Straight from the mouth of the product manager for Salesforce Optimizer, here is an intuitive introduction of the all-new Salesforce Optimizer App. Optimizer is an interactive way to review and implement expert recommendations for maintaining your organization's implementation of Salesforce. The best part? Optimizer doesn't require you to install a package. Instead, enable the app, click to start, and take a breather while the app inspects your organization. With sortable results, Optimizer provides you with a list of issues that require immediate action. Then, you can review the additional recommendations to thoroughly plan the actionable next steps. Use quick links on result pages to go directly to the applicable Setup page. Previously, you could only consume Optimizer content by scrolling through an English language report delivered as a PDF file.
Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.
Who: Users must have the Customize Application, Modify All Data, and Manage Users user permissions to access the Optimizer app. Unlike the Salesforce Optimizer PDF report, which was only available in English, the app is translated into end-user languages.
Why: The app makes it easier to be strategic about planning org maintenance. Instead of scrolling through pages of a static PDF report for results and next steps, use the sortable results list view. The Optimizer’s split-view console navigation makes it easy to review results without losing context.
From the list view, it’s a click away from the full results (1) and recommendations (2) and the Setup page to make any changes (3) for over 40 features analyzed as part of the Optimizer.
How: From Setup in Lightning Experience, enter Optimizer in the Quick Find box, then select Optimizer.
From a PDF to an app in Summer 20.
Some admins out there might remember their first introduction to Optimizer as report that got put into their docs and emailed to them. We’ve come a long way since then, and the Summer 20 release is set to change the game. “We are relaunching Optimizer as a Lightning app,” Niket says, “I’m looking forward to all the great feedback we’ll get from admins and the value they can get out of these recommendations that were previously in a PDF report and now are in a brand-new dashboard interactive format.”
“We don’t want to read a 100-page document to get to something that we want to act on,” Niket says, “we wanted to give something to admins where they’re spending less time scrolling through the report and more time fixing things in the org.” The Lightning app brings all of Optimizer’s recommendations out of the PDF and into the core where you can work with it, letting you jump to the relevant page straight from the app. “Your transition from the Optimizer app to the rest of your org is very seamless,” Niket says, “you’re not spending time doing an offline analysis and going back and forth.”
How Optimizer helps you set your goals.
Optimizer has almost fifty different recommendations. In other words, there’s almost certainly more than a few things you can work on. “What we’ve done is prioritize that list in the order of where you need the most attention,” Viket says, “the list, when the dashboard loads for the first time, is pre-sorted by how many immediate actions are needed for each of those items.” Their goal is to make it easier for you to attack Optimizer’s recommendations and whip your org into shape.
At the minimum, Viket recommends running Optimizer at least once every release, “but I don’t’ think I’ve seen any admin just doing the minimum,” he says. Instead, he recommends that you run the app every time you release something new. Any new development you do can create new issues, which is exactly what Optimizer is here to help you iron out. It doesn’t cost you anything to run, so you can even consider running it every two weeks or once a month.
Using The Salesforce Optimizer App to win over stakeholders.
Sharing is caring, and Optimizer reports are best shared with anyone who needs to make a decision that affects your org. Viket recommends using the app to set your priorities and pointing to the report to explain why. “Sharing the data with those team members may be helpful so that they understand what you are busy with and how you are adding value and making your end-user experience as efficient and productive as possible,” Niket says.
Optimizer is especially useful in the common scenario where you’re coming into an already-existing org. “In a lot of the cases, admins have no one to tell them why certain things are the way they are, and they are so scared to make a change because they don’t know if something is going to break,” Niket says. “This is the tool, it’s like a Swiss Army knife,” he says, “it does hundreds of things for you and helps you uncover and discover those things.”