Recently, employees at a company reached out to Lyons Tech after inheriting a Salesforce org from their departing team. Lacking prior training or expertise in Salesforce, they were confronted with numerous questions and challenges. Surprisingly, this is not an uncommon scenario. Often, a Salesforce end-user at a company finds themselves entrusted with the responsibility of running and maintaining the entire Salesforce org. Fortunately, you can use the following game plan to keep the ship running!

Seek a Trusted Resource

Step one is to find a trusted resource that can help navigate you out of choppy waters. I see a lot of (bad) advice trying to guide people who inherited a Salesforce org to manage it themselves. Truth be told, if you’re asking how to manage a Salesforce org, you probably aren’t at the level needed to manage or recover an org yourself, and that’s okay! You can obtain these skills, but it will take time. You probably wear a lot of hats and should be spending your time focusing on your business, not learning how to become a Salesforce admin. Your near term goals should be to keep your org and business up and running and ensure stakeholders are happy and can continue to operate. If you don’t have any trusted Salesforce resources in your network, you can reach out to us and take advantage of our 5 hours of free consulting, or contact your Account Executive at Salesforce who can help you find another Salesforce partner. This resource should be able to ask the right questions and help guide you and your business into a robust state were you can start using Salesforce to it’s full potential!

Develop a Long-Term Management Plan

Once you’re back up and running, you and your company will want to come up with a long-term game plan. Who is going to manage your Salesforce org moving forward? Do you want internal resources to manage your org, do you want to offload the responsibility to a 3rd party such as a Salesforce Partner, or how about both? Having a game plan can ensure you don’t end up in a similar situation in the future.

Skill Up

If you’re now in charge of the Salesforce org for the forseeable future, it is best to start skilling up. Knowing Salesforce Admin basics can help you communicate with 3rd parties and make informed decisions. Salesforce’s free learning platform, Trailhead, is a great place to start.

Conclusion

In conclusion, don’t try to navigate the Salesforce waters yourself if you’re not already a Salesforce expert! Your time is best spent doing your daily tasks and running your team or company. Time away from your core responsibilities is a big loss that shouldn’t be sacrificed.