Salesforce projects explained in 12 sticky notes

“three persons in front of table” by rawpixel on Unsplash

“What do you do for work?”

“What does implementing Salesforce look like?”

If you have a Salesforce career, you have probably faced these questions from friends and family and struggled with how to respond to them.

I often think about how to explain my job in a relatable way or what to say to a client who is about to embark on a Salesforce implementation project. Because I love illustrations, analogies, and storytelling, here’s my attempt at explaining Salesforce projects in a fun and creative way.

“Think of it like remodeling a home…”

Meet the Owlie family: Papa, Mama, Sister, and Brother.

1) Imagine your company wants to start using Salesforce. It’s like a family wanting to move into a new home.

The Owlie family signs a lease for a luxury apartment unit in the Cloud building.

2) You bought some Salesforce licenses, which is similar to a family signing a rental lease for an apartment unit. In the same way that the family shares the building infrastructure with other tenants, your company shares the underlying system architecture with other Salesforce customers.

The Owlies imagining what their new home could look like.

3) You are very excited to start using Salesforce. But first, you need to customize the system to fit your business’ needs, just like how a family would remodel a home before moving in.

The Owlies hire the Trailblazer team: Astro, Cloudy, and Codey, to work with them on the new home.

4) It is a daunting task to remodel a home on your own: you need help. That’s the same with a Salesforce project. Salesforce implementation partners come to and work side by side with you to customize the system.

Astro guides the Owlie family through the remodeling process.

5) Your implementation team will spend time understanding your needs and desires, providing recommendations, and coming up with a system design.

Cloudy and Codey get to work. They are the builders and makers who bring the design to life.

6) Once a design is agreed upon, your implementation team begins building the system.

Cloudy remodels the room layout and tailors each room for each family member.

7) Your implementation team sets up mechanisms to distinguish the different business processes within your company, similar to building walls to divide the home into different rooms. And just like how each family member gets to design their own room, each department within your company can have different sets of Salesforce features.

Cloudy works with the Owlie family to purchase furniture from The Appy Furniture Store.

8) They can also download and install pre-built apps from the AppExchange store, much like buying furniture from a store that provides free delivery and installation services.

Cloudy loves putting IKEA furniture together for the Owlie family.

9) Some Salesforce features can be built without any code. These are like ready-to-assemble furniture pieces from IKEA: the building blocks are already there, you simply need to assemble them.

Codey gets his paws dirty as he installs new panels and outlets to rewire the home’s electrical system.

10) Other features require coding in Salesforce if the existing building blocks are not sufficient to meet your needs. This type of work usually requires more effort, such as drilling through the walls of your home to upgrade the electrical system.

The Owlie family dreams of a smart home and they love their virtual home assistant, Einstein.

11) There are also other advanced features like “Internet of things” which connects smart devices to Salesforce and Einstein, Salesforce’s artificial intelligence platform.

The Owlies’ housewarming party.

12) When all this “remodeling” work is completed, you can now start using the Salesforce system that is uniquely customized for you!