Data Cloud Demystified: Empowering Admins in their Journey

For these new admins , we see the terms AI plus data plus CRM on Salesforce commercials and in other mediums .

Well , we've already , in the last few episodes , talked about AI and how new admins should be thinking about using AI , whether you're an admin , a developer or a marketer , and we've already talked a lot about just generally being an admin for the core sales cloud .

But what we haven't really dove too much in is the layer that's probably the most important piece to connect all of this together data .

So that's why this week , we want to talk about de-misdefying data cloud , finding ways for the new admin to feel more comfortable , one talking about this subject , but also finding ways outside of Trailhead to become wildly successful . So that's why this week , we've brought in Salesforce MVP and marketing champion , pato Sapir .

I've had the pleasure of knowing Pato for quite some time now and being able to see him speak on marketing cloud and data cloud , and the one thing that I've loved hearing him talk the most about is how he got started .

It's so fascinating to hear the story about someone goes from developer to project manager , to data cloud admin and also start his own business . I'm really excited to have us take the time today and talk through Pato's story . So , without further ado , let's meet Pato . So , without further ado , let's meet Pato .

Pato Sapir is the founder and senior solutions consultant at Debs United , a Salesforce partner specialized in providing digital marketing solutions powered by Salesforce . Pato started his career in software development more than 15 years ago in Buenos Aires , argentina , and moved to Cleveland , ohio , in 2009 .

His journey with Salesforce started in 2012 as a technical architect working with Exact Target , now known as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement , and in 2015 , pato decided to start his own business . Pato's passion is to help his team and clients to solve impossible challenges and to share his experiences with the marketing cloud community .

So let's not waste any more time and dive on in . Well , I really appreciate you , though , for taking the time . Everyone's schedules at the start of the year are absolutely insane , and so just taking an hour , hour and a half out of your day to sit down and talk through this very complex topic is much appreciated .

So today I want to dive into a little bit of the title of the episode . There's no spoilers here a Demystifying Data Cloud . When we think of this system , when we think of . AI and all the systems that kind of are hot topics for the ecosystem right now . There's a lot of kind of this is too complex for me , I'm not going to learn it .

Or if I am going to learn it , I'm going to need hundreds of dollars worth of training and certifications and so on and so forth . And , having now had the pleasure of sitting down with a few advocates in the ecosystem to learn more about the AI Cloud , it's so not as complex and scary as we give it the credit for .

So , before we dive into that topic , I'd love for you to be able to give a quick introduction of yourself , kind of start off the episode , like all of our others , where we get to hear about you , what's your journey in the ecosystem and where you got , how you got to where you are today .

I'm going to try my best to keep up with all the quality guests that you've been having , you know so . So , yeah , I mean a little bit about my journey .

So I started getting into programming and computers at an early age and probably like a lot of millennials , I will say , or people my age and 42 now , but , when I was like 12 , you know I will go to my cousins house I'm originally from Buenos Aires , Argentina , and I will be in my cousins house and we will play graphic adventures .

You know in the , in the PC . So we'll play Maniac , mansion , monkey Island , indiana Jones and all the Lucas arts . You know like graphic adventures . You know and spend hours and pull on night or just just playing .

You know those games to the point where you know you go to sleep at night and then you will come in the middle of an ice and I think I know where to put the key .

And then , you know , my first job was when I started college , I was 18 . And I did two things . One was teaching classes at a kind of like a Institute or a new , that teach people how to , you know , use Microsoft products . You know how to use war , how to use power and things like that .

So I will teach like kind of like , I would say , the elderly you know , community or how to use this kind of like , how to use a computer , and then I will do a couple of programming lessons to people .

And then I took a job at the same time to work in a software factory programming mobile apps for like airports and and and other companies , and that's why I started to like get really into programming at the time .

And then , a few years after , later , I started getting more into like web development , you know , and working more on like the agency side , you know . Like working . I started working at a digital agency in Buenos Aires just building websites . You know , like building websites for different brands and building also kind of like yeah , custom solutions .

What at the time were like we didn't have as many UI frameworks or already like put to our solutions . So a lot was like , you know , like doing everything by hand , which which took a lot of time . I wish I had chat GPT back then . That would be don't we ?

