Salesforce Developer Podcast

Pekka Klärck is the founder of the Robot Framework. He is also currently the Lead Developer for the Robot Framework Foundation. In this episode, I’m sitting down to talk to Pekka about this framework, it’s origins and how it can help automate testing and other tasks for applications on the Salesforce Platform.  If you never made it to a Robocon, take a seat and get acquainted with this great tool to put in your toolkit. 

Show Highlights:

• Why it was always important to Pekka to make his framework open source.
• How the framework came to be and its current state.
• What languages the framework supports.
• What it means for it to be a keyword-driven approach.
• The common design pattern people use with the framework.
• The design goal for the framework.
• New features on the roadmap for the Robot Framework.

Links:

• About Pekka: http://eliga.fi/

• Robot Framework: https://robotframework.org/

• Robot Framework Foundation: https://robotframework.org/foundation/

• Robocon: https://robocon.io/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Ankit Taneja is a self-described Salesforce solo-preneur. He also co-leads the Berlin User Group. In this episode, I’m talking with Ankit about his experiences as an entrepreneur. He also shares some tips and tricks for all of us. 

Not only is Ankit a successful entrepreneur, but he also wrote a master’s thesis in IT forensics and almost got his PhD in that field. It was when he took a break to decide what he was going to do that he found his way to Salesforce. Tune in to hear all the amazing knowledge Ankit has to share.

Show Highlights:

• Ankit’s early experiences with computing.
• How he veered to Salesforce from IT forensics.
• How he got involved with and eventually became the leader of the Berlin User Group.
• What it has been like to lead that community during a pandemic.
• The pros and cons of the freelancer/entrepreneurial lifestyle.
• What he does to control his day and create a good work/life balance.
• Tools all freelancers should have.
• How he divides his tasks to keep his business up and running.
• The importance of having business licenses and other legal protections in place.
• How he finds customers and maintains his client base.
• How to figure out what to charge and how to structure your budget as an entrepreneur.

Links

1. Ankit on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankit-taneja-68229128
2. Ankit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nkittaneja?lang=en
3. Forcepreneur Podcast: https://forcepreneur.com/
4. Forcepreneur Course: https://learn.forcepreneur.com/
5. Code for 10% off the course: SFPOD10

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Joe Kutner is a Software Architect here at Salesforce working on the Heroku Platform. In this episode, I’m sitting down and talking with Joe about Cloud Native Buildpacks and they are powering cloud based deployments and trends like microservices. We talk about their origins at Heroku, and how Kubernetes, Docker, and all sorts of other really cool technology allow developers to convert their apps into images that can be easily served to users. With all of his experience at Heroku, Joe has incredible insights to share with all of us on how Cloud Native Buildpacks have evolved from their beginnings. Tune in to receive great value and learn a lot.

Show Highlights:

• How Joe got started at Heroku and what the Heroku platform actually is.
• The impetus of Buildpacks and what they were like in the early days.
• A basic level walk-through from detection to compilation on the Heroku server.
• API competition and how Cloud Native Buildpacks are resolving it.
• Capabilities in the new API that weren’t supported in the old one.
• What Docker and Kubernetes are and how they work with Buildpacks and each other.
• How this technology helps enable microservices.
• The prerequisites to moving your applications to a Cloud Native Buildpack.

Links:

1. Joe on Twitter: https://twitter.com/codefinger
2. Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joekutner/
3. Joe on GitHub: https://github.com/jkutner/

Special Update!

Cloud Native Buildpacks have been promoted to incubation.  Read more here: https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/11/18/toc-approves-cloud-native-buildpacks-from-sandbox-to-incubation/

Special shout out in this episode to James Ward (https://twitter.com/_jamesward)

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Kevin Poorman is a Senior Developer Evangelist with Salesforce. Today, we sit down and talk with him about his CodeLive series where Kevin and a guest pair program interesting and unique solutions and ideas for Salesforce. Kevin gives a general overview of the show, but we also dig a little deeper into some highlighted topics from it.

