Podcast
Salesforce Admins Podcast
Hosted by Mike Gerholdt · EN
The Salesforce Admins podcast features real-life Salesforce Admins, product managers, and community leaders who transform businesses, careers, and community with clicks, not code. This 20min (sometimes a bit more) weekly podcast hosted by Mike Gerholdt feature episodes to empower Salesforce Admins who are implementing Enterprise CRM solutions. There may be some (digital) confetti. For more than our most recent episodes, go to https://admin.salesforce.com/salesforce-admin-podcast.
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What are Security Essentials for Salesforce Admins
2w ago00:33:28Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Laura Pelkey, Director of Customer Security Communications and Engagement, and Sabrina Simeroth, Product Manager for Security Center at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about security essentials for the summer and how Salesforce is helping admins protect their data. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Laura Pelkey and Sabrina Simeroth. Why admins are a target Security doesn't take a summer vacation. And while AI is helping all of us do more things faster than ever before, it's also helping hackers deliver new types of targeted attacks at scale. And as privileged users, admins are finding themselves in the crosshairs. Luckily, Salesforce is rolling out key security enhancements over the summer to help you protect your org. I sat down with Laura Pelkey and Sabrina Simeroth to talk about what threats are out there and how you can be prepared. MFA requirements to protect your credentials Because AI makes it easier than ever to imitate someone's writing style or even their voice, the biggest threats that Laura and her team are seeing are different variations of phishing attacks. In the end, it's all about getting someone's credentials and then using that access to do damage. That's why Salesforce is requiring all customers to use multi-factor authentication (MFA), as opposed to the gentle nudging we've done in the past. However, MFA can still be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, so admins and other privileged users will need to use a stronger phishing resistant MFA. Finally, Salesforce will require step-up authentication for users attempting a sensitive or unusual action, like exporting a large file. I don't have to tell you that these kinds of changes can often be met with resistance. Laura recommends framing things in terms of what they protect your users from. Does a salesperson really want a hacker to email everyone on their contact list from their account? It's not about making you jump through hoops—it's about protecting you from real risks. Security Center Essentials and Health Check give admins a central view We also checked in with Sabrina about how her team is trying to make it easier to get a handle on essential security configurations across the platform and what settings are most critical. Coming in July, the new Security Center Essentials will let you see everything in one place instead of having to wade through a bunch of permissions and toggles. Health Check will help you prioritize which changes will get you the biggest bang for your buck, and help you track your security posture over time. "It's all about allowing admins to navigate the security space in a way that helps to reduce the complexity and provide some guidance," Sabrina says. There's a lot more from Laura and Sabrina about security on Salesforce and what's coming next, so make sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Help: Security-Related Product Updates to the Salesforce Platform: User Identity, Data Protection, and Access Controls Trailhead: Use Health Check to Scan Your Security Configurations Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Laura on LinkedIn Sabrina on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking security with Laura Pelkey and Sabrina Simeroth. The threat landscape is moving fast and with AI in the mix, attackers are getting better at targeting privileged users like Salesforce Admins. But in this episode, it isn't about fear, it's about readiness, trust, and the systems admins can put in place to protect our orgs. We'll cover MFA enforcement, phishing-resistant MFA, step-up authentication, and how Security Center Essentials gives admins a clearer view of the settings that matter most because today's admin isn't just managing features. They're designing secure, trusted systems that help businesses move forward. So, let's move forward with this podcast and get Laura and Sabrina on. So, Laura and Sabrina, welcome to the podcast. Laura Pelkey: Hello? Sabrina Simeroth: Thank you. Thanks for having us. Mike Gerholdt: Absolutely. Well, it's always good to talk security. I feel like I was watching the news the other day and they talk about kids when they go to school and then they have the summer off and there's that summer slump of information. I feel like maybe over the summer we kind of have a security slump because we're taking time off and we're going to water slides and watching tornadoes in the Midwest, but maybe I'm just crazy thinking about that. Laura, why don't you catch us up and tell us what's going on with security and some of the newest things in summer 26? Laura Pelkey: I would love to. And I was just going to say our catchphrase, which I feel like I repeat every time we do a podcast together and that security never sleeps even in the summer. Mike Gerholdt: Oh, yes. Right. That could also be a fun summer action film. Laura Pelkey: Yes. I would see it. Mike Gerholdt: I would. Laura Pelkey: Yeah. So, I mean, we're halfway through the year, which is crazy already. And I'd say in the last year we have seen the security landscape and the threat landscape shift tremendously. And especially, I mean, I think a lot of people at Salesforce and a lot of people who are listening are very aware of and use on a day-to-day basis, AI nowadays, which is great. It's a very powerful tool. But what we're seeing in the security landscape is that AI-driven cyber threats have emerged and hackers have really up-leveled their ability to create and execute targeted cyber attacks faster than ever before. So, it's kind of crazy the speed at which this is happening. And unfortunately, I think we're going to see their capabilities get better and better as these tools evolve. Mike Gerholdt: Well, that's not fair. We're supposed to use AI for good. Laura Pelkey: Yeah. Well, the good news is, so yes, I agree. The good news is that providers are now using the same AI models or better AI models if you're in the lucky groups to enhance the security of their platforms and products. So, now the playing field has really been evened out. Mike Gerholdt: Well, that's good. Laura Pelkey: Yeah. But we're in a really interesting time right now with cybersecurity and AI. Mike Gerholdt: I mean, I feel like everybody's trying to figure out AI and now that kind of only muddies the water of impersonating other people or the speed at which it can replicate good or bad effective use of, I don't know, text messages or different spoofing. Can you walk us through how does Salesforce leverage AI to proactively block the type of threats that you're seeing today? Laura Pelkey: Yeah. So, there are some really common threats that just across the industry we're seeing that AI is being used for. So, account takeovers and this is a really common one. This is where attacker might use AI to create a phishing campaign, which targets users and tries to get access to their account. And then once they're inside a user account, they can then utilize all of the privileges that that user has to continue carrying out their attack. So, it's really about getting credentials, finding creative ways to get around our existing solutions to get those and then get that user profile and exploit it. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. I think one thing that you've pointed out in the past is identity-based social engineering. So, I'd love for you to kind of expand on what makes admins and some privileged users such high-value targets for that. Laura Pelkey: Yeah, that's a great question. So, identity-based social engineering is when attackers create very highly personalized ...
