5 Gifts for the Salesforce Admin in Your Life

The Spanning core values—Helpful, Innovative, Fun, Accountable, Driven, and Open—echo my experiences in the #SalesforceOhana, where so many of my Salesforce admin friends share not just knowledge, but their authentic selves, and have fun.

This Valentine’s Day, I want to double down on the Spanning core value of “Fun” with this blog on five ways to win a Salesforce admin’s heart. To sweeten things up: if you use a gif to comment on Twitter mentioning this post, you’ll have a chance to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card, so you can treat your Valentine or yourself to something special!

  1. Noms! From Steve Mo’s beers to Peter Chalmer’s BBQ Wars to Eric Dreshfield’s bacon (and his wife’s cookies) to Amy Oplinger’s adventures with Indian food, Salesforce pros love what’s tasty. (Even if at times they need something strong to drink.) This Valentine’s Day, you won’t go wrong treating the Salesforce admin in your life – even if it’s yourself – to an evening of fine food and beverages. You also can’t go wrong with Salesforce drinkware that gives back to worthy causes!
  2. “Me” time! Salesforce admins are some of the busiest people I know. Between managing their org, keeping themselves current on new Salesforce releases, learning and planning for their career future, earning more badges in Trailhead, studying up for Certifications, and volunteering at Salesforce Saturdays or other events, they rarely have time for themselves. Help them get their “me” time this Valentine’s by offering to lend a hand with families or pets, or treat them to a spa day or a gamer’s night out.
    Spanning Pups
  3. Cool apps! We all know admins love the AppExchange for work – but what about apps just for fun? I see more than a few admins using What The Forecast?!! and Instagram or Snapchat selfie effects. For the gamers in your admin circles, you might try the puzzle game 2048 (Android and iOS). (And to help you win an Amazon gift card, get them GIPHY Cam for Android or GIPHY Capture for iOS and create a new gif mentioning this blog!)
  4. Equality! It’s what every member of the #SalesforceOhana works towards when we participate in advancing women in tech, or when we support those in @BoldForce or #AbilityForce or other Ohana Groups. If Valentine’s Day is a holiday focused on love, what better way to mark the day than by taking an active stance towards equality, and lifting others up by volunteering with a cause aligned to an Ohana Group? It’s not a traditional Valentine’s Day celebration, but it may be your most meaningful one.
  5. Data protection! Uhhm, what? It’s true that this may seem anti-romantic…but if the admin in your life is working hard every day to make their org better through customizations, enabling fast recovery from data or metadata loss – and saving them effort and stress – is the caring thing to do. While I’d recommend winning an admin’s heart first with any of the other aforementioned approaches, making sure their data and metadata are safe and secure shows you’re looking out for them in all ways. See how easy it can be on the AppExchange.

What would you add to this list? This Valentine’s Day, remember to share a gif with me on Twitter @loriaustex about this post—and let’s make the day fun for you and your friends in the #SalesforceOhana.

Salesforce Ohana


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