WOW, what a MASSIVE start to 2024!
We were thrilled to gather our Nonprofit and Education community virtually for two days of brainstorming, creating impactful solutions, and fun networking to build community solutions for common challenges affecting Nonprofits and Schools. The anticipation for this virtual sprint was palpable, with registrations reaching full capacity weeks before the event. To accommodate the overwhelming interest, we collaborated closely with project team leaders, pulling in additional contributors from the waitlist. This ensured that every eager participant had the opportunity to be part of this epic experience!
Our Global Reach: Connecting Across Continents
A remarkable 132 attendees joined us virtually, representing a diverse tapestry of Nonprofits, schools, Partners, and employees from across the globe. From Japan to Australia, to India, the enthusiasm and commitment were truly global, with participants hailing from 15 different countries! We extend our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who made this global collaboration possible. To those who burned the midnight oil, rose with the sun, and dedicated precious time away from their daily responsibilities and loved ones, your commitment to sharing your skills made this event truly exceptional. Thank you for making our collective effort a resounding success.
A special welcome from Nonprofit Leadership:
We kicked off the day with a welcome from Chase Schultz (Senior Director - Architecture, Cloud Specialization & Commons Community). With boundless energy, Chase set the stage for an exhilarating Day 1, expressing wholehearted support for your global initiatives and collaborative innovation within the Commons.
Chase’s enthusiasm fueled the collective spirit, inspiring us to embark on a journey of shared insights and transformative discussions. His commitment to the cause resonated throughout the event, setting a powerful tone for the days ahead.
Check out the 15 community-led projects that participated:
In alphabetical order
1. AI Prompt Recipe Book for Nonprofits: A project seeking to help Nonprofits benefit from crafting effective prompts in generative AI tools.
This team is working to create a helpful guide of prompts to make using AI tools like ChatGPT easier for Nonprofits. At the last Sprint, they gathered survey responses from other Sprinters, capturing ideas for where to focus on prompt recipes, developed and tested prompt examples, and will continue to work on compiling a published list to share in the Community.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Formulated some personas for prompt testing, and began submitting prompts to ChatGPT (3.5 and 4.0) and Google Bard. Prompts submitted into Salesforce via Screen Flow and Experience Cloud.
- Across the two days, we ran 71 tests across 23 prompts.
- Prompts have been logged into Salesforce.
- The first draft of the AI Prompts Recipe Book is well underway.
- Draft of AI Prompts for Nonprofits Best Practices doc is also underway.
Next steps:
- Continue testing prompts, compile best practices document, and compile examples prompt recipe book if possible.
- Ratify drafts of Google Docs and get ready to upload to Sprinty’s Community Resources.
- Meet with the group soon and set up a cadence to build continued momentum for the project.
AI Prompts Recipe Book Prompt group photo, Feb 2024
2. Data Generation Toolkit: Resources for generating realistic fake data sets to help admins build & test better
This team creates resources to help Admins with skills in CumulusCI (CCI) create more efficient testing processes and data and supports other Commons projects to build effective test data. At the October Sprint in Chicago, team members interviewed various other teams to build out recipe samples, including the Memberships and DLRS teams. They also audited prior recipes to test and update where needed.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Completed a new recipe for Person Accounts (industry cloud)
- Created an NPC Sandbox, go thru NPC set-up steps
- Started 1 new recipe for Account-Contact Relationship records
- Support DLRS testing recipe (opened 1 pull request there)
Next Steps:
- More participants making more NPC and EdCloud recipes!
- Continue support with the DLRS test recipe
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Data Generation group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
3. Cumulus CI Commons: To connect and grow the open-source community around CumulusCI
The goal of the CumulusCI Commons project is to connect and grow the open-source community around CumulusCI through developing direct contributions to CumulusCI, creating new plugins, documenting and automating knowledge and best practices, marketing, and figuring out the process and infrastructure for community support. At the initial exploratory call, there was clear interest from several community members in helping to sustain and evolve CumulusCI in collaboration with Salesforce to meet the needs of the Salesforce ecosystem.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Finalized the implementation, write test cases
- Talked about using GitHub discussions as a way of prioritizing community ideas
Next Steps:
- GitHub discussions set up
- Finalize test and check code coverage
Learn more about this project! Join the CumulusCI (CCI) group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
4. Declarative Lookup Rollup Summaries (DLRS): User-friendly wizard to understand relationships between different sets of data in Salesforce
DLRS is an interface to roll up data between records where Salesforce can’t natively. At the last Sprint, the team shared a sneak peek at the brand-new user interface collected feedback, updated documentation, and worked with the Data Generation Toolkit team members to define sample data that can be used to help test DLRS at scale.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Documentation: created a new Getting Started page for new releases; created Moving from Custom Objects to Custom Metadata guidance (https://sfdo-community-sprints.github.io/DLRS-Documentation/Installation/upgrade.html); review of the current site with updates noted that are needed (including checking links); review of FAQs from the community.
- QA: The team made huge progress in bringing QA testing to the next level. Volunteers created a list of scenarios to test; fields and DLRS rollups built out in a branch created a snowfakery recipe that creates records to use in those rollups, we are one step closer to automating testing.
