In order to make sure you feel comfortable using Salesforce at CES, we have designed a straight-forward onboarding checklist for new and existing employees. This checklist will grow as more features and training materials become available.
Obtain an Account
All CES employees will have an account created for them in Salesforce (If you are unsure if you have an account, please ask your supervisor). Each account will be assigned the necessary amount of permissions to perform the operations of the position.
Login to Salesforce
Visit https://collaborative.my.salesforce.com and click on Google Login. Select your Collaborative.org email address and proceed to the next step. Click Allow or Yes to any permission screens that appear.
Multi-Factor Authentication
Starting on February 1st, all Salesforce accounts will need to log in using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA is a process that includes 1 extra level of security when you log into your account. Beyond only using your username and password, you will also need to use a MFA tool such as the Salesforce Authenticator app or the Google Authenticator app on a physical device to log in.
Complete Profile
Salesforce user profiles are useful for other employees to get to know more about you and what you do. Upload a clear photo of yourself and enter as much information about your work and skills. These attributes may come in handy in the future if special projects arise that require us to tap into our internal talent pool.
What is Salesforce?
Familiarize yourself with the concepts of a CRM and how an agency like CES uses it to record our interaction with districts and other stakeholders.
Navigating Salesforce
Follow our Salesforce overview video to see how the system is laid out and divided based on record types and other functionality.
Chatter
Connect with other employees to learn more about each other’s work or discuss a contract in detail without losing the conversation in your Inbox.
Contacts and Organizations
The information we store about our stakeholders starts with an organization and contact record. Organizations are the physical entities that we do business with and the Contacts are the people involved. These object are used interchangeably across the Salesforce environment and it is important to know how they operate.
Managing Duplicates Contacts
While we try to limit duplication of contact records, they are ripe with user error. Learn how to identify and manage duplicate contacts as you find them in order to help keep our Salesforce data clean.
Managing Duplicates Organizations
While we try to limit duplication of organization records, they are ripe with user error. Learn how to identify and manage duplicate organizations as you find them in order to help keep our Salesforce data clean.
Creating and using Views
When you view an object you will first be presented with a table of records. This table is known as a View. Views are similar to Reports but are limited to only showing the data of the object you are viewing. You can change which columns display and add filters to narrow down the results.
Creating and using Reports
For creating more indepth visualizations beyond Views, you will need to learn how to use and create Reports. Reports allow you to display information from multiple object types, add columns from each, add filters to narrow down the results, and add visuals such as graphs to better represent the data.
Understanding the event system and hierarchy
One big feature of Salesforce is it’s ability to handle our complex event requirements. It’s important to understand how each object relates to one another and which are required in order to run an event, accept registrations, and take in payment.
Building an Event, Section, and Session
Learn to build an Event from scratch and set up the individual instances of it occuring and the meeting dates so you can take registration and attendence.
Online Registrations and Orders
Online Registration is offered for almost all of our events and allow our customers to sign up for one off workshops, register for licensure courses, sign up for PDPs, and keep their information up to date.
Awarding Credits and Generating Certificates
After someone attends an event, you will need to record their attendance and award any credits they received. Once they have met the requirements of the event, learn how to generate certificates that can be emailed directly to them.
What is a Need?
“Needs” are CES’ version of a lead or possible opportunity. When a CES employee communicates with one of our stakeholders and hears of an opportunity to provide a new service or offer our existing services, they can record a Need in Salesforce which can then be turned into a Contract.
Recording a new Need
Learn how to record your first Need, categorize it properly so others can find it, and assign it to someone if necessary.
Working with a Need and converting to a Contract
Once a Need is created it will then be managed by someone that can provide the service or help finalize the opportunity. During this process the Need can be filled with more information, Chatter updates to discuss the conversations talking place, mention other employees to get more help or buy in, and once awarded you can press the Convert to Contract button to create a new Contract, prefilled, for the Need so work can begin.
What types of Contracts are handled in Salesforce?
Contracts are used in various ways in CES in order to properly record, manage, bill, and report out. Learn about the different record types available, what types of fields they provide, and how they are used.
Building your first Contract
Follow our overview video to walkthrough creating your first contract. The process takes a broader approach and covers a wide range of scenarios that will also help you understand how other departments use contracts or even how you could better utilize the system to record your work.
Contract Approval and Amendment process
Once the contract is built it needs to go through an approval process before any work can be performed. After the contract is approved, there may be times when changes to the terms, scope, or amount are needed and it’s important that certain steps are followed.
Generating Contract Documents
Learn how to use Docomotion to generate rich contract documents which can be sent out or stored within the contract for later use.
Recording Contract Work
As you work or someone else works on the contract, there are different ways in which you can record that work so it can be billed later.
Billing
Either along the way or all at once you will need to bill for the work done on the contract. This step is crucial in making sure CES continues to bring in revenue and is used for creating projections for following fiscal years.
Completing a Contract
Once the contract is complete you will want to make sure you have successfully billed for all the work performed and have updated the record with the necessary statuses. It is also a good time to note on the contract any additional information or findings which can be helpful for yourself or others looking back on the work or if there are plans to do something similar in the future.
Building a Grant
Managing the development process
Awarding and Converting a Grant to a Grants Contract
Visit the Intranet’s Salesforce Training section
Our Intranet has a series of training videos, how to docs, and more related to the different aspects of Salesforce. We are constantly adding more resources to the Intranet so make sure to check back often.
Submit a ticket at the CES Support Portal
If you are facing an issue that you can’t get resolved through our training videos or other resources, please submit a ticket and include as much detail as possible and what steps you are performing in order for us to better reproduce the issue.
Contact Travis Johnston to schedule a training
If working one on one is easier for you, please reach out to Travis Johnston (tjohnston@collaborative.org) to schedule a training session or to answer any questions you have. Make sure to include details on what you are looking to do, what role you have, and how familiar you are with Salesforce.
