The Salesforce Center of Excellence initiative is intended to optimize our Salesforce environment by identifying standard process and aligning our efforts with best practices.
Participants in this effort recognize the need to:
-
Establish and continually improve our processes
-
Advance our skills and training approach
-
Align the business and IT
The key elements of the Kent State University Salesforce governance framework:
Data Architecture & Data Quality
Charge: Develop a strategy for the management and documentation of data standards and processes associated with data born in or integrated with Kent’s multi-org Salesforce Environments. Responsibilities include definition of data maintenance standards/conventions for Salesforce objects, shared fields, record types and forms, as well as contribute to the overall measures to ensure the accuracy, validity, and completeness of shared institutional data.
Objectives:
- Develop a CRM Data Standards Manual that will capture stewardship for shared data within and across the orgs
- Identify the Data Governance structures and membership
- Develop strategy to document all Salesforce data within a Data Catalog and Data Dictionary, maintained by Information Services with assistance from various functional areas
- Creating a CRM Data Standards Manual that will capture stewardship for shared data within and across the orgs
Technical Change Control
Charge: Develop a strategy for changes being promoted in the Salesforce environments to ensure delivery of planned value while safeguarding stability in our production environment. Responsibilities include approach for scheduled upgrades, the refresh cadence, internal change promotions, and expanded communication to functional areas.
Objectives:
- Improve visibility of changes to, and opportunity for feedback from, the functional users
- Document the process for gathering requirements, the decision criteria, and obtaining approval
- Establish processes for the path to production and periodically review to improve processes
- Determine the most appropriate cadence for sandbox refreshes and TargetX upgrades
- Define the types of changes that will go through the established change management process
Testing Strategy
Charge: Develop a comprehensive testing strategy for changes occurring in the Salesforce environment. Responsibilities include changes that occur as a result of both internal and external factors, ensuring an approach for end-to-end automated testing, and coverage of components by test scripts.
Objectives:
- Identify strategy for tools to automate testing
- Document testing roles and responsibilities
- Document requirements for automated test coverage and security evaluation
- Establish testing coverage percentage and gates
- Define foundation level test plans
- Define code review process
Communication Strategy
Charge: Develop a strategy that supports the vision of a 360 view of student and donor information to improve interactions and build stronger relationships with constituents by articulating the benefits and expanded opportunities provided by the CRM. Responsibilities include identifying stakeholders, defining significant milestones and outcomes, and utilizing multiple communication channels.
- Objectives:
- Create updated website content to highlight governance activities, project status, and awareness material
- Create awareness of CRM capabilities campus-wide, driving opportunities to expand CRM usage to effectively support business objectives
- Engage effectively with the campus community to demonstrate CRM successes
- Deliver consistent communications of CRM achievements, project status, and news, thus avoiding confusion
- Set clear expectations of the future CRM roadmap milestones and frequency of new feature implementations
- Improve project success with clear communications between stakeholders, executives, and end users
- Support the adoption of the CRM with training, user group meetings, and CRM community meetings
Integration Strategy
Charge: Develop a strategy for use of integration tools to ensure the quality and timeliness of institutional data in the Salesforce environment. Responsibilities include establishing guidelines and instruments to aid in the process of determining what data should be integrated and the frequency at which it should be refreshed.
Objectives:
- Document the guidelines for a data catalog and determine how it will differ from the Data Dictionary and CRM Data Standards Manual
- Establish the process for new data integration requests
- Establish a release cycle for data (adding new fields)
- Document guidelines for data integrations and using external or temporary data
- Identify supported tools for integration and temporary storage of data
Security Architecture
Charge: Develop a strategy to ensure the proper protection for data and authorization for data access. Responsibilities include establishing best practice security processes, procedures, architectures, and models that include Security and Access Management, Data Stewards, Security Administrators, and the Salesforce Platform Admin Team.
Objectives:
- Establish a Core Security team with appropriate membership to define the security processes used in the CRM across our Salesforce orgs
- Document the process for security requests in the CRM
- Establish an assessment plan to periodically review and improve processes
Success Metrics
Charge: Develop a strategy to ensure that Salesforce projects are meeting business goals and strategies. Responsibilities include measuring the performance and reliability of the environment, the value of solutions for business demands, and continuous improvement efforts.
Objectives:
- Document level one business, project, adoption, and governance KPIs to measure performance of the Salesforce environment
- Establish a plan to continually measure success, monitor feedback, and adjust plans to achieve business value