Next Steps:
- Merge QA work into the main branch
- Continue to work on release documentation
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: DLRS group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
5. Deployment Best Practices: Defining practice best practices to share with the community at large
The goal of this project is to bring the “Well-Architected” framework to action by building out documentation and step-by-step guides that are approachable to implement for nonprofit organizations and the partners that love them. At the last Sprint, they had rich and dynamic conversations on the current challenges and opportunities for deploying solutions on the Salesforce platform. This new team will continue to meet regularly and participate at Sprints to define practical best practices to share with the community at large.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Created a demo of DevOps Center and finished out of Tooling Document
- Created a working document for Change Management
Next Steps:
- Will ask the Commons Community to visit these docs and give the team feedback.
- Once they have feedback, they’ll transfer this to the larger Github Pages site for the rest of the community to use and make this living content.
Learn more about this project!
Team Deployment Best Practices group photo, Feb 2024
6. Grants Content Kit: App to store and organize grant proposal content in Salesforce
The Grants Content Kit stores and organizes grant proposal content in Salesforce, allowing grant writers to streamline applications starting with their best content. At the last Sprint, the team had a record number of volunteers contribute their skills, allowing the existing members to give a demo to showcase the power of the app. They hosted an extensive Q&A session and identified several backlog items like UX improvements and bugs. They discussed options for incorporating AI prompt functionality to assist with writing proposal content and plan to move forward in the coming months. There’s a lot more work to be done before they can officially launch the app in the Commons and the team is excited to dive in!
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Reviewed the Winter v Spring package
- Gave demos of the Si setup and adding the External/Named Credentials
- Reviewed and updated GitHub Issues and identified new items to address in the future.
- Reviewed and updated the Grants Content Kit Wiki Documentation updates
- Reviewed with the Video team and discussed having quick update video(s) for sprint recap, for the AppExchange listing having an explainer /promo video, and an overview How-To video would be helpful
Next Steps:
- Tackle new issues and review some thrown back for review after testing.
- Investigating Metecho
- Clean up Project Issues/Repo issues
Learn more about this project!
7. Grassroots Mobile Survey App (GRMS): Offline Capable Survey Tool for Nonprofits with Field Workers
GRMS is a Salesforce solution providing custom mobile survey capabilities to Nonprofits, enabling workers and volunteers in the field to collect program and service data anywhere, and easily sync critical data to their Salesforce platform. With the customizable Salesforce Package, Nonprofit Admins create and manage custom surveys, configure field workers and volunteer mobile app users, create and update records with survey data, and visualize survey results in reports and dashboards. A survey pack with sample fields for disaster relief and home healthcare use cases is included to get started fast.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Oriented new folks to what GRMS is and how it works
- Blocked out sections of our instruction docs to work on videos for (hopefully with the NPSP How To Videos folks!)
- Figured out the perms needed to get the free Integration Users working with GRMS
- Worked on descriptions for sample flow package and worked on various minor bugs.
Next Steps:
- Continue on our task list - working on bugs, compatibility with NPC, documenting the Integration User config, etc.
- Get the branching issues sorted and some of the documentation improvements sorted.
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Grassroots Mobile group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
8. Membership Essentials: App to help Nonprofits track their membership data more effectively
The Membership Essentials team (previously named Membership Schema and Benefits) is prepping to launch their upcoming package to deliver features helpful for memberships, sponsorship, renewals, payments, multiple members, families, benefits, etc., within Salesforce to help Nonprofits track their data more effectively.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Onboarded 10 new volunteers to the project!
- Documentation: 2 of 4 sections are nearing completion; Homepage and vision are complete; Use cases completed
- Marketing: Generated marketing Strategy, created Enablement Resources
- Development: 18 Tasks, 5 Completed, 7 in testing
Next Steps:
- Incorporate the new folks into our monthly group meetings and finalize the work from this sprint!
- Lots of good feedback on using Metecho to manage the development tasks.
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Memberships group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
9. Nonprofit Salesforce How-To Series: Community-created videos demonstrating the features and best practices of Salesforce for Nonprofits products.
The team - since 2017 - has been creating short, digestible how-to videos from Nonprofit Salesforce documentation (NPSP, PMM, Outbound Funds, & Commons projects). They’ve amassed over 200k views on their videos which are linked from Salesforce Help articles, and have over 1200 subscribers on their YouTube channel. At the last Sprint, the team wrote and edited scripts for new videos, and recorded voices for upcoming videos.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Finished drafts for 5 scripts
- Had several fruitful conversations with other Commons teams looking for help creating videos for their products.
Next Steps:
- Supporting the Mobile Grassroots team writing scripts
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: NP SF How-to Series group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
10. Salesforce Indicators: Open source Lightning Web Component to highlight key indicators on a Salesforce record
A new LWC that allows you to highlight important data in Salesforce with icons and colors, making it easy to focus on what matters most on a record page. This newly launched product participated at their first in-person Sprint this fall and worked on building out a cookbook of recipes for users, and worked on new features from the backlog. They’re looking for new volunteers to join the team if you have a few hours to spare each month!
