Salesforce is a vast CRM platform that provides users with a range of different tools and features. This makes it important for an organization implementing Salesforce to have skilled and competent professionals in the team to handle the operations better.
When it comes to Salesforce professionals, an Administrator can be referred to as the leader of the team. A Salesforce Administrator shoulders a plethora of responsibilities to ensure the smooth and efficient functioning of the CRM platform as it is implemented within an organization. Right from assigning roles and granting permissions to managing users and carrying out system checks, an administrator wears many hats at once and helps their clients attain the objectives they are looking for.
Before we get to the roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Administrator, let us briefly understand who a Salesforce Admin is.
Who is a Salesforce Administrator?
A Salesforce Administrator is a professional who works with key stakeholders to ensure the smooth and effective functioning of a Salesforce org. They are responsible for making sure that the users are able to make the most out of Salesforce implementation and optimize the technology as per their specific needs.
A Salesforce Administrator is the best person to know how the CRM platform can be used to streamline specific business processes and handle valuable customer records within an organization. Depending on the scale at which a company operates, it can have one or more Salesforce Administrators for handling its operations. All Salesforce users rely on the admin to maintain the CRM platform well, help users of all kinds of technical expertise work on the platform, and keep the platform updated with relevant tools, technologies, and upgrades.
Roles And Responsibilities Of A Salesforce Administrator
A Salesforce Administrator is required to perform a range of different tasks on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Here are some of the key roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Administrator based on time intervals:
On a daily basis, a Salesforce Administrator is required to:
- Unlock the accounts of Salesforce users and reset passwords.
- Add new white-listed IP addresses to the system.
- Manage problems related to two-factor authentication and SSO.
- Help Salesforce users create customizable reports for yielding valuable metrics.
- Assess and troubleshoot workflow approval cycles, email marketing campaigns, and auto-responders generating bounced emails.
- Expand or refine access privileges and sharing rules to allow the records to be viewed and manipulated efficiently.
On a weekly basis, a Salesforce Administrator is required to:
- Store and run the weekly snapshot of the data stored within the system, including all relevant attachments and history tables.
- Run suitable adoption dashboards.
- Run the right data-quality dashboards.
- Run data de-duplication tools.
- Assess time-based workflows and APEX queues to look for unexpected entries in the system.
- Identify and assess SFDC errors and debug logs to look for issues.
- Examine the login history tables for spotting user lockouts, frequent login errors, and unexpected IP addresses.
- Deactivate Salesforce users as they leave the organization or move to a position that does not require access to the Salesforce org.
- Transfer the ownership of records because of a change in the users’ responsibility or territory coverage.
- Alter record-sharing rules to implement important changes made by the internal management team of the organization.
- Update the price lists as instructed by the organization.
- Import contacts and leads into the system for being nurtured.
- Alter escalation and delegation paths in approval cycles and workflows.
- Run necessary APEX tests in the system looking for new errors that may have arisen because of changes in validation rules, data cleanup, or specific triggers.
- Take a complete snapshot of the production system metadata while running Eclipse.
- Check duplicate error logs for significant changes in duplicate detection.
On a monthly basis, a Salesforce Administrator is required to:
- Make necessary additions to picklist values and other relevant fields within the CRM platform, preferably by pre-testing the same in a Salesforce Sandbox.
- Run customized field utilization reports for identifying new sources of data pollution.
- Creating a complete metadata backup of sandbox images and the main system image using Eclipse before refreshing a Salesforce Sandbox.
- Coordinate the time of refreshing sandboxes with the work being done by developers with the concerned sandboxes.
- Install suitable high-priority updates pushed into the Salesforce org and re-run the “run all the tests” exercise once the updates are enabled.
- Create a relevant archive copy of the error logs in the integration server or any connected applications.
- Running a complete system backup on an application integrated with SFDC.
On a quarterly basis, a Salesforce Administrator is required to:
- Add or remove Salesforce users and members who are a part of Salesforce Communities or Partner Portals.
- Download CSV from the system administrator audit log within the Salesforce org.
- Identify important reports that have not been run in over six months.
- Identify roles or profiles with no active users.
- Archive without deleting weekly data snapshots that are over 90 days old.
- Be a part of at least one local SFDC webinar or user group meeting to stay in tune with the latest trends and updates.
On an annual basis, a Salesforce Administrator is required to:
- Archive all the field history tables of the system to make sure there is no audit trail in the system that goes beyond a year.
- Archive (or purge) necessary documents, tasks, and emails for reducing storage charges in the system.
- Create an archive for Chatter histories for compliance and audit purposes.
- Look after updating system roadmaps summarizing the addition of new features and upgrades required to fulfil the organizational objectives.
These were some of the major roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce Administrator. Depending on the requirements of an organization, it may choose to hire on-premise or remote administrators for handling their CRM and managing their valuable records. The job of a Salesforce Administrator is full of responsibilities and is extremely important as the smooth functioning of the CRM platform depends on them.
Salesforce Admin Training Course is an excellent way to learn about the features of the Salesforce platform and how to use them to manage your organization’s data. The course is comprehensive and covers everything from creating and managing users and groups to configuring and customizing the Salesforce environment. We recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn how to use Salesforce to manage their organization’s data.