Preserving CRM Analytics Dashboard Formatting When Deploying

You've built a beautiful CRM Analytics full of customization such as table column names, formats, and conditional formatting by grouping value.

Now, it's time to move this to production.  You can either deploy from the sandbox with change sets or use the Metadata API with your preferred tooling.  It's rather straightforward to select the dashboard name and complete the deployment. 

Except there's a problem. All that super styling work you did is gone. You're left with a sad looking dashboard.

What went wrong and how can we fix it? We need to dive behind the scenes of CRM Analytics to understand where our customization are stored.

Obscure Data Sync Error

 Here's another entry for the obscure, random error file.  It's one of those situations where there's not any other articles out there that match the error message that occurred in Tableau CRM (formerly Einstein Analytics). 

So here's the background and resolution for when your data sync jobs start randomly failing with an "Something went wrong while executing the remoteSync" error.

5 Steps to Killer Einstein Analytics Dashboards

Building great dashboards in Einstein Analytics is a combination of art and science.  You can build pretty visualizations.  If a user can’t take action from the dashboard, it won’t be used. If you throw tons of data at users and they can’t draw insight from it, the dashboard will be ignored.

Dashboards need to be a visual representation of the user’s business goals, with insights that are actionable. Both the art and the science are required to create a meaningful dashboard that engage users.  Here are 5 steps to building killer Einstein Analytics dashboards that users will love.

Adding Subtotals to Einstein Analytics Table

Tables in Einstein Analytics are quite flexible.  They can be very useful for calculating columns and manipulating data.  One feature they lack is the ability to show subtotals. Here's a video walkthrough of how you can add subtotals to a pivot table with SAQL.

Salesforce Wave Explained - Replication

Salesforce Analytics Cloud includes a replication feature that will pre-populate Wave with Salesforce data.  Replicated data can greatly improve dataflow execution times.

Enabling replication also consolidates multiple digest statements in dataflows into a single extract.  If you have used the Dataset builder and selected the same object more than once, your dataflow will digest that object multiple times.

Simply check the option and away you go....well almost.  There are a few considerations to take into account when using replicated data.  Here's what to keep in mind as well as a list of my Tips & Tricks.

Salesforce Wave Explained - Cogroup

Lately, I have received a few questions around ways to combine data in Salesforce Wave.  Previous posts have covered combining internal and external data with data flow transformations.  If combining data while loading is not an option, there are other ways to get the results you need.  While the group statement is a staple of SAQL, its sibling cogroup has a staring role when combining multiple input streams.  Let's take a closer look at cogroup and how we use it to combine two datasets.

A Better Way to Manage JSON and SAQL in Analytics Cloud

It’s really easy to get started with Analytics Cloud.  Load an internal or external dataset, create a couple of lens, clip to a dashboard and relish in the insights.  Now to get the most out of Wave, you have to dive under the covers and work with JSON and SAQL (Salesforce Analytics Query Language).

Previously, this meant spinning up your favorite editor, digging through the documentation and a lot of copy and paste.  Thanks to the innovation coming from Salesforce Labs, there is a new tool that enables inline editing of Metadata/JSON as well as SAQL.  Let’s take a look and see how much time you can save.

Tips for Working in Multiple Salesforce Environments

How many different Salesforce environments do you work in - 1, 2, 5, 20, more?  I tried to count up all the different logins I have and gave up after hitting 50.  The ease at which you can sign up for a free Salesforce org is one of Salesforce's greatest strengths. However, it contributes to org sprawl and the need to manage multiple usernames and passwords.

In addition, as a Salesforce ISV/SI partner there are development orgs, branch orgs, packaging orgs, testing orgs, patch orgs, release orgs, trial orgs, and more.  Throw in my company business org, the Salesforce Success Community and Partner Community just to make it fun.  That's a lot of org credentials to remember and access on a daily basis.

Here is how I keep track of it all.  My focus is on using Chrome, as it is my browser of choice and is available across platforms.