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Very robust and excellent discussion around videos, video production, and getting our message across.
- Worked on development
- Audited our full documentation site and fixed the missing links and inconsistent headings
- Created a content plan for videos we want to produce
Next Steps:
- More videos
- More documentation
- Setup enhancements
- UI Development
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Salesforce Indicators group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
Salesforce Indicators group photo, Feb 2024
11. Sprinty’s Community Resources: Curated community content to help nonprofits find what they need, fast!
Sprinty’s Community Resources (SCR) is a curated site for the nonprofit and education community where people can share resources that have been helpful to them and benefit from the experience of others. SCR includes hundreds of blog posts, Trailblazer Community conversations, online videos, and much, much more. At the last Sprint, the team built a draft of the functionality for end users to submit feedback on a resource (ie broken link) and approved over 100 new submitted resources in the library via their curation process.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- We finished auditing all of our published resources!
- Completed our overhaul of the Popular Sources page
- Created a draft Usability Survey
- 21 resources were submitted by the community!
Next Steps:
- We completed all of our projects for the sprint! Go team!
- We have some steps to improve our submission form to make it clearer what kind of resources are right for the site.
Learn more about this project! Join Sprinty’s Community Resources group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
12. Sticky Selectron Lightning Web Component (LWC): Datatable Lightning Component for working with multiple records in a screen flow
This team is building a new high-performing data table with a 2K row limit for working with multiple records in a screen flow. When completed and published, it will allow for easy selection of multiple records in a screen flow that will persist (or remain “sticky”) upon return to the record selection screen for any further modifications. At the last Sprint, researched and built a new feature to format date/time, defined their MVP for launch, migrated issues to Github, and started building out their documentation.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Documentation using Just the Docs and Jekyll
- Used Apex to pull field labels for MVP
- Updated API to 59
- LWC code updates
Next Steps:
- Error Testing
- Package MVP and launch!
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Sticky Selectron group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
13. Summit Events App (SEA): Community-built event management solution for Nonprofits and Schools
Summit Events App is an end-to-end event management solution for everyone. SEA provides customizable event management, making registration, receipting, confirmation, and reporting easier and integrated with Salesforce. At the last Sprint, the team defined a list of event types that they’d like to build out samples of, including their challenges and opportunities. They also worked on ensuring scratch org builds include all sample data and examples!
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Continued the discussion on the Discount Code object and built relationships to that object in the Event Fees.
- Discussed reporting and receipting discounts to cover in object and receipting architecture.
- Demoed SEA with a TouchNet payment gateway to show how fees and payments related to the registration record.
- Discussed the SEA GitHub pages documentation site (https://summitevt.org). Gave a quick tutorial on markdown and editing the documentation site. Highlighted some documentation needs
- Went on to discussions about an event landing page in SEA, including landing page layout, logic around the landing page’s behavior, and fields for the task on the Event and Instance objects.
Next Steps:
- Continue to flush out the discount code feature.
- Get community feedback on the new landing page.
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Summit Events App group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
The Summit Events App (SEA) group photo, Feb 2024
14. Technical Collective: A formalized way to match local not-for-profits with an inexperienced admin supported by a technical collective of experienced Salesforce professionals.
The Technical Collective is a formalized way to match local not-for-profits with an inexperienced admin supported by a technical collective of experienced Salesforce professionals. At the last Sprint, after launching two successful pilot projects in the UK, this group is now focused on expanding the program, incorporating feedback to strengthen the program, creating sign-up forms for the next cohorts, creating marketing appeal for the different program personas (non-for-profit, inexperienced admin, Salesforce expert admin), draft documentation, and collect feedback and blockers to resolve.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Completed the Engagement Kick-Off template updates, moved all of the form questions into Google Forms to go live
- Completed the TCC Project Documentation Spreadsheet, including Project Team Members & Roles, Key Project Dates, Scope, Onboarding Checklist, Knowledge Library, and Activities Deployment Checklist.
Next steps:
- Incorporate the new folks into our monthly group meetings and finalize the work from this sprint!
Learn more about this project!
15. Transfer Credit Equivalency: App to provide automation for transfer credit evaluation and course articulation from other schools
This is an in-progress app meant to help students and institutions search for a course and credit transfer equivalency when transferring between schools. At the last Sprint, the team documented modifications to the screen flow and identified a few issues to resolve.
Work performed at the Sprint:
- Improved the Architecture, adding/changing fields where needed.
- Improved the existing screen flow for adding transcript courses.
- Created a new screen flow for Registrars to process and evaluate equivalencies.
Next Steps:
- Finish all the paths on the new ‘Process Transcripts’ screen flow
- Add Program-specific equivalency rules.
Learn more about this project! Join the Commons Project: Transfer Equivalency group in the Trailblazer Community to ask questions or get involved.
PHEW! That was a lot! So much innovation taking place. But it doesn’t stop here…
See you soon!
- Commons Community Team (Cori O’Brien, Kristiane Kindle, & Lizzy Roberts)