We didn't even have like what's it called stack exchange , you know at the time , or or you know stuff like that . So I , I don't know it was . It was a great learning experience , but , you know , I would appreciate a little more help from the former community . You know , and maybe that's that's part the way I think about it .

Maybe that's that's why I Contribute so much to a community now that I think about it . It's just the fact that when I was like starting my career , I didn't really have a lot of community you know to to rely on .

So I mean , I can only imagine trying to learn a very complex type of Knowledge set with so few resources at your disposal .

You know there was a series called headfirst JavaScript development , headfirst C , sharp development , that there were really cool books to learn . You're almost in a trade head type format , you know . But but yeah , I have some friends that are like old school and they're like oh , we , you know , we , we learn so much from not having these resources .

But I'm more like yes , but at the same time we , you know I wish we had a little more . You know , like resources , the one job , one job I had that I I was there for like less than a month . I remember they didn't allow you to have internet either , so like you had to be in the on the job without internet . You know we had an internet .

You know we had like that , the the company network where everything work , you know , because we were working for a telecommunications company but they didn't have access to the outside world . So if , if I wanted to Google something to like look for an answer . I it was blocked , I couldn't .

So , you know , like three weeks after that I got like I don't have the tools to , like , me know , do my job right , and also I was super bored . But but that drove me to the job , which is like getting more into like the digital agency world and working more with like web development and websites .

And then I had an opportunity To , so I went from like being a developer Then I was a tech lead , then I go into like kind of like operations and project management , just trying to help teams , you know , with roadblocks that they have on projects and you know one note .

And then , and then I had an opportunity to go more into the sales , kind of like sell support side for the agency , but do it from the , from the office in in Cleveland , ohio .

And it was a cool opportunity because , you know , I was kind of like the bridge between the , the people that was selling Website projects here in the US , and the delivery team in Buenos Aires .

I was a person in the media that was trying to , you know , help translate , you know the requirements and the estimates and make sure that the transition was as smooth as possible with the delivery team , you know . So I thought that was a cool challenge . So I work there from 2007 into I move . I moved to the States in 2009 To Cleveland .

I have family in Florida . My sister and my mom live in Florida , but that's all that . The rest of my family is in in Buenos Aires , so I Move here . I had , luckily , I have a good group of friends and people I knew here in Cleveland , so I was . It was a good welcome .

I think I had a good support system and and in 2012 you know the company that I was working for , what was acquired and I was kind of looking for attention . Who might ? The person who today is my wife . We were dating at the time she started a job at a part at a company that was doing In projects with exact target .

So she started a job as a solutions architect , doing projects with exact target , and she said , hey , we're looking for a technical architect . I think you will like this , this job , because it's kind of like you have to be creative and if you have web development experience , I think you're gonna like it .

So I I took the chance and I started working and with exact target as a technical architect , which he was a little . It was a little bit of a step back of my career , but I didn't mind . I kind of like I always like to put my hands on the keyboard anyways .

I hear a lot of developers and I'm speaking broadly at this point because you're not necessarily in Salesforce yet but so many developers I know hate the people aspect of the job and figuring out how to , especially with potentially a language barrier as well .

How are you , how is that process for you going from coding , building , designing , into the more sales support , the more ? Hey , I have to make sure all the pieces are in place to successfully get you what you're asking for , Because that doesn't seem like a very normal step from developer to kind of people management .

. I think I am a big soccer fan or football . I love sports , I play sports , many sports growing up and I think , always was interested in understanding what's behind the technical aspect of the sport and what's behind the technical aspect of the work . So I was always curious too and I always had an interest in understanding how we can work better as a team .

So I don't know , I think it was just that , just curiosity , and just always like trying to work in teams and how we can improve each other . And then when I started in 2012 , to your point , like I was a developer , very , very technical oriented , and then when I started with Exact Target , I saw this thing and that's where I started learning about CRM .

I had no idea what CRM meant . You know , an email , marketing and all that , especially coming from another country . Like email in Argentina was non-existent . Like commercial email was non-existent , even to say like the biggest channel right now that drives like engagement . I would not probably know email .

