In a prior essay, I asked how data systems could be humanized. A humanized system is clear in its intent, goals, and uses. It is transparent and trustworthy in how it collects, interprets, and uses data. It is equitable in its design and execution. …

You’ve heard of “strategy” — and you’ve certainly heard of “execution.” But have you ever wondered how an organization figures out exactly what it’s going to do every day to execute on its strategy? Or why so much of that day-to-day seems like it comes straight out of an episode…

The vital glue that lets all this happen — So far in this series, we have explored why you might want to set up a simple and inexpensive data pipeline from Salesforce to Azure SQL Server, and how to prepare your Azure SQL Server environment. …

For this part of the work, you will need to be able to create Azure resources. While this article is fairly long, it incorporates all of the foundational Azure-related components so we thought it best to keep it in one article. This article will take you through: Creating an Azure…

Data has different flavors. Sadly, one of them is not strawberry. — This article shares a lot of content with our Salesforce Obscura: Data Pipeline on the Cheap article. We’ve reused the relevant bits for this series, because understanding that reporting falls into different categories is the last piece in truly using your data literacy superpowers to drive your organization forward. Now…

This article is the only one in the series that is largely conceptual and focuses on framing up the solutions. It’s also part of our data literacy project as it talks about the different types of reporting and how to think about reporting ecosystems. I don’t ever like to introduce…

Data on a budget? We’ve got some duct tape for that! — Salesforce reporting is amazing until it isn’t There comes a time in every nonprofit’s Salesforce journey where you encounter The Dreaded Hinge Problem (tm). I have named it this because your data model looks like a door hinge — two child objects linked together by the same parent. Let’s say you keep participant data in Contacts, you…

One more way to use Screen Flows to manage Files while tracking exactly which files have been uploaded — In our last article, I showed you how to grab an uploaded image file from an Experience Cloud page and copy it into a Rich Text field. This article is a slightly more practical variation (and a bit easier to implement too!). Our…

Option 2 of 2 — using ScreenFlows to upload the file from an Experience Cloud setting — In our last article, we demonstrated how to use FormAssembly to capture and load a file into Salesforce, then use a Flow to automatically display that uploaded file in a Rich Text field. This article will take you step-by-step through accomplishing the same goal with Screen Flows in a 100%…