Principal Admin Evangelist at Salesforce,
and you are watching, "How I Solved It."
Where we dive into a business challenge,
and show how one #AwesomeAdmin chose to solve it.
Today I am joined by #AwesomeAdmin, Jessie Whitney.
Thanks for having me, Gillian.
Jessie, can you tell us about a recent business challenge
where you were able to use data
to help the business deliver success?
The challenge was, the business didn't know
how it was performing year-over-year,
across the business segments.
So leadership didn't have informed ways to make decisions
about investments and planning.
I knew I could figure this out in Salesforce,
so I tinkered around with Reports and Formula Fields,
to build a dashboard that provides
a clear picture of this data.
Jessie, it sounds like you built
a pretty powerful solution.
Let me show you how I solved it.
The first step was figuring out
what a year-over-year report looks like.
So I did some research to find some examples.
I learned that year-over-year reporting
was about tracking trends by month and by year,
which I knew I could do with Salesforce.
First I dug into Reports.
I started with the standard Opportunity report,
and was able to group deals that had been closed one,
So it seems like you've almost got
that year-over-year report,
with just using that Opportunity report type.
This isn't a year-over-year report,
because the data is grouped by all the months in a year,
not by the individual months over multiple years.
I wanted to see all January, for each year, in one group,
not all months from 2019.
What I did was, go into my chart options,
I added the group by month and by year, to the Y-axis,
But I was still not able to see all the January,
for each year, in one group.
So that's when I decided to create a formula field
to capture the month without a year.
So let's talk about that for a minute.
You were able to get the month separated,
but not organized by year, which you need
to get that year over-year-report to look right.
Tell me more about this formula field.
So I needed a way to pull the month
but still have a reference to the current year.
I also needed to display this month as a name,
After doing some research, I figured this could be done
with the function for case and month.
Month, used to capture the month value for the closed date,
and display it as a number.
Case is used to replace the number
with the text of my choosing, example, 01 Jan.
So I love that you're using a function
that not everybody uses every day,
So now that you've got this formula field
to display the month without the year,
Well, we've got to use a Formula Field and a Report.
First, let's get rid of this closed date, two column,
which is grouped by month,
and replace it with my new year-over-year formula field.
You can see the year-over-year formula field in effect,
because the year-over-year column displays the month,
Next, I'm going to move the closed date by year column over,
so that we organize the data by year, and then by month.
I also need to add the amount field to Report
and make sure it's set to Summarize.
This means we will see the amount
and the year-over-year grouping.
Now we've got a true year-over-year report
that shows us how the business is performing every January,
Boom! Jessie, that is awesome.
Such a simple yet powerful way to solve your problem
and track year-over-year performance.
but I wanted to take it up another level.
Oh! Well then, Jessie, you know we got to level up.
All right, Gillian, here we go.
Since I now have this report built,
I can filter by any field on the Opportunity
or related objects like Account Type.
Now I can make a copy of this report
for each business segment I want to report on,
meaning, I can have a report for customers,
and a report for partners.
Okay, so you're saying that
because you built your solution
using a standard object like Opportunities,
you can pull any data from the Opportunity,
or any related object like Account Type,
That's one of the best parts about building with Salesforce.
There's so much standard, out of the box functionality,
that you can use to build powerful solutions quickly.
The true power of Salesforce, right?
Being able to extend your solutions across the platform
because of the pre-built architecture.
So I know you didn't stop there though, Jessie.
I have a feeling you've got more to show me.
We aren't fully leveled up yet.
I wanted a way to display this year-over-year data,
that was easy to understand.
So by using my original year-over-year report,
and the filtered copy I created for each business segment,
In this dashboard, you can see the overall
year-over-year performance of the company,
and how each business segment is performing.
That makes it easy for leadership to see
which parts of the business are growing,
when and if there are any trends over time,
and help make informed decisions
about where to invest and make changes.
This is the ultimate business analysis dashboard.
It is beautiful, it is powerful.
The ultimate business dashboard, 100%.
Now, I can hear the wows of your execs,
seeing this for the first time,
tell me, what was their reaction
to this beautiful solution you built?
when I showed them how you can view it on mobile.
That meant that they could access the data,
no matter where they were.
And Gillian, there's one more thing.
What's really great about this solution,
is that it can work on any object,
Opportunities, Leads, Accounts, you name it.
So you can extend this year-over-year reporting
for lots of other parts of the business.
Jessie, thank you so much
for sharing that great demo with us,
and showing us how you solved it.
As admins, we know how important communication is.
Everything from building strong relationships
to translating business requirements
into technical solutions.
I'd love to hear your thoughts
on how admins can work in a collaborative team environment
It starts with involving business groups.
Identify the people that represent sales,
marketing, operations, and so on,
that are interested in improving the system.
Form a team that drives meaningful changes
Next, it's about communicating regularly on pending changes.
Communicate project priorities and timelines clearly.
And finally, make time for training and open forums.
Have regular events for questions and answers,
and training for the company.
If you are open and available,
users will become much more comfortable asking you for help.
When I talk to admins from all corners of the earth
one thing that always comes up, is problem solving.
What are some ways in which admins
can better solve business problems using Salesforce?
First, document everything.
Use a documentation tool and use Salesforce descriptions.
Document the purpose of the field,
the reason for the new flow version, et cetera.
Leave yourself breadcrumbs in the system
so you can identify root causes of problems.
Interview before you act.
By asking the person who reported the problem, questions,
you can further understand what needs to be resolved.
Sometimes knowledge transfers the solution,
sometimes the problem is bigger than you think it is.
You won't know until you ask questions.
And finally, be a lifelong learner.
I have found so many answers through Trailhead.
Be proactive and study Salesforce a little bit every day.
Jessie, so many great tips.
But before we wrap up, I'm going to ask you for some more.
Can you tell everyone your top three business analysis tips?
Number one, use personas.
Keep the user in mind when building solutions.
Number two, communicate, communicate, communicate.
One-on-ones, workshops, committees, surveys.
And number three, be an advocate and a trusted advisor.
When there's a problem, someone can't do their job properly,
keep a cool head and show empathy.
Well, this was so much fun, Jessie.
Thank you so much for being our guest today
If you'd like to learn more
about what you saw in today's episode,
please visit admin.salesforce.com.
With that, I'm Gillian Bruce,
and I'll catch you next time in the cloud.