It's like WhatsApp or social media , or email is used for transactional purposes , really a lot . So yeah , I guess , to answer your question , it was just curiosity . And then when I started getting into Exact Target , the same , it was like , oh look , this is kind of like a CMS , but for email .

And then I started seeing , oh wow , I was like a customer like everything was I had to do everything custom right . So I was like , oh look , I can write arms , I'm customizing stuff . So my solutions sometimes were like very creative because I was like , oh no , we , you know the first custom preference centers that I built for clients you know .

Oh no , we have these books . And I was like , no , we can build it with .

What made you say let's , let's branch out into what was then genie , now data cloud . Let's start figuring out how to connect the systems dots .

My wife is like a saint and and I think you know I always thought that United division of my company is a digital marketing power by Salesforce . You know how can we help ? You know , be in the intersection of marketing and IT , but always marketing marketing cloud was , was a person . You know , we did a little bit of a kind of engagement , not a lot .

And then the next evolution of that was , okay , marketing cloud intelligence , marketing cloud personalization . And then what was the next step for us ?

To evolve as a digital marketing agency , power by Salesforce , and it made a lot of sense to to do it with , with Salesforce data cloud or or Gini , or CDP , or customer 360 , whatever , whatever name we want to you want to give it , you know that is interesting , that I mean talk a little bit about , kind of for the folks who want to go from date , even

even outside of developer , like data managers and data architects , into the world of Salesforce .

You know , it really depends on your role , you know , if you are a data architect , you know I think I think you got to look at it as I can use something like that , that Salesforce data cloud , to uncover insights about the data that I have all my customers , you know and describe them with the data that I have about them .

If I , if you can describe your customers with the data that you're collecting about them , then you can communicate with them in a in a more impactful way , you know , and make it relevant , I think . I think there is this concept of like true to TRU , which is , like , every experience has to be true , relevant and relevant and unique , you know .

So , probably , data cloud allows you to kind of like , describe your customer and all the attributes about them and then , if you have that analyst , you can , you can uncover insights and and massage the data to then let the marketing team activate on it .

You know , I think if you are an admin , there is so much that you have to do in terms of bringing data in data cloud , managing data use , usage , managing users in data cloud . I mean , at the end of the day , also , like you know , that data cloud is , is is part of the core platform in a way .

So a lot of , I think , a lot of skills that you learn as an admin , you can apply them to data cloud , you know . So I think it really depends on on , on yeah , it's like building a team . You know that that's gonna manage your data cloud instance .

You're probably gonna need , like an admin for sure , a data analyst , and a new major might not need a developer , maybe in the initial stages , but not not afterwards , you know . But I see more and more admins taking on the challenge of learning data cloud because even if you do a initial implementation , someone needs to maintain .

You know you need to bring new data sources or you need to modify the data source , the data sources or whatnot , and the two levels is evolving so fast that you need to be learning it at all times , you know .

I'm going to preface this by saying that there's not a lot outside of Trehe and the official documentation , but I know , like , like , for example , one of the things I'm trying to do I run the Cleveland marketer group , so I'm trying .

I did this series of data cloud for marketers , you know , which is , I , covers kind of like the sum of the basics of how you can start using data cloud if you're a marketer , you know , and I try to put those videos on my YouTube channel . I know JB , who is a mark , she's a marketing champion .

She has a whole like she's doing like I don't know if she finished it or not , but she has a whole like bootcamp , data cloud bootcamp on YouTube , that that she's a blur in as part of her channel MC learning camp . So I think I've seen a lot of like video content lately , not so much written content , you know .

So I mean , yeah , I , there is a lot of actually room for content creators , you know , for data cloud , because , again , the product is if there are in so many features to a product so fast that people are still like learning them themselves , implementing them , and then they don't even have to say , oh , now I have experience to write an article about it , you

know . And the other thing that notices this happened a lot with marketing cloud engagement is the documentation wasn't a very , you know , robust , but the data cloud documentation is a very , very robust . There is another one is data cloud decoded . It's like a playlist from Salesforce developers . That's really cool . I will check .