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How Agentforce Helped Build a Food Waste Solution in Days
3w ago00:25:20Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Parth Sevak, Director of Technology and Principal Architect at Incepta. Join us as we chat about how Parth built a multi-agent system designed to connect surplus food with the people and organizations that need it the most and won the Agentforce for Good Grand Prize at the TDX Hackathon. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Parth Sevak. The Hackathon project focused on reducing food waste If you listened to last week's episode with Alexandra Iyer, you know that Agentforce for Good was a popular problem at this year's Agentforce Hackathon at TDX. Contestants took on big issues like nonprofit volunteer coordination and disaster relief. That's why I was so excited to sit down with Parth Sevak, whose project Harvest Bridge won the Agentforce for Good Grand Prize. Harvest Bridge is a multi-agent application that connects food donors with organizations near them. As Parth explains, food waste is a serious problem. According to the UN's World Food Programme, about 318 million people are facing acute hunger today. "In North America, 30-40% of the food that is produced never gets eaten," he says. So he decided that this would be the perfect problem to tackle for the Agentforce Hackathon at TDX. Simple integrations and out-of-the-box tools Under the hood, Harvest Bridge features multi-agent coordination between four agents to handle donor intake, food matching, volunteer logistics, and reporting analytics. While it sounds incredibly complicated, Parth is quick to point out that 80% of the work was done in configuration with out-of-the-box admin tools. Parth needed to write some Apex to do specific things like geo-matching, which he vibe-coded with the Claude plugin for Agentforce. Crucially, he didn't have to write glue code to make everything work between Agentforce, Data 360, automations he built in Salesforce, Slack, and Tableau. "All of it just worked like a charm," he says, "five years ago, that integration story would have been months, if not years." How to get started building Agentforce solutions In just a few days, Parth was able to build an autonomous, multi-agent system that uses Agentforce, Data 360, Slack, and Tableau to match surplus food with local organizations and coordinate delivery in under 90 minutes. If you're looking to get started with Agentforce, Parth recommends jumping on Trailhead as your first step. The Agentforce Specialist certification gives you the tools you need to start building, and then it's all about getting your hands dirty. Make sure to listen to the full conversation with Parth Sevak about how he built Harvest Bridge and won the Agentforce for Good Grand Prize. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more UN World Food Programme Trailhead: Agentforce Specialist certification Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Agentforce for Good Shows the Power of Inclusive Innovation Watch the Demo Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're talking with Parth Sevak about how a real world food waste solution went from idea to working system in just days using Agentforce. Drawing from a challenge that impacts millions globally, Parth built HarvestBridge, which is a multi-agent system designed to connect surplus food with the people and organizations that need it most. Now, this was part of the TDX26 Hackathon Challenge and what makes this conversation the most compelling isn't just the technology, it's how admins and architects can really orchestrate data automation, AI agents and human coordination together without months of integration work. We also get into what it means to design a trustworthy system where humans stay in control while AI handles scale and speed. So, if you've ever been wondering about how Agentforce changes the role of the Salesforce admin from builder to system orchestrator, this episode's for you. Be sure to subscribe, share the episode with your team, your friends, your local Salesforce admin user group and let us know what kind of real world problems you'd solve with Agentforce. But for now, we're going to get Parth on the podcast. So, Parth, welcome to the podcast. Parth Sevak: Thanks, Mike. Really glad to be here. Mike: Well, I'm glad to have you. So, if everything shakes out, the episode before this will be the episode with the Agentforce for Good People, but sometimes scheduling is what it is. But I was at TDX this year and we had Hackathon winners and you were part of the Agentforce Hackathon. And so, that's how I got connected with you. But I think before we get into that, I'd love to know a little bit about how you got started in the Salesforce ecosystem, what you do and let's go from there. Parth Sevak: Absolutely, Mike. Again, thanks for having me. So, the story of how I ended up in Salesforce is really interesting. That was not my plan. In fact, back in 2011, I was a fresh computer science engineering grade hunting for my first real tech off somewhere. And that time, the startup economy was just taking off and Java was the thing, the only thing in my perspective as far as I was concerned. And then my boss pulled me aside and said, "Parth, you are going to work on Salesforce." And I said, "Oh, what is Salesforce? I'm looking for Java opportunities." So, he made his pitch. "Apex is basically Java, you will feel right at home. And there is this thing called Dreamforce, massive event, you might get to experience it someday." And that's where you see a lot of enterprise innovation is going to come in. Basically, he sold it and 16 years later, here I am loving the challenge, loving the stretch, always finding ages I haven't touched yet and it keeps me motivated. Mike: He was a heck of a salesman. Java, here's Salesforce. It's just like Java. And if you're good enough, you might get to go to Dreamforce. That's awesome. So, go ahead. Parth Sevak: Yeah. And just to tell you what currently I'm doing. So, these days- Mike: Yeah, please. Parth Sevak: ... I'm working as a director of technology at Incepta Solutions where I lead data, CRM integration and agentic AI transformation for enterprise clients across financial services, retail manufacturing and pharma healthcare. But I make sure to keep one foot in hands-on building always. And that's how HarvestBridge happened at TDX, as you see. Mike: Yeah. So, let's talk about that. I mean, it's really cool. This isn't our first hackathon since we've come out with Agentforce. We've been doing hackathons and the early hackathons, I was a judge in quite a few and some of the really neat ideas that people were coming up with for the use of AI agents and some agentic use cases I think were really kind of interesting. I know we had that at TDX. So, I guess let's start off with the TDX Agentforce for Good Hackathon. What made you want to enter that to begin with? Parth Sevak: Yeah, to be really honest, it was again, my boss encouraged me because even I was not sure whether I would be attending the TDX in first place, but my boss was really motivated to join the party and he invited me. And then I realized, okay, if I register for TDX, there is an option to participate in the hackathon. And that's how my journey began. Mike: Oh, well, we made that awfully easy for you, didn't we? Parth Sevak: Yeah. Mike: I mean, I would like to think I'm a competitive person, but when it comes down to it, I think I really like watching competitions as opposed to competing. What made you think, "Oh, I'm going to get into this because the idea that I have is so great." So, tell me a little bit about what your idea was and what it solved for. Parth Sevak: Yeah. So, honestly, the topic I picked is not a fleshy topic, right? I picked the food waste, which is definitely not a hackathon topic. It's not a biotec...
