One of the big questions for charities (and for businesses) is, WHERE IS MY DATA?
Knowing where your data is part of your compliance with the regulations.
Here is our knowledge article on where to find it!
https://cloudgenius.my.site.com/support/s/article/Where-is-my-Salesforce-instance-located
It’s like we try to make it easy!
A super-short article, but you might want to check out our knowledge base for other useful articles, too!
Finding support can be difficult… so that is why we have launched our support portal.
The idea is that people will be able to help themselves before checking in with us. For many people, this ‘instant result’ saves them a load of time.
However, there will still be many times when you do need our personal support, so, for our customers, it is possible to raise new cases.
But… won’t that mean learning ANOTHER username and password? Fortunately, that answer is ‘no’.
As long as you have your own Salesforce instance and we have you as a contact in our system then you don’t need a password at all.
(For those of our customers who do not have Salesforce, we can still set you up, but you will need a username/password.)
The portal is at support.cloud-genius.com
Here is a video on how to access the Knowledge articles:
Here is one on how to log in (without a password), raise and monitor a case.
This is a new venture… so while we have been having our techies check everything out… I am sure you will find some things that could be improved. I would love to hear from you!
I was always told to carry people on the journey…
So we are starting a new journey with Salesforce. Over the years we have gathered a lot of useful knowledge. A lot of this is for us to use internally – within the company, but we also have a lot of information that is good for questions about Salesforce and Event Bridge.
So we now have a knowledge portal: https://cloudgeniusltd.force.com/support/s/
At the moment, it lets folk find out information. In the near future it will let people submit cases and track progress.
We are getting very excited, as it should help us to serve our customers better.
Of course, the other part of implementing this ourselves is so that we can help our customers implement it to help out their organisations.
I have many clients who are charities.
I love working with charities as the world is a better place at the end of the day than it was at the beginning.
To that end, I am doing a bit of fund-raising for a charity.
I have chosen one which is not a client, as I didn’t want to pick a favourite among my lovely, lovely clients.
Here is the link to give through Just Giving.
A little about Winston’s Wish
I know what it is to lose someone as an adult. I cannot imagine what it is like to lose a parent while still a child.
To have the remaining parent coping on their own.
Perhaps the wage earner has gone.
The adults are valiantly trying to keep everything together.
The person I loved is gone.
I am lost.
I am bewildered.
Winston’s Wish are there to support children at this devastating time.
My firewalk is just to raise awareness… all the money will go to the to help the children they support.
If you can give any money, not only will you be holding my feet to the fire, you will also be supporting a blessed cause.
As we experience one of the hottest spells in recent history. A little bit more cloud might be a welcome thing.
Cloud Genius is now approaching its 10th birthday. It was founded in December 2011, but its first Salesforce Implementation at Voluntary Services Lewisham was a little before that, around now! That was in the days when I lived in Hither Green, within a short bus journey of VSL HQ.
The news at Cloud Genius is that in recent months we have taken on two extra folk. Sri and Keerthi help expand our ability to help our clients and do development work. They both have a list of qualifications as long as their arms and are making super-strides in progressing the development of our clients organisations. These include: Resource, Mitzvah Day, Institute of Welsh Affairs and many others.
Shortly we are to announce our new pre-sales engineer. He comes with an impressive line-up of charities that he has helped. Turning their admin nightmares into carefully honed machines… that let them get on with achieving the aims of their organisations.
So, the real question is, ‘How should we celebrate our 10th birthday in December?’
You can email birthday@cloud-genius.com with ideas.
Thanks!
It is a common misconception that in order to talk with technical people, you need to talk their language. It’s wrong and it’s dangerous and it’s expensive… let me explain.
This might feel painful, but you will understand more of the process at the end.
When you are talking to a (good) consultant they will have a breadth of knowledge about their specialist area. They also want to find the best solution for you within your budget. Let’s use cars as an analogy. Everyone knows about cars?!
You sit at home and you know that the ‘best’ electric car is a Tesla.
You also know that you want to carry a lot of luggage, so you want a Tesla Cybertruck
You go to your car consultant and tell them to source you a Tesla Cybertruck in green. A friend down the pub/coffee shop/round the water cooler had told you that you wanted a green car.
You live in a difficult area, so you also want strong windows. (See this video if you want to see why this is a funny request.)
Your consultant explains to you that that Cybertruck only comes in bare metal and there are ‘issues’ with the windows.
At this point there are typically 4 responses. The potential customer:
1) Mutters about how useless the consultant is in not being able to source a green Cybertruck. Cost zero, but time wasted… which is money.
2) Splashes the cash for a Cybertruck ($70,000), and then paints it green. Cost >$70,000
3) NHS response: there are no products in the market that 100% fit the list of requirements, so employ a very expensive set of consultants to set up an Electric Vehicle research department, a manufacturing facility and end up with something way over budget, that doesn’t work and another NHS funding fiasco is born. (Thinking in a few years the NHS can achieve what it took Tesla 10 years to achieve.) Cost millions and millions and millions. Rinse and repeat. I worked in the NHS in the 80’s. They were doing it then, and they are still doing it in their IT systems.
4) Continue to engage with the consultant…
At this point, a consultant should ask.
WHY?
Why do you want a Tesla Cybertruck in green?
You start to explain that you want to be part of the ‘green revolution’. You discuss this further with the consultant and they explain it is about using energy responsibly and from renewable sources. You like the idea of this. They explain how by choosing the right car you can significantly reduce your running costs.
They ask you about the sort of trips you do. You tell them your driving is around the city. It is just you who ever uses the car. By ‘luggage’ space, you mean enough for 3 bags of groceries every week. So they are just about to suggest a Renault Twizy. A ‘car’ for 1.5 people with a very limited range. Job done… and you have exactly the WRONG car.
In a flash of honesty, you also explain that you also like to make trips of around 200 miles on these trips you need to comfortably fit 2 adults and 2 children in the car. A Twizy would not have been right, at all! In this case the consultant might suggest a Renault Zoe – a car with great range and good seating. You decide that now you have a green car, you would like the paint job to be black.
(When the consultant asked the question, ‘Do you EVER do long trips?’ the temptation is to say ‘no’ in order to save money. In this case, it would have been a costly mistake that the consultant would probably have been blamed for. Try to answer honestly. If you do long trips, but rarely, the answer might be to buy a Twizy and use the money saved to hire a vehicle for the rare times you do very long trips. See how variations in your answers can vary the proposed solution.)
Oh, and that problem with the ‘difficult’ area… you still have room in your budget for an armoured garage and security system 😉 On the other hand, it might be cheaper to move.
That all said, I have no associations with Tesla or Renault. My expertise is in Salesforce… I love it when people tell me what they are trying to achieve, and their budget. I can often save them money and get them something better than they asked for.
When a proposal comes through, the temptation is to scrimp on the section that says, ‘training’. Your people will pick it up. (Like they still don’t know how to use styles in their word processor, after 25 years?) Would you really want to be driving around in a car with an unlicensed driver? Oh! The stories I could tell.
Talking of training… we have some free training coming up… see our front page for details.
