Become a Salesforce ☁️ Super 🚀 Admin with Chrome & extensions
Salesforce is a 💯% Cloud platform ☁️, so SF admins spend most of their time on a web browser.
Welcome! You are in the right place to learn how to use Chrome & extensions to become a Super 🚀Admin.
Note: this article describes the best practices & extensions used by our consultants @eFrontech
Chrome Profiles 🎭
Have you ever needed to have several Chrome instances on your PC to perform a test or to login to different Salesforce orgs at the same time? Chrome profiles is what you need!
This is a native feature of Chrome, which allows you to create profiles (people) to manage a fully isolated navigation sessions.
The Chrome profile can be created from the icon displayed at the top right of the browser
Then click on “Manage People” after “Add a person”, enter a profile name (person) and pick an icon
Chrome profiles allow a full isolation of your navigation, so we recommend that you create one profile per Salesforce project
Extension : Organizer ⚙️
Organizer is the Swiss Army Knife extension for Salesforce, it offers multiple features and is available on Chrome and Firefox
Here is a tour of the main features that we use the most at @eFrontech
Managing Salesforce logins
First, we recommend that you enable the “Incognito” mode (which will allow you to open sessions in the incognito mode)
The extension provides very convenient way to manage the Salesforce logins, to save a new login, simply click “New” and fill in the org credentials
It is also possible to save a login access on demand during the authentication
Once the logins are saved, it is possible to assign a favicon colors to distinguish the Salesforce instances
The good practice at @eFrontech is to assign the color red 🔴 for production instances 😉
Quick links
Quick links allow a quick access to the Setup, this option is accessible via the shortcut ⌨️ CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE
It gives a quick access to several options, here are the main ones:
- Options in the Setup
- Object Manager
- Search certain metadata
For example, you can access the object manager quickly via Quick links
By typing @objects you switch to objects mode that allows you to access the options of the object manager, example “Account: Fields”.
By typing @meta search you switch to the mode that allows you to search for certain metadata (such as validation rules, Apex classes…)
Enhanced formula editor
The extension adds a syntax highlighting when editing a formula (example a formula field) and auto-completion for the formula functions via the shortcut ⌨️ CTRL+SPACE
Change Set helper
Organizer make the creation of change sets easier, by adding a filter option and summary of selected elements
Quick Query
The Quick Query editor is very handy, to run SOQL queries on the authenticated Salesforce instance, it is accessible from the Organizer link at the bottom left or via the keyboard shortcut ⌨️ CTRL+SHIFT+2
The Quick Query editor will make your life easier with the auto-completion, just start writing your query or a field name then just hit the shortcut ⌨️ CTRL+SPACE to get the the auto-completion propositions
If you knew SQL before you started working with Salesforce, then you probably already tried to run a “select *” using SOQL (which unfortunately returns the following error: unexpected token:’*’)
With the help of Organizer it becomes possible, you just type * in the fields area of the query then hit CTRL+SPACE and the Quick Query editor suggest auto-fill either the list of all the fields of the object or just the standards/custom
Other useful features
This section describes other useful features for the admins
Login As…
The Login As feature allows you to quickly login as a given user, without having to go to the Setup → Users
The extension gives the ability login as a user, in a new tab or in the Incognito mode
Sobject fields
The “Sobject fields” feature allows you to display all the fields and their values of a given record, you can edit any field even if it is not displayed on the Salesforce interface
Replace API Names
Replace API Names allows you to easily have the API names displayed on the layout of a record, no need to go to the Setup →Object Manager to get this information
Note: you can disable some features of the extension such as the Enhanced Formula editor or the Change Set helper, go to Organizer (bottom left) → Options → Features
Extension : Inspector 🔍
Inspector is an extension available on Chrome and Firefox, it adds several features, but the most important ones are the import/export of data
Once Inspector is installed, a transparent button appears at the top right of the browser (when you are on a Salesforce instance). Just click on the button or type the keyboard shortcut ⌨️ ALT+I to open Inspector, if you are on a record, the extension displays some information about it, such as the creation date, record type…, by clicking on “Show all data” Inspector displays all the values of the record fields
Data Export
Exporting data via Inspector is simple, just enter the query and click “Export”.
The strength of Inspector is that it allows you to copy the result directly in Excel format (in addition to CSV and JSON).
Indeed the Excel format is very handy, we can paste the result directly into the Excel and process it
Data Import
Importing data with Inspector is also very handy, since you can directly use the Excel format
Just prepare the data in Excel with the column names that must match the API names of the fields, once the file is ready, simply copy the content and paste it directly into the “Data” box of Inspector.
The extension automatically maps the columns with the fields, if a column is not automatically mapped with a field, it can be ignored or mapped manually
Then simply click “Import” to start the import processing.
Org limits
Inspector provides a convenient overview of all the limitations of a Salesforce org
Download metadata
Inspector allows you to save the org metadata in a simple and accessible way for all admins (note: to import the metadata, you must get a help from a developer)
Inspector is an extension that makes it easier to import and export data, since it allows us to work directly with the Excel format, without having to go through the CSV format as is the case with Data Loader
Thank you for reading so far 😊, we hope you have learned some new use cases of Chrome and its extensions, to enable you to be more effective as a Salesforce Super 🚀Admin 😉
Note: this article was originally written in French then translated to English with the help of AI 🧠, thanks to the DeepL Translator
The original article in French 👉 Devenez un Super 🚀Admin Salesforce ☁️ avec Chrome et ses extensions