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Agentforce for Good Shows the Power of Inclusive Innovation
4w ago00:27:57Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Alexandra Iyer, Director of Marketing Strategy and AI Transformation, and Global EVP of Abilityforce at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the Agentforce for Good Hackathon at TDX and what happens when technology, accessibility, and community come together to solve real-world problems. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Alexandra Laxmi Iyer. Agentforce for Good expands AI beyond business problems This year, we added a new twist to the types of problems you could solve for at the TDX Hackathon. We called it Agentforce for Good, and it offered participants a way to work on some big problems: food insecurity, nonprofit volunteer coordination, disaster relief, and more. That's why I'm so excited to bring Alexandra "X" Iyer on the pod. She's the Global EVP of Abilityforce, Salesforce's internal business unit for people with disabilities and their allies. They've been running an internal accessibility hackathon for years, and Agentforce for Good grew out of a desire to open it up to the community and broaden its scope. "Builders who probably never thought of themselves as social impact developers shipped working Agentforce solutions for all sorts of big problems," X says, and 62% of this year's Hackathon entries were solving for Agentforce for Good. Inclusive design creates better technology for everyone "When we are challenged with designing for the edge, you make the center better," X says. Finding challenges that force you to push tools like Tableau, Slack, and Agentforce in new ways helps you uncover capabilities that you might not have otherwise thought about. As X likes to put it, "Good design is just good design, full stop." Going forward, X and her team are looking for ways to expand Agentforce for Good beyond TDX. Consider this a call for participation, and she encourages you to get in touch to volunteer or bring Agentforce for Good to a community event near you. Lived experience is a valuable design credential "One of the main things I would love for people to take away from our conversation is that your lived experience is a credential," X says. "It's not a distraction." After all, designing around new challenges is how we come up with innovative solutions that nobody else would have thought of. Your unique perspective is valuable. Make sure to listen to the full episode for more insights from X. Next week, we'll hear from the winner of the TDX Hackathon, so make sure you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Trailblazer Community Group: Abilityforce Salesforce Equality Groups Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social X on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or review us on iTunes! Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, we're talking about what happens when technology, accessibility, and community come together to solve real world problems. I'm joined by X or X, who is the director of marketing, strategy and AI transformation at Salesforce and Vice President of Abilityforce to discuss the Agentforce for Good Hackathon that happened at TDX. Now we're going to find out that it started as an employee-led accessibility initiative. And has grown into a community movement bringing together admins, developers, partners, and customers to build solutions that address challenges like food insecurity, disaster relief, and volunteer coordination. We're going to talk about why designing for inclusion leads to better outcomes, how AI can help scale impact, and why your lived experience might be one of the most valuable design credentials you have. So if you're thinking about how data automation, AI agents work together to create meaningful change not just inside your organization, but in the world around it, I promise you this episode is for you. So let's get Alexandra on the podcast. So Alexandra, welcome to the podcast. Alexandra: Thank you for having me, Mike. Mike: I think it's going to be a fun conversation because we're talking about Agentforce for Good today. So let's get started to learn a little bit about you and your path to Salesforce and your path to the Agentforce for Good Hackathon. Alexandra: Absolutely. Thank you for asking. And by the way, I go by X for short, so feel free to call me X. Mike: Perfect. X: I'm the director of marketing strategy and AI transformation for our customer success and partner marketing team here at Salesforce. And I'm also the vice president for Abilityforce, our employee resource group for people with disabilities and their allies. And when we're talking about the Agentforce for Good Hackathon, this is really a moment where these two worlds actually collided. Normally, they wouldn't collide, but the hackathon is genuinely where they did. I come from 20 years of go to-market experience. I'm not a builder by background. I actually got curious in a marketing role about the products that I was marketing and how they worked. So that curiosity pulled me into the platform, into development, into force certifications that I did not see coming. And then, I went from talking about technology to building on it and that changed everything. I believe that the AI era is only worth building if it's built for everyone. That's not a tagline for me. It's a design requirement. And I truly feel that admins have always known that. Admins are the ones closest to the humans using the platform, the problems, the friction, the gaps. And I also believe they're the closest to the solution. So I think it's not a support function, it's a superpower and I'm really happy to be here. Mike: Yeah. Well, I agree with everything you had to say, X. I do agree that admins are very superpower. I also think just in general, when we think about technology, it's not how do we roll it out for some people? It's how do we roll it out for everyone? And I remember this is a long time ago, but when I first joined a company that did workplace assessments, I remember they said, "Well, when creating the test, we have to assume the person doesn't know how to use a mouse." And I remember thinking to myself, this is ... closed-minded is the wrong word, but I just was unaware. And I was like, "Well, who doesn't know how to use a mouse?" And they're like, "Well, you don't understand." And I was like, "Oh, that is a huge challenge." And sometimes until you get someone else's perspective, do you really understand like, it's not that you've been living under a rock, it's just too often sometimes people assume their world is just like everyone else's world and it's not. So there's a Mike side of I had to remember that not everybody knows how to use a mouse sometimes. X: Well, Mike, frankly, I consider that the main dish. I don't think it's a Mike side. I think that if you're designing for the default user, it's not really good technology and that when you optimize for the average, you're excluding by design. So I think it's the main dish and it's part of the reason why the Agentforce for Good Hackathon even exists. So to give you a little context, three years ago, the Agentforce for Good Hackathon was an internal-only, employee-only hackathon led by Abilityforce. I mentioned earlier Salesforce's business resource group for people with disabilities and their allies. And then, last year we said, "Why does it have to be about accessibility only and why does it only have to be for employees?" So then we opened it up to the community. We had partners and customers and employees all building on the platform, really stretching the platform, bringing us to TDX this year, where builders who really probably never even thought of themselves as social impact developers shipped working Agentforce Solutions for food insecurity, for nonprofit volunteer coordination, you name it. So when we all come together to threshold platform for everybody, not the default user, we're really...
