussions took place. 

After that we had the Cloud Trivia. As always the energy in the hall was fabulous. Even guys who were still thinking about certifications, some of great Spring'15 releases, took part energetically. 

Congratulations to the winners of some cool goodies:

• Tanay
• Rajesh, Mangesh (Freshers)
• Sujesh
• Aditya
• Abhishek Raj
• Praveen
• Neeraj
• Swaraj Behera (Twitter Hero - Most tweets with #SalesforceDGBangalore).

It was a very satisfying experience. I look forward to making this meetup more consistent and more awesome, as we discussed. There will be more and more technical sessions in future meetups. See you soon :)

It becomes difficult to manage your job plus additional initiatives you take up, especially if there are deadlines every now and then. But I think I have cracked the secret behind managing time to do things which I love - Force.com Discussion Forum and Meetups.

Salesforce.com Certified Service Cloud Consultant

An opportunity was given to me to get certified - either Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. I chose Service Cloud as I found it more challenging and difficult (from my colleagues, less number posts, my lack of experience in Service Cloud compared to Sales Cloud). I passed Service Cloud Consultant exam on Tuesday (23rd April 2013).

Whenever I go for certification first things I do are:

• Go through Study Guide - get an idea which topics to go in detail, which ones to brush up
• Check Blogs - As usual I found Bob's (a.k.a +Keir Bowden) blog extremely useful. Also as mentioned in his blog +Jeff Douglas's blog was the base for his preparation. I am grateful to these gurus.

Both blogs have covered enough detail what needs to be done in order to pass. All I can do is to include new features that were released much after these blogs were written. Couple of features that you may want be aware of:

• Live Agent
• Changes in Portal licenses
• Answers, Chatter Answers, Case Feeds

As summary I can recall these areas from which scenario based questions [as a Consultant what would you suggest, what would you consider etc.] were asked (apologies if this repeated from those blogs):

• Analytics - many questions on what kind of report would be helpful to determine specific use case
• Entitlements, Knowledge (Article Type, Data Categories) - there were good number of questions around these
• Service Cloud Console related questions were also 
• Portal license - 1 or 2 questions on this
• There were few straight-forward questions (surprisingly) on - tools used for migration, order of data loading etc.

Partner training videos helped me big time, as well as the cheatsheet PDFs. Just knowing the feature is not enough, you need to know how it can be applied, what is best for a given scenario. Many of the videos can help you in this but if you have work experience then there is no match for that.

While writing exam I slowly started hating Universal Containers, but once I saw "Pass" after submitting I thought - Ok, they are in trouble, they need help :)

Be confident once you have covered the topics in study guide. All the best!