Episodes

  • Summer ’25 Brings Game-Changing Tools for Salesforce Admins

    Summer ’25 Brings Game-Changing Tools for Salesforce Admins
    Jun 12 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jennifer Lee, Lead Admin Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about what’s coming in the Summer ‘25 release and the features that will make your life easier as an admin. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jennifer Lee. The Summer ‘25 release is coming soon It’s that time of year again. The time for popsicles, backyard barbecues, and the Summer ‘25 Release. So I’ve brought none other than Jennifer Lee on the pod to tell us what’s coming for admins. As always, Jen has a great blog post covering all of the changes with animated gifs that show how they work. I’d highly recommend scrolling through it as a visual companion to this episode, but the big takeaway here is that admins’ lives are about to get a whole lot easier. Jen’s highlights from the Summer ‘25 release At a high level, Summer ‘25 means fewer clicks and more control for admins. Jen highlights some key changes: The Close Case button: No need for custom buttons—you can add a Close Case button to the Case Details page and save your reps the extra clicks. Better custom object deletion: When you delete a custom object, you’ll see a detailed page listing any relationships it has to other objects. The new Permission Set Summary page: You can now update user, object, field, and custom permissions directly from a permission set’s Summary page, without navigating to multiple pages. Expanded Salesforce Go: Your guided tour for how to enable/configure features in your Salesforce edition, with resources to help you get started. As always with releases, the little things add up. And these changes help you effortlessly manage your org like never before. Powerful new features in Flow Of course, no episode with Jen would be complete without diving into the changes coming for Flow. She draws our attention to a few key enhancements for Flow: Get related records (beta): Instead of dealing with multiple Get Records and Update Records elements, you can now get entire hierarchies of related records, such as an Account and all of its Contacts and Opportunities, in a single Get Records element. Expanded resources search in Flow Builder (beta): When you enable this feature in Setup, you’ll be able to quickly find resources like fields from records and outputs from actions. New Time data type: You can now reference the new Time data type for things like scheduling reminders, routing records based on specific times of day, and triggering time-sensitive actions with pinpoint accuracy. Debug enhancements: Debugging your flows has never been easier, with element-level summaries, and search capabilities within the debug to help get your flow flowing. Approval Wizard: It’s complicated to build an approval process, so we’ve made it easier to get started with up to three approval levels, final actions, and even a recall path. There are a lot more great insights from Jen about screen flow enhancements and other changes coming in Summer ‘25, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog: Jen’s Top Summer ’25 Features for Admins Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group r Jennifer on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. This week, Jennifer Lee returns to the pod to break down what's new in the summer '25 release. And trust me, it's more than sunshine and good vibes if you read her blog post that she put out earlier in May. From long-awaited case close buttons to a major user management upgrade, I promise you Jennifer is going to walk us through some features that make your admin life easier. Plus we dig into flow enhancements, better debugging and why thoughtful resource naming still matters. I mean, we can't not talk flow with Jennifer Lee, that's just how it works. If you've ever been wondering what to focus on with your attention to this release cycle, this is your episode. Super fun to go through. Now, if you enjoy this episode, be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button on whatever podcast platform you're listening to. So with that, let's get Jennifer back on the podcast. So Jen, welcome back to the podcast. Jennifer Lee: Always love being here. Mike: I mean, it's summer already. It feels like it was just spring. We were just talking about spring and now it's summer. Isn't this how it always works? Jennifer Lee: Well, now I'm actually feeling summer for real in Boston. It's hot out, I'm wearing shorts. Mike: Yeah, I mean, every time I've been to Boston it's either snow, really hot or snow. Jennifer Lee: And it was cold probably a few days ago too, so ...
