The Biggest Challenges Salesforce Admins Face Today (and You Don't Have to Solve Them Alone)

Salesforce Ben recently conducted a survey to hear from Salesforce Admins on the biggest challenges they were facing today. The results generated everything from technical debt (the most common pain point) and integrations to data quality and stakeholder engagement.

This survey doesn’t just tell us what admins are struggling with, it’s also telling us a story of how the role has evolved into something more complex. Here are three themes we’ve pulled out to give us a bigger picture of what’s going on:

Theme 1: Complexity is growing faster than control

Associated challenges from the survey: technical debt, security, flow management, change management, integrations

Many of today's challenges trace back to one thing: the platform is changing faster than most teams' processes can absorb. New releases, new integrations, and new AI tools keep arriving, but the documentation and change-management practices needed to keep pace often lag behind. It’s not that Salesforce Admins are lacking technical skill, but rather they're managing years of decisions made without a clear trail to follow, which turns routine maintenance into detective work.

Here are a few ways organizations can stay on top of changes:

• Conduct periodic system health checks to ensure everything is running smoothly (rather than waiting for something to break!)
• Create clear documentation for automations, integrations, flows, and other system updates, so it's easier to maintain consistency and track what's happening behind the scenes.
• Get clear about how & when to adopt new technologies. Frameworks and policies for tools like AI are essential for keeping pace without sacrificing security or governance. (We have a free AI Usage Policy Builder tool to help you do exactly this!)

Theme 2: Salesforce admins are expected to do more than ever before

Associated challenges from the survey: scope creep, stakeholder engagement, analytics, and balancing standard vs custom features

Today's Salesforce admins are expected to do much more than configure Salesforce. They are increasingly responsible for translating business goals and needs into technology solutions. While the role used to be about creating fields and managing permission sets, now things like strategy and technical expertise have become more baked into the role. Before an organization knows it, the person that's managing Salesforce is now taking on the roles of business analyst, operational manager, and project manager.

Here are a few ways organizations can lighten the load for admins:

• Ensure Salesforce admins are included in conversations early, so they're shaping requirements rather than just executing someone else's idea.
• Formally recognize the expanded scope of the role by providing dedicated time or extra resourcing for strategy work.
• Clarify where the admin's responsibilities end and where a business analyst's or project manager's begin, so expectations are explicit rather than assumed.

Theme 3: Admins are inheriting problems that start outside Salesforce

Associated challenges from the survey: data quality, analytics, security, user adoption

Not every challenge admins face originates in the system itself. Unclear ownership, inconsistent adoption, and gaps in training all happen outside of Salesforce, but managing the fallout inside Salesforce (unreliable metrics, messy data, security gaps) is their responsibility. It's a feedback loop: the less organization-wide alignment there is, the messier the system gets, and the more of that mess becomes the admin's job to untangle.

Helping remedy this can look like:

• Targeted organization-wide trainings to increase adoption and ensure uniformity across the system
• Standard operating procedures for ongoing tasks
• Clear ownership and accountability structures across teams, so contribution is consistent, clear, and spread out across the org
• Defined data standards, with a plan to clean up what's already fallen out of line

We’re here to help with Managed Services

So now you have a few common themes that Salesforce Admins are facing and a handful of solutions. But now what? Maybe your organization doesn’t have the capacity to untangle the data streams in your Salesforce instance, or maybe you don’t know where to start with governance frameworks and training. That’s where our Managed Services model comes in. With Salesforce admins taking on increasingly more responsibility with an ever-evolving system, Managed Services is an ongoing support and strategy line to rely on in building and sustaining a reliable, efficient, and aligned Salesforce instance.

For nonprofits especially, having a bench of diversified experts can be incredibly helpful for increasing an organization’s capacity without increasing overhead. With Managed Services, you’d have access to:

• Developers for custom code, integrations, and scalable solutions.
• Data Migration Specialists for smooth and secure data transitions.
• Business Analysts to translate your mission needs into technical requirements.
• Solution Architects to design future-ready, mission-aligned systems.
• Marketing Automation Specialists to ensure tools like Marketing Cloud Account Engagement deliver results.
• AI Specialists to help you adopt emerging tools like Agentforce and Claude to streamline workflows and personalize outreach at scale.

Whether it's urgent (embedding an admin during a staff transition), cleanup (streamlining data, removing dead fields), or strategic (governance, AI policy, long-term planning), we help make sure your technology works for your mission, not against it.

Need help managing Salesforce? Let's Talk.