So to say , I'm an admin , I specialize in XYZ , or I'm an admin who is just getting started , but I come from a kind of project management background or a technical SaaS background , are there any kind of skills or real world trainings that you think could be really beneficial to help someone more quickly learn up on the technical know-how around it ?

Yeah , I think .

Salesforce sales cloud , I was like , oh , this is like a relational database with a really nice UI , you know , and that's how I oh no , so my advantage was I knowing how data relationships works , gave me a good advantage to like learn how to configure a tool you know .

And I think , like , if you're an admin that wants to , the new admin that wants to get into data cloud , learning like the basics of how to make like an entity relation relationship model . You know what is a one-to-many relationship , what is a one-to-one relationship , what is a primary key , what is a foreign key .

Just learning that is gonna give you so much advantage when you go into , maintain or implement data cloud , because one of the biggest things on data cloud is the underlying data model , that you know that , that everything is normalized on . So if you understand what are the entities and how they relate to each other .

That's like , honestly , that's like 50% of implementing . It's like understanding the model . You know , I think like 50% of any implementation is discovery , so I'm gonna go with like 50% of that is understanding the model . The second one is knowing how to run discovery around use cases .

You know , truly understanding how , how you can sit down with it and marketing us . Okay , let's , let's talk about how you're gonna use

this tool . You know , and that's something that I think is missing a lot right now is customers even get the free version now of data cloud , and so I just want a unified data . You know , and and data cloud is is . It can be so much more than that , you know .

So if you're an admin and I think I will I will take a look at the , probably the , the trial head . That covers the business analyst certification .

I think it talks a little bit about how to uncover requirements and use cases and and time to value , and I think I think that's very important because you as an admin need to sometimes get answers out of people , get requirements and sometimes , sometimes people don't know what they don't know you know . So having those skills could really help you .

But I will say learning just yeah , like a basic how to be linear D and database , that's gonna give you so much , so much already .

So , to your point , around requirements discussions , what are some of the things that admins and data managers should be doing to better integrate the systems into data cloud , into Salesforce ? What's just a couple quick things to the admin should be thinking about when trying to integrate in these third-party non-sales for systems yeah , I will .

Someone knows , you know , it's actually like you you could bring engagement data from from your website and from your own and from marketing cloud and then you know , massage of all that data and then made that data available in something like that long , for example .

You know , but if you already have like a like , a like a data reporting solution that is already consuming all those data sources , maybe think about how you can aggregate data from from information that you have in data cloud , you know .

So I think you know that the first thing is , I kind of to try to understand what is your tech stack that you have and what is the responsibilities for each of the components , because a lot of times , I think what you uncover when you have marketing and IT in the same room is that no , no , we're going to use data cloud to bring everything in and we're

going to do all our ETL operations in here , and then IT will say , no , no , we have this other tool to do ETLs . You know we have . I know we have MUSE , we have whatever to do all the ETLs . What are you talking about ? So I think , like agreeing on what are we going to use , and also marketing cloud , right , like this . This one is a classic .

It's like we're going to do all our segments in marketing cloud and then marketing says , or IT says , no , but we just purchased data cloud , why aren't we doing the segments in data cloud ?

So then you , you have to as an admin , right , or for as a data manager , you're going to say , okay , let's start with , like , what are we going to use each of these things for Once ? We agree into that . Then you start saying , okay , what data do I need to bring in ? You know .

But if you don't start with those like top level , like use cases , like what is it that we want to accomplish and what are our value drivers ? What is it that is going to try the difference ? You got to start there Then you're going to , okay , what is my map ?

You know what are the tools and how are we going to use them , and then you start seeing what you're going to integrate . You know there .

We had an episode a couple weeks back around AI and we were talking a lot about the privacy and security around AI and , like make sure you don't input in very important , secure , like PII data into your AI to spit out types of content , because that could be , you know , not the smartest thing to do .

I'm curious if this opinion and this kind of suggestion changes as we move from AI to data cloud and kind of what your opinions are , what you are seeing around data security and compliance and how admins should think about bringing in sensitive information into the data cloud and what you can do with it once it's in data cloud .