And while Kevin is mostly known for his Salesforce skills, he actually has a Master’s in Divinity, as well. Tune in to hear all about CodeLive as well as his experience with the diverse combination of software engineering and religion.

Show Highlights:

• What CodeLive is and why he started doing it.
• Why he wanted to go the direction of pure programming.
• The few rules he gives to his CodeLive guests.
• Tips and tricks to get debugging into your normal lifecycle of development.
• Tools that help with peer programming.
• What null coalescence is and specific cases where it helps.
• What unlock packages are and how Kevin used them in CodeLive.
• The journey he went through with moving Visualforce to LWC.
• What Apex Recipes is and how he sees people using it.
• What he wishes people did and didn’t do with Apex.

Links:

1. Kevin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/codefriar
2. Kevin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinpoorman/
3. Kevin on Github: https://github.com/codefriar/
4. John Daniel Episode: https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2020/07/codelive-with-salesforce-developer-john-daniel.html
5. Julian Duque episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMmd9yPZ63c
6. Brian Kwong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdtgYCCjHkw&list=PLgIMQe2PKPSJWQxIF9BJSAaWdh6eUl37f&index=8
7. Apex Recipes: https://github.com/trailheadapps/apex-recipes

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Sarah Khalid is a Salesforce Technical Architect for the MedPro Group. In this episode, Sarah and I talk about her experiences integrating and developing with MuleSoft. She also explains how she solved a clutter problem for her son’s school by getting them to stop using physical paper and start working with Salesforce. Sarah taught herself MuleSoft out of curiosity for technology and is now her company’s lead expert on it. Tune in to learn great insights from someone with a comprehensive background.

Show Highlights:

• What Supermums is and Sarah’s involvement in it.
• What MuleSoft is and how it’s different from other programs.
• Early cases for which MuleSoft provided a solution.
• Tips and tricks to consider when using MuleSoft to log in to many different systems.
• What Okta is and what solutions it provides.
• When an Apex trigger would have more of an advantage than CDC.
• How using the Bulk API and MuleSoft plays into designing.
• What OData is and how it works with MuleSoft.

Links

1. Sarah on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sarahSFDC
2. Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khalidsarah/
3. Sarah’s blog: https://sarahinthecloud.wordpress.com/
4. MuleSoft Training: https://training.mulesoft.com/
5. Supermums: https://supermums.org/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

In today’s episode, I’m sitting down to talk with Neha Ahlawat. She is a former Tesla intern who learned about Salesforce when she went to a career fair. She ended up becoming an engineer with us and now she is the Product Manager for Custom Metadata. Today we’re talking about that product, the new CLI plugin for it, and the feature roadmap. Tune in to learn from Neha’s experiences and the latest on Custom Metadata.

Show Highlights:

• What it’s like being a Product Manager at Salesforce.
• The shape of custom metadata.
• A comparison of custom metadata and custom settings.
• Where custom metadata can be used right now.
• Pitfalls people fall into when using hardcoded values and how custom metadata can help them out of that.
• Ways metadata can be used with flows and processes.
• How VLOOKUP works with custom metadata.
• Features that the new CLI plugin rolls out for developers.
• Where hierarchical custom metadata and working with custom metadata through Apex exists on the roadmap right now.
• High priority things on the roadmap.

Links:

1. Neha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ahlawat_neha
2. Neha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahlawatneha/
3. Neha’s blog: https://nehaahlawat.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/where-does-a-thought-go-when-its-forgotten/

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

In this episode, I’m talking with the CTO of BrightGen, Keir Bowden. We sit down and discuss the different tools you can use for automation and testing, including Keir’s own Salesforce CLI plugin. We also talk about the frequent role JavaScript plays in these tools.

Keir worked for a number of startups before finding his way to BrightGen. He first worked with them on a Java implementation and later got involved in their partnership with Salesforce. Tune in to hear his experiences and insight around Salesforce CLI, JavaScript, Selenium and more. 

