When I kicked off this series back on June 21st I had two goals in mind: help people become the best damn button-click admins they can be. And give retrospect or advice on what it means to be a Salesforce Administrator- you know, kinda like being Monday morning quarterback. This post is a reflection on how I handled a minor change this week that had a major impact. Before I get deep into this, I want you to ask yourself this “How many times do you get a request that starts with “I” versus “We” or “My group”? Not a lot I’m guessing. In looking back at my cases, most all of them start with I and not we. This is the sometimes delicate balancing act that we admins deal with on a daily basis and one that I dealt with this week. The Situation Early in the week, I

So the release notes are out, and the youtube video is posted. Winter ’11 is just around the corner. Don’t panic. If this is your first release you may feel a bit overwhelmed. A seasoned veteran may know this path all too well. And developers? Well, they probably have the notes memorized (said with love). So what do us Button-click admins do? Below is my ‘ckecklist’ for new releases and how I handle them. Skim [eh... hem] Read the notes. Yeah I know, we are all pressed for time. So I skim the notes first to see what features will be ‘pushed’ on me without any involvement by me. Salesforce is really good at giving us a chart with features that admins will either have to turn on, do nothing, or activate. Read the chart. Prepare for new stuff. What features will you be getting that may affect your users?

When Dorothy and Toto enter the Emerald city in The Wizard of Oz they eventually reveal that it is not a wizard running the city, but a humble man behind a curtain. Being a Salesforce.com admin for my company I often equate myself to that man, and maybe you do as well. In fact, when I get a request for something I often respond- “let me go work my magic” as a joke. In this post I want to bring out us out from behind the curtain and communicate directly with our users. Being a Button-click Admin means your organization may be small. By small, I mean less than 100 licenses or maybe 200. If your organization is larger than that this suggestion maybe a bit overwhelming to take on. (And honestly if your organization is larger than that you need more than one admin.) Over a year ago I