Misc.

Can You Find All 21 Buzzwords in Tech Town?

By Lauren Westwood

The tech industry isn’t short of buzzwords. Many of these terms and phrases find their way into our everyday conversations, but have you ever stopped to think about how they could be represented in the real world… no? Just us then!

Here are some of our current favorites coexisting in perfect harmony. Take a trip to ‘Tech Town’ and see how many you can spot…

Welcome to Tech Town

We have hidden 21 Salesforce-related buzzwords all over town. See how many you can find (without cheating!).

Answers below…


Cloud Computing

Available on any device, anytime, anywhere (providing you have an internet connection), cloud computing is perhaps the truest embodiment of the phrase the sky’s the limit. Marketing, analytics, apps, sales, services, community…  

It. Is. Everything. 

Partial Sandbox / Full Sandbox

As in real life, a Salesforce sandbox is all about ‘having a play’. Sitting outside your production environment, this safe space allows you to develop, test, and experiment with new functionality without compromising your users’ experience.  

There are four types of sandboxes, including Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, and Full – each with slightly different characteristics and purposes. It’s playtime!   

Big Data

As its name suggests, this is data, but in a really big way! Often associated with words that begin with V (including volume, velocity, variety, veracity, value, and variability!), big data represents every digital insight imaginable. When analyzed effectively, it can be used to “increase sales, improve service, and break down information barriers”.

Data Mining

Data mining is the digital process of finding, identifying, and analyzing information. It’s all about learning, from discovering key patterns and trends, to extracting valuable statistics and customer insights – all of which can improve business intelligence.  

Machine Learning

A smart approach to learning that leaves the heavy lifting to the machines… It’s artificial intelligence (AI) that “uses past data to predict what will happen in the future with minimal programming” – think algorithms and analysis over cyborgs and Judgment Day

There are all sorts of things you can do with AI in the world of Salesforce, including analyzing past opportunities to help predict sales wins – thank you Einstein!

Chatbots

These guys pop up all over the (virtual) shop, with varying levels of sophistication. From navigation assistance to feedback collection, chatbots are artificially intelligent software apps programmed to engage with customers, improving their experience along the way. Designed to help out with the basics, they can provide instant, 24/7 support that “simulates human conversation”. Clever robots. 

Matrix Report

Immortalized by Neo and the gang in the late ‘90s, the term ‘matrix’ has become synonymous with the eternal battle between humans and machines. In Salesforce, however, this type of report is one of several you can use to extract, analyze, and customize valuable data. The difference is, Matrix reports “allow you to group by rows as well as columns to see different totals”, which is a handy option when you need to see more data in a structured place. The matrix (report) is everywhere. 

Flow Loop

This Salesforce Flow element is “used to iterate through a number of items in a collection variable”. There are three main components to get your head around: Collection, Loop, and Direction. Inflatable pool float not included!

List View

A fairly self-explanatory term, the ‘list view’ gives you a good view of things in the form of a list (including records you own or have access to within your org). In Lightning Experience, you’ll find “a more intuitive layout, convenient navigation, and integrated list creation and editing” than the previous Classic version. You can also learn to set default list views with this handy guide.

Formula Field

These clever read-only fields are used to “calculate a value based on other fields or a formula”. And of course, any changes to the formula will be automatically reflected in the calculation. Smart! 

Junction Object

When it comes to Salesforce objects, it’s fairly straightforward to create a classic, hierarchical parent-child relationship (aka 1-to-many). But what if you want more than one parent on the scene? Enter Salesforce Junction Objects, which allow you to “create a many-to-many relationship between Salesforce objects”. Now the parents and the kids are on a level playing field! 

Live Chat

This well-named term describes speedy, real-time customer service in the digital realm. These quick, tailored interactions (with an actual person!) help to clear up confusion in an instant.  

Salesforce has its own version – Salesforce Chat (Live Agent) is a “native tool that enables the customer service team to communicate in real-time” with website users. Customers feel heard, agents feel helpful, and everybody feels happy! 

Managed Package

Essentially, packages in Salesforce are collections of components made available via the AppExchange – these can be downloaded and installed by other orgs. Packages are divided into two categories: managed and unmanaged. The managed variety supports upgrades, whereas the unmanaged version (you guessed it) does not!   

Knowledge Base

Your Salesforce Knowledge base is an information hub for your agents, partners and customers; it’s their go-to area (inside Salesforce) for finding “relevant information about your products and services”, from instructional guides to FAQs. By encouraging self-learning, you’re in a position to answer questions before they’ve even been asked, saving time and energy for everyone involved. 

Import Wizard

Less Hogwarts hero, more data loading solution, the user-friendly import wizard enables users to import data for certain standard Salesforce objects, from accounts and contacts, to leads and solutions. This tool is available across all Salesforce editions and allows you to import up to 50,000 records at one time.   

Lightning Web Component 

LWCs are web components, with a little something extra – the more advanced and ‘flashy’ Lightning version of this user interface framework aligns “closely with modern web standards, which makes for a more efficient building process”. Benefits include increased page speed, loading performance, and all-round user experience. 

Milestone

This may seem like an obvious one, but in the world of Salesforce, the humble ‘milestone’ represents far more than a metaphorical achievement. We’re talking about “required, time-dependent steps in your support process” to ensure consistency, accuracy, and efficiency. 

Customer 360

As you might expect, Customer 360 represents a full-circle experience that goes all the way around, connecting the dots between “your marketing, sales, commerce, service and IT teams with a single view of your customer data”. Happy teams, happy customers, happy days!

Data Migration

In its simplest terms, data migration is the process of moving Salesforce data to another platform. Organization is key, so you’ll want to make a plan before making the move – these best practice tips can help with that.  

Mail Merge

How many minutes have been saved with this handy tool? In Salesforce, you can generate a single document that draws data from a whole host of fields, from accounts, cases, and contacts, to leads, opportunities, and custom objects – here’s how

Salesforce MVP

The ‘Most Valuable Professional’ is a very big deal in the Salesforce ecosystem, and for good reason. Close your eyes and imagine someone with passion, energy, generosity, and expertise… someone who values collaboration and leads by example… it’s likely you’re picturing an MVP (or perhaps a soon-to-be MVP!). 

You can meet the current crew here, including the newly elected MVPs in 2022. Scroll down to watch a Trailblazer video – inspiring stuff! 

Final Thoughts

We hope you have enjoyed your visit to Tech Town – an imaginary community where buzzwords and key terms run riot! Let us know your favorites in the comments below. Are there any more buzzwords you’d like to add to our list? And better yet, how would you visualize them? We’d love to hear your ideas… 

The Author

Lauren Westwood

Lauren is the Content Director at Salesforce Ben.

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