5 learnings from a clown and how it can make me a better architect

Target Group: ArchitectComplexity: HighTopic: Soft-Skills A few days ago I ended up chatting to Hugh Kapernaros, who travels as a clown in a circus for refugees through Europe. We came to work and what makes a good clown. I believe some of what makes a good clown makes me a better architect. 1) Surrender the …

Interview: Why architects should know code?

Recently I interviewed a software architect I highly respected on why architects should know code.The following is not a complete list or in any way representative of my opinion. It's absolutely not necessary to be a (good) coder to become a Salesforce architect, but I found the input very interesting. I'm curious what you think? …

What happened OR Why $Record_Prior is my best friend

Topic: Be as specific as possible in your criteria.Example: Every time a Lead is "Closed - Not Converted" we want to send an Email to the customer thanking them for the nice call despite not buying.Quite a simple requirement, we all have built them a thousand times. And I've built them wrong so often until I …

Put in the effort: Good error messages

The more I work in Salesforce, the more I appreciate vendors, admins, architects, and developers putting in the time and effort for good error messages.Error Message: "Type is required"Recently I worked with a complex flow. The flow has many elements, lots of objects, and many, many Invocable actions involved. One of the elements gave me …

Op-Ed: Business Analyst First – Architect Second

Being a Salesforce Architect is quite a tough job, it's sandwiched between many different roles.Talking to experienced architects, I noticed one thing: An architect is a business analyst first, an architect second.What does that mean?1) First understand the business2) Architecture follows business3) Business value is the goal4) Working trumps perfect (to an extent)5) Bonus: Keep …

Extend your network – Awesome people to follow/invite

In case you want to extend your LinkedIn network or invite cool people for your next Salesforce event, a shortlist of a few awesome Salesforce people I love to learn from.What are your awesome Salesforce people to follow? Quratulain TariqNina RosenFarah Sherif GhanemNadina D. LisbonLilith Van BiesenMelissa ShepardNeha NagoriNana GreggNarender SinghMark JonesAbhishek SahaMaurizio GioffrèBen DuncombePei …

Opinion: Async by default via Platform Events

Target Group: Admins, Developers, Architects Complexity: Simple This topic has been haunting me ever since Platform Events was introduced: Why not make async via Platform Events the default solution for transactions within the Salesforce platform? Let me start with a simple example:Every time an Opportunity is set to Closed-Won a set of Tasks needs to be …

Architects take breaks OR Burnout: The underestimated risk

A few years ago I did a meditation class. This experience opened my eyes. The other participants were all in their late 30s, and early 40s. Doctors, architects, developers, managers. They looked healthy, super successful, and full in control but I learned all of them suffered from burnout. They described burnout as something horrific, something …