How Can Agentforce Help Manage a Salesforce Backlog?

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Neil Foglio, Solution Architect at Arkus. Join us as we chat about how to use a backlog to prioritize requests in your Salesforce org, and how Agentforce can help improve transparency and trust. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Neil Foglio. Why Salesforce Admins need a backlog We talk a lot about forward-looking statements on this podcast, but what about that thing trailing along behind you? That's right, it's your technical debt. If you're facing a mountain of requests, this episode is for you. That's why I sat down with Neil Foglio. He explains how your backlog can be a tool to streamline your Salesforce org and help it evolve with your business. "It's not a to-do list and it's not a task list," Neil says, "it's a commitment that something will be prioritized amongst everything else that you have on your plate." It's a central place to capture all requests, improvements, and ideas, and then evaluate them so you can figure out what to work on and when. Writing better backlog items For Neil, the key to making a backlog that works for you is to write better action items. Make sure that every item starts with an action verb. Instead of "create a new fundraising homepage," be more specific: "design a new Lightning page so gift officers can see donation history." The other key step is to evaluate and prioritize your action items. There are several different systems you can use, but you're generally looking at value, effort, and risk. How much impact will making this change have? What resources will you need to get it done? And finally, what data do you have to support what you believe? For many organizations, there will also be custom dimensions that have their own score. For example, an educational institution may evaluate everything in terms of how it improves student learning. What's important is to establish a clear process and get buy-in from leadership over how things are prioritized. How Agentforce can help with backlogs Managing your Salesforce backlog is even easier with Agentforce. As Neil explains, getting a clear and specific user story is crucial to creating useful action items. You can set up an agent to take requests, and go through the granular details with the user of every action they're taking in a business process so you can get to the why behind their request. Agentforce can also help you improve transparency by explaining the why behind your prioritization decisions. You can have a helper explain what you're working on and when you expect to deliver it. Be sure to listen to the full episode for more from Neil and hear his upright bass playing. And don't forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday. Podcast swag Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store Learn more Salesforce Admins Blog Post: Why Every Admin Needs a Backlog (and How To Use One) Admin Trailblazers Group Admin Trailblazers Community Group Social Neil on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn Salesforce Admins on X Mike on Bluesky social Mike on Threads Mike on X Full show transcript Mike: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins podcast. And hey, you know what? That intro music you hear today, that's actually our guest, Neil Foglio, playing the upright bass. Neil is a solution architect at Arkus. And in this episode, we're talking about something every admin eventually runs into the backlog. Neil shares how thinking about your Salesforce org, more like a product than a project, can change how you manage requests, prioritize improvements, and make sure the right work gets done at the right time. We also dig into practical ways admins can evaluate ideas using simple frameworks like RICE so decisions feel fair and transparent. If you've ever wondered how to handle the constant flow of, "Hey, could we add this request?" This conversation's going to help. So with that, let's get Neil on the podcast. So Neil, welcome to the podcast. Neil Foglio: Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. Mike: I'm excited to talk about this because a lot of things on the podcast we always talk about are future-facing. And I feel like this topic is kind of future-facing, but it's also managing, well, I don't know how best to put it, the burden of debt that we somehow get ourselves into. And in that, it's backlogs, which doesn't sound interesting, but I promise you, you're going to be excited by the end of this podcast. So Neil, let's start off with introducing you to the world and kind of let people know what you do and how you got into the Salesforce ecosystem. Neil Foglio: Yeah, of course. Hello, everyone listening. My name is Neil and I'm a solution architect at Arcus, Inc, where I work with both nonprofits and enterprises implementing Salesforce. Most of my work lately has been helping organizations treat their CRM more like a product than a project, and to rethink how they steer their ...