Salesforce Blazes New Trails at TrailblazerDX 2022

Written By Richard Cunningham

A Summer Blockbuster

Salesforce held TrailblazerDX in San Francisco on April 27-28, 2022.  It featured over 200 sessions and plenty of exciting announcements. One session, “Grow Your Career with Resume-Worthy Credentials,” had a certification map announcing the long-awaited Salesforce Business Analyst certification.  Toni Martin tweeted:

Like stakeholders anticipating a new solution, everyone wants to know, “When can I get it?” An optimistic source says “this June,” but certifications can take longer than expected to deliver, like software projects.  Summer looks like a safe bet.

The Well-Architected Road Ahead

Salesforce Well-Architected, also expected this summer, offers architects “guidance to do the right thing,” designing solutions and creating roadmaps. It includes:

  • New templates and design patterns

  • Easier navigation of architect.salesforce.com

  • Pre-build (design) and validation assessments

The assessments include questionnaires about your solution’s quality attributes such as security, ease of use, and adaptability. Submitting answers to the questions shows a color-coded scorecard indicating what to improve.

The architect team intends to focus its first assessments on customizing nine solutions in Salesforce Customer 360.

Roadmaps to Solution Success

Salesforce Well-Architected will also provide resources for creating roadmaps, extending its template gallery with these new types of roadmaps:

  • Business Capability

  • Business Feature

  • Technology System

  • Technology Component

These templates enable architects and business analysts to tailor roadmaps for different stakeholder audiences, such as executives and information technology staff.

The architect group will also extend ease of use to Salesforce’s online roadmaps with Roadmap Explorer, enabling architects to focus on roadmaps that matter to them.

Blazing Trails Off the Grid

Off the Grid at TDX: Architect Edition featured an informative conversation between Chris De Gour of Salesforce and Greg Beltzer, Head of Technology at RBC Wealth Management. When RBC switched from Microsoft Dynamics to Salesforce, they customized only 20% of the solution. As requirement changes and functionality gaps arose, customization increased to 40%. Greg sees the customization trend continuing.

Before RBC Wealth Management undertakes any significant customization, Greg said they check the Salesforce roadmap to see if a future release could cover some of the new requirements. It’s a good idea, and the Roadmap Explorer in Salesforce Well-Architected will make this easier.

Pivotal Trails for Salesforce Customization

With the business analyst certification and Salesforce Well-Architected, Salesforce recognizes the pivotal role that analysis and design play in solution development and customization. Users and their managers expect solutions to meet their requirements, including quality attributes such as reliability, performance, and security.

Salesforce will continue to improve its tools, especially around Flow and Slack. However, no matter how quickly and easily these tools can build a solution, you still need business analysis and solid design to get the solution right the first time.

Salesforce’s coming business analyst certification and Salesforce Well-Architected program stress the importance of starting solution development in the right direction.

Richard Cunningham
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