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Salesforce Admins Can Reduce Risk With Proactive Security
May 2800:20:43Tap to summarizeSalesforce Admins Can Reduce Risk With Proactive Security Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Kate Lessard, Lead Admin Evangelist at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about why security is the foundation for how data, automation, and AI work together. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Kate Lessard. Why strong security is proactive, not reactive Security can often feel like the elephant in the room. Everyone knows it's important, but the amount of work needed to do it right can feel daunting. Thorny problems like accumulated tech debt and organizational inertia can make you feel like you're better off not talking about it. That's why I sat down with Kate Lessard. This month, she ran a workshop called Security in Action to highlight the simple steps you can take to strengthen the security posture of your org. She got hands-on with an example org to demonstrate how to use Health Check to identify and fix security problems. It's all about taking a proactive approach to security, rather than waiting for something to happen to you. Your Health Check score is a security action plan "Health Check is no longer just a list of settings for you to review," Kate says, "it's your dynamic risk mitigation dashboard." Issues are sorted into four categories: high-risk, medium-risk, low-risk, and informational. There is also a status to rate the level of urgency for each issue: critical, warning, or compliant. Health Check is also customizable. If your organization's security policies are different than the Salesforce Baseline Standard, you can download an XML file and tweak the criteria. You can compare your policies to what's recommended by Salesforce, and maybe identify some low-hanging fruit. In short, your Health Check score gives you a prioritized list of which security issues need to be addressed first so you can walk into a meeting with stakeholders with a solid plan of action. Helpful reports for user management Security and user management go hand in hand, and Kate recommends some reports that admins can run to help with governance. First of all, the Active System Administrator Report can help you find users who might have more access than they need. This can often be an issue in older orgs where it was easier to give someone admin access than to sit down and solve the permission problem. Kate also likes to run a report on Reports, to keep track of what her users are interacting with the most. As Kate says, it's all about making a shift towards a security model built around permission set best practices. As admins, we need to find a way to fit security seamlessly into our organization's business processes, and vice versa. There may be an upfront cost, but it's all about making security easy in the long run. Listen to the full conversation for more from Kate about security and Health Check. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog: Securing Your Org: From Reactive to Proactive Kate Clicks Through It: Protect Your Salesforce Org With Health Check Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Kate on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, I sit down with Salesforce Evangelist Kate Lessard to unpack why security is really no longer a side conversation for admin, but the foundation to how data, humans, automation and AI all work together. We're going to cover her new security workshop that she led last week, and talk about health check upgrades, permission set security models, and of course how Salesforce admins can move from reacting to security problems to proactively designing trusted systems. We do touch on a little bit of governance, user access, and why secure data is the backbone of every successful AI implementation. So if you've ever wondered how modern Salesforce admins evolve from feature builders into stewards of trust, this episode is for you. And with that, let's get Kate on the podcast. Kate, welcome back to the podcast. Kate Lessard: Hey, thanks for having me back. Excited to be here. Mike: Well, it feels like a lot of relevant things for admins are coming out of your camp lately from True to the Core Deep Dive to last week's security and action. I feel like there should be like a thunderclap after that. Security and action. Dun, dun, dun. Kate Lessard: Yeah, absolutely. Data and access. Mike: Right. Mm-hmm. Yep. Like a comic book hero. And then you got to do the comic book land. Anyway, totally off topic. Look at that. 30 seconds into the podcast, we're already in comic books. People- Kate Lessard: I mean, I am here for it. Admins are superheroes, especially when they are securing their orgs. Mike: We are. So let's talk about what that first workshop was, and what you covered, and how it went. So tell me a little bit more, tell everybody a little bit more about what that workshop was. Kate Lessard: So in the Security and Action workshop, we were really focused on data and access and using HealthCheck as our guide. So essentially we started off with some security basics knowing that much of our audience was at different levels. So we had people joining us that are brand new admins that are working on their first certification. And then we had people joining us that have been in the ecosystem and in a Salesforce role for more than 10 years. So wanted to make sure that we had a strong foundation and that we had reviewed some security foundational knowledge base points for everybody to get on the same level. And then we got hands-on in an org that just didn't have a great health check score and had some security concerns that we went through, and hands-on adjusted together until we improved our score, we better secured our org, and just increased our security posture. Mike: Cool. I didn't hear Agentforce in there and we're in the age of AI. Kate Lessard: Yeah. So I do think we didn't specifically touch on Agentforce in this first workshop. We really wanted to focus on that strong security base where it applies to all of your org. And that might mean that it applies to your users, both human and agent, but really focusing in on that prime security. And then we do have plans in the future to enhance this and take this to the next level and really expand on some of those agentic guardrails. But I think that it's just really important to have that foundation first. Mike: Yeah. I mean, all of it bases around good, clean data and secure data. Kate Lessard: Absolutely. And you're not going to have a successful Agentforce implementation without that. That is the foundation point that's going to set your organization up for success using AI. Mike: I did the Agentforce Now workshop that week, and I always emphasize the importance of filling in description and metadata fields as well. Kate Lessard: Yes, hugely important. Mike: So one of the things, it's really cool the workshop pivots all around HealthCheck. And I know having worked some of the Q&A, people were like, "Wait a minute, I thought HealthCheck went away." Kate Lessard: Yeah, HealthCheck has not gone away. It is free for admins to use and it actually recently got some pretty impressive and exciting upgrades that we spend some time on in the workbook. So it's no longer just a list of settings for you to review. It is really dynamic and serves as your risk mitigation dashboard. So you can do things like not only configure the specific settings for your org security, but you can also set up email notifications for system admins or anyone who that you would like to receive notifications when your security score changes. So maybe members of yo...
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Can AI Help Salesforce Admins Build Apps More Efficiently?
May 2100:33:26Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Nick McOwen, Senior Salesforce Administrator at Alpine Intel. Join us as we chat about his path to Salesforce and the TDX workshop he gave about the development lifecycle, sandboxes, and data masking. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Nick McOwen. Nick's unconventional path into Salesforce Nick is the second touring musician I've had on the show this month—I promise I'm not raiding a recording studio somewhere just to find podcast guests. He was waiting tables in between gigs when a guest called him over to ask if he might want to try something different. A chance encounter turned into an entry-level job and, eventually, an admin certification. I caught up with Nick fresh off his workshop at TDX, where he shared how he uses sandboxes and data masking to build new agents and apps for his organization. Learning better development habits and sandbox management They say every warning sign has a story behind it, and the same goes for best practices in Salesforce. Luckily, Nick had Salesforce MVP Kelly Bentubo around to show him the ropes. He learned about the importance of consistent naming practices, managing user expectations, and having a structured deployment process instead of building in production. Recently, Nick was tasked with building a new recruiting app for his organization. He was able to spin up a sandbox with an app they had already built and, using that foundation, quickly reconfigure it to meet the new requirements. Once the app was in good shape, Nick moved it up to a staging sandbox environment for testing. There, he could copy data over from production and use data masking to keep everything secure. Once everything was thoroughly vetted, it was finally ready to be deployed into production. How Agentforce Vibes can help admins collaborate with developers Recently, Nick's been taking advantage of Agentforce Vibes to work more closely with his dev team. He was able to write an Apex class and, while the code isn't perfect, he was able to go through it with a developer to learn what was working, what wasn't, and why. "It was a great launching point," he says, "something that would have taken days was written in an hour." For Nick, the most important thing admins need to do to get the most out of Agentforce Vibes is to learn the basic underlying principles of Apex and coding. It's just like using a calculator—you still need to have some way of knowing if the answer you're getting is in the right ballpark. Make sure to listen to my full conversation with Nick for more on sandboxes, data masking, testing, and why AI is a new opportunity to grow. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Headless 360 Helps Admins Bring Salesforce Anywhere Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Why Pattern Recognition Matters for Salesforce Admins Salesforce 360 Blog: Your AI Could Be Better: The 4 Tools You Need for Continuous Improvement Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Nick on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, I'm joined by Nick McOwen, which means now I've started a trend of having former musicians who become Salesforce admins as guests. Anyway, Nick is going to show us how he went from touring in a band and waiting tables to leading Salesforce projects that involve sandboxes, data masking, deployment processes, and AI assisted development. We talk about the early build it in production and hope for the best admin days, how Agentforce Vibes is changing the way admins approach coding and why today's Salesforce admins are becoming orchestrators of systems instead of just builders of features. There's also a little Apex talk and surprisingly deep analogy involving semi-trucks and AI because you know my analogies and a confirmation that developers will always think their code is prettier. So hit subscribe, share this episode with your favorite Salesforce admin and let's get Nick on the podcast. So Nick, welcome to the podcast. Nick McOwen: Hey, Mike, it's great to be here. Mike: Well, I was introduced to you through a couple product managers at Salesforce that are always on the hunt for finding good Salesforce admins and you were also presenting with them in the admin track. So before we get to that, let's learn a little bit about Nick. How did Nick get started doing Salesforce and be in the ecosystem? Nick McOwen: Well, it was a complete fluke. I had been touring in a band and we just kind of stopped playing music and I was waiting tables at a country club and one of the members was, "Do you want to keep waiting tables?" I said, "Not particularly." So got me a job doing the entry level position at the company and I realized I didn't want to be doing that either. So I went to the developer at the time who was also the CIO and the CTO and said, "I'm going to learn Salesforce." And he kind of looked at me in the way that an adult might look at a middle schooler who said, "Watch me hit this three point shot." And I eventually learned it after a few misses, but they decided to take a risk on me and many, many years later here I am working with Agentforce agents writing a little bit of Apex here and there. And yeah, it just didn't intend to get here, but here I am. Mike: I mean, people are going to think I went down and raided the local music festival because not but a couple weeks ago I just had Adam Stark on who was also a musician that became a Salesforce admin. So apparently it's a trend. Nick McOwen: Yeah, that's the track. That's the track line for most musicians, I guess. Mike: Yeah. I mean, let's see. Should I be like an '80s metal hair band or an admin? Nick McOwen: Oh, that's a tough call. Mike: I know, right? Let's talk about some of the stuff that you presented at TDX because you covered a lot of things in terms of development life cycle and sandboxes and I felt like you were in that area for stuff that admins are interested in and kind of that next level of their career building apps. Nick McOwen: Yes. It was a talk that focused around seeding sandboxes masking data and my experience with that and it's funny because prior to the presentation at TDX, shout out to Allie and Sam, I was talking to them and they were running a booth and they were saying how many people that they'd talked to who didn't use sandboxes or didn't quite see the value in sandboxes. And so I realized that this talk probably had a lot more impact than I thought it was going to be. My particular use case was how we had rebuilt an app that our recruiting team was using for our field agents and how we spun up a sandbox specifically for it, rebuilt everything using the foundation of the app that was already there and got to test in a secure environment, move it up to our staging environment and then production. So it was an interesting experience and an eye-opening one too, getting to talk to everybody. Mike: I mean, to be fair, I don't think when I started as an admin, I really had to pay attention to what my organization's life cycle for app development was because you're kind of, and in this case, and I don't know about your company, but you're kind of a small scrappy unit and maybe they got Salesforce for like 20 or 30 people. I mean, nine times out of 10, I was just building stuff in a dev org to make sure it worked and then literally just not even deploying it, rebuilding it in production and Monday afternoon being like, "Okay everybody, so there's a new field on the account." I think back to those days of like, "Wow, what was I doing?" Nick McOwen: 100% identify with that because that is exactly how I more o...
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How Headless 360 Helps Admins Bring Salesforce Anywhere
May 1400:23:11Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Khushwant Singh, SVP of Product Management for the AI Application Development Platform at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about what Headless 360 means for admins and how Salesforce is building towards a future where setting up complex systems becomes a conversation, not a checklist. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Khushwant Singh. What is Salesforce Headless 360? If you're not a developer, the idea of a "headless" platform may sound a little spooky. My guest this week, Khushwant "Khush" Singh, is here to tell us what it all means and why Salesforce Headless 360 represents a step forward into the future of the Agentic Enterprise. As Khush explains, in a headless platform the frontend is separated from the backend. If you have a pixel-perfect website that you love and you want to use Salesforce applications, or visualizations, you can do that without having to change anything. If your organization relies on Slack, your users can interact with Salesforce data and agents in the chat instead of having to open another browser tab. "Headless 360 is about bringing Salesforce to wherever you need it," Khush says. Headless 360 builds the foundation for the Agentic Enterprise One of the main reasons for Headless 360 is to rethink the Salesforce stack for AI. "For the last 27 years, those layers have been put in place for a human," Khush points out, "so how do we open this up for both a human and an agent?" To do that, Khush and his team are translating the entire platform into a set of model context protocols (MCPs), skills, and metadata that can interface directly with AI agents. This makes conversational tools within the platform, like Setup with Agentforce, even more powerful, while also allowing you to use any other outside AI model you like. And while these changes have the biggest impact on vibe coding for now, Headless 360 lays the groundwork for a future where we build agents, create applications, and configure Salesforce through a conversational interface. No coding required. Why trust is even more important with the rapid pace of AI AI is quickly transforming the way we work, and the conversation can become centered on how to move fast. But that makes trust, quality, and governance even more important, Khush explains. Headless 360 is built with trust as a core feature, so you can move quickly without making compromises. There's much more from Khush about Salesforce Headless 360 and what it means for admins, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce 360 Blog Post: Introducing Salesforce Headless 360. No Browser Required. Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Setup with Agentforce Makes Salesforce Admin Tasks Easier Salesforce Help Article: Setup with Agentforce (Beta) Salesforce Admins Blog Post: What Is MCP? A Simple Guide to Model Context Protocol for Salesforce Admins Trailhead: Salesforce Headless 360: Quick Look Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Khush on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, I'm joined by Khushwant Singh to talk about what happens when Salesforce stops just being a destination and starts becoming part of every system your business already relies on. That's right, from Headless 360 to Setup with Agentforce, Khush breaks down how admins are moving beyond configuring features and into orchestrating how data, AI agents, automation and people work together across the business. Now, we're going to dig into what Headless actually means for admins, why governance and trust matter more than ever in an AI first world, and how Salesforce is building toward a future where setting up complex systems really becomes more of a conversation than a checklist. This episode is really about systems thinking, how admins can connect experiences without forcing teams to rebuild everything from scratch. So if you've been trying to figure out where AI fits into your role or how your role is evolving alongside it, I promise you this episode gives you a practical look at what's already happening and what's coming next. So be sure to hit that subscribe button. Share this episode with your favorite architect or admin friend, and let's get Khush on the podcast. So Khush, welcome back to the podcast. Khushwant Singh: Thank you for having me back, Mike. Mike Gerholdt: I say that because I had to look and it was 2022 back in the day you were talking Experience Cloud when we last had you on. You've since moved on, moved up, had your hands in a lot of things, did an admin keynote with me. So let's start there and let's kind of catch everybody up on some of the products you've been working on, and then we're going to talk about the newest one that we launched at TDX this year. Khushwant Singh: Yeah, happy to. And again, great to be back. I think back in the day, started obviously with Experience Cloud. Experience Cloud really was building a product that is external-facing and again, it's built on the same platform. And again, as we looked at the product portfolio, it just made sense to start to bring things together. So we've actually sort of rolled and morphed into the application development platform, obviously within the platform organization, everything pro-code, low-code, desktop, mobile. And so there've been quite a few products leading up to here, anything from our delivery on mobile, mobile offline, the Salesforce mobile app, all the way to Agentforce Vibes, the Agentforce Experience layer, obviously a fair amount of work on the Headless side of things. So yeah, it's been quite a journey to this particular point, Mike. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. I mean, it's actually hard to point out things that aren't admin-friendly that you've had your hands on because you've always kind of championed everybody being able to build on our platform. So let's talk about TDX this year because we launched Headless 360. Khushwant Singh: Oh yeah, we did. Mike Gerholdt: By the way, in case you forgot. Khushwant Singh: Yeah, it was a massive announcement. I think, look, as you think about what's happening in the market right now, you've got customers engaging through many different surface areas. We've got customers on ChatGPT, on Claude, on Gemini, Teams. At the same time, you've got developers also using a variety of different tools, different IDEs, different coding agents. And so I think Headless 360 really is a testament to acknowledging this change in the market in the industry and trying to meet the customer where they are. The customer being an end user or the customer being a developer and admin, just meeting them where they are in whichever tool, whichever interface they might be. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. I mean, do you recall ever a time in technology when it was, I hate to use the euphemism, but like the Wild West where I feel like there's so many choices for what you can do just in regards to AI? <...