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    28 mins
  • Use Metadata to Empower Salesforce Agents

    Use Metadata to Empower Salesforce Agents
    Jun 5 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joshua Birk, Admin Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about why your metadata is crucial for building effective AI agents. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joshua Birk. Why multi-tenancy still matters for Agentforce As the Admin Evangelist team has been helping people get started with Agentforce, we’ve noticed that the key to unlocking this new technology is to revisit some of the oldest concepts about the Salesforce platform. That’s why I brought Josh Birk on the pod to talk about metadata and multi-tenant architecture. If you need a refresher, that’s the idea that Salesforce is like an apartment building where each org is an apartment. Your stuff is in your individual unit, but the entire building shares resources like water and electricity. So what’s the difference from 2010? As Josh explains, it’s that every apartment comes standard with an Agentforce-powered robot butler. Quality data leads to better automation Imagine you’re sitting down for dinner, and you want your robot butler to set the table—how does it know where the forks are? And what happens if they’re buried in your junk drawer? Clearly, a robot butler will be more helpful if you keep your apartment organized. And, as Josh points out, the same is true for your Salesforce org. AI agents rely on your metadata, like description fields and field types, to help them respond correctly and find what your users are looking for. With longstanding orgs, there can be an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset, but that’s the equivalent of throwing everything in the junk drawer. Doing a little spring cleaning and organizing your metadata helps Agentforce help you. Why you’re already an AI builder The key thing Josh wants you to realize is that you’re already an AI builder. An agent is just another user in your org, and so the work you do to make your data easy to use is also what powers the solutions you build in Agentforce. That’s why it’s so important to fall back on Salesforce fundamentals. Building an agent is the easy part. The hard part is making sure your metadata is in a good place to support your AI solutions, but that’s the work that admins do every day. There’s so much more great stuff from Josh in this episode, so be sure to take a listen. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailhead: Custom Metadata Types Basics Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Josh on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full Transcript Mike: Hey, Salesforce admins. Ever wonder what multi-tenancy AI and your junk drawer have in common? Luckily, Josh Birk is back to explain it all, from forks, to metadata. Yeah, we even throw in some robot butlers. This episode's a ride through the architecture that makes Salesforce magic happen with, I promise you, enough analogies to stock your kitchen. So, if you've ever said, "Wait, where are the forks?" This one's for you. And when you listen to it, that sentence will make sense. So give it a listen, send it to your friends. Be sure to hit that follow subscribe button to get brand new episodes downloaded on your mobile device. And without waiting any longer, let's get Josh Birk back on the podcast. So Josh, welcome back to the podcast. Josh Birk: Thanks, Mike. Glad you're back. Mike: It's been a while, but you've been working on stuff. Josh Birk: I have been working on stuff. It's been a busy little quarter. This thing called AI never really stops sleeping. I guess it's one of its benefits. But yeah, trying to catch up with all things AI, and data cloud, and especially trying where there's a wealth of stuff happening before Dreamforce, and we really would like to get our admins community armed with that information. Mike: You mentioned Dreamforce. Dreamforce start till October. Josh Birk: Well, I know, but I thought July was a really far away away, and I realized I have a trip to Montreal next week because it's June, and it's like, "Okay, right." The months, they're collapsing away. Mike: It literally, it's like one minute you're like, "Yay, it's February," and the next thing you know it's like 4th July. Josh Birk: Right. Yeah. And you have a TDX going over. Mike: All the hangovers. The first thing that I think we want to talk about, so what's crazy is we brought this stuff up, what are we going to talk about, and you're like, "Let's talk about the multi-tenant analogy." And I was thinking back to, whoa, that was like 2010 when I first learned about multi-tenant, and hearing the Salesforce apartment analogy. Josh Birk: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It's actually, I think, a testament to the ...
