Ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Coronavirus outbreak, a global pandemic, millions of people have been severely affected.
The pandemic has put a hold on all the social gatherings, including conferences, seminars, tech shows, etc.
Due to the current situation, it won’t be wrong to say that Coronavirus will end tech conferences and events as we know them. All the tech conferences, IT education, and product launches are happening and schedule to happen virtually.
In this series, Salesforce has organized one of its most important events on a virtual platform, and that event is TraildeaDX.
What is TrailheaDX? A Brief Introduction
Listed as one of the most renowned tech conferences, TrailheaDX is a must-attend conference of the year which aims to invite everyone who wants to learn and enhance their knowledge about building on Salesforce Customer 360-degree platform. This annual event draws thousands of coders, admins, architect, consultants, and all those who build on the Salesforce platform.
People who attend this technology conference get to learn multiple attributes such as new features, product updates, roadmap information, to hone their skills.
The event compacts with multiple sessions and numerous product demos which spilt across various tracks like developer, admin, architect, community, and ecosystem, along with keynote, and other sessions.
But this year in the wake of novel Coronavirus pandemic, TDX was conducted virtually completely.
TrailheaDX Virtual Conference – A Complete Re-imagined Experience
For the tech industry, delivering event content online is no new thing. The keynotes are conducted and recorded live, slide presentations are provided for download on event websites, and there’s huge press coverage.
But it is a challenging task when one has to turn a predominantly in-person event into an entirely virtual event. Such a big decision bring multiple questions, like what all technical hurdles might occur, will people tune-in, what form should the event take, how can organizers keep attendees engaged, and many more.
But by hushing all the doubts, trailhead organizers successfully organized TrailheaDX tech conference entirely on the virtual platform and bring an all together with a re-imagined virtual and connected experience for all builder, doers, and dreamers who are striving to hone their Salesforce skillsets.
Virtual TrailheaDX Tech Conference: The Dawn of The New Era
The recent chapter of the event was conducted on June 25th 2020, from 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM (PST). The event was free and featured live as well as recorded presentations, product announcements, demos, QA sessions, network opportunities, and experienced speakers.
The expert-led content was broadcasted across four channels, including Admin, Architecture, Developer, and Entrepreneur.
In the history of TrailheaDX, the event went virtual for the first time, and we must say that the event was a huge success.
40 sessions, 65 product demos, keynote, and other sessions all went virtually while keeping the threat of COvid-19 pandemic at bay.
Below is mentioned the details of what happened at TrailheaDX 2020:
The Keynote at TrailheaDX
The keynote started extravagantly with the power-packed performance by Jennifer Hudson, who performed sitting on the stairs of her home.
The EVP and GM, Sarah Franklin, conducted a polished keynote from her home and addressed all the challenges we are facing in terms of health, social, economic, and leadership.
The event has some stellar product launch and demos, and remotely awarded Justin Smith with Golden Hoodie award.
The Product Announcements
Like always, the event had multiple product announcements and newly launched with showcasing of short product demos.
Here’s the consolidated list of the event’s happening for you:
Salesforce Anywhere
– Salesforce Anywhere App
– ITSM Offering
– Zoom, Amazon Chime Partnerships
– Tanium Partnership
– Siemens Partnership
– Vlocity Apps
– Service Cloud Voice
– Einstein Call Coaching
Innovate Fast
– Code Builder
Functions
Scale with Confidence
– DevOps Center
– Security Center
– Data Privacy Manager
Empower Everyone
– Einstein Recommendations
– Custom 360 Guides
– In-App Guidance and Walkthroughs
Salesforce Anywhere
The Salesforce Anywhere has enabled all remote teams to easily collaborate within Salesforce on mobile as well as on the desktop environment. The organizers took it to the next level by adding chat/video capabilities, which were delivered with the partnership with AWS, Tanium, and Zoom.
In the coming fourth quarter this year, Salesforce Anywhere will be available in beta and GA.
Code Builder
Code builder is a DevOps tool that enables Salesforce developers to build and deploy customized solutions at a faster rate. The tool is built on Microsoft’s Visual Studio Codespaces, which is a web-based environment for developers.
Code Builder has shown Salesforce’s commitment to a better-governed release management lifecycle.
As Senior Vice President of Product Management, Salesforce Wade Wagerstated during the virtual event –“With Code Builder, Salesforce developers get the best of both worlds — a web-based environment for developing wherever they are and all the productivity-boosting tools that make building apps on the Salesforce Platform faster and easier.”
DevOps Center
It is starting to address the issue of managing change from user stories. The app is built to integrate with the core platform and developer tools. As of now, pricing detail is not yet released.
Salesforce Functions
It enables developers to build code using NodeJS, Java, and Apex which can be run on-demand even in the serverless environment. Admins and the developers call functions from the legacy Apex code.
Data privacy manager, work.com, and trailhead go were some other new product announcements done in Trailhead.
Overview of The Sessions
All the sessions and demos were conducted across four different tracks, as mentioned above. The circles of success sessions are listed here:
Lightning & Platform
– Enhancing your CRM with Einstein AI
– Lightning Rollout Best Practices
– Lightning Component Development Best Practices
– Transform Your Business with Process Automation
Technical Debt
– Decluttering your Org
Development & Security
– Securing Salesforce Account Access with Multi-Factor Authentication
– Sandbox Best Practices for Developers
– App Development with Salesforce DX
Final Thoughts
Along with the above-mentioned sessions, here are some more sessions that happened at TrailheDX, like True to the Core, Fireside Chat with Trevor Noah, and many more.
Trailblazer remembers this event as a place where they remembered walking the halls of Moscone, collecting badges, plushies, etc. But seeing the current situation, the virtual event was a great alternative, which has set a benchmark.
