Set Up Users, Tools, and Resources

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Download the Trail Tracker app.
Ensure participants have a Salesforce login.
Create help documentation.
Set up a Chatter group for the participants.
Create a trailmix.

Congrats on getting through the first phase. So far you’ve initiated the plan by getting the business on board, and you’ve begun assigning team roles and responsibilities. Now it's time to do some setup.

Let’s Get Tracking!

Start by downloading the Trail Tracker app from AppExchange. Why? Trail Tracker allows you to report and track who is learning on Trailhead right from your own Salesforce org. See the Resources section at the end of this unit for a link to the app on AppExchange.

Once you’ve installed Trail Tracker, take the time to make a few adjustments so you see the data in a way that makes sense for your business. Trail Tracker comes with prepackaged reports and dashboards so you don’t need to build them from scratch. That’s awesome, but you may want to make a few minor tweaks before moving forward. Simply configure your dashboards and reports to fit your needs and you’re ready to go.

Did you know you can also assign content to participants with Trail Tracker? Yep, companies find this is a really handy feature. In case you need some extra help with Trail Tracker, take a look at the Trail Tracker links in the Resources section at the end of the unit.

Set Up Your Participants

Now that you have Trail Tracker, you’re ready to add participants to track.

First, make sure that everyone included in the competition has a login to Salesforce. This makes reporting on Trailhead achievements super simple. If everyone already has a Salesforce login to a single org, that’s great. You can move on to the next task. If not, set them up with Chatter Free licenses. These are part of every org and provide a Salesforce login but only minimal access to things like Chatter. If you have yet to go live, you can provision these and then flip on the profiles when you’re ready.

Set Up a Chatter Group

Next, you need a central place for participants to go for everything related to the competition. Many customers find that a central Chatter group works really well for posting all participant questions, documentation, and weekly leaderboards or of course you can setup a channel on Slack. If participants have Chatter Free licenses, set up a Trailhead competition hub on one of your company's established internal communication channels.

If you need help setting up a Chatter group, see how to get started with Chatter in one of the following Trailhead modules.

Chatter Administration for Lightning Experience

Did you know you can show the Trailhead badges you’ve earned in your Salesforce user profile? Check out how in the Resources article at the end of the unit.

Create Helpful Resources

No matter how well you document what you want your users to do, they will still have questions. Create and post reference documents so users can find the answers they’re looking for fast. This is the best way to provide clear and consistent instructions, and it allows you to scale your how-to help. We created a sample Get Set Up for Trailhead document for you to use. Do you have single sign-on at your company? If yes, be sure to document the extra step that users need to take to sign in to Trailhead.

successful challenge group celebrating

Create Your Ultimate Trailmix

Finally, in the setup phase, pull together the content that you want your participants to consume over the competition. The easiest way to do this is by creating a trailmix. Trailmixes are easy to create, but using them to curate learning content can be challenging, especially if you aren’t familiar with all the content on Trailhead. Read the 8-Step Recipe for Baking the Perfect Trailhead Trailmix blog post to see how to take trailmixes to the next level. It gives you a process to follow and is your secret weapon for building the ultimate trailmix. Here are some key points and best practices to consider.

Start your trailmix with the Trailhead Basics module, where participants learn all about Trailhead by using Trailhead.
Think about who you’re building the content for. Are your learners advanced developers or beginner business users? Are you on Lightning Experience or Classic? Make sure to choose content that’s relevant to your audience.
Include some business skills or other non–product-focused content to mix it up.
Ensure you include content that has hands-on challenges. Hands-on challenges are the secret sauce of Trailhead and let people learn by doing. Don't miss this opportunity to get users deeply engaged, unless of course your learning focus is on business skills, wellness, or leadership skills.
Focus on “must learn” topics. Think about the overall time you want users to dedicate to learning on the job and limit what you include.

Trailhead Mobile App

With the Trailhead mobile app users can access all Trailhead content from their mobile phones and complete it wherever and whenever they want.

As you work through this phase of getting everything and everyone up and running for your company, start adding some incentives for participants. Use Trail Tracker reports and dashboards to help build out your communication strategy. Call out your top Trailblazers, and encourage and reach out to those who have yet to log in. Why not share leaderboard snapshots in weekly team meetings? We go over more on communications in the next unit.

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