What is “Database Administration by Walking Around” and How to Achieve it in a Remote Workplace

In the traditional office setting, Salesforce administrators often practiced what is called “Database Administration by Walking Around,” or DABWA – an admin’s riff of “Management by Walking Around”. This is an informal but effective way to stay on top of things - checking in with users, troubleshooting issues, and ensuring that everything is running smoothly. You could wander over to someone’s desk, ask how Salesforce is working out for them, and get real-time feedback. It’s all about being present, accessible, and proactive.

But what happens when the office becomes virtual? How do you keep that same level of engagement and effectiveness when your team is scattered across different cities, time zones, or even continents? The principles of “DABWA” are still crucial, but they need a bit of a makeover for the remote world. Let’s dive into how you can maintain - or even enhance - your Salesforce administration effectiveness in a remote work environment.

1. The Virtual Walkabout: Staying Visible & Accessible

One of the key benefits of “walking around” was visibility. Your presence in the office made it easy for team members to ask questions, report issues, or simply chat about how things were going with Salesforce. In a remote setting, you can’t just casually stroll by someone’s desk, but you can still be visible and accessible.

Leverage Communication Tools: Use tools like Slack, Teams, or even Salesforce Chatter to create virtual spaces where your team knows they can reach you. Set up specific channels for Salesforce-related inquiries or issues. Regularly post updates, tips, or just check in with a simple, “How’s everything going with Salesforce today?”

Office Hours: Consider establishing virtual “office hours” where you are available for live chats or video calls. This recreates the open-door policy you might have had in the office. It encourages users to approach you with questions or concerns, knowing you’re readily available during those times.

Daily Standups or Weekly Check-ins: Schedule short, regular meetings with your team or stakeholders to discuss Salesforce. These could be quick 15-minute standups where everyone shares what they’re working on, any challenges they’re facing, and any help they might need, or weekly one-on-ones scheduled with your most engaged stakeholders. This keeps communication lines open and allows you to address issues before they escalate.

2. Always be “Listening”: Monitoring Salesforce Health Remotely

In an office, you might overhear someone grumbling about how slow Salesforce is or catch wind of a recurring issue just by being nearby. In a virtual environment, you need to be more intentional about gathering feedback and monitoring the health of your Salesforce instance.

Regular Surveys and Feedback Forms: Create and distribute regular surveys to gather feedback on Salesforce performance, user satisfaction, and any issues your team might be experiencing. Tools like Google Forms or Typeform are simple ways to collect this data. Make sure to include open-ended questions that allow users to express concerns or suggestions in their own words. You can even embed these forms directly in Salesforce and serve them to your user (learn how here).

Automated Monitoring Tools: Utilize Salesforce’s own Health Check feature or third-party monitoring tools to keep an eye on the technical aspects of your Salesforce instance. These tools can alert you to potential issues with security, performance, or configurations, allowing you to address problems before users even notice them. Build your own Org Health dashboards with metrics that are important to you and your stakeholder to understand how your users are interacting with your instance with tools like RecordWatch.

Error Alerts: It’s incredibly important to stay as ahead of potential issues. Ensure you’re subscribed to all flow and apex error notifications, and build error alerts into your flows. Receiving alerts the second an issue presents itself means that, as an admin, you can react quickly to squash bugs, support your users, and ensure that everyone is having as frictionless an experience as possible in Salesforce.

3. Proactive Enablement

In the office, a quick chat could turn into a teaching moment, with users able to drop by and quickly receive guidance on processes or platforms. In a virtual setting, being proactive is even more important.

Create a Self-Service Knowledge Base: Empower your users by creating a comprehensive knowledge base where they can find answers to common Salesforce questions or issues. Salesforce’s own help and training modules are a great start, but consider customizing content to reflect your organization’s specific setup and use cases. This reduces the number of routine inquiries you receive and helps users solve problems on their own. There are plenty of third party knowledge bases you can utilize, and often you can link directly to them from Salesforce itself. On a shoe-string, Google docs or slides are better than nothing, and can actually be embedded directly into an App Tab in Salesforce.

Host Regular Training Sessions: Offer ongoing training sessions for your team, especially when there are new Salesforce features or updates. These can be live webinars, recorded tutorials, or interactive workshops. Regular training not only improves user proficiency but also helps you identify areas where your team might be struggling.

Train the Trainer: Ensure you have champions, or Power Users, on every team that touches Salesforce. Often these are people who regardless of their role have shown an interest in process and technology. It’s easier to keep this small group of individuals up to date on everything and allow them to help you with enabling their team or troubleshooting issues before they even need to be escalated to you or your team. 

4. Building a Virtual Salesforce Community

One of the less obvious benefits of “walking around” was the sense of community it helped foster. Casual interactions could lead to knowledge sharing, collaborative problem-solving, and a stronger overall team dynamic. In a virtual workplace, it’s important to recreate that sense of community around Salesforce.

Create a User Group or Community: Set up a dedicated space for your team to discuss Salesforce—whether it’s a Slack channel, a dedicated Salesforce Chatter group, or a weekly Zoom call. Encourage users to share tips, ask questions, and help each other out. This not only builds camaraderie but also turns your users into a self-sustaining support network.

Celebrate Successes: When someone solves a tricky Salesforce problem, successfully completes a training module, or hits a new milestone, celebrate it! Give them a shout-out in your communication channels or even reward them with a small token of appreciation (people love Salesforce swag, and you can order some from Salesforce or you can always request some freebies from your account rep). Recognizing achievements encourages others to step up and engage more actively with Salesforce.

Encourage Peer-to-Peer Learning: Sometimes, the best teachers are peers. Encourage your team members to share their Salesforce experiences, tips, and tricks with each other. This can include all users, not just your Power Users. You could even organize a “lunch and learn” session where a team member presents on a specific Salesforce topic or feature they’ve mastered.

Conclusion

“Database Administration by Walking Around” might look a little different in a virtual workplace, but the core principles remain the same: being proactive, staying connected, and keeping your finger on the pulse of your Salesforce environment. By adapting these practices to a remote setting, you can continue to effectively manage your Salesforce instance, support your team, and drive success—no matter where you’re working from.

So, lace up your virtual sneakers and start “walking around” your digital workspace. Your Salesforce instance—and your team—will be all the better for it.