Architects

Useful Resources: Salesforce Consultants And Freelancers

Salesforce FreelancersIf you are looking for freelance Salesforce Professionals to help you with your Salesforce implementation and support, here are a few sites for you to explore. These websites provide key details about freelancers such as skills, certifications, projects completed, success rate, client reviews, etc.

(Websites, that I personally use/have used and recommend are marked with a heart)

  • AppExchange has more than 1.5k Salesforce Consultants
  • Use Consultant Finder tool to refine results as per your requirement
  • They are categorized into Sponsored, Global Strategic, Platinum and Gold Consultants
  • On a Consultant listing page, you get key details such as Company Details, Rating, Projects Completed, Certified Experts, Geographic Focus, Case Studies, etc. 
  • See a Consultant’s Salesforce expertise by product, industry, and number of certifications by role
 
  • Connect to more than 17k qualified Developers with Developer Marketplace
  • Filter Developers by skills, ratings, location, languages, and sort by ratings, jobs, answers, ideas.
  • Hover on a developer to see details such as skills, jobs completed, etc.
  • On a Developer detail page, find information such as personal details, Trailblazer connections, and activity

3. Upwork (♥)

  • Global freelancing platform
  • A place for businesses and independent professionals to connect and collaborate remotely
  • Find, hire, work with and pay freelancers
  • Fee – 3% of the invoice as processing fee

4. Guru

  • Freelancers website
  • Find & hire Freelancers online and get work done
  • Fee – 2.9% of the invoice as processing fee
  • If you use eCheck or wire transfer you will receive 100% cashback on the handling fee!

5. Toptal

  • A global remote company that provides a freelancing platform
  • Connects businesses with software engineers, designers, and business consultants
  • Hire developers, designers, project managers, etc.
  • Fee – Not disclosed

6. Freelancer

  • Helps you hire remote engineers and teams effortlessly
  • Milestone payment method during the project timeline
  • Fee – Not disclosed

7. arc (Formerly CodementorX)

  • Effortlessly hire world-class remote engineers and teams.
  • arc interviews candidates to present only top candidates to hirers
  • Fee – not disclosed

8. People Per Hour

  • Connects clients to expert freelancers
  • Pay and rate freelancers 
  • Fee 
    • 20% for project invoice up to US $300
    • 7.5% for project invoice between US $300 to the US $6000
    • 3.5% for project invoice above US $6000 

Don’t see the websites to hire freelancers of your choice listed here? Please feel free to mention it in the comments below for other readers’ benefit.

Want to see a list of more of such useful resources & tools under different categories? Please do take a look at the resources page.

Useful Resources: Project Management Tools

Project Management Tools

Use a project management tool to capture user requirements, define project timelines and dependencies, capture and allocate to-dos, manage risks. Plan, execute and monitor projects with a tool built specifically for the purpose. Ensure that each task is completed on time.

1. JIRA (♥)

  • Issue & bug tracking tool
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 7/user/month (Free 7 days trial)

2. Agile Accelerator

  • Manage backlogs, sprints, user stories, defects and more
  • Available as an AppExchange Package on Salesforce
  • Built by Salesforce Labs
  • Available for Free

3. Trello

  • Cloud-based Kanban-style list-making tool
  • Subsidiary of Atlassian
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 9.99/user/month (Free 14 days trial)

4. Asana

  • work management tool
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 10.99/user/month (Free 14 days trial

5. Pivotal Tracker

  • Agile project management software
  • Real-time collaboration around a shared, prioritized backlog
  • Has a free plan
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 12.50/month for up to 5 collaborators (Free 30 days trial)

6. Active Collab

  • Project management software
  • Task Management, Time Tracking, Team Collaboration etc.
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 6.25/user/month (Free 90 days trial)

Don’t see the tool of your choice listed here? Please feel free to mention it in the comments below for other readers’ benefit.

Want to see a list of more of such useful resources & tools under different categories? Please do take a look at the resources page.

Useful Resources: Online Documentation Tools

 

Online Documentation ToolsSolution Blueprint, Solution Design Document, Technical Design Document, Data Dictionary, Deployment Log, Data Migration Mapping & Steps, Integration Mapping – are just a few documents that you need to create for Salesforce projects.

But what really surprises me is most of the organizations and Salesforce professionals still use desktop editions of Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint for these documents, share it as attachments through emails, and adds v1.0, v2.0 for maintaining different versions. Maybe you also know someone who does it. Maybe you do it yourself. And if you do, it is time to have a serious discussion with yourself about using an online documentation tool. 

Online Documentation Tools makes creating and maintaining documents a lot easier. It lets you create, edit, share, and collaborate on documents online. The major benefit of using Online Documentation Tools is that you don’t have multiple versions of a document. The team can collaboratively work on the documents together and everyone sees the latest version every time. There is no ‘Last Final Version’ file needs to be attached to an email and sent to a colleague.

Here are a few best and most popular online documentation tools that you can choose from. But please do choose one and please move an online documentation tool.