You know and I think there's not a lot of concerns with you know security aspects of it , but it's more about when it comes to , you know , data cloud is more about segment generation , you know . So being able to say , I want a segment , you know , that has these attributes , et cetera .

Now in the spring release , you're going to be able to do that and generate segments to use the marketing cloud Is that amazing ? Yeah , it's great . But if you don't have a verification step to say , is this an actual representation of what I'm looking to do , if you don't verify those steps , then it's very .

I think it's very dangerous , because I think these tools or these machines are still kind of learning and always is very , very important to verify when it comes to content . It's like super , super , hyper critical .

But because we're talking about data cloud , I think verifying the results of these generated segments and also verifying that they're inclusive , you know that you are including the universe of diverse individuals in your segment . You know when those get generated . So I think verification of those results is very critical .

I'm not that concerned about the what happens in the background in terms of security , but I am concerned also about that . If the quality of the data that you put is poor or is bad , then your output is going to be bad . You know . It's the same as prompting . You know if your prompting is not non inclusive , the output is probably going to be non inclusive .

You know when it generates an image or a piece of content . You know . So that's kind of like my take on this whole AI thing .

Obviously , that's not a invitation to throw caution in the wind and input whatever data you want into the system , but you do need to be strategic , because wherever you get out is what you put in . Pivoting , though to the compliance side of it , I always say , when it comes to data compliance , same thing like what you said earlier you get what you put in .

If you aren't just not following like GDPR rules or just general compliance around how you are inputting people's information into your system , then obviously , yeah , you're breaking rules , and that's less about the system and more about how you operate with the data .

But I'm curious and who knows , I may cut this if I don't like the answer , but I do want to ask the question , though around is there anything within Data Cloud that helps make compliance easier or following compliance easier , or is it still just kind of a ? You have to know it and it's a crapshoot .

I think again , data cloud shouldn't be this the source of truth . This , the source of truth or system of reference should be , for example , cells cloud , right ?

So if you're using cells cloud , you have an option to turn on the consent management model in cells cloud and it creates all these objects you know your party consent objects and it creates a individual objects with all the you know the channels Associates to them and everything .

It is like a little nice object Data model for consent and you can also install , like the consent management app in the app exchange as free , so you can actually record consent at the CRM level . You know which fun fact the records that get generated about consent don't count towards your storage quota for objects . But maybe you know your use case , you .

You know you you're required to use like a consent management tool , like one trust or something is enough , but you know you can do it . So then what you have in data cloud is a very similar entities for consent .

So you have the , the , the only Consent by channel and by category and the reasons of a consent and you can pull like if it's for GDPR or you know , etc . Etc . So you can actually build your email .

But the idea is that you are reading from something , so you're eating reading from your , your system of truth , like CRM , or you are reading from like a one trust where you record all the concern , requests and why you need to send that to that a cloud , because when you're activating you need to check if the person has consent to receive , you know , an email

or an SMS or whatever right . So that a cloud has a nice little model for consent management .

But you need to use it In in conjunction with another system and it gets really tricky actually when you start talking about all but I have preference , a preference and the marketing cloud , and then I have like this or and then it's are getting really , really complicated .

So if you have you know websites or marketing communications , you're tracking people on media , you're using like marketing cloud personalization , all that , maybe your best bet is to have Like a one trust on one unified way to like control that consent and then you send that data to data cloud .

If your scenario is more simple , maybe you're okay with just turning consent in CRM and then sending that data to data cloud .

You know it's a very delicate subject but at the end of the day I think the go-to the best practice in my mind like approach should be that you are managing consent somewhere else and you're using data cloud to you know to map those consent objects and then filtering the consent when you're activating . You know .

But I mean having those mediums outside of , just like your websites , one trust and being able to say , cool , we're gonna put this data in Salesforce , it's gonna flow into data cloud , but then having like a one place that houses all of the information I think to your earlier point from what the director of data cloud said , like it's not the be all , end all

solution , but I mean it can help visualize it so much better and I think that's gonna help a lot when it comes to compliance , especially as GDPR rules get more strict and other countries , like the US , in Time will likely have their own Privacy laws that are enhanced and whatnot , to mimic that of GDPR Having that place to house all the information .