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    31 mins
  • Curiosity Is the Key to Learning Agentforce

    Curiosity Is the Key to Learning Agentforce
    May 29 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Amit Malik, the Content Portfolio Lead for AI within Product Education at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how admins should approach learning Agentforce and bringing AI to their organizations. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Amit Malik. Learning AI starts with filtering out the noise We often get asked where admins should get started with learning Agentforce, so I brought Amit on the pod to get the inside scoop. In his role as a Content Portfolio Lead for AI in Product Education at Salesforce, he’s in charge of planning the courses that are offered globally about Agentforce and Data Cloud. For Amit, the challenge with teaching AI is what he calls the “knowledge explosion.” There are so many different things that Agentforce can do, and that list is growing daily, so it’s hard to know where to get started. What’s needed is “knowledge distillation.” So the key to learning Agentforce is to focus on the core concepts of how AI works before getting into the specifics. A framework for building with Agentforce Amit goes through five questions you should ask when you’re thinking of building a solution with Agentforce: Is an AI agent the best way to solve this problem? Would it be easier to build a flow? Just because you can solve something with Agentforce doesn’t mean you should. What agent type do you need? Salesforce has several pre-built agent templates for specific use cases, like Service Agent, Employee Agent, or Guided Shopping Agents. Consider those options before trying to build something more complicated. What topics do you want to assign to this agent? Define the set of business problems you want your agent to solve. There are standard pre-built topics like FAQ or escalation, but you can make a custom topic if needed. How will you provide data to your agent? AI is only as good as the data you provide it, so you need to make sure you have everything you need in Data Cloud and set up access with the Agentforce Data Library. What actions do you want the agent to perform? “This is where the magic happens,” Amit says. There are four types of actions: Flow, Apex, API, and Prompt Template. Learning Agentforce is about understanding the layers you’re working with. As Amit explains, an agent is really an aggregation of the topics you decide it can solve. Those topics can be broken down into the specific actions your agent can perform, which it does based on the data you give it access to via Data Cloud. The art of learning is to become curious With twelve years of experience as a Salesforce instructor, Amit’s biggest piece of advice for admins trying to learn Agentforce is to cultivate curiosity. Where many people go wrong is that they approach AI as a solution in search of a problem. That can be like trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. Once you start getting curious about the business problems you’re trying to solve, you’ll find use cases all over the place for AI. But that comes from understanding, specifically, how an AI agent can improve the experience for your users. This makes learning Agentforce simple because you know what you’re trying to do with it. There’s a lot more great stuff about learning, teaching, and working with Agentforce in my conversation with Amit, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Architect Courses for Admins with Amit Malik Trailhead: Discover Agentforce Trailhead: Review Agentforce and Data Library Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Amit on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. This week, we're joined by Amit Malik, a cloud content portfolio lead at Salesforce. Guess what we're digging into? That's right. Agentforce and Data Cloud, but we're going to talk a little bit different. It's about how admins can confidently navigate AI in their orgs. Amit brings over a decade of instructional experience and delivers a fresh, clear-eyed framework of thinking about AI agents. Trust me, you're going to want to hear this framework. So whether you're new to Agentforce or looking to level up your implementation game, I promise you, Amit breaks down the essentials with clarity and care for us. Plus, we also talk about why doing not just watching is a key to learning because as admins, we do some instruction as well. So it's good to learn from an instructor. Before we start the show, just a reminder to press follow on that podcast platform that you're ...
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    27 mins
  • Why Secure AI Starts With You: What Admins Must Know About Agentforce

    Why Secure AI Starts With You: What Admins Must Know About Agentforce
    May 22 2025
    Why Secure AI Starts With You: What Admins Must Know About Agentforce Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Sri Srinivasan, Senior Director of Information Security at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about what admins need to know about Agentforce and how to build secure AI experiences. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Sri Srinivasan. Quick heads-up before we get started: This episode may include forward-looking statements—things we're excited about, but not yet available. So please make any purchasing decisions based only on products and features that are currently available. For all the legal details, visit salesforce.com. The hidden job of AI security: admins build the brakes Sri gave a great TDX presentation about AI security and the crucial role admins play in the future of Agentforce. “Admins are key to everything that we do,” he emphasizes, “they understand everything that's happening within their environment. They know which actions, what permissions, what they do, and agents are just another avenue to expose and interact with this crux of it.” As Sri puts it, Agentforce is like a sports car in terms of what it can do with your data. But how fast would you drive a sports car with no brakes? That’s why admins are so important in the age of AI. We can build the brakes for Agentforce to make sure our agents are behaving correctly. Five questions to ask when building secure Agentforce experiences Security conversations can