A Simple Rule to Prevent ‘Dear John L.’ in Emails - #DataQuality, @Salesforce

I have a thing about naming conventions and consistent data.

I often see Lead and Contact records where the First Name is something like “John L.”, even though I have added a Middle Initial field.

I personally would prefer not including a middle name at all, but it is something that is widely accepted in our industry. So, I’m doing my best to keep my users happy.

Here’s the simple rule that should effectively nip this in the bud.

It works the same for Leads and Contacts.

Yay for data quality!

Update

You can also prevent users from entering “John T” (without a period) by changing the error condition formula to this:

OR(
   CONTAINS(FirstName, "."),
   CONTAINS(RIGHT(FirstName,2)," ")
)

This formula runs if either:

1. There’s a period in the First Name field, or
2. The second character from the end of the First Name field is a space.

Thanks @hak_a_tak for the suggestion!

Admin Journal: Preventing My @Salesforce Users from Including Time-Specific Information in Description Fields with a #Simple Validation Rule

I’ve noticed while doing data cleaning that some users add date-specific information to Description fields on Accounts, Leads or Contacts.

Why This is Bad

No one may notice ‘must follow up by 12/11/2007 or earth will explode’ in the Description of a record such as an Account. That could be bad news.

An Easy Fix (Sorta)

To encourage users to log this information in the most efficient way, I an create a validation rule that looks for keywords in the Description field of a specific object, such as Account.

I can customize the rule based on the typical phrases that I know my users enter, such as ‘follow up on’.

I like to include a detailed error message so that the user will have a good idea of what their next step should be.

Error: You have included a 'Follow up' task in the Description field, where it may be overlooked. Please remove that reference from the Description field and add it instead as a related task.

I gave it a quick test and it worked.

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to accomplish the same thing, but this simple rule is one way to gently herd my users in the right direction.

 

Additional Resources

• Haven’t heard of Salesforce? Find out about it here.

 

Jenna Baze is a rather geeky girl with average social skills and an affinity for: all things Google, Remember the Milk, Salesforce.com, Inbox Zero, Etsy, natural light photography and finding creative ways to avoid doing dishes (which includes updating a handful of blogs).
Email: rathergeeky@gmail.com
Twitter: @RatherGeeky
Facebook: Rather Geeky Tips

Just for kicks: Gmail Conversation View

I’ve heard from some Outlook holdouts that they just can’t give up Conversation View and switch to Gmail.

I decided to turn off Conversation View in Gmail.

My inbox normally looks like this:

When I turned Conversation View off, it looked like this:

Really? People prefer this? Ick. I had to turn it back.

The New User (without) Experience – Jumping Into Salesforce - Admin Journal

Introducing a new feature: Admin Journal, where I share my thoughts and experiences as a Salesforce Administrator of an org with around 45 users. As always, the opinions that I express are my own, not that of my employer.

--

As you might know, I’m the Administrator for a Salesforce org. And I just experienced something that knocked my socks off.

Last week, I was notified to add a new user for a recent hire. We attempted to set up a time for me to train him but hadn’t yet decided on a date.

He emailed me this morning to let me know that he had created his first opportunity.

I was nervous. He hadn’t received any training with Salesforce. All my explanations of lookups and naming conventions and related lists ran through my head.

Then I viewed the opportunity he created.

I paused.

I decided to write a blog post when I realized 140 characters wasn’t enough to express my thoughts.

It was one of the most beautiful records I’ve seen. Complete. Related information added. No glaring spelling errors.

<sigh>

Perhaps it’s the enthusiasm that comes along with starting a new job. I’m hoping it’s more… perhaps an inherent love of data quality. Ah, an admin’s dream: users that love data too.

This also speaks to the ease of use of the Salesforce platform. Even someone with no prior experience can get started using it right away.

So, thanks Salesforce for being awesome.

And thanks new user for totally making my day.

Jenna Baze is a rather geeky girl with average social skills and an affinity for: all things Google, Remember the Milk, Salesforce.com, Inbox Zero, Etsy, natural light photography and finding creative ways to avoid doing dishes (which includes updating a handful of blogs).
Email: rathergeeky@gmail.com
Twitter: @Rather_Geeky
Facebook: Rather Geeky Tips