So it's just a one-stop shop of cool . This is where it is . These are all the places it's located . Someone said delete . Now you got a delete .

So I asked this question in that We've seen data cloud of , especially in the last year , year and a half between , not just from a naming side of things , but just from the product itself . We've seen data cloud grow Significantly and become this amazing tool that can do so much more than it could Three , four years ago .

With that being said , is there any addition and any kind of insight for that you would give to admins around why this is a product people should be jumping on to learn more quickly than , say , marketing GPT or Any of the other new products that are out there right now ?

You know , functionality that today exists in marketing optimization Hopefully Exists in in data cloud . It's the fastest growing product . It's a product that was built Using the core technologies of Salesforce , so it's not going anywhere .

You know , and I think I think self forces heavily investing in the product constantly and that makes it hard for us because we're catching up constantly . You know and then , but we are asked also to be the ones that knows the most about the platform , but we haven't even caught up . That's , that's an opportunity , yeah , right .

So I think that I Could see the lines blurring a lot more .

You know more than ever and if you're an admin and only working on CRM , but you start , you know your organization's probably at some point evaluate data cloud . You know they're gonna use it , even if it's a free . So no , no in these tools and uses is only gonna give you an advantage . You know , it's all .

It's also the same as we are talking about chat GPT . You know like people say no , resistant , no , no , no . If you're a developer , knowing how to GPT makes you faster , you know it's not replacing you . And this is the same like if you I'm gonna coin a term , I don't know if it exists or not , but if it doesn't exist , let's try market Full stack admin .

You know , I think there's gonna be something called full stack admin . You know that is like . You know you are not mean for like , for like sales cloud , for like marketing cloud . You know , yeah , yep .

Your one regret is that you wish you could go back in time and tell your former self man you really should have put more effort into XYZ .

But if you can listen to the podcast and be like , oh , this person who's a marketing champion , who has their own company , who is very successful in the Ecosystem , says they should have done something differently , maybe I should take a play out of their book .

It's gonna give you tools that you can use to Put yourself in the shoes of the other person , to Be more self-aware of how you're interacting with other people and , ultimately , focus , focus on what you think is really important for your success . I know it sounds kind of like weird because it's always not about learn technical skills , but no , it's . For me .

One of my regrets is , I know , having it's not a regret , but if I , if I could , you know , change something a little bit on my journey will be like focusing a lot more on like the Human aspects of working with teams are at least station my career without giving me a Lot less stress .

For me and I could see that if you're an admin , you're probably dealing with a lot of stress because a lot of the frustrations and energy that people you know you absorb it from people and also , like you , would I give me focus to say , okay , I need to . This is my , my career , and so I would read . I would read emotion International stupid , no .

And I would read an or book that is called getting things done , which I remember the author . But I would read those two books and you are said then . Then you are said you are ready to conquer the world .

I mean there's so many great YouTube videos on it . There's so many great books on it . So I mean I'm with you , the I love . That's why I also started this podcast . I mean I started this because I love hearing stories , I love learning from other people's life experiences . It's where that's three podcast , medium , book , medium .

I mean I've Grown so much just in the month and a half that I've had this podcast around to be able to learn from so many other people . So Love that answer . I think a lot of admins can grow and develop from that .

So , before you wrap up , is there anything you want to highlight , any topic you want to give a shout out to , anything you want to plug ?

So have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll be chatting more soon .

It was an absolute blast to talk through ways new admins can learn data cloud and , for me personally , coming from a space of being inside of marketing cloud , account engagement and sales cloud and serum analytics , I truly felt validated hearing that , yes , you can learn trailhead , but there's some other soft skills and things to learn around data cloud and around

being a data manager and data analyst . There are crucial and those are things that you might get with trailhead , but you can also get through a lot of other different mediums . So thank you , pato , very , very much for sharing your stories and your journey .

If you'd like to learn more about data cloud or becoming a Salesforce developer , there's still time to register for trailblazer DX . Go to salesforcecom forward slash trailblazer DX to register now or sign up to watch on Salesforce plus . Thank you all again for taking the time to listen and support the podcast .

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