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Why Pattern Recognition Matters for Salesforce Admins
May 700:32:38Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Adam Stark, CRM Systems Administrator at Belmont University. Join us as we chat about how his experience as a musician with learning and pattern recognition has set him up for success as a Salesforce Admin. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Adam Stark. From the stage to the Salesforce Admin chair I met Adam Stark at TDX, and he had such an interesting path to becoming a Salesforce Admin that I had to bring him on the show. Based out of Nashville, he's been a professional touring musician for twenty years. But when everything shut down during COVID, he spent his days on Zoom making an album, and his nights on Trailhead working towards his admin certification. Adam's experience in the studio made it surprisingly easy to jump into automations on Salesforce—they made sense to him. "As a music producer, one of the things I got really good at doing was accomplishing signal flow, like trying to get a sound source to a final, presentable stage," he says, "and that sort of signal flow process is the same with flows." Whether it's building tracks in a DAW or building solutions in Salesforce, Adam discovered that it's still the same underlying logic. How pattern recognition makes learning Salesforce easier Starting out in Salesforce can feel overwhelming because the platform is robust. But, as Adam explains, the same could be said for learning guitar, and he realized that he could draw on his experience as a music teacher and performer. A part of learning any instrument is pattern recognition. You practice scales or licks in isolation so that it's easy to find them and play them when you're performing. "The more you do it, the more familiar you get, the more you begin to recognize patterns," Adam says, "and once you see the patterns, things start to feel smaller." Over time, something that seems very big, like learning a piece of music or trying to use campaigns in Salesforce, becomes more manageable. Acing your job interview with honesty I also wanted to hear how Adam got through the interview process and landed his first job as a Salesforce Admin. His experience as a musician helped here, too, because he was already used to doing interviews with radio stations while on tour. But nerves aside, Adam feels the key to his success was honesty. "I don't know everything," he says, "but if I don't know it, I'll figure it out, and we'll find a solution." For the folks out there who are still breaking into the ecosystem, Adam encourages you to get out there and meet working Salesforce professionals as soon as you can. Go to a community group, or even TDX, and pick someone's brain. It can help you piece together what you're learning in Trailhead by understanding what Salesforce looks like in action. There's so much more great stuff from Adam about how he learned Salesforce and landed his first admin role, so make sure to listen to the full episode. And as always, make sure you're subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast, and we'll see you next time. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Do I Transition Into a Salesforce Admin Career? Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: Building Salesforce Projects To Land Your Next Role Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Adam on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, Adam Stark didn't start in Salesforce. He started on a stage, building songs and touring as a professional musician. In this episode, he's going to share how that same mindset of thinking and systems, sequencing steps, and designing outcomes translated into building solutions with data, automation, and now AI. In this episode, we're going to dig into how admins aren't just learning tools anymore. They're designing how work actually gets done across people and technology. Adam's going to walk us through his journey from Trailhead to his very first admin role and what it really takes to connect those dots when you're building something bigger than just features. So if you've ever wondered how your past experience shapes the way you architect solutions today, this episode's for you. So with that, let's get Adam on the podcast. So Adam, welcome to the podcast. Adam Stark: Happy to be here, man. This is awesome. Mike: I'm glad we got connected through our architect friends. You are at TDX this year. So let's just give people an overview of who Adam Stark is and how you got started at Salesforce. Adam Stark: Yeah, absolutely. So I work down in Nashville, Tennessee. I work at Belmont University. And my journey into Salesforce is quite a unique journey. I actually was a professional musician for a long time. I was a touring artist, a professional songwriter, producer, and did that for many, many years. And then a thing called COVID hit in 2020 and really put a damper on the touring side of things, as you can imagine. So during COVID, I went through my own personal little existential crisis moment of, are we ever going to play shows ever again? This was a huge part of my income stream to provide for my family. And so I'm going through this crisis moment of what's next, what should I be doing? And a really good friend of mine who is a Salesforce developer, he told me, he's like, "Man, you should look into Salesforce. Just go on Trailhead and just poke around." And this is me not knowing anything about it. I didn't even know what a CRM was, but went on Trailhead and shout out to the Trailhead team because what an incredible resource, like unbelievable resource for people to learn the platform. Just really, really impressive. But yeah, I would spend my days working on music with my... I was a duo, if you will. I was in a band with another guy and he and I produced our records and we wrote all of our songs. And we're doing that virtually during the day during COVID where we're songwriting over Zoom, which is a complete interesting exercise to try to be creative over Zoom. And then we're recording audio files and sending them back and forth and compiling them into a record, which was wild. Doing that during the day. And then at night, I would just get on Trailhead and just start learning. And the more that I learned, the more interesting it got to me. And yeah, I got hooked and was really fascinated with what Salesforce as a platform was capable of doing and honestly how beneficial it is to businesses and organizations. Mike: Wow. Adam Stark: So yeah, I started learning. I was really determined to get an admin certification just to have in my back pocket. And then the world opened back up. And we did what artists called revenge touring because so many people were starved for entertainment at that point in time. It'd been a year, year and a half of no real public entertainment. So we got busy, went back out on the road, and I put Salesforce on the back burner for a little bit and then had more kids and talked to my wife and we just decided we're at a spot in life where being home is really, really nice. And I was pretty invested into the Salesforce journey at that point. So I went ahead and finished up, got my admin certification and I saw that Belmont was looking to implement Salesforce and went ahead and filled out an application and landed the job. Mike: So I've shown Salesforce to people. I've taken good friends of mine to user groups and I've had friends of mine even get up to Ranger status, which is a hundred badges and still be like, "Meh, it doesn't make sense to me or nothing's clicking." Something clicked for you that was like you got it and it's hard to describe, but I know what you're feeling, but what was it for you? Adam Stark: As a music producer, one of the things that I got really good at doing was accomplishing signal flow, like trying to get a sound source from one stage to a final stage, final presentable stage, if you will. And what I found was when I really started to get into some of the automation ...