get very scary very quickly, but Sri boils it down to five questions admins should ask when they’re building with Agentforce: What is the agent’s role and scope? What data will the agent have access to? Which actions should be public and which should be private? Do you need to build any extra guardrails? Which channels will the agent use? The key here is practicing the principle of least privilege. And for admins, that comes down to managing permissions and profiles in Salesforce and following security best practices. Every agent runs as a user—and that user needs to be tightly scoped. Test before you trust: scaling with the Agentforce Testing Center Going back to the idea of brakes, Sri cautions that just because you built an agent fast doesn’t mean that it’s ready. Luckily, his team has been hard at work on new tools to help you make sure your agents are working as intended. The new Agentforce Testing Center helps simulate and validate agent behavior at scale—without needing a QA army. You’re also able to peek under the hood to understand why an agent made a certain choice—turning debugging into decision-making clarity. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more on what admins need to know about Agentforce. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss out. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Sri at TDX: 5 Easy Steps for Secure Agentforce Implementation More from TDX: Security Best Practices with Agentforce Trailhead: Trusted Agentic AI Blog: Best Practices for Building Secure Agentforce Service Agents Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Sri on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking with Sri Srinivasan about secure, reliable AI experiences with Agentforce. Now, Sri is a leader on the security compliance customer trust team at Salesforce, where he helps customers understand and implement security best practices. Of course, before we get into this episode, be sure to follow the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. That way you get a new episode every Thursday delivered right to your phone or your mobile device. So with that, let's get into our conversation with Sri. So Sri, welcome to the podcast. Sri Srinivasan: Thanks for having me here, Mike. Super excited for it. Mike Gerholdt: Well, I love the presentation that you gave at TDX, and I'm sure more people would love to hear about it too, which is why I wanted to have you come back on, because everything now is Agentforce and security is always top of mind. I've always preached security ever since I started at Salesforce. I've had, I think, Laura Pelkey on quite a few times. But that was the compass of what you talked about at TDX. But I'm jumping ahead. Let's talk about you a little bit. Tell me kind of where you got started and how you got to Salesforce. Sri Srinivasan: Let me try to make it very sweet and sharp. So I have always been in security. I have a master's in information management specializing in security. I worked for big four accounting firms, but not doing accounting. I did security for them, data security and data privacy. Then I ended up working for a little gaming company where I ...
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    30 mins
  • How Salesforce Is Transforming Certification for New and Experienced Users

    How Salesforce Is Transforming Certification for New and Experienced Users
    May 15 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Dana Walton, Senior Manager of Credential Programs and Operations at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how the certification experience is evolving with smarter personalization, easier access, and a learning journey built just for you. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Dana Walton. Certifications are moving to Trailhead Academy Dana has been working on the certification team since 2015. When she started, Salesforce had nine certifications. Today, they offer 83. I sat down with her for this episode because her team is finishing a two-year project to overhaul the certification experience. The biggest change coming is that certifications are moving to Trailhead Academy. While you can still go completely self-guided with your learning, Dana and her team are making it easier to find the help you need—whether that’s an instructor-led course or curated Trailmixes and modules. Why skills are the most important factor in choosing new certifications One thing that Dana wanted to know during testing was how her team could help people figure out which certifications they should work on next. She asked Salesforce MVPs how they choose new certifications to target: are they looking for things that fit a specific role? A particular product? The answer was none of the above. The Salesforce MVPs in Dana’s testing group look for certifications based on what new skills they can learn. Armed with that knowledge, her team added a skills breakdown for each cert to make things easier to browse. They’re also adding more personalization to your Salesforce learning journey, with AI recommendations to help you plan your roadmap. Dana emphasizes that these are recommendations, not requirements. Your certification experience can still be completely self-guided; they’ve just added a helping hand. Why certification is the final step on your learning journey If she could give one piece of advice to admins looking for the next steps in their Salesforce learning journey, it’s that you need to look at every possible pathway. “Certification is not how you learn,” she says, “it’s how you prove the skills and knowledge that you’ve already learned.” Go to Trailhead, reach out to the community, or find a mentor who can help you understand what you’re getting into and create achievable goals for yourself. And then, when you’re ready, certification will be a breeze. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from my conversation with Dana about what’s coming next for the certification experience. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us in your feed every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more New Salesforce Certification Experience FAQ Certification: Salesforce Associate Certification: Strategy Designer Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Dana on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Today we're sitting down with Dana Walton from the Salesforce certification team. Dana is here to share how the certification experience is evolving. I want you to think smarter personalization, easier access, and a learning journey built just for you. We'll talk about the exciting move to Trailhead Academy and how it's making certifications more accessible than ever. Be sure to stick around. I promise you're going to walk away and be ready to take your next step in that Salesforce ecosystem. And hey, if you enjoy this episode, go ahead and give us a follow wherever you listen to podcasts. So with that, let's get Dana on the podcast. So, Dana, welcome to the podcast. Dana Walton: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Mike: I'm excited to talk about certification. I've been talking about it ever since 2008 when I first got certified, which is a super long time ago. But let's get started with you. Tell us a little bit about how you got to Salesforce and what you do at Salesforce. Dana Walton: Happy to. You predate me just a little. Yes, but I mean, I think in terms of longevity, I hit Koa this year, so I'm very excited. Mike: Congrats. Thank you. And for those of you that don't know, Koa is 10 years. Dana Walton: Yes. So my 10-year anniversary will be in June, and I have been a part of the certification team for almost all of my tenure. I joined in October 2015 because I started as a contractor and then got hired on through the certification team, and I have been a part of the growth of this program since then, and it's been really excited to see when we first were in a very... When I joined, we only had nine certifications. Mike: Only. Only nine. Dana ...
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    27 mins
  • Building with Agentforce and Flow: A Developer’s Hackathon Experience

    Building with Agentforce and Flow: A Developer’s Hackathon Experience
    May 8 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Melissa Hansen, Co-Founder and Principal Architect at HiFi Consulting Group, RAD Women Curriculum Lead, and Salesforce MVP. Join us as we chat about her journey from fixing printers to developing an agent-powered scheduling tool in the TDX Agentforce Hackathon on Team MH4. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Melissa Hansen. How Melissa started her career as a Salesforce Developer Melissa started her career at a nonprofit, where she was the go-to person for troubleshooting tech issues. “You just become the person who’s best at fixing the printer, and then fixing the database, and then, before you know it, you’re a database administrator,” she says. These days, Melissa is a developer, a consultant, and a Salesforce MVP for her work with RAD Women. She’s also a member of Team MH4, and I brought her on the pod to hear what building a conference scheduling agent in 16 hours was like from the dev side of things. Building an agent-powered scheduling tool at the TDX Agentforce Hackathon Melissa is not someone who wants to be up until midnight coding, but she was so excited about the solution they were building that it was worth the sacrifice. Like most people on the team, it was her first time making something with Agentforce, and this was a great use case to learn more about it. One of the biggest challenges for Melissa in going from building with code to grounding an agent is that the output is nondeterministic. In other words, if you run an automation, you expect to get the same results every time you give it the same data. Agents don’t work that way, they’ll give you something slightly different every time, and so you need to account for that in how you build and test your solution. To code or not to code, that is the question We don’t always have a chance to talk to devs on the pod, so I wanted to hear what Melissa thinks about admin and developer collaboration. For her, the most important conversation to have is around automations. Flow is a powerful tool for automations, but it’s not the only game in town. Melissa’s seen her share of scary flows for things that would be fairly straightforward in Apex. For her, the biggest determining factor is who will maintain the automation after it’s up and running. As no-code tools like Flow and Agentforce continue to improve, it’s especially important for admins and devs to help each other out. There are so many more great insights from Melissa on where Agentforce is headed and how to work with developers, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Transforming Conference Scheduling With Agentforce MH4’s presentation at the TDX Hackathon Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Melissa on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on Tiktok Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full Transcript Mike: Ever gone from changing printer ink to writing Apex code? Melissa Hansen has and she's here to tell us all about it. So, today's episode, I am chatting with Melissa Hansen, Salesforce MVP, RAD Women Curriculum lead and longtime champion of nonprofit tech. We talk about her journey from, well, fixing printers to architecting agent-powered scheduling tools and what she learned working on the team of MH to the Power of Four at the TDX Hackathon. Now, she shares her thoughts on building ai, designing for users, and what every admin should ask their developers. So, you don't want to miss this one. Now, be sure to follow this podcast on whatever platform you listen to so that you never miss an episode. And with that, let's get Melissa on the podcast. So, Melissa, welcome to the podcast. Melissa Hansen: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Mike: I'm excited. This whole series of talking to the MH to the Power of Four team has been such a thrill because I know we've done hackathons... by the time this episode comes out, we've done a hackathon at TDX in India. I know there's a virtual hackathon we've done. I feel like we've done hackathons everywhere, but it's such an interesting perspective because I was at TDX in San Francisco. I saw some of the teams working, but to sit down with each of you, and hear the perspective and what happened through your eyes is such a neat way of hearing the story and getting the full vibe of what's going on. So, before we get into that though, Melissa, tell us a little bit about yourself, and what you do in the Salesforce ecosystem and how you got on ...
