Wrapping Up the Commons Community Sprint in Sydney, Australia
Dates: February 29 - March 1, 2024
Location: Sydney, AU
“Participating in the event was transformative. It is where I found my voice, my purpose, and a community of like-minded individuals. It is not just an event, it is where I discovered the power of connection and possibility. The time I invested in these two days was definitely worth it.“ - Sydney 2024 Sprinter
WOW, Sydney - you did it!
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. After the first in-person Community Sprint last November, we knew it was time to come back for more!
Sydney Sprint group photo, Feb 2024
Our Global Reach: Connecting Across Continents
A remarkable 50 attendees joined us in person, representing a diverse array of Nonprofits, schools, Partners, and employees from Sydney and surrounding regions, including New Zealand, India, Japan, and Singapore! Thank you to everyone who joined and dedicated precious time away from their daily responsibilities, your commitment to sharing your skills made this event truly exceptional. Thank you for making our collective effort such a success.
A special welcome from Nonprofit Leadership:
After a fantastic networking breakfast, Cori O’Brien (Director, Commons Community) kicked off the Sprint alongside Andrew Hill (Area Vice President - APAC, Salesforce for Nonprofits) who gave a warm welcome to all, and recited the Land Acknowledgment. And in her first (but not last) visit to beautiful Sydney, Cori welcomed Lori Freeman (VP & GM, Salesforce for Nonprofits) who shared her immense gratitude for the work the community is doing to support each other in region and spend time at the Sprint.
Let’s Real Talk! Ask Me Anything
In a new (but not the last!) segment at this sprint was the “NGO Real Talk” Ask Me Anything session with Salesforce NGO Executive Leadership, including Lori, Andrew, Jason Hincks (Industry Solutions & Strategy Director, Salesforce for Nonprofits), and Chase Schults (Sr. Director Architecture, Cloud Specialization & Commons Community). The Salesforce Nonprofit community has been asking for more open and honest communication with our product leadership - and we listened! This live Q&A was an opportunity to bring our Nonprofit Salesforce leadership to you at the sprint, to address your questions and get real-time answers. We’ll be hosting an NGO Real Talk at each in-person Sprint this year, so don’t miss your chance to ask your questions at an upcoming event.
Nonprofit Real Talk panel with Nonprofit Leadership at the Sydney Sprint, Feb 2024
Check out the 6 community-led projects that participated:
Sprint Participants identifying challenges at the Sydney Sprint, Feb 2024
1. NEW: Track It!
Challenge to solve: The lack of ability to track & report on complex and valuable tasks within a business process creates inefficiencies for Nonprofit organizations that are difficult to identify and resolve.
Work performed at this sprint:
- At the sprint, the focus was on building the a how-to document to empower a Salesforce Admin to build a tracking system within their org, including components that the team identified to help track tasks and steps in business processes.
- Group discussion around what activities to track and how to track them. Much of the team found it very helpful to know that many people, organizations, and companies had similar problems - it’s a common issue!
Next steps: The team will continue discussions via their new Slack channel, and work to create a sharable resources for others to learn as a first start, and to get feedback on possible future roadmap development.
2. **Salesforce Indicators**: Open source Lightning Web Component to highlight key indicators on a Salesforce record
A new LWC app 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.
Work performed at this sprint:
- To publish on the AppExchange, some members of the team spent time starting the process to include demo videos to showcase the features of Salesforce Indicators.
- Identified and documented use Cases for Indicators for senior management.
- Created a how to guide for how to use Declarative Lookup Rollup Summaries (DLRS) for Indicators to make it easier to surface helpful data on a record page.
- Discussion and use case identification for using Salesforce Indicators with Campaigns and Campaign members. .
Next steps: Continue building out new use case documentation, and work on upcoming videos to publish AppExchange listing. 
Salesforce Indicators team getting to work at the Sydney Sprint, Feb 2024
3. NEW: SMS Trailblazers
This group focused on SMS Engagement Outreach, Automation, and other channels.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Created a survey with the teams’ pointers that were shared.
- Compiled responses from the survey, and launched the survey externally to gather more responses to better incorporate future development and roadmap.
Next steps: The team will continue to work to create a helper guide, mind map, decision tree, and then share out with the community!
4. NEW: Working with Children Check (regulations & preferences)
Another new project arose at the Sydney sprint, this one focused on working with the process of children’s checks, the challenges of which were raised by multiple participants at the Sprint. Specifically, managing security and information checks for multiple people and matching qualifications to roles.
Work performed at this sprint:
- The team had great conversations to ensure team members understood the process of childrens checks, and how the process currently is handled, and creating a process map.
- They then focused on understanding the working with children check process (including between states), and investigating the options for linking to external websites, which they determined was not currently possible without significant development resources and complicated builds.
- Determined to not miss a thing, the team discussed how else external data can be ingested eg abs, electoral data and worked to identify best practices for automation and data handling in Salesforce.
Next steps: The team will continue discussions via their new Slack channel, and work to create a sharable resource for others to learn as a first start.
5. NEW: Nonprofit Considerations for Customizations
This new team discussed the common challenge facing many Nonprofits all over the globe - big dreams and small budgets in an under-resourced sector.
Work performed at this sprint:
- A lot of discussion was had around the anti-pattern of over-customisation often found within Nonprofit orgs.
- The team set out to create an initial best practices document with “Non-Profit things to consider” and how to manage Salesforce products as they come (out of the box), without extensive customization which often leads to tech debt and confusion for the admin(s).
Next steps: The team will continue discussions via their new Slack channel, and work to create a sharable resource for others to learn as a first start.
Nonprofit Considerations for Customizations team discussing challenges of small nonprofits at the Sydney Sprint, Feb 2024
6. NEW: Security and Setup Convos
Security concepts and tools, and managing an org can be overwhelming for many Nonprofit organizations. This nteam set out to help round-up helpful existing resources to make it a bit easier to find solutions that many other admins find helpful.
Work performed at this sprint:
- Some challenges the team identified could already be covered by either Salesforce Out of the Box tools and Free Offerings such as Apex exception functionality (Salesforce), Optimiser (Salesforce), User Access and Permission Assistant (AppExchange), Perm Comparator (External App), Org Doctor (Salesforce) etc.
- They identified 2 items that could be refined into Feature Requests for the Salesforce Idea Exchange: 1) Adding the ability to update the Owner field in a Record View Form element in Lightning Web Components. 2) Trigger an Approval Process from defined Event Types using Event Monitoring.
Next steps: The team will continue discussions via their new Slack channel, and work to create a sharable resource for others to learn as a first start.
PHEW! That was a lot! So much innovation taking place. But it doesn’t stop here! Register or save the date for our upcoming Sprint events:
- Commons Affordable Housing Sprint, 20-21 March, 2024 - Register today!
- World Tour NYC Community Sprint, April 26th, 2024 - Save the Date.
- World Tour London Community Sprint, 4th & 5th June, 2024 - Save the Date.
See you soon!
- Commons Community Team (Cori O’Brien, Kristiane Kindle, & Lizzy Roberts)