Free Non Salesforce Tools For Salesforce Admins

Luke Skywalker had his lightsaber, Indiana Jones had his whip, and Harry Potter had his wand. Every good hero, whether from the silver screen or an #AwesomeAdmin has the tools to help them do their job and save the day.

There is a plethora of content out there on great AppExchange apps for admins for your toolbox, but its more difficult to find content regarding non Salesforce tools for Salesforce admins.

Here are a few powerful tools that I use regularly, complete with screenshots and info (in no particular order of importance):

Online HTML Editor

An online tool which helps you create WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get for the acronym challenged) HTML content declaratively! I use this frequently for creating rich HTML email templates and other deliverable content. I’m sure there is also a use for this tool to help with VisualForce pages (see the CSS tab in the screenshot), but I haven’t got around to doing any testing with it (and i’m not code literate either)

Hex to RGB Converter
This one is pretty self explanatory. A simple online tool to convert a hex color code to rgb and reverse. This works well in tandem with the HTML editor when needing specific color codes to keep your branded colors in email and content templates, as well as keeping to your brand colors in new lightning apps!

PIXLR Online Photo Editor is an online Photoshop-lite tool that can do some basic image editing/layering and maintain opacity. I use this frequently to adjust images for content, email templates, and app images

 

CloudConvert is a cloud based file converter allowing you to upload files from several cloud storage platforms or from your desktop and convert it to the file type of your choice. Some conversions are wonky, but is pretty helpful

Sandbox FavIcons
Great chrome extension that will put an “S” (for sandbox, not Salesforce) in any tab that is a sandbox (see image). Please note that when you are in process builder, it recognized PB as production and will not work, but otherwise helpful for organization

Advanced Formula Editor
This is a great chrome extension for formula gurus (and i’m sure we all owe SteveMo a beer). It will convert the advanced formula UI to more of an advanced code editor and provide syntax coloring, parenthesis matching, etc. It can be tough to get a handle on if you don’t write code and are used to the standard advanced formula writer, but once you get used to it, it’s very handy

Setup Search Helper is probably my favorite chrome addon. I caught wind of this thanks to the Salesforce community, and it has saved me so much aggravation. When you click the “setup” button, it will enter “helper” text into the search box in setup (it’s been so long that I actually forget what it says), and depending on your connection, may appear after you’re already typing in the box, combining the helper default text with what you typed in. This addon always keeps that box empty. Its a lifesaver.

RecordIt Fast Screencasts does exactly what the title says. Essentially you are creating quick and short animated GIFS that can be very helpful for showing a user where something is and how to do something simple, or creating something fun to share on social media (#GifSquad represent!)

Last, but certainly not least:

Text based, copy friendly list of US States and abbreviations
This may not be as helpful to everyone that doesn’t use State/Country global picklists, but it can help make quick work of it, especially if you are writing apex and need a quick copy/paste list.

I hope these tools are as helpful to you as they have been for me! Appy Trails!