Show Highlights:

• How Keir got into the Salesforce world.
• Suitable users for the Salesforce CLI.
• The main tasks he uses the CLI for.
• What compelled him to write the Electron UI and how he got it up and running.
• An elevator pitch for the plugin he wrote for the CLI.
• What the Heroku framework is.
• What kind of tests are run with Selenium.
• Tips for working with a more asynchronous user interface.

Links:

1. Keir on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bob_buzzard
2. Keir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keirbowden
3. Keir on Github: github.com/keirbowden
4. Keir’s Blog - http://bobbuzzard.blogspot.com/
5. NPM - https://www.npmjs.com/~keirbowden
6. Dedicated page on blog for Documentor Plug-in: https://bobbuzzard.blogspot.com/p/org-documentor.html

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Martie Burris is a Senior Project Manager here at Salesforce working on our Work.com solution helping businesses with the pandemic. In this episode, we talk about the process of developing Work.com, the core features it has, and how developers can customize it.

Martie started as a consultant, always knowing she wanted to work at the intersection of business and technology. At one point, she tried to explain to her manager what she wanted to do, and that ultimately led her to her role as a project manager. Tune in to learn from her story and expertise and how Work.com could be a unique opportunity for developers.

Show Highlights:

• Why Salesforce is uniquely qualified to deliver Work.com.
• How Work.com came together.
• The working parts of Work.com and how they all flow together.
• The new normal for employees today.
• Best practices for the implementation of Work.com.
• A walk-through of the entity-relationship diagram and what it does for Work.com.
• The role of Trailhead and MuleSoft in Work.com.
• Things developers can experiment with and extend in the program.

Links:

1. Work.com Development Guide: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.workdotcom_dev_guide.meta/workdotcom_dev_guide/wdc_cc_overview.htm
2. Martie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/martieburris
3. Martie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetmartie/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Michael is a lead member of the technical staff over at Salesforce.org.  In this episode, Michael and I talk all about the Nonprofit Success Pack. We discuss its history, development cycle, and new features and how Salesforce.org manages to maintain new features as well as the diversity of size and shape of nonprofits.

Michael has been developing on the Salesforce Platform since the early days, so tune in to hear his stories of getting into the ecosystem and lessons learned over the years.

Show Highlights:

• How Michael got into the Salesforce ecosystem.
• The first thing he built on the Salesforce Platform.
• What his time as a consultant looked like and words of advice for those going into consulting today.
• Features of the Nonprofit Success Pack.
• The distinction between a constituent and a customer.
• What nonprofits on the larger end of the spectrum look like.
• How recurring donations work.
• What the accounting sub-ledger is and how it works, including the new payment solution, Elevate.

Links:

1. Michael on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Force2b_Mike
2. Michael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgsmithnj/
3. Michael on Github: https://github.com/force2b
4. Open Source Sprints: https://powerofus.force.com/s/article/SFDO-OSC-Get-Started
5. Nonprofit Success Pack: https://www.salesforce.org/nonprofit/nonprofit-success-pack/

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Brandon Ferrua is a UX architect for the Design System team here at Salesforce. In this episode, we discuss the history of the Salesforce Lightning Design System. He teaches us what a design system really means. Brandon also reveals a cool new feature in the form of styling hooks. 

If you’ve ever wanted a more detailed understanding of design systems, Brandon has been here since the bootstrap days and has a lot to teach us. Tune in to hear a great conversation with  lots of useful information.

Show Highlights:

• The history of SLDS.
• What makes a design system a design system.
• How Salesforce started getting organized with accessibility-friendly components.
• What a design token is and how it works.
• The core products and users they were specifically designing for Lightning Experience
• What styling hooks are and how they help the adoption problem.
• What kind of freedom the new styling hook feature gives people.
• The advantages the Trailhead design team will experience.

Links:

1. Brandon on Twitter: @bferrua
2. Salesforce UX Github: https://github.com/salesforce-ux
3. SLDS Styling Hooks: https://www.lightningdesignsystem.com/platforms/lightning/styling-hooks/
4. Salesforce UX Blog: https://medium.com/salesforce-ux

***

EPISODE CREDITS:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com