Is it feasible to be both a Salesforce admin and Gainsight admin?

Hey Faelan!

While it [i]can be done, I would recommend only taking on one learning curve at a time.  From my own experience, being a SFDC admin greatly aided my understanding of GS Admin.  However, SFDC has an even steeper learning curve than GS.  

I'd take a look at the required velocity of change in both platforms and determine if they are slow enough to allow you to do more learning on the job (so to speak).

Happy to discuss more over the phone if you'd like!

Tim

Thanks a mil Tim. That kind of ties in with what I've heard. Think i'll just a get a basic sense of Salesforce functionality but keep the main focus on Gainsight training for now. 

Cheers!

I will second Tim's comments.  It can be done (I think Seth Wylie does both) but you're going to take on a lot to try and manage both - especially if you start leveraging automation in GS.  If you step in and take it over, there's probably no going back and you will burn out.

I know enough SF to be dangerous 🙂 but if I had to be responsible for our SF instance as well, the little hair I have left would all be gone.  Enough on my hands with managing Gainsight, keeping up with new releases/features, etc. 

That said, SF knowledge is valuable. When I first started as a GS admin, I was only a SF end user - had no idea about object relationships or anything on the backend of SF and it was a bit of a struggle.

If you haven't already, you might check out Trailhead and take the Admin Beginner and Intermediate trails.  That might be enough to give you a foundation.

And of course, asking questions out here in the community.  A lot of sharp folks out here!

+1 on Trailhead. Here in Gainsight support we utilize it for basic to intermediate Salesforce training for new hires.

I would echo what the others have said. Have SF Admin [i]access is greatly advantageous as a GS Admin, but having to be responsible for both would be a LOT. GS changes quickly enough that I feel like we could spend half our time just updating rules and outreaches to take advantage of new functionality. It's definitely a full time job. I don't have experience supporting a sales team, but from what I've seen of ours, they move very fast and want any changes in SF done yesterday.

For perspective, we have a full time GS Admin, and could probably use another FTE, and we have a team of about a half-dozen SF Admins that support the entire company. 

Thanks for the input Jeff (and Alex). I will definitely check out Trailhead and do those courses. Already some of the terminology is making my head spin! I also only have a little bit of hair left and the less I have, the more valuable it becomes, so I will stay away from the technical responsibilities of salesforce admin and stick to overseeing CX design through Gainsight!

Thanks Leane, that makes sense. Our Sales team is also demanding and in all honesty, quite difficult to work with (fancy that!). 

Hello! Just posted a related question and would appreciate if anyone here had insight into it:

https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/gainsight-admin-workload-at-what-point-is-it-a-full...

@Faelan Herriot - It's useful to have a SF admin transition into the role of a GS admin. ON our team we have 5 SF developers and 2 SF admins and one of them works mostly as a GS admin. I work as a Product Manager and have limited knowledge of SF from an admins perspective but I have decent knowledge of GS as working with GS is much more easier. It requires decent effort to get a hang of working on SF and I highly recommend learning from Trailhead and accessing the course ADM 201.

Hope you have got comfortable with both SF & GS now.