Just-in-Time Learning: The Key to a Successful Lightning Migration

Surprising as it may sound, the biggest challenges you’re likely to face in migrating from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning are not issues with technology.

The biggest challenges are on the human end. Or…is that really a surprise? After all, they call it the Salesforce Lightning “Experience.” And, people are the ones who have experiences .

Image your experience in this scenario: You’re a Salesforce Classic pro, but today you head into work, log in to Salesforce Lightning for the first time and suddenly, whoa:

Where are my opportunities?

How do I log calls?

How do I send a contract?

Humans are creatures of custom and habit. Switching habits can be a long and arduous process. But, for many, the time for migration to Lightning is no longer a nice to have, it’s a necessity.

So, the question becomes, how can you make this migration experience as painless as possible for your team?

Without a doubt, great documentation plays a key role in the success of any migration. Having engaging, up-to-date, easy to digest and easy to access documentation will provide ongoing support for your team well after your training sessions are over.

But, traditional documentation comes with its own set challenges.

First, an organization migrating to Salesforce Lightning typically has to write all new documentation from scratch. That’s a big pile of work.

Second, while documentation and training are critical to a successful migration, the way they’re presented typically requires stepping away from what you’re doing in order to learn about…what you’re doing.

Somehow, that doesn’t seem quite right. Seriously, wouldn’t the best way to learn about a new experience be from within that experience?

That was exactly the thinking of Brett Barlow at Postmates when he led their recent Lightning migration. Brett started the team out by reviewing the documentation and release notes. Then, had them create a list of every process they’re currently performing in Salesforce, so they could be clear on exactly what they were looking for in the new interface.

Then, he did something unexpected. As he explains it, he wanted to get the team up and running on Lightning as quickly as possible, which to him meant turning Lightning on and removing the option to revert to Salesforce Classic:

…I recommend turning it on and hiding the option from all users. This can be done by removing the Lightning Experience User permission from your custom profiles.

And yes, turn it on in production.

As demonstrated by Jeff and the team at Postmates, a successful migration requires:

1. Getting the right information into the hands of the users
2. Defining your organization’s unique set of processes
3. Getting the users into the platform so they can begin familiarizing themselves

It’s a good approach. But, how much more effective might it be if those three steps could be combined into a single step?

What if you had on-demand documentation and training to ease the transition to Salesforce Lightning while working within Lightning itself.

Introducing: Just-in-time Learning Embedded in Salesforce

A just-in-time learning platform would let teams centralize their knowledge in one place and deliver it within their Salesforce workflow.

The key to such a platform would be breaking processes and tasks down into bite-sized pieces of custom knowledge that can document any process, action, or terminology within a workflow.

With a platform directly integrated with Salesforce , users could work normally until they get stuck or have a question. Then, a simple hover over an icon beside a picklist, object or field value, will reveal the answers they need to move onto the next task.

With a solution like this integrated, when you log in to Salesforce Lightning for the first time and you’re not sure where your opportunities are, or how to log a call, or how to send out a contract—the answers are right there at your fingertips. With training on-demand, you can learn the Salesforce Lightning Experience from the inside.

If your team is preparing to migrate to Lightning, just-in-time learning platforms like Spekit provide out-of-the-box content to help take the pain out of content creation.

Simply:

1. Click to import to “Salesforce Lightning 101” content
2. Click to integrate with Salesforce, and easily customize any bites of content on the fly to meet your specific business needs.
3. Include the processes and definitions needed for your specific workflow, and boom! You’ve added embedded training directly within Salesforce.

You can relate the bite-sized chunks of information to relevant Objects in Salesforce so the information is easily accessible by the user. You can also use these pieces of micro-documentation to add context to your stages or picklists to eliminate confusion.

With a tool like Spekit, documentation is collaborative, supporting knowledge sharing throughout the team. If you add or update a definition to any field imported into the platform directly from Salesforce, the platform would automatically identify that a definition has been added to that field. On refresh, the help icon would appear and any user who needs it now has access to that new or updated information.

When education technology company Hobsons started looking to transition from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce CPQ, it became clear they would first need to get their team up and running on Salesforce Lightning.

They wanted to find a way to deliver training to the team that was fast, integrated, and could be easily updated. They implemented Spekit to bring their 300-member team up to speed on Salesforce Lightning with just-in-time learning.

They found that this approach helped improve retention, reduce questions and free up time for their team to focus on other tasks. In fact, they found that after putting the platform in place, they reduced Salesforce training and support tickets by 35% .

Hobsons’ experience helps drive home the point that a just-in-time approach is good for more than migrating from one user interface to another. Contextual learning is probably the best way to get newly onboarded users up and running. Moreover, it’s a great way to support experienced users.

This style of training is less about having everyone go through a “session” or “sequence” and more about allowing anyone to ask and get answers to Salesforce questions in real-time.

Even an experienced user might forget which opportunity field to select. But, with a platform such as Spekit, they have access to answers in real-time.

Whether migrating to a new version of the platform or just trying to get through a day’s workload, they’ll be learning in the best possible setting—their own workflow.

To get started and download the free Salesforce Lightning 101 template, click here. To try Spekit for free click here .