Get Started Using Trailhead in Your Company

Learning Objectives

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

• List the three formats of Trailhead content.
• Differentiate trails from trailmixes.
• Explain how Trail Tracker facilitates enablement.

Introduction

Because you’re here, there’s a good chance you’ve already heard that Trailhead is the fun way to learn. We’ve earned that reputation by making Trailhead approachable and rewarding to all learners. But accessibility is where Trailhead shines. Not only do we help learners strengthen their knowledge, we take pride in helping nontechnical users break into a technical-based future. Most importantly, our free library of learning with hands-on access to Salesforce is accessible to everyone. 

Badges with Style and Substance

Maybe you’ve joined the many admins, developers, business users, and students who have earned Trailhead badges while growing their Salesforce skills. (If you haven’t ever earned a badge, don’t worry, because you earn one by completing this module, if you’re logged in!) Badges are a cool way to show others what you’ve learned on Trailhead. People love collecting badges, and we make each badge look unique. Badges sport fun artwork so Trailblazers who collect a lot of badges have a beautiful showcase of their skills. 

Badges look great, and the content they represent is pretty great too! Trailhead content comes in a few formats: modules, projects, and superbadges.

Modules

Modules (like this one) help learners explore topics that range from broad concepts to specific skills and ideas. Each module is split into units. At the end of each unit, there is either a quiz or a hands-on challenge. A quiz lets you check your understanding of what you learned. A hands-on challenge lets you demonstrate the skills you learned by completing tasks in a Trailhead Playground. (Playgrounds are actual Salesforce orgs that anyone can create. They are a safe place to practice your skills.) The beauty of hands-on challenges is that Trailhead checks your work, and if something’s not right, tells you what to fix. 

Whether by quiz or hands-on challenge, Trailblazers prove themselves at the end of each unit. By successfully completing a unit, they take one step closer to completing the badge, and they earn points toward the next Trailblazer rank. (Ranks are a quick way to show off how far you’ve trekked through Trailhead.)

Projects

Projects are a little different from modules. Projects teach you how to complete a specific task. For example, in the Embed Tableau Visualizations in Salesforce project, you install the Tableau Viz Lightning Web Component and add it to a few pages to really make your data look great. Step-by-step instructions guide you through setting it up in a Trailhead Playground. Projects model how to use Salesforce features to address business needs. Projects are divided into steps (like modules are divided into units). Trailhead validates your work at the end of each step. When you finish the last step, you earn a badge and more points toward your next Trailblazer rank.

Superbadges

Superbadges are quite different from modules and projects. Instead of teaching concepts, superbadges test a Trailblazer’s ability to solve complex challenges given limited guidance. Although they look a little like projects, superbadges are more elaborate and don’t provide step-by-step instructions to follow. Completing a superbadge demonstrates solid knowledge and strong skills. Earning a superbadge may require a significant investment of time and effort, but many Trailblazers believe it’s worth the investment. Salesforce superbadges are résumé-worthy credentials sought after by Trailblazers to show the world that they’ve got the skills to pay the bills.

Trails

Trailhead has over a thousand badges that cover a wide variety of topics. Choices are great, but you probably want to find specific topics quickly and get started learning. What you need is a trail.

Trails are guided learning paths. They lead learners through a sequence of badges that explore a particular topic. For example, the Skill Up for the Future with Trailhead trail is made up of five badges (modules and projects). The trail explores how to use Trailhead to build marketable, relevant skills. With just the right badges, in just the right order, trails are the most efficient way to skill up.

Every trail tile displays a short description, how many points you earn, and how much of the trail you’ve completed. When in Trailhead, click the tile to see the trail’s modules and projects, and how long it takes to complete.

Trailmixes

Trailhead encourages you to blaze your own trail and invite others to follow. A trailmix is like a custom playlist. You craft your own sequence of badges, trails, and superbadges. An example of a trailmix is Get started with Trailhead. Any Trailblazer can create a trailmix. In fact, the Trailblazer community has created many featured trailmixes. Check them out to see if any meet the needs of your users. 

If you can’t find the right trailmix to meet the specific needs of your users, you can create your own, give it a name and a description (just like a trail), make it public, and share the link with your users, giving them a custom tailored path to success.

Trail Tracker

When your team gets started on Trailhead, it won’t be long before they earn their first badges and begin rising in the Trailblazer ranks. As the person responsible for enabling your team on Salesforce, you’ll want to know exactly how much progress your team is making along their Trailhead journey. Thankfully, you have Trail Tracker to help.

Trail Tracker is a free app on the AppExchange. Use it to track what your team is learning and earning on Trailhead. Trail Tracker reports show you which badges each person has completed. Monitor your team’s progress through trailmixes, and measure how long it takes learners to finish badges. Customize reports to gain insight into something specific to your business. Centralize all of this information in one place using a dashboard. The Trailhead Overview Dashboard shows:

• The total number of badges assigned, in progress, and completed
• The number of badges users have earned
• The most popular badges awarded
• Number of badges awarded this month
• Average time to complete a badge
• A badge completion trend graph
• The number of new trails and badges in the past 90 days

The dashboard also features a leaderboard, which lists your most active Trailblazers and the number of badges they’ve earned.

Assignments

Trail Tracker has another super power: assigning badges and trailmixes. When you assign badges and trailmixes, those assignments appear at the top of each user’s Trailhead home page. Each assignment tile displays its type, title, description, percent complete, number of steps, remaining time to complete, and due date. Assignment due dates make priorities very clear to your team.

Of course Trail Tracker includes reports that track learner progress on assignments. Finally, the sObject API integrates Trail Tracker data with your learning management system. With the power of Trail Tracker, and a plethora of badges, trails, and trailmixes, you have the tools you need to quickly enable your team on Salesforce.

But wait—there’s more! Trailhead isn’t just a library of over 1,000 badges’ worth of free learning. There are also expert-led classes, services to supercharge your enablement, guides to take your Salesforce usage to the next level, and even a way to tailor Salesforce to your company’s specific needs.

Resources

• Trailhead: High Velocity Sales Basics
• Trailhead: Business Value of Equality
• Trailhead: Automate Business Processes for a Recruiting App
• Trailhead: Data Integration Specialist
• Trailhead: Embed Tableau Visualizations in Salesforce
• Trailhead: Superbadges
• Trailhead: Skill Up for the Future with Trailhead
• Trailhead: Get started with Trailhead
• AppExchange: Trail Tracker