3 April Fool’s Pranks for Salesforce Admins

April Fool’s day is this week. It’s one of my favorite holidays. It’s a great day to pull some pranks on your dear friends, coworkers, and love ones all in the name of “Good fun.” There are lots of pranks you could do as a Salesforce Administrator. Today, Wizard News will discuss some of these pranks.Before we get started, my imaginary lawyer has insisted I post the following disclaimer:
Wizard News does not condone, encourage, or otherwise recommend participation of the individual or individuals viewing this content – hereby referred to by as “The Reader” – in any of the following activities. This content is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to a real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. “The Reader” is responsible for any actions and repercussions from partaking upon any activity suggested or otherwise within this content. Batteries are not included. Wizard News disclaims any liability and shall not be held liable for any damages including, without limitations, direct, indirect, consequential damages including loss of revenue, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, loss of hair, or other loss. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. This side up. This supersedes all previous notices.

On a Serious Note

Some of these pranks I may… or may not have done. I love pranks, but my office pranks follow some very simple rules.

1. Target must have a sense of humor
2. Cannot cause harm or permanent damage to property or objects
3. Cannot cause major disruption to work
4. Must be easily and quickly reversed

All common sense stuff right?

The Babel Fish

Description: The Babel Fish causes mayhem and confusion – typically to a single target, but potentially multiple targets. By changing the Language of the targeted player
The Mark: Ideally someone the admin has regular communication with – typically an end user. Someone who has experienced browser issues is a plus. This should be someone that cannot see what the admin is doing, but is readily accessible to answer questions and issues by phone or chat to prevent disruption to work.
Setup: Prior to The Mark login into Salesforce in the morning, change the language to something exotic for that person. I like to start with Korean. Then send a email looking “official” saying there’s been reports of issues and to please contact the Administrator if you experience anything weird. When the user contacts you because his screen looks “all funny,” quickly change the language back and suggest they’re having a browser problem and refresh.

When the user says “everything looks normal” ask them to stay on the phone with you and click through some more pages to make sure the problem doesn’t repeat itself. While they’re clicking, change the language to something different. Do this back and forth until they get suspicious or when the prank has run it’s course and work needs to be done. Bonus points if you can get a Chatter notification sent to them while the language is different.

What does that say?!

The Page Switch

Description: This takes advantage of being able to setup different page views by profile. Best done in sandbox.
The Mark: Ideally someone who’s working with you on a new project in a sandbox and you have an opportunity to have them log into the sandbox and view the proposed setup.
Setup: Create two page layouts. Pagelayout 1 will be assigned to you as the admin. Page layout 2 will be assigned to your Mark. The second step is to create many “fake” fields to mirror the valid fields. You’ll also want to put identical data. For example, if you’re real field is “Status” and has a value of “New” make sure your fake field “Garbliedslkabs” also has the value “New.”

When the user exclaims that there is something wrong with their field labels, login as yourself and view the same record. Your page will look perfectly normal.

What it should say

Garble gooble doobie Doo

The Easter Egg

Description: A hidden feature or functionality built into your Salesforce org. Can be done with Visualforce or discrete custom link.
The Mark: Anyone. Everyone.
Setup: This one you’re on your own. It can be almost anything. I like to make hidden things right on the page that do something wonderful. Want an example? Here’s a copy of an Easter Egg Prank I did in a prior org. Headphones are a bonus for this one. No clues, but I will say Thank you again to Jason Venable.

Did you find what the Easter Egg is? Let me know in the comments!