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Not using Salesforce for simple B2B selling of widgets (well just the once).
Salesforce rescue projects where the client was about to give up on Salesforce.
Complex bespoke business processes that are at the heart of what the business does, all running on Salesforce.
Integrations with every app we can.
Longevity of working with my clients. One 10 years, two 8 years, one 7+ years.
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Timeline
Full Nonprofit Service Cloud implementation for The Arts Law Centre of Australia. This was my first Salesforce project in 2011 after I was awarded a grant by the Australia Council of the Arts for a Geek in Residence at an Arts organisation. After determining that they needed a CRM System and finding the Salesforce P10 donation, Arts Law decided they would still like to work with me as I had done the work to get to know their organisation. I learnt Salesforce for their implementation.
I had great initial training in 2011 from Nicole Aebi-Moyo (now Salesfix) for one on one training, and Alice Hodgson (now Train the Crowd) who led the Salesforce Admin course. I still to this day use the basics they taught me.
2012 Salesforce Certified Force.com Developer (certification now retired).
After encountering many difficulties setting up Salesforce, I thought, well if I had to find this out the hard way, I don't want others to struggle like I did, so I created this wiki to share my learnings along the way.
2012 I became a Salesforce Partner, and formalised my company and The Detail Department branding.
2014 I became co user group leader for the Melbourne Salesforce User Group and retained that position until handing it over in 2023.
2014 was the first Dreamforce. A once off must do, but not for me.
2015 I was awarded Salesforce MVP. The first female Salesforce MVP in Australia (now all the current MVPs are female).
2015 I attended Dreamforce for the second time, just to experience if it was better being an MVP. Marginally, but not worth going back unless I have a job to do.
2016 the first MVP trip to the US to give feedback on the lightning platform. It was a two day event and unfortunately I remember nothing of the content as I was so jet-lagged
2016 my first Salesforce community conference, Forcelandia in Portland, Oregon. Excellent conference.
2016 Learned about Mavens Mate (no longer a product) and Salesforce Metadata and also had the most amazing session on learning about how Salesforce works at the database level. Both were extremely transformational in understanding the Salesforce platform at a deeper level.
2017 passed Platform Dev 1 two years after doing the course and being told I was not a developer so didn't belong in the course. I used a recording of the course as part of my MVP benefits to really understand the content when it was presented by someone differently.
2018 second community conference and speaker at London's Calling. Definitely the best community conference and well worth going.
2018 Rad Women Code Course - excellent course to get started on learning Apex.
2018 Salesforce DEV601 course to learn lightning components. These were Aura and really difficult. I did not retain much of the learning. LWC was released soon after.
2019 I tried TDX, and I was a speaker, which is great. Plus I was a learning helper for the Platform Dev 1 Bootcamp class, which was a great experience. Overall experience was better than Dreamforce, but it was still too much marketing to make it worthwhile to spend $10k to go to San Francisco.
2019 After TDX I helped out on the San Francisco Bootcamp being a Teaching Assistant on the Platform Dev 1 course.
2019 MVP trip to Miami to help Salesforce with Help. This time I was prepared and not jet-lagged, and it was a great session. There will be no more events like that, unfortunately.
2019 the first Salesforce Bootcamp in Australia held on the Gold Coast. I did the System Architect track.
2020 Rad Women Code 2 Course - really refined my ability to code in Apex. I still won’t do it in production much, but I know enough for validating and testing the code.
2020 speaker at Japan Dreamin' community conference. Got home just in time. Amazing experience. If they do another event with an English speaking track, just go.
2020 did the Salesforce LWC DEX-602 course during lockdown. This one stuck, and I continued by trying to build a previous Classic App in LWC. The result is Salesforce Indicators which is now on the Appexchange, and you can read all about that on our documentation site. The past two years have been dedicated to the Open Source Commons, and getting this app out onto the Appexchange.
2020 in lockdown started my cybersecurity training as it is an important facet of working with Small Business, and I want to add extra value to my clients.
2020 Certified Salesforce System Architect. 19 Salesforce Certifications in total. Now time to end my Salesforce Certification journey.
2022 second Trailblazer Bootcamp on the Gold Coast. I did the Tableau Track. Unfortunately it was not very useful as it did not involve anything to do with Salesforce.
2023 awarded MVP Hall of Fame which means I get to keep MVP status without being renewed every year.
2023 Certified in CISM and CDPSE for Cybersecurity and I am an Accredited Trainer with ISACA. See my Certifications.
2024 Certified Gold Level SMB1001 Cybersecurity certification for The Detail Department.
2024 speaker at Cybercon2024 on My Journey to SMB1001.
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