Q: Can Salesforce Integration Licenses access Standard Objects like Accounts and Opportunities?

A: Yes, but only with some configuration weirdness!

To access Standard Objects, a userid with a Salesforce Integration License must be assigned to the right kind of Permission Set: the Permission Set’s “License” field must be set to

• no specific License, or
• a “Salesforce API Integration” License:

• a Permission Set whose “License” field is “Salesforce” can’t be assigned to a userid with a Salesforce Integration License, and
• a Permission Set whose “License” field is “Salesforce Integration” can’t access Standard Objects.
• And a Salesforce Integration License’s Profile can’t access Standard Objects, either.

go figure.

thanks to Josh Dehkordi and Surya Kamkipati for their help sorting this out!

Q: How do I block browser advertisements without purchasing an ad blocker?

A: Adding entries to your HOSTS file enables you to block advertisements by blocking ad-servers’ domains. To install:

1] download the “hosts.zip” file from this website.

2] install it as follows:

For Windows PC: instructions on that page help you install the HOSTS file on your computer.

For MacOS: I copied the contents of the text file in hosts.zip, and added it to my Mac’s HOSTS file by

1. double-clicking my hard drive icon;
2. pressing ⌘-Shift-Period in the Finder window to view all files;
3. double-clicking the etc folder, then
4. opening the HOSTS file in a text editor (I use Visual Studio Code), pasting in the clipboarded contents, and saving.

For Unix: heck if I know

Q: How do I view YouTube videos without participating in its toxic recommendation algorithm?

A: Three steps!

1] install Auto Incognito Mode in your browser

2] click the Auto Incognito Mode extension’s button (it looks like a hat and sunglasses) and select “Options” from the dropdown menu:

3] add the following two lines to the list of filters, then click the Save button:
*://*.youtube.com/*
*://youtube.com/*

that’s it!

ps while we’re at it. . .

• I also strongly recommend switching from Chrome to Brave. It’s easy!
• heck, add filter lines to run your Google searches anonymously:
  *://www.google.com/*
*://google.com/*

All chapters of “Divorce Google”:

• Part 1 (stop using Chrome)
• Part 2 (hide from YouTube’s algorithm)
• Part 3 (remove yourself from Google search results)

Has anyone tried this? Has it worked for you?

Yumi Ibrahimzade’s “Salesforce Time” blog floated a fascinating idea:

adding a zero-duration Pause Element to an Autolaunched Flow.

“By doing so,” Yumi writes, “this element will end the flow transaction, which will reset the flow limits.”

configuring that would look like this:

. . . I imagine this easily fixes a Flow that’s running into limit errors.

On the flip side, I could imagine this superficially fixing a Flow without addressing underlying problems.

I’d love to hear your experience! I hope to update this post after I get a chance to test.

If the prompt for the outbound ticket is “Select Your Trip”, there’s a lovely symmetry in captioning the return trip “Trip Your Select”!

• I free-associated to that Beastie Boys line “I’m losing my mind, this time / This time I’m losing my mind”
• “Tceles Ruoy Pirt” also would’ve been great
• Everybody could use more Blake

Anyone else think it’s weird that Optimizer has been down for 3+ weeks, with no updates² since the original, obscure announcement on Salesforce’s Trust Site?

¹ Dangit, there’s a better headline to be had. Maybe an Optimus Prime joke?

² None that I’ve seen. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Salesforce’s Reporting capability, always wonky, still doesn’t support dates in its Summary Formulas. Users need Custom Summary Formulas to return Dates.

It’s deeply frustrating that this ticket, which merged previous requests for Custom Summary Formulas to return Dates, was marked “Delivered” when the underlying need remains undelivered.

Vote for the ideas that capture this longtime, simple need:

• Report Summary Formulas: Support Dates
• Include Date / Datetime fields in “Summarize this Field” report functionality
• Ability to use date fields in Report Summary Formulas

sometimes Salesforce Authenticator’s two-word phrases hit uncomfortably close to home

Q: How might I validate a record but still allow it to save if it fails?

A: I use a little bit of formula-field sneakiness.

Let’s say you’re a consultancy and you’ve got three project-related dates on an Opportunity (Close Date, Implementation Date, Go-Live Date) that need to occur sequentially. Here’s what that output could look like:

To implement it, I suggest creating a Formula(Text) field named “Date Audit” like this:

IF(NOT(ISBLANK(Implementation_Date__c)) &&
    Implementation_Date__c <= CloseDate,
   "❌ Implementation Date Must Be Later than Close Date" & BR(),
   "") &
IF(NOT(ISBLANK(Go_Live_Date__c)) &&
    Go_Live_Date__c <= CloseDate,
   "❌ Go-Live Date Must Be Later than Close Date" & BR(),
   "") &
IF(NOT(ISBLANK(Implementation_Date__c)) &&
    NOT(ISBLANK(Go_Live_Date__c)) &&
    Go_Live_Date__c <= Implementation_Date__c,
   "❌ Go-Live Date Must Be Later than Implementation Date" & BR(),
   "")

Q: How many records does a given user own in Salesforce?

A: A quickie URL hack gets your answer. Paste the following after force.com in your address bar, replacing 005ABCDEFGHIJKL with the desired user’s ID:

/setup/user/userstorageusage.jsp?id=005ABCDEFGHIJKL

the page looks like this (though presumably with many more records than you’d find in one of my Dev Sandboxes!)

Where’d this come from? If you navigate to Setup | Data | Storage Usage, there’re two underknown sections at the bottom of the page, for “Top Users by Data Storage Usage” and “Top Users by File Storage Usage”.

Clicking a username in either one of those sections gets you the URL and page shown above.