Salesforce - Learning Resources

In my previous blog post, I have indicated that there are plenty of products and services offered by Salesforce to serve diverse needs of the customers. Learning about each of these products indeed requires lot of time, effort and learning resources. So, the big question in mind is where to start as there are plethora of learning resources and also how does one gets access to the salesforce application for learning & experimenting. Well, for learners Salesforce has sorted this out by providing few great options as follows:

• Free lifetime Developer Edition (don’t worry it’s not only for developers/coders) It's a fully featured copy of the salesforce platform and can be created by signing up at: https://developer.salesforce.com/signup

• Free Online Learning platform known as Trailhead which has various courses (called trails) and combination of courses (called trailmixes). An interesting aspect of this platform is gamification of the learning wherein you earn badges and points to achieve higher ranks on the platform.

• Salesforce Certifications (Paid - unless you are lucky to win a free certification voucher by completing trails or participating in various salesforce/company events). Certifications helps you to add value to your resume and let the world know that you have mastered to an extent the concepts around a particular salesforce product or expertise area.  More details about salesforce certifications for various roles available at https://trailhead.salesforce.com/credentials/

• Trailblazer Community It’s a great way to learn and connect with other salesforce users who come here to share their problems and solutions while using the salesforce platform. It’s a very active and vibrant social networking engine which can connect you to plenty of people, resources, events and happenings in Salesforce Ohana (Ohana means Family in Hawaiian language, get used to some Hawaiian keywords like Ohana, Aloha etc.. as Salesforce uses lots of them may be due to its CEO’s deep connection with Hawaiian Culture…that’s how I read it somewhere 😊)

• Trailblazer Community Groups  There are many local groups formed in all the prominent cities/countries and Salesforce encourages and supports local connections to further nurture the Salesforce Eco-System by building local community groups. I got a chance to attend one of the local events in my city and was amused to see the talent and passion of individuals coming together to solve problems and share their knowledge. Free Goodies and an opportunity to interact directly with Salesforce leaders was indeed an icing on the cake. 😊

Looking at the available options, one thing is for sure that Salesforce is investing considerably to build and provide an eco-system towards democratizing the learning of Salesforce. I feel this is also one of the vital reasons for its success as one of the leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System. It’s not that difficult to embark upon the journey to learn Salesforce when you know there are plenty of learning resources and a vibrant community available to help you solve problems and become a Salesforce professional.

Hauʻoli hele ana (‘Happy Journey’ in Hawaiian language. Courtesy google translator)

Salesforce - A Brief History and its Product Offerings

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce (also known as SFDC, salesforce.com) is world’s leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application hosted on the cloud platform. Salesforce is easily accessible from a web browser through Internet. Salesforce also has mobile application versions for both iOS and Android Operating Systems allowing users to access salesforce features on mobile devices.

History of Salesforce

Salesforce was founded in year 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez. It has grown to become the world’s largest CRM company and in year 2018 reported earnings of US$127 million, with an annual revenue of US$10.480 billion. Salesforce ranked 285 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States (US) companies by revenue with 29000+ employees worldwide.

Salesforce Products & Services

Salesforce has divided its products and service into various categories to support each stage of the Customer Journey as follows:

Category	Salesforce Product	Product Description
Marketing (Pre-Sales)	Marketing Cloud	Marketing Cloud helps build and manage marketing campaigns e.g. e-mail marketing, mobile messaging, social media marketing etc.
Sales	Sales Cloud	Sales Cloud helps in Sales processes e.g. Lead Management, Accounts and Contact Management etc.
Service	Service Cloud	Service Cloud helps in servicing the customers by customising support and help desk functions like Case Management, E-mail Support, customer self-service portals etc.
Community	Community Cloud	Community Cloud allows to build portals that connects employees, customer, partners and business processes to enable seamless collaboration.
Commerce	Commerce Cloud	Commerce Cloud allows to build great shopping experiences and channels for the customers.
Analytics	Analytics Cloud	Analytics Cloud helps provides business analytics through comprehensive data analysis & in-built artificial intelligence.
Others	Financial Services Cloud	Financial Services Cloud is a CRM offering targeted specifically for Banking, Financial Services and Insurance Industry.
Marketing (Pre-Sales)	Pardot	Pardot helps in customising and automating business to business (B2B) Marketing activities.
Community	Chatter	Chatter allows to create a social networking experience at an enterprise level.
Others	Salesforce IoT	Salesforce IoT helps to connect the internet of things (smart devices etc.) with CRM system.
Others	Salesforce Integration (Mulesoft AnyPoint Platform)	Salesforce Integration product was included in Salesforce products portfolio through an acquisition of a company called Mulesoft. Mulesoft AnyPoint Platform allows to integrate other systems likes Oracle, SAP, Workday etc. with Salesforce.

Source of Information & link to various Salesforce Products & Offerings: 

https://www.salesforce.com/in/products/

Jai Shree Ganesh from an emerging Salesforce Professional !!!!!

Learning can transform a person and a world. We can easily observe the progress made through learning by looking at developments in Science, Culture, and engineering. One of the many marvellous creations of engineering is software.

Software Systems are omnipresent then be it a personal cell phone or a commercial airplane. It is not infrequent that the life of people today depends on the friction less and reliable functioning of the software. Testing and Analysis of software systems therefore becomes an increasingly important task which requires well-founded education, continual learning and professionalism.

This is what excited me to opt for Testing and Analysis of Software as my career choice and all my education and work has revolved around the field of Software Systems. Over the course of past 14 years I have worked with many business and technology professionals to help build and test software systems that are fit for the purpose. While working on various software projects over these years, one of the greatest learning was that understanding actual business usage and meticulously capturing the business requirements for software systems is critical to the success. Thus, slowly I developed an inclination towards Business Analysis profession and started working towards being a Business Analyst while keeping my passion for testing software.

Recently, one of my Project Delivery Managers spotted the spark and allocated me as a Business Analyst for one of the Salesforce projects. I have been working on Salesforce application for almost a year now and my love and passion for this Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System has been growing day by day because of ease of doing business, availability of learning resources and above all plenty of Salesforce Career opportunities from Administrator to Architect level.

This is where I thought to start sharing my Salesforce experience with others through this blog/website.  My goal is to make SalesforceProfessional.com an instantly accessible source and connection to the knowledge and learning about Salesforce and market myself as an emerging Salesforce Professional.

Please remember learning is an ongoing progress that happens inside our heads so is the development of this website. Over the coming months, I will add various posts/sections on the website and pretty sure you will be convinced with the efforts. If not - I'd be happy if you took time to give feedback.

I believe sharing is caring and knowledge sharing is above all forms of sharing thus let’s do Shree Ganesh (religious/auspicious way of starting something good) of SalesforceProfessional.com.

Jai Shree Ganesh!!!!!