Skip to main content
Vikram_Ramesh
Vikram_Ramesh
New Participant
August 29, 2019
Question

Administration is the key(bunch)

  • August 29, 2019
  • 48 replies
  • 10211 views

Through this post I intend to shout out to all admins in the community (and elsewhere). Admin is really like the key-bunch which could unlock/lock and maintain all the goodies Marketo has to offer.

Like every other component, once in a while we do need provide healing touches to the segments which hasn't been working so well. Also, the ones that are working well could use a performance boost. So, here's what I'd want to know from you:

  1. What according to you is the single most disliked feature of admin?
  2. What is the most used functionality of admin for you?
  3. Are there any commonly used workarounds which you'd like admin to cater for?
  4. If we were to provide an export feature of configurations, what details would you like in that "data take-out"?

Any thoughts/comments/feedback/criticism (positive or negative) revolving around Admin are greatly welcomed. Please feel free to reach out to me to discuss some of the ideas you may have. 

Looking forward to hear from you.

Thanks,

Vikram R

email: Vikram.ramesh@adobe.com

phone: +91 988 607 4356

    48 replies

    Show previous replies
    Amy_Goldfine
    Amy_Goldfine
    New Participant
    September 10, 2019

    I very much appreciate all the controls in Admin! A couple issues:

    Audit trail is really an unfriendly UI. It's very clunky, it's hard to pick from the dropdowns, and it's often hard to decipher what actually changed.

    My #1 issue is that Field details can only be seen by Admins! I have plenty of people doing building (consultants, email marketers) who occasionally want to look at fields to see what SFDC fields they're synced to, what type they are, where they're used, etc., but they can't because it's only available to Admins! It's also frustrating that "field mapping" tab doesn't update after initial integration. Also agree with above on renaming and deleting fields.

    I would love for there to be a real-time Notification if an API connection breaks in LaunchPoint. I make it a point to check Launchpoint every day because there is one particular connection (GoToWebinar) that has been unstable, and I only find out when there is a flood of registration errors.

    I am happy to get on a call to do a deep dive with you to discuss more!

    Amy GoldfineMarketo Champion & Adobe Community Advisor
      Vikram_Ramesh
      Vikram_RameshAuthor
      New Participant
      September 11, 2019

      Thanks a ton Amy, for explaining your concerns with such clarity

      On the Audit Trail, I need to do some homework. It'd involve some of our UX engineers to help me with some designs. In the meantime, I would like to know more if you have some pointers. 

      On sharing the Field Mapping information, I think we could come up with something where information could be shared securely with people on a need-to-know basis. 
      On LaunchPoint, I need more details on the type of notification that you'd like to receive. And also, is GoToWebinar the only service that breaks frequently or other ones too?

      I am eager to discuss more on these topics. Please let me know when is the best time and means to reach out to you. 

      Really appreciate your effort in collating your concerns!

      Regards,

      Vikram R

      Vikram Ramesh
      Amy_Goldfine
      Amy_Goldfine
      New Participant
      September 11, 2019

      Hi Vikram,

      Audit Trail: It's hard to articulate the frustrations with Audit Trail. I recommend logging into an instance's Audit Trail and try to pull some reports. I don't think it needs a complete design overhaul, probably just fixing some bugs in the way picklists are displayed and how it scales/resizes/etc.

      Launchpoint: GoToWebinar is the only one that breaks frequently, but when it does, it's a disaster. However I don't believe there is a notification for service expirations (e.g. LinkedIn Lead Gen needs to be authenticated after a year), which would be very helpful. 

      I will "follow" you, follow me back and I can give you my email address to schedule a meeting.

      Thanks,

      Amy

      Amy GoldfineMarketo Champion & Adobe Community Advisor
        Grant_Booth
        Grant_Booth
        New Participant
        September 9, 2019

        Thank you for asking this!

        1. Salesforce integration is the section I dislike the most. You can edit some basic sync options, and see a timestamp of the last sync and whether or not it's in progress, but it gives very little other visibility, and that makes admin'ing the integration difficult. Would be great if some of the information (object schemas, field visibility and field types, sync logs) were available to admin users through non-secret and supported methods. It would be great to see a log of the sync cycle - how many records of a given object synced to and from Salesforce, how many were new, updated, a count of the how many records are pending sync for each object. An error log too please! FYI - I used to work in Marketo Support and I know that all of this information is already available to them, and simply needs some work to make it presentable and supportable for users. In my opinion, it would also deflect a lot of their cases related to the Salesforce integration.
        It would also be fantastic to have a "Field Mapping" tab where we can change the field mapping between Marketo and Salesforce on our own without having to go through Support. Additionally, it would be great if fields did not automatically sync down to Marketo simply because the sync user can see them - if the fields simply became available for sync in this hypothetical "Field Mapping" tab, it would help us tremendously with keeping our fields clean, giving us control rather than being at the mercy of our SFDC admins remembering to follow processes around permissions.

        2. Field Management is the most used. For an agile team, there is constant change coming downstream from Salesforce. We have to adapt quickly to process changes in CRM by making sure new fields are synced properly and finding where old fields are in use to make sure there are no dependent processes. It would be really nice if we could (1) delete old fields rather than hiding them, (2) relabel fields even though they are in use. Our instance is 10 years old, and we have an enormous list of hidden fields.
        Also, when removing a field from assets, we find the field in Field Management and look at the Used By list - but the assets there aren't clickable links, which makes it even more painful trying to remove references to the field.

        3. I think I covered this in #1 and #2
        4. I'm not sure how I would apply an export feature of admin configurations. If other people have use cases for that I'd be curious.

          Vikram_Ramesh
          Vikram_RameshAuthor
          New Participant
          September 10, 2019

          Thank you so much Grant

          Those are some excellent points that you've mentioned. I can see that your support days have served you well in getting a good hands-on to Admin, and Marketo in general.

          On Salesforce Integration, I can totally relate to what you've mentioned. Displaying more details on the sync - last sync timestamp, in-progress percentage and also sync (error/success) logs would indeed add value to our customers. On the Field Mapping, definitely there's some scope for enhancements, providing some options to manually map fields and to control sync manually/semi automated ways (needs more thought process from my side around this).

          In Field Management, I need to dig around on permanent deletion. I feel that it's best suited for a backend process to have them cleared from the system, but then I could be wrong.

          Renaming fields sounds more doable though. 

          While removing fields from assets, I did find the assets clickable, which leads to detail pages. Nonetheless a seamless way of handling this, without leaving Admin could be a cooler approach, in my opinion. We could discuss more if you have some time. 

          Thanks again for taking time to jot these items down. It helped me in validating my opinions. 

          Cheers,

          Vikram R

          Vikram Ramesh
            Grant_Booth
            Grant_Booth
            New Participant
            September 10, 2019

            Thanks Vikram! Yes, regarding the Used By list for a field, they are clickable, but are not regular hyperlinks so we can't open them in a separate tab. If I need to adapt to a major process change, we could be talking about hundreds of assets that I need to remove the field from before I can hide the field.

              Josh_Hill13
              Josh_Hill13
              New Participant
              September 5, 2019

              Are you taking a product survey for Marketo? I'm confused what you want to learn.

              Vikram_Ramesh
              Vikram_RameshAuthor
              New Participant
              September 6, 2019

              Hello Josh,

              Yes, in a way.

              I am the product owner for Admin related features. I am hoping to gather feedback to strengthen my case for some enhancements. please let me know if we can discuss more

              Thanks,

              Vikram R

              Vikram Ramesh
              Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement

              Loading footer...