Welcome back to the Picklist, your Monday morning catch-up of everything you missed from Salesforce Ben last week.
This week we’re highlighting all sorts of topics, including Caitlin Graaf’s step-by-step guide to seamless Salesforce Discovery (sounds a bit funny when you say it out loud), the unfortunate discourse between Veeva and Salesforce (even though their divorce is a month away), and everything you need to know about certifications moving to Trailhead Academy as delivered by our lovely Mariel.
We’re also drawing your attention to two surveys of ours: the developer survey, which is now open, and one you should totally take part in, and the architect survey, which you can now see all the detailed results.
Lastly, if you’ve had enough reading already (we get it), we’ve included a short video you can catch up on with your first brew of the day. Don’t say we don’t look out for you!
Until next week, happy reading!
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Eliciting the Business Structure During Salesforce Discovery: A 4-Step Guide
No successful Salesforce implementation or process has ever been rushed, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying.
A well-informed Discovery process is needed to lay out business requirements accurately, and it needs multiple phases: setting a vision for success, defining the operational structure of the business, defining the business rules, articulating business processes, and defining functional and non-functional requirements.
Ultimately, it’s all about setting context, and a lot of it falls on the role of the business analyst. It can be broken down into four key steps:
- Defining the business units: This is all about understanding the various units and how they interact with one another, so that you can anticipate which ones will be affected and when.
- Mapping stakeholders: Ever heard of Persona Mapping? Well, when the departmental structure of the business is mapped, you’ll need to map your relevant people too.
- Understanding the systems landscape: In a complex tech world, it’s becoming increasingly rare for a company to use Salesforce in isolation. What other software will be used? What about integrations?
- Setting the stage for solutions (defining epics): Sounds really cool, but it’s just about articulating the high-level functional areas that the intended solution should support.
Read the original post here.
Veeva CEO Hits Out at Salesforce: “It’s Too Risky and Too Expensive”
This kind of statement is definitely not something someone like Marc Benioff wants to hear; however, he might be used to it – especially coming from the CEO of Veeva Systems, the pharmaceutical giant that has had a partnership with Salesforce for just under 20 years.
Veeva announced that it would not be signing to stay on with Salesforce in 2022, and that contract is set to expire in September this year. Although that date is a month away, Veeva’s CEO, Peter Gassner, took to LinkedIn to set the record straight in light of some “misinformation” that he had observed.
Branding Veeva as the “best choice” for life sciences CRM and accusing Salesforce of being “too risky and too expensive”, Gassner even provided a table to compare the two software. Now, without the risk of sounding obvious, the table did lean heavily on the side of Veeva, with a number of inaccuracies, but even aside from that, Gassner has made it clear that this split will not occur on amicable terms.
Read the full post here.
Have Your Say: 2025 Salesforce Ben Developer Survey Is Now Open
Survey season is in full swing over here at Salesforce Ben, and we need your insights for our annual developer survey.
What’s it really like to build and innovate in the Salesforce ecosystem in 2025? We want to find out – and we need your input to do it. Whether you’re an experienced professional or just starting out your Salesforce journey, this survey is for you.
It takes around 20 minutes to complete, and any insight you may have will be truly valuable. The more data we gather, the more insights we can share with our community.
If you’re interested, complete the survey here.
Salesforce Certifications Move to Trailhead Academy: Here’s Everything You Need to Know
Long-gone are the days of switching between WebAssessor and Trailhead for certification learning and taking. Trailhead Academy for certifications is finally here, and from first impressions, the experience is already feeling a lot smoother.
If you’re planning to book a new exam, maintain your existing credentials, or simply explore your cert options, it’s now easier because everything lives within the Trailhead ecosystem. This means that when you log into Trailhead Academy, you’ll be able to view your existing certifications and exam history, schedule new exams directly, access learning resources and recommended paths for preparation and review, and navigate to certification verification and maintenance.
We recommend you spend some time just learning your way around, but it will begin to feel super intuitive in no time at all.
Read the original post for more details here.
SF Ben 2025 Architect Survey: 6 Reasons Why Salesforce Architects Are Avoiding the CTA
The results from our latest architect survey came in last month, and one of the most interesting insights is actually why many Salesforce Architects are avoiding taking on the CTA.
The elusive Certified Technical Architect has long been considered the pinnacle of both Salesforce career development and learning, especially as the exam to become one is notoriously difficult and expensive. However, our survey data has revealed that architects do not see the effort and time needed to take this on as a priority, as they are as stretched-thin as ever.
Other factors like ROI doubts, employers not requiring it, and the overall changes of the landscape that mean the role of the architect continuously changes anyway, also play a part in architects staying at slightly lower but just as important rungs of the career ladder.
Read more about this in the original post here.
From Version 1 to 3.0: How Has Salesforce’s Agentforce Developed?
It’s no secret that Salesforce loves a name change here and there, and although it’s been less than a year since Agentforce was unveiled, it’s gone through its own share of little title changes. But what’s the significance?
From version one to three, we take you through the different stages of Agentforce, covering how it has developed over time, what new functionality has been introduced, and how the community has responded to it all.
Watch the video here.