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Agentforce Grid Enables Next-Gen Admins to Scale AI Workflows
Apr 3000:25:06Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Avi Shah, Senior Director of Product Management for Salesforce AI. Join us as we chat about Agentforce Grid, a new way to coordinate data, automation, and AI agents. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Avi Shah. Spreadsheet-style AI workflows to simplify complex automation Salesforce Admins deal with data, automations, and AI every day. But how do you make everything work together in a way that makes sense? That's why I sat down with Avi Shah to talk about Agentforce Grid, a spreadsheet-like tool for creating AI workflows. "Agentforce Grid is, in our opinion, the fastest and easiest way to build AI workflows," Avi says. "You have columns for your data and the actions you want to take with it." Some columns are AI-based, enabling you to run prompts or agents you've built, and others are action-based, allowing you to update records or call an invokable action to send an email. Put it all together, and you can build complex AI automations that can transform your organization's workflows. Combining data and actions As Avi explains, Agentforce Grid gives you a simple, spreadsheet UI to perform powerful transformations on your data. You can pull things from Data Cloud, uploads, or even the web into a data column. Action columns give you a way to act. You can run prompt templates, agents you've already built, or inline prompts. Not everything needs to be an AI step, however—you can also perform more deterministic actions like formulas, updating records, or invoking flows. AI and non-AI actions work together in workflows All of this makes more sense when we talk about actual use cases. For example, you can use Agentforce Grid to assist with case categorization, working with a list of cases, a prompt column to analyze them, and another prompt column to look at those analyses and categorize them based on theme, priority, or issue. Avi has also seen customers take advantage of Agentforce Grid for transcript and session analysis for customer-facing agents. You can use the prompt column to analyze, classify, and extract information from transcripts to make sure that everything is working the way you want it to work. Be sure to listen to the full conversation for more from Avi on Agentforce Grid. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog Post: How Salesforce Admins Can Streamline AI Workflows With Agentforce Grid Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Avi on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript
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How Agent Script Is Redefining the Admin Role
Apr 2300:17:17Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joshua Birk, Senior Director of Admin Evangelism at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how Agent Script helps admins build more predictable and reliable AI solutions. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joshua Birk. How Agent Script expands the admin toolkit The new Agentforce Builder gives admins new tools to create effective AI agents to help their orgs. Chief among them is Agent Script, which gives you more control than ever before over how your agents operate and behave. I sat down with Josh Birk to find out how it all works and why Agent Script redefines the admin role. Agent Script is a simple, high-level scripting language that lets you create complex instructions and actions for your agent to follow. You can step in as the human in the loop and create a framework for agent behavior and context, helping you build more predictable and reliable AI solutions. Redefining the admin role In simple terms, Agent Script lets you look under the hood at how your agents function. If you're comfortable with coding, Script view allows you to make fast, precise changes and analyze error messages. Canvas view, meanwhile, uses visual blocks to make it easy to understand what's going on with your agent. And of course, the Agentforce assistant is always available with suggestions if you get stuck. With so much more control over agentic behavior, Agent Script puts admins in the driver's seat for how their organization will evolve with AI. You're not just building a solution—you're designing interactions between humans and agents. In the big picture, the role of the admin starts to look less like traditional system configuration and more like experience design, governance, and operational strategy. Getting started with Agent Script All of this requires a great deal of thought in terms of how you're building new agentic solutions and rolling them out to your organization. Josh's biggest piece of advice is to take it slow: "Don't panic, learn Agent Script," he says. Your existing agents will continue to work, so take your time to experiment with Agent Script to get a better understanding of what's possible. Build some new agents and take it one step at a time. Listen to the full episode for more from Josh about what admins can do with Agent Script. And subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us in your feed every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog: Build With Confidence: Inside the New Agentforce Builder Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Josh on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, if you've ever been wondering why you can't just copy and paste your old agents into the new version, this episode is for you. I'm joined by Josh Burke, who recently walked our admin relations team through what's really changing with Agent Builder and Agentforce. And more importantly, why it matters. We're going to unpack a little bit of hybrid reasoning, what determinism really means for admins, and how Agent Script gives you even more control without losing all of that magic. So with that, let's get Josh on the podcast. So Josh, welcome back to the podcast. Josh Birk: Thanks for having me, Mike. Mike Gerholdt: Well, we know that a few people are vibing now because of the dulcent tones of Josh Burke. So in all honesty, you were in a team meeting last week and you were kind of updating the team on stuff that's coming out for new products and beta products. And the biggest thing that you always explain is like, so why is this important? Josh Birk: Yeah. Mike Gerholdt: And of course, every now and then you end your little skit with, "Thanks for attending my TED Talk." Josh Birk: Yeah. Mike Gerholdt: And I remember last week's meeting, I was like, "Oh man, that's a podcast. I need to do that." Josh Birk: Yeah. Mike Gerholdt: Because the way that you would explained what was new with Agent Builder and Agentforce, I was just like, "Oh, that totally makes sense to me." So this is where we're at and this is what I was hoping we would talk about. Josh Birk: Yeah. And I'll have to try because I kind of remember getting into a very weird, almost like conspiracy theory level stream of consciousness. Mike Gerholdt: Oh, okay. Well, it didn't feel that way. Josh Birk: Good. I think that's years of experience of thinking in streams of consciousnesses, whatever the plural of that is. So yeah, so I think to kind of recap a little bit, so there were two things that I think are kind of important to consider about the new Agent Builder. One is what we mean by hybrid reasoning and what we mean by determinism. And then the second thing is, where does Agent Script fit into that? So the question we were kind of tackling was, why didn't we just go back and revise the old builder? Why can't we just reiterate on it? Why are we starting completely new? Mike Gerholdt: And I think you even said, not to interrupt you, but to interrupt you, why can't I just move my stuff over? Why do I have to rebuild it? Josh Birk: And why can't I just move my stuff over? Why isn't it just copy and paste? And Agent Script is part of that. So the original engine wasn't hybrid, is I think the easiest way to put it. So this came with a conversation with product management where I was trying to describe the differences between the old builder and the new builder. And they're like, well, let's ... The old builder wasn't doing anything wrong, so much is that the new builder's doing something more. And what the new builder's doing that is more is that when we say hybrid, when we think of AI, we think of AI being autonomous, making its own decisions. So we had the Atlas reasoning engine that's like, "Oh, Mike is looking to find a description on a certain account. I'm going to take these actions. I'm going to put them together into a plan and then I'm going to try to make that work." What we didn't have was the human in the loop portion of that. And where Agent Script really comes into play is it allows users to basically be like, "In this scenario, I want you to behave like this." So when we say hybrid, we mean, yeah, we're letting the engine kind of do its own magic. But then we're also applying almost ... I don't want to say flow because that's such a loaded term for a Salesforce community. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Josh Birk: But well, let's go to the name, right? A script, right? A script that a human can actually control personality, control tone, control behavior. When you see this, do this, when you need to call it human. So kind of giving this very human-friendly dialogue that you can then apply to the agent. And so that's how we provide more determinism. So the reason you can't just copy and paste your old agent into the new agent is the old agent doesn't have that connection to Agent Script. And so it's literally missing a piece of the puzzle to run the engine kind of thing. Mike Gerholdt: Right. No, I think ... I mean, hearing you explain it, sometimes, at least as an admin, I was always like, "Oh, so they just came out with another version because they had to stick another layer of something on." Josh Birk: Yeah. Mike Gerholdt: Or like a car analogy, they changed the fuzzy dice. But this is, no, no, no, no. We're really moving ...
