Salesforce and LEGO: A Beginner’s Guide to Org Setup

LEGO my Salesforce Org

Salesforce is like a huge box of LEGO without an instruction manual; the possibilities of what you can build within it are endless—but for a lot of people—that reality can feel a bit intimidating. You might ask yourself, “What am I supposed to do with all of this Salesforce stuff?” Well, the good news is that in order to get started, all you need to do is answer a few basic questions about your business and the way it operates. Dive in with me, and get ready for more LEGO analogies as we take this Salesforce adventure one bite-sized chunk at a time.

What Objects do you need to have in your org model? How will those Objects relate to each other?

Objects in Salesforce can be described as boxes that hold different types of LEGO. When you’re sorting your information, how is it sorted? LEGO of the same type would be put together in the same box. For instance, you could have a box labeled “Accounts,” and a box labeled “Contacts,” and inside those boxes are your Records, which are like individual LEGO pieces.

Maybe your Accounts box is full of anchor boards, and you know that your green anchor board can fit all of your green Contact pieces. In this way, you know that you can relate multiple Contact records with a single Account record, by placing the green blocks onto the green anchor board. This can be done by creating Lookup relationships between Objects in your Salesforce org.

Who will be using your Salesforce org? What information do they need to see to do their job well?

Your Users are the people who are building LEGO with you, where each person is in charge of building different things. Say you’re building a small LEGO neighborhood, and you decide that John and Lisa are in charge of making LEGO buildings, Terry and Chris are in charge of LEGO vehicles, and Stacy and Rita are taking care of LEGO landscaping. These Users need different types of LEGO to build their different sections.

This is where Profiles come in. You will need to give your Users access to the materials they need to do their job, without bogging them down with unnecessary information. This is like handing out different boxes of LEGO to different groups of people based on what they need to use to complete their part of the project. By defining a user’s Profile, you can control what Objects and Apps they have access to, as well as what sort of security permissions they have within your org.

Speaking of Apps, that brings us to our next question!

Do you find that your business needs to use the same Salesforce Objects in different ways, or for different facets of your operation?

If the answer is “yes,” then that means it’s time to build a new App! Maybe you have a lot of LEGO of the same type, and you are asked to build a couple of different projects with the materials that you already have. Perhaps the neighborhood project uses the same white and brown blocks that the pirate ship project needs, but the pirate ship also uses blue blocks while the neighborhood project requires green blocks. You can decide which Objects need to be in use for different Apps, as well as which of your Users has access to that App. You may find that people who are helping to build the LEGO neighborhood are also helping to build the LEGO pirate ship, and that’s okay too! Users can have access to as many or as few Apps as they need to do their job.

The answers to these questions will provide you with the building blocks required to create your foundation, but after that it’s up to you and your resident Salesforce consultant to fancy it up! The sky’s the limit, and Salesforce is not running out of LEGO! Let your imagination take your Org to new heights, and we’ll be here to support your journey every step of the way.

Brick by Brick, We Can Help

At Shift3 Technologies, we use a consultative approach to help you determine the best strategy to identify your challenges, implement appropriate solutions and enhance your systems. Frustrated with Salesforce? Learn to love it again with our 3-part blog series. For a free consultation, email [email protected] or call 559 560 3300 today.

This post was written by Andy Fillpot, a twice-certified Salesforce Administrator at Shift3 Technologies, cat parent and self-proclaimed Pokémon master.