Prepare Your Public Sector Solutions Org
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Summarize the workflow for setting up Public Sector Solutions.
- Describe the initial admin tasks for configuring a Public Sector Solutions org.
- Explain the purpose of each component that admins install or configure during initial org setup.
Before You Start
Before you start this module, make sure you complete the following content. The work you do here builds on the concepts and work you do in that content.
Get Your Org Ready
Government agencies are working at a record pace to modernize the way they work and engage with constituents. These days, agencies require digital solutions that are flexible, scalable, secure, and compliant. With Public Sector Solutions, you can digitize and streamline all kinds of government processes, including regulatory authorizations, benefit and social program delivery, and even talent recruitment. Public Sector Solutions has all the tools to get your agency performing at the highest level. All that’s required is a little initial setup.
In this module, you learn about the foundational tasks for configuring your agency org for any scenario, including application intake, regulatory authorizations, and more. With the right architecture in place, you can capture and store all your data in a unified system, streamline common operations, and deliver government services to constituents faster than ever.
For example, the City of Cosville recently adopted Public Sector Solutions, and Tishon, the diligent Salesforce admin works to set up the agency org.
The city is responsible for licensing and permitting, delivering programs and benefits, investigating, and many other constituent-serving processes. With Cosville having chosen Public Sector Solutions as their tool of choice for all these tasks, Tishon is eager to get the org up and running.
Explore the Public Sector Solutions Org Setup Workflow
Public Sector Solutions org configuration includes several steps, but don’t worry, many of these steps are one-time tasks. Once the solution is launched, your caseworkers, intake officers, inspectors, and other agency employees will be streamlining their daily work. This means responding to complaints, scheduling inspections, rolling out social services, and much more.
Review the recommended workflow for setting up your org to use Public Sector Solutions.
Tishon is just setting sail on her Public Sector Solutions journey. So, she starts by completing the initial org tasks, including verifying licenses, creating organization-wide email addresses, and turning on a few components.
If you’d like to do a trial run of these steps before launching into configuring your org, request a Public Sector Solutions trial org. Note that some setup tasks aren’t available for trial orgs, such as installing Omnistudio on a standard Trailhead Playground org.
Use Guided Setup
As you follow along with the setup tasks in this module, it’s a good idea to open Guided Setup. Guided Setup includes helpful assistants that take you through all the steps to fully prepare your org. In each assistant, you’ll find buttons that take you to the necessary configuration screens to perform the steps. Plus, you can quickly reference applicable Salesforce Help articles for more detailed instructions.
For example, here’s a Guided Setup assistant that covers the initial Public Sector Solutions setup tasks.
To access these assistants, go to Setup, and in the Quick Find box, search for and select Guided Setup.
Complete the Initial Configuration
Ready to transform your agency into a full-blown public service powerhouse? Let’s go!
Here are the steps to complete the initial configuration in your Public Sector Solutions org.
Verify Your Licenses
First, verify that your org has the required Public Sector Solutions and Omnistudio licenses. You can find these under Company Information in Setup.
Here’s a screenshot of the Company Information Setup page showing the available user licenses and permission set licenses.
The licenses you see depend on the solution you’ve installed. If you don’t know what to look for, check with your account executive.
To learn more about Public Sector Solutions licenses, see the Understand What’s Included with Public Sector Solutions Help article.
Create Organization-Wide Email Addresses
Next, define a list of organization-wide email addresses for your user profiles. This way, when users send emails from Salesforce, they can specify the sender as either their own email address or the org-wide address connected to their profile.
For example, Tishon creates the benefits@cityofcosville.gov organization-wide address to handle benefits-related questions from constituents.
Users receive replies in the inbox of the same address from which they send the email.
Enable Person Accounts
Person accounts hold data from the Account and Contact objects in a single record to give a complete view of an individual. Person accounts aren’t required in Public Sector Solutions, but they can be useful. For example, if you want to represent constituents who submit applications for licenses, permits, programs, benefits, or other services, you must turn on person accounts.
Turning on person accounts creates the default person-account record type, with the option to add other record types. You can then create person accounts for constituents or assign the accounts to user profiles.
Person accounts do have some limitations. They aren’t included in account hierarchies, and after you enable person accounts in your org, you can’t disable them. If you decide to use person accounts, make sure to enable them before you install Omnistudio.
Enable Contacts to Multiple Accounts
It’s often helpful to relate one contact to several different accounts. For example, a restaurant owner might decide to open a second location, and the compliance manager wants to be able to track the owner’s relationship with both establishments. As the name suggests, Contacts to Multiple Accounts in the Account Settings gives you the ability to relate one contact record to several account records. This includes both business and person accounts. The contact has a direct relationship with one primary account: the one in the Account Name field. The contact also has secondary, indirect relationships with other accounts.
Perform Other Org Setup Tasks
Here are a few optional configuration tasks to improve the Public Sector Solutions user experience.
- Turn on Chatter Feed Tracking to help agency employees, partners, and constituents collaborate through message feeds. Chatter feeds can also automatically post updates to notify users when a record changes. This feed is available in the org for agency users and on the public portal website for constituents and partners. Learn more about the public portal later in this module.
- Enable Notes, the basic note-taking tool in Salesforce. Notes give inspectors, investigators, and caseworkers the ability to capture information digitally while conducting an inspection or assessment. They can record observations about an overall site visit or a specific task that’s part of the visit.
Speaking of visits, set up Salesforce Calendar so that compliance and case managers can easily schedule and manage on-site visits for inspectors, investigators, caseworkers, and other agency employees.
Tishon is making progress! After completing the initial configuration tasks, her Public Sector Solutions org is starting to come together.
Now that you’ve knocked out these first few setup tasks, you’re ready to dive into creating users and configuring security for your org.
Resources
- PSS Trial Org: Build public sector-specific apps fast
- Salesforce Help: Discover and Explore Public Sector Solutions
- Salesforce Help: Salesforce Setup for Public Sector Solutions
- Salesforce Help: App and System Settings in Permission Sets
- Salesforce Help: Omnistudio for Public Sector Solutions
- Trailhead: Quick Start: Lightning Web Components
- Trailhead: Lightning Web Components Basics