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How Salesforce Built a Scalable AI Puzzle App in Six Weeks
Apr 1600:16:58Tap to summarizeToday on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Jagan Nathan, Senior AI Architect at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how he built a Slack app for Salesforce's "Million Dollar Puzzle" ad, where millions of concurrent users raced to solve riddles by chatting with Slackbots. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jagan Nathan. The tech behind the "Million Dollar Puzzle" contest If you were watching the big game, you might have seen Salesforce's "Million Dollar Puzzle". As soon as the ad aired, the race was on for contestants to solve puzzles by chatting with Slackbots to discover the location of a secret vault. My guest this week, Jagan Nathan, built the Agentforce-powered Slack app that made everything possible. They needed Slackbots that could act as a conversational gateway for millions of concurrent users. And with a million dollars on the line, they needed to be sure it couldn't be tricked into giving away the answer. Even more incredibly, Jagan pulled all of this off in only six weeks. I sat down with him to find out how he did it and what he learned along the way. Using AI to build quickly at scale Just like with any project, the first step was to gather requirements—though it's more fun when your stakeholder is the "Puzzle Master." Jagan and his team needed a thorough understanding of what they were dealing with and how they could translate those gaming mechanics into the application. The clock was ticking, and AI was pivotal for accelerating the development timeline. Jagan and his team used Salesforce Vibes for quick prototypes and wireframes to help them decide what to build. But the development team still needed to take these ideas the rest of the way. "AI cannot help us solve all of the architecture problems," Jagan explains, "we have to have a human in the loop." With millions of concurrent users, they needed to do thorough testing—and quickly. Luckily, they could use Salesforce Scale Center to stress-test for performance issues and identify bottlenecks so they could be sure that when the ad ran, the app would work flawlessly. Designing for security with a million dollars on the line I know this might be shocking, but when you're holding a contest with a million-dollar prize, some people will try to cheat. So Jagan and his team needed to make sure there were plenty of guardrails in place to make sure someone could win it fair and square. They needed to start with a security mindset and think through any security vulnerabilities as they designed the application. Einstein Trust Layer was crucial for toxicity detection and monitoring for anything malicious, like prompt injections. Most importantly, they were very careful with what information the Slackbot knew and what it didn't. It didn't have the solutions to the puzzles, so even if someone managed to crack it, they wouldn't be able to get very far. Instead, puzzle answers were always validated by humans. There's a lot more from Jagan about building for scale quickly, so make sure to take a listen. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more MrBeast + Salesforce Behind the Scenes The Million-Dollar Puzzle: How Slackbot and MrBeast are Rewriting the Super Bowl Playbook Salesforce Admins Blog Post: Empowering Admins: Build Org Scalability With New Scale Center Features True to the Core Deep Dive: What's New in Lightning Experience Performance and Agentforce Vibes Salesforce Admins Blog Post: Build With Confidence: Inside the New Agentforce Builder Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Jagan on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike Gerholdt: When you think about building on Salesforce, it's easy to focus on features. But today's admins aren't just implementing features. They're designing systems that have to perform, scale, and hold up under real world pressure. In today's episode, I'm going to sit down with Jagan, an architect who helped deliver a high stakes, high scale experience serving millions of users through a custom Slack-based AI system. We're going to unpack what it actually takes to compress months of work into weeks and how to design for trust and guardrails from day one, and where human judgment still matters in an AI-driven architecture. So if you've ever wondered how your role evolves from building flows to orchestrating full systems, this is the conversation because this just isn't about speed. It's about responsibility at scale. Now if you enjoy this episode, hit Subscribe, share it with a fellow admin and let's get Jagan on the podcast. So Jagan, welcome to the podcast. Jagan Nathan: Hi, Mike. Thank you for having me. Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Well, I was excited when you sent me the Slack DM about some of the projects that you've worked on here at Salesforce. But for people that don't know you or maybe didn't listen to the episode of the Developer Podcast you were on, could you tell us a little bit about what you do at Salesforce and the fun project you got to work on recently? Jagan Nathan: Sure. Hey everyone. I'm Jaganir. I'm architect part of our AA practice team here at Salesforce, building agents for our customers. This is my third podcast on our channel. My previous episodes were focused on event monitoring and threat detection. Mike Gerholdt: Wow. Let's talk about some of the stuff that you got to work on around the big football game that happens in February that Salesforce had an ad on. Jagan Nathan: Yeah, sure. Very excited. This is our first ever online puzzle app, which was built entirely on our Salesforce platform. Mike Gerholdt: So you got to be a part of that. I'd love to know from a Salesforce admin listening to this, we used the platform for the puzzle. Can you give me a little insight into that? Jagan Nathan: Yeah, so let's unpack this. So what we did is we didn't just build a chatbot. We deployed our custom Slackbot, of course, powered by our Agentforce, which acted as a conversation gate for millions of participants grounded in real-time data. So we just collapsed a nine-month roadmap into just six weeks, which is 42 days. Within that, we designed iterator and we went live on day of February 8th. Mike Gerholdt: Wow. Nine-month roadmap. Holy cow. That's insane. I mean, can you talk a little bit about the architecture problem solving and how you moved so fast so quickly? Jagan Nathan: Yeah, sure. Of course, we are a customer zero company. So we leverage our internal tools and the external tools, what we have developed. So for this entire application, we use our Agentforce Vibes to accelerate the development. We quickly do a lot of wireframes and the prototypes, and then we figure out what sort of user experience and what sort of applications we need to build using the power of Agentforce Vibes that accelerated our development timeframe to start with. Mike Gerholdt: Oh, that's nice. I...
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