(Tools, that I personally use or have used and recommend are marked with a heart)

1. Google Drive (♥)

  • Cloud-based
  • Create documents, spreadsheets, slides, drawings, forms etc.
  • Concurrent access and editing by multiple users
  • File collaboration and sharing
  • Free with GMail account
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 6/user/month for GSuite

2. Quip

  • Collaborative productivity software suite for mobile and the Web owned by Salesforce
  • Allows groups of people to create and edit documents and spreadsheets as a group
  • Native integration with Salesforce
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 10/user/month

3. Microsoft 365

  • Use your favorite productivity apps like Word, Excel, Powerpoint  online
  • Create, communicate and collaborate on documents
  • Free
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 6.99/user/month

4. Confluence

  • Document management tool by Atlassian
  • Knowledge management, project collaboration, employee engagement
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 5/user/month (Free 7 days trial)

5. Paper (by Dropbox)

  • Collaborative document-editing service
  • Brings creation and coordination together in one place.
  • Free

6. Zoho Docs

  • Online file management tool
  • Store files securely, share them across devices
  • Has free plan with limited features for teams up to 5
  • Paid plans start from US$ 3/user/month (Free 15 days trial) 

Don’t see the tool of your choice listed here? Please feel free to mention it in the comments below for other readers’ benefit.

Want to see a list of more of such useful resources & tools under different categories? Please do take a look at the resources page.

Useful Resources: Whiteboarding Tools

Whiteboarding Tools

As an architect, I love whiteboarding physically and will not replace it with any digital tool. But when the team is spread across geographies and need to brainstorm together, a digital whiteboard can be quite useful. Here a list of a few whiteboarding tools that you may want to explore if you need to collaborate with your clients or co-workers remotely.

(Tools, that I personally use or have used and recommend are marked with a heart.)

1. Google Jamboard

  • Interactive business whiteboard
  • Online collaboration through cross-platform support
  • Provides unhindered productivity
  • Included as a part of GSuite

2. ConceptBoard

  • Visual Collaboration Workspace with whiteboard functions
  • Enables efficient teamwork, regardless of time and place
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 6/user/month (Free 30 days trial)

3. Explain Everything

  • Online interactive whiteboard app
  • Share, learn and collaborate in real-time
  • Join from any device
  • Has a free plan with limited features for up to 3 projects
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 6.99/month for individuals

4. Limnu

  • Online white-boarding app
  • Sketch out ideas on digital “boards” via iPad
  • Invite others to view or edit the boards
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 5/month for individuals (Free 14 days trial)

5. Mural

  • Digital workspace for visual collaboration
  • Shared, digital whiteboards where teams visually explore complex challenges, facilitate design thinking methods
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 12/user/month for individuals (Free 30 trial)

Don’t see the tool of your choice listed here? Please feel free to mention it in the comments below for other readers’ benefit.

Want to see a list of more of such useful resources & tools under different categories? Please do take a look at the resources page.

Useful Resources: Source/Version Control Tools

Source/Version Control ToolsUse a Source/Version Control tool to record and track changes to your configuration & code in Salesforce over time so that you have the entire history of changes made to the Org. Source/Version Control tools will also make it easier to compare the changes made and revert to the previous version if required. In an environment where there are multiple developers/configurators making changes to the system, this tool will also ensure that there are no conflicts and people are not overwriting each other’s changes.

There are three types of source/version control system

  • Local Version Control – Keeps all the code and versions in the local system
  • Central Version Control – Keeps all the code and versions in a central system. Developers pull the files that they need but don’t keep the full copy of the project locally. Some of the most common version control systems are centralized, including Subversion (SVN) and Perforce. The biggest drawback of this approach is a single point of failure because of the dependency on a central server
  • Distributed Version Control – Distributed version control system was introduced to address the drawbacks of a centralized version control system. In this, the clients completely clone the repository including its full history so that they are not dependent on a central server to store all the versions of a project’s files. If the server dies, any of the client repositories can be copied on to the server to help restore the server. Two common distributed version control systems are Git and Mercurial.

(Tools, that I personally use/have used and recommend are marked with a heart)

1. Git  (♥)

    • The Open-source distributed version control system
    • Designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
    • Free

2. GitHub  (♥)

  • Cloud-based
  • Has a free plan with limited features
  • Paid plan starts from US$ 4/user/month

3. BitBucket  (♥)

    • Cloud-based version control repository hosting service owned by Atlassian
    • Build, test, and deploy with unlimited private or public space
    • Has a free plan with limited features
    • Paid plan starts from US$ 3/user/month (Free 7 days trial)

4. Mercurial

    • Distributed revision-control tool
    • Efficiently handles projects of any size
    • Offers an easy and intuitive interface
    • Free

5. IBM Rational ClearCase

    • Enterprise-grade configuration management system
    • Provides controlled access to software assets including code, requirements, design documents, models, test plans and test results
    • Features parallel development support, automated workspace management, baseline management, secure version management, reliable build auditing
    • Paid – Contact vendor for pricing

6. Perforce Helix Core

    • Tracks and manages changes to your source code, digital assets, and large binary files
    • Store files (including media) in one central repository
    • Free for up to 5 users and 20 workspaces.

7. Apache Subversion

    • Software versioning and revision control system
    • Distributed as open-source under the Apache License.
    • Free

Don’t see the tool of your choice listed here? Please feel free to mention it in the comments below for other readers’ benefit.

Want to see a list of more of such useful resources & tools under different categories? Please do take a look at the resources page.

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