Although there are many great things about working for Own, I think one of my favorite parts of the job is working in Own. By that I mean using the very products we provide to our customers. Knowing that my team and I can quickly roll back any unwanted data changes empowers us to work more quickly, deliver more features, and close more cases. But our backup and recovery solution, Own Recover, isn’t the only Own product we rely on -we actually use all four of our products. Below, I provide some detail about how we use each of our products, which will hopefully give you an idea of how you can get value from them as well.
Before I get to that though, here’s some context why it’s important for companies-particularly SaaS companies- to use their own products.
Why companies should use their own products
It’s not enough just to develop good products. Companies need to be hands-on and engage with the products themselves. This will position you in the mind of the customer and eventually help build better strategy and direction.
Using your own products has several benefits:
Discovering bugs
Whether you’d like to admit it or not, no product is perfect. There will be times when customers experience a few hiccups along the way. By using your own products, you can discover these bugs ahead of time and fix them more quickly. In fact, when Own Archive was being developed, we were one of the first to pilot it and were able to work with the development team to iron out some kinks before the product was made available to the general public.
Improving features
The best products don't stay stagnant- they constantly iterate and add new features to improve the user experience. When you leverage your own solutions, you can better understand what can be improved. At Own, our product managers meet with us regularly to discuss the product roadmap and ask for input on the new features that they are working on.
Stronger messaging:
By using your own products, you develop a deeper understanding about what can hook potential customers. This in turn will help with how you position your products. You can speak to your audience more confidently about what you do and why you are the best fit.
Better customer experience:
At the end of the day, doing in-house testing, discovering bugs, and improving features all help your customers have a better experience with your products. When your customers are satisfied, then your business will also thrive.
How we use Own internally
Recover
Own Recover is our core backup and recovery solution, which we’ve been using as long as Own has been in business. While we use Recover for Salesforce, the product is also available for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and ServiceNow.
As I mentioned before, we use Recover on a regular basis. It especially gives us peace of mind when we are making major changes to our Salesforce org. With Recover, you can run on-demand backups before and after significant changes such as upgrades, migrations, new customizations, and integrations. You can also compare pre and post-change backups to verify there’s no unexpected data loss or corruption, and rollback changes as needed.
Like most companies, we ourselves have suffered a data loss within Salesforce and used Recover to quickly restore the affected data. In the video below, my colleague Chris and I discuss how our team was able to use Own to recover thousands of records that one of our third-party vendors accidentally deleted.
Archive
Own Archive launched in 2019 and immediately started paying dividends for our team here at Own. The primary way we use Archive is to reduce our Salesforce data storage, so we can avoid buying storage from Salesforce. Having to ask leadership for approval to purchase more storage is a conversation that I certainly wouldn’t want to have! On a daily basis at Own, we archive approximately 18k records off of Salesforce, and on the weekend that number jumps to around 250k. As of writing this, we are in the green at 90% of our data storage allowance!
Another way we use Archive is to remove unnecessary data to keep the org functioning. For admins, having too many records in one object can impact batch processing and report load times. So if you have a lot of closed cases (or any other old records) in your system, there is value in removing them from production.
The nice thing about Archive is that you can archive records off of the platform and still allow them to be visible to your agents in case they need that historical information. With access permission, you can allow your users to bring back any record at any time if they need it. Plus, when you archive cases, all of the related activities are archived as well, so it’s an effective way to keep your org clean.
Sandbox Seeding
Own Sandbox Seeding is another product that we were an early adopter of. Our main use case for Sandbox Seeding is to populate our Sandboxes with production “like” data, so we can develop and test with real data. With Sandbox Seeding we can set up templates for our most used objects, like Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities, and add any criteria, like if we only want customer accounts. So then, when a Sandbox is refreshed, we can just select the template, point to the environment, and let it run.
Sandbox Seeding also allows us to also anonymize the data in our sandboxes for security purposes when using 3rd party System Integrator (SI) partners. We also set every template to anonymize all email addresses so we can test email automation without worrying about sending emails to “real” people.
Secure
Of all our products, Own Secure is our newest, having launched just earlier this year. As a team, we’ve just begun implementing Secure, but I know that once we do, we won’t have to worry about the security of our org being compromised without our knowledge. Here are a few of the benefits of Secure that we plan to use:
- Pinpoint misconfigurations, incorrect permissions, and data exposures wherever they may be in Salesforce.
- Isolate exactly where sensitive information exists in Salesforce and apply classification categories without leaving the platform.
- Proactively automate remediation of data vulnerabilities and encryption blind spots with detailed action plans and real-time alerts.
- Implement and report on Shield encryption to understand why encryption is blocked and what needs to be resolved down to the field level.
- Deliver real-time, evidence-based reports and audits to satisfy internal policies and external regulations in highly regulated industries
Try Own for yourself
While I may be biased, using Own’s suite of products has made my job significantly easier as an Admin. Wondering if it can do the same for you? If you want to be able to recover lost data more easily, save on storage costs, or secure your org, check out Own below.
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