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    33 mins
  • Transforming Conference Scheduling with Agentforce

    Transforming Conference Scheduling with Agentforce
    May 1 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Marisa Hambleton, Chief Delivery Officer and Founder of MH2X, and a member of the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. Join us as we chat about her experience in the TDX Agentforce Hackathon as a member of team MH4 and why clean data is essential for AI. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marisa Hambleton. The intense Tetris of conference scheduling Marisa is a co-leader of the Phoenix Developer Group and the lead organizer for Cactusforce, a community conference for Salesforce Developers and Architects. In other words, she knows how much work goes into scheduling speaker tracks and getting everything organized. Juggling speaker availability and placing them in the correct conference rooms without double-booking anyone takes up hours of time behind the scenes. “It’s an intense game of Tetris,” Marisa says, “and that’s a gross understatement.” So she was thrilled when Melissa Hill Dees asked her to join team MH4 and build a conference scheduling agent for the TDX Agentforce Hackathon. Why data hygiene is foundational for Agentforce With only 16 hours to build a working agent, the team had to split up responsibilities so they could hit the ground running. Marisa’s focus was on the data, which they brought in from Cactusforce and Midwest Dreamin’. Marisa’s biggest takeaway from her first time building an agent is that data quality is foundational for any work you do with AI. That needs to be the starting point. Even though they were working with a relatively small data set, they had a lot of cleanup work to do if they wanted their agent to work right. How to get your org ready for advancements in AI If you’re looking to implement Agentforce in your org, Marisa recommends starting with the Salesforce Well-Architected Framework. We’re only scratching the surface of what will be possible with AI, but you need to do everything you can right now to make your data easy to work with. There’s a lot more great stuff from Marisa Hambleton about data hygiene and what’s next for Agentforce, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story Trailhead: Salesforce Well-Architected Framework Cactusforce Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Marisa on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admin's podcast. Today, we're chatting with Marisa Hambleton, Chief Delivery Officer at MH2X, and a longtime leader in the Salesforce ecosystem. Now, this is part two of the MH to the Power of Four episodes where we talked to the team that participated in the TDX Hackathon about the agent that they built. Boy, I got to tell you, if you ever organized a community conference or just wrestled with a gnarly spreadsheet, Marisa's insights into scheduling and automation using Agentforce technology we're really going to hit home. I love that she's going to walk us through how she and the Hackathon team built the agent from her perspective and what she did. Plus, she shares why clean data and a well-architected mindset are must haves for any admin looking to build for the future. Make sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss out on more great conversations like this one. With that, let's get Marisa on the podcast. Marisa, welcome to the podcast. Marisa Hambleton: I'm glad to be here. Mike Gerholdt: You are the second MH of the MH, I believe it's MH quad, right? Isn't that what Melissa Hill Dees told me? It is MH to the Power of Four. Marisa Hambleton: MH to the Power of Four. Mike Gerholdt: Power of Four. Marisa Hambleton: Yes, or MH four. You can just read it MH Four, but MH to the Power of Four, to the Fourth ... Mike Gerholdt: I know, but I like the Power of Four. It sounds a little more strong. Marisa Hambleton: Yes. Mike Gerholdt: We talked with Melissa Hill Dees on the last episode about the TDX Hackathon and the agent that you built, but just per chance, if somebody didn't listen to that episode, can you tell us a little bit about, well, first, who you are and what you do, and then a brief overview of that project that you built at the Hackathon. Marisa Hambleton: Sure. Marisa Hambleton, I am the Chief Delivery Officer of MH2X. That is my consulting firm. I've been in the ecosystem over 15 years. I'm a Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame, and I am also the Phoenix developer, one of the leaders. I am the lead organizer of Cactus Force, a community conference for Salesforce developers and architects. My role in Cactus force is one of the things that led me and ...
