5 Steps to Prepare for a Successful Salesforce Implementation

Step 2: Assemble your team.

Check with your staff and invite the individuals that should be a part of your Salesforce launch. Use these questions below to help you think about which voices you'd like to bring along for the ride. 

1. Based on the departments/functional areas you defined in Step 1, who are your business leaders, decision-makers, and subject-matter experts? 
   1. Business leaders
      1. Who has a high-value stake in this project? 
      2. Who is the point person on your team for this project? 
   2. Decision-makers
      1. Who is capable of making decisions on behalf of the organization in regard to this project? 
   3. Subject-matter experts
      1. Who do you go to for information or answers on a specific technology, business processes, tasks, or responsibilities as related to the defined needs/goal of this project? 
      2. Who will be responsible for managing or upkeeping your Salesforce system after the implementation project is completed? 

Inviting your people at the beginning will help ensure that everyone is kept in the loop and at the table from the get-go. This way we can be efficient with everyone's time and avoid any delays later in the project. 

Step 3: Create a budget. 

Setting a budget is an important part of preparing your implementation because it brings awareness to your needs are and what's possible within a budget. This is important to share with us because it determines whether our services are feasible given your resources. Your success is critical to us, and we want to provide both a high-quality and high-value service to your team. In order to do this, we need to understand the resources you have available to dedicate to this project. 

Ask your decision-makers to consider these questions as they form the organization's budget:

1. How much is your organization currently spending on your current technology, software, or licensing? 
2. Will Salesforce be able to replace any or all of the functionality of the technology, software, or licensing you listed in question 1? 
3. How much is your organization spending on external tech support or personnel to manage the current technology, software, or licensing systems? 
4. Approximately, how much can the organization afford on an annual basis for Salesforce licensing costs? 
5. Approximately, how much can the organization afford for 1-time implementation (setup) cost of Salesforce? 
6. Will you need to hire, train, or purchase additional support in order to maintain your new Salesforce system? 

Step 4: Define your deadlines. 

We want to ensure that our proposed project can be achieved in an appropriate timeline that both meets any of your hard deadlines and allows our team time to complete quality work. Before your implementation project gets underway, review these questions about due dates and deadlines. 

1. Does any of your existing technology, software, or licensing have a strict end/expiration date upcoming? 
2. Are there any large events or operational goals that influence or impact this project? 
3. Does your team or organization have any seasonal or cyclical workload surges? (i.e. Is there a "bad" time of year when your team may be too busy to support this project and transition to new tech?) 
4. What is an ideal go-live timeframe for your organization? In other words, when would like you to have Salesforce up and running? 
5. What is the impact on your organization if any of the above deadlines are missed? 

We want to deliver a successful project for your organization. Communicating important dates or deadlines upfront with us will help everything go smoothly. 

Step 5: Gather documents. 

In order for our Nimbus Tech consultants to implement Salesforce, they will require some information and documents from your team. We encourage your team to begin gathering this information as early as possible. It will be essential for the pre-project and early stages of your implementation project with us. 

Here's a general list of documentation that we will require:

1. Gather any files your team is using to store or manage data. 
   1. Examples: Excel files, .CSV files, Google Docs or Sheets, Word Documents, etc.
2. Gather examples of any data collection methods such as intake forms, surveys, registration forms, donation or volunteer forms, etc. 
3. Gather any business process documentation that is relevant to this project such as user guides, how-to guides, workflow diagrams, process maps, etc. These are often the documents you may use to train or teach new staff on how to do something or perform their role and responsibilities at your organization. 
4. Gather examples of reports, dashboards, or other metrics that you currently collect, track, or review and that are relevant to this project. We will also need to know the steps it takes to obtain these reports. Consider: 
   1. What is the data source? 
   2. Does data manipulation or cleansing occur to achieve the end product (report or dashboard)? 
   3. What is the desired format of the end product? Are tables or graphs included? What is the preferred file type? 
   4. Who needs access to these reports or dashboards? How are they delivered to these individuals/roles?