Where to Learn to “Admin”

Laying a foundation of the basics

Sometimes, you’re brand new to Salesforce, even as your organization’s admin, here are some resources to help you learn more of the basic skills and concepts:

• I like to reference the documentation from Salesforce:
  • Here’s the documentation on the NPSP
  • Here’s the documentation on Volunteers for Salesforce
  • Here’s the documentation on the PMM
• The NPSP Videography team creates great how-to videos (mostly 2 or 3 minutes)
  • Constituent Management videos cover contacts, households, and addresses, as well as a bit about campaigns and leads
  • Volunteers for Salesforce videos cover the basics of creating volunteer jobs and schedules
  • Program Management videos don’t dive too far into the PMM – yet, I know they are always looking for volunteers to help create more!
• Trailhead (Salesforce’s gamified approach to learning) has many great trails and modules, I would encourages someone new to Salesforce to proceed through the following to develop a base foundation of understanding:
  • Get Started with Trailhead 
  • Salesforce User Basics
  • Explore NPSP 
  • Fundraise with Nonprofit Cloud
  • PMM Basics
  • Service Delivery with PMM
  • Engagement Plans and Levels in NPSP 
  • Manage Volunteers 

Starting to tackle reports and settings

Okay, you’ve worked through the above, or you already have spent hours working in Salesforce and feel comfortable with it. Here are some resources to ‘lay the admin foundation,’ if you will:

• If you have little experience with databases and/or spreadsheets, I would encourage finding/taking an online course that explains data modeling and functions/formulas
  • The Admin Beginner Trailmix includes a good bit of this
  • W3Schools has a whole section on Excel with skills that would be helpful if you’re ever preparing data for import or upsert
• Reports! Reports can be one of the more difficult things to master in Salesforce – this trailmix can get you started on your path to becoming the resident report wrangler at your organization
• The NPSP Videography team has put together a Setup/Admin playlist that helps guide you through setting up/modifying the settings in the NPSP
• On Trailhead – these sort of straddle all of theses sections (you’ll see some items in there you completed previously (you don’t have to do them again))
  • Getting Started with Salesforce and the NPSP – Admins
  • Nonprofit Admin Onboarding Trailmix
• Subscribe to the PUB Crawl to get a weekly curated list of interesting, informative, and/or insightful posts from the Trailblazer Community
• A lot of admins share their knowledge with the world – here are a few that I have found helpful for more advanced issues:
  • MightyForce by Terry Cole includes great ideas and insight, along with a super helpful recap/review of each release (from a nonprofit customer perspective)
  • Michael Kolodner started Free Like a Puppy a few years ago, and shares their insight and great ideas for nonprofits using Salesforce
  • Sunshine and Other Unhandled Exceptions includes a number of Flow-related tutorials, and a lot of other helpful topics (and some insightful ones too), they include a lot of posts that are more relevant to nonprofit users
  • SalesforceBen (which is itself a great blog for all skill levels and user types) shared their list of the most popular admin blogs (thank you, SalesforceBen!)

Crossing into advanced skill sets

You’re feeling really comfortable using Salesforce, and starting to feel more and more comfortable with some of the things you’ve been adjusting in Setup and other settings. Here are resources to build on that and set you up for success:

• On Trailhead:
  • Admin Advanced trail includes advanced formulas, among other things
  • Superbadges include projects and steps to take in a (test) Salesforce org, letting you practice the skills as you learn them – there are a variety of different superbadges, but I think they can be especially helpful when you’re ready to learn Flow – the Flow Management Specialist Superbadge has a number of other Flow superbadges related as prerequisites – some of these will be tough, but they should help you learn all there is to know about working with Flows
• This may be a time when you consider testing for a Salesforce Certification – Salesforce.org offers a 50% discount on the costs of exams for nonprofit and educational institutions

Let’s not forget – other resources are out there

The above isn’t an exhaustive list, just a starting point. There are a few other items I wanted to share that may guide you to myriad other resources:

• Join a User Group – while these used to be focused on your local geographical area, the pandemic did grow some groups who even now continue to meet online
  • Join your local group, or any groups that interest you
• Webinars, one on one learning, and other resources are outlined by Salesforce here
  • Trailhead Academy classes are discounted 50% for nonprofit customers (woohoo!)
• The Trailblazer Community is the gathering place for all Salesforce users, and a great place to search for answers, ask your questions, and share your input, a few noteworthy groups:
  • App Advice and Consumer Reports is most helpful when looking to integrate a system with Salesforce (“how do I connect [insert other system here] to Salesforce?”)
  • Nonprofit and Education Mindshare is where people share blog posts, articles, videos, and other Salesforce-related nuggets of knowledge they’ve put together or found
  • Nonprofit Hub is where you can cast the “widest net” when asking a question related to the NPSP or Salesforce in general – with over 13,000 members, you’re in good company!
• Many online learning sites include Salesforce courses (e.g. Kahn Academy, Udemy)

If you’re still here, thank you for staying with me through this entire article. Here are some pet pics in appreciation 🙂