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    24 mins
  • When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story

    When Collaboration Meets Agentforce: The MH4 Hackathon Story
    Apr 24 2025
    Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Melissa Hill Dees, nonprofit Salesforce consultant and Salesforce MVP. Join us as we chat about how her TDX Hackathon team built a conference scheduling agent from scratch in 16 hours. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Melissa Hill Dees. How to help nonprofits define goals for Salesforce Melissa majored in computer science back when you still programmed with punched cards. However, she didn’t really start her career in tech until 2008, when the nonprofit she was working for started using Salesforce. She was hooked on how she could help these organizations use technology to do more with less, and quickly pursued an MBA in digital entrepreneurship. One thing that came up in our conversation was the difference between how nonprofits and businesses approach Salesforce. In particular, Melissa emphasizes the importance of defining measurable goals for any tech project so you have common ground when prioritizing requests. As the capabilities of Salesforce continue to grow with Agentforce, admins need to help their organizations maintain focus. Building an agent in 16 hours at the TDX Hackathon Melissa is fresh from the TDX Hackathon, where she put together an all-women team of Salesforce MVPs called MH4. Why the name? Because everyone on the team has the same initials: Melissa Hill Dees, Michelle Hansen, Marisa Hambleton, and Melissa Hansen. Together, they had 16 hours to make a working agent, but Melissa was the only person on the team who had built one before. However, from their experience as Dreamin’ event volunteers, they had a pretty good idea for a problem they could solve: scheduling a conference. Finding the right-sized room for each talk when there are several concurrent speaker tracks gets complicated, especially when people are presenting more than once. It’s a problem that everyone on the team could rally around. As Melissa explains, building the agent wasn’t the hard part. It was setting up the backend to make sure it had the right information and permissions to accomplish its goal. Why admins should get the Strategy Designer Certification If you’re looking to learn more, Melissa highly recommends getting the Strategy Designer Certification. You can learn tons of valuable tactics, like consequence scanning, that help you align a group of people around an idea and allow everybody to feel like they have input. Finally, Melissa emphasizes how crucial it is for admins to start learning Agentforce now, even if your organization is hesitant. “Admins have to see the big picture,” she says, “so start learning it now so you don’t have to play catch-up when everybody comes around and wants to use AI.” Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from my conversation with Melissa, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Certification: Strategy Designer MH4’s presentation at the TDX Hackathon Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Melissa on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: You've got a dream team when everyone's name starts with MH, and you're building a functioning AI agent in 16 hours while laughing and having fun at it. This week we've got Melissa Hill Dees on the pod, and the vibe is totally Agentforce, nonprofit tech, and I even talk about the future of Salesforce admins in the era of AI. And we also talk about the little thing that she built at the hackathon. It's just a scheduling tool that is really cool for all the dream and events. But let me tell you this, if you've ever said, "I'm not a developer, but ...", you're going to feel right at home. So with that, let's get Melissa Hill Dees on the podcast. So Melissa, welcome to the podcast. Melissa Hill Dees: Thank you, Mike. I'm so glad to be here. Mike: Well, I'm glad to have you on, and we're going to kick off ... I'm going to call it a few weeks of MH4s. Melissa Hill Dees: I love that Mike: All of the MH4s because you guys were such a cool little group that got together for the hackathon at TDX, which we're going to talk about. But before we get into that, Melissa, which spells out some of the MH4, tell us a little bit about yourself. Melissa Hill Dees: Oh goodness. So a little bit about myself. I found Salesforce in 2008 after becoming a stay-at-home mom for a little while and not knowing what to do with myself and trying to help small businesses improve what they were doing from a customer relationship management side. I didn't really get very deep into Salesforce then but a couple of years later, I went to work for a nonprofit and they had Salesforce and I became the classic accidental admin. Which was ironic considering that ...
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