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The Future of Salesforce Setup Is Agent-Driven
About this Episode
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Cheryl Feldman, Senior Director of Product Management at Salesforce.
Join us as we chat about how Agentforce is reshaping the Setup experience.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Cheryl Feldman.
From 1,300 pages to one conversation
Let's be honest. Setup has always been where the real admin magic happens. But it can be surprisingly complicated to answer a simple question, like, "Why can't my user edit this record?"
As Cheryl Feldman explains, it's because Setup has slowly grown in complexity over time. As new products and features were added to Salesforce, Setup pages multiplied. And while that level of complexity will always be necessary, it doesn't need to be so hard for admins to navigate.
That's where Setup with Agentforce comes in. Whether it's troubleshooting permissions, understanding formulas, or finding the right configuration page, you can do it all with conversational AI instead of wading through 1,300 pages.
How to try Setup with Agentforce right now
Setup with Agentforce is currently available in open beta, so you can give it a try in production, a sandbox, or a developer org. Cheryl and her team would love to get your feedback. "We want to hear from admins," she says, "Does it help you? And what do you want us to solve next?"
Right now, Setup with Agentforce can handle common use cases, like user access, formulas, data model, and Flow. And for questions it can't cover, the agent will pull answers from Salesforce's help and training documentation and point you to the correct Setup pages to get the job done.
A simpler, agent-driven future for Setup
Right now, Setup with Agentforce focuses on high-impact, everyday Setup tasks. But Cheryl and her team have big plans for the future.
One area they're looking at is multi-step orchestration, which will give admins the ability to create objects or fields, grant users access to them, and add them to a layout in one guided process. Instead of jumping between pages, you'll be able to complete related tasks in a single conversational experience.
Most importantly, we need your feedback to shape what comes next. Jump on the open beta, reach out to Cheryl and her team, and let's make some admin magic.
Check out the full episode for more from Cheryl Feldman. And remember to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode.
Podcast swag
Learn more
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Trailblazer Community Group: Setup With Agentforce (Beta)
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Salesforce Admins Podcast Episode: How Do I Understand a Complex Salesforce Formula Quickly?
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Salesforce Admins Blog: Introducing Setup with Agentforce (Beta): Your New Admin Superpower
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Dreamforce '25 on Salesforce+: The Future of Setup Powered by Agentforce
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Dreamforce '25 on Salesforce+: Setup Now with Agentforce: Simplifying the Complex
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Dreamforce '25 on Salesforce+: Setup with Agentforce: New Superpower for Salesforce Admins
Admin Trailblazers Group
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Full show transcript
Mike Gerholdt:
This week on the Salesforce Admins podcast, well, let's be honest, setup has always been where the real admin magic happens. On this episode, I am talking to Cheryl Feldman, Product Management Senior Director at Salesforce, and longtime admin advocate to unpack how Agentforce is reshaping the way we build, troubleshoot, and think through configuration. From solving tricky user access questions to helping us with formulas and beyond, this is about making setup smarter and more intuitive. With that, let's get Cheryl on the podcast.
So Cheryl, welcome to the podcast.
Cheryl Feldman:
Thanks so much, Mike. I'm excited to be back.
Mike Gerholdt :
I'm excited to have you back. You were a rockstar at Dreamforce this year, and you're probably going to be a rockstar this whole year. I know in the admin keynote, we demoed Agentforce for Setup. I think I'm using that term right, right?
Cheryl Feldman:
Setup with Agentforce, but thank you. Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
Okay. See, I'm always backwards.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes. I was so excited to see that work in the keynote and to see the exciting admin response and excited that we went to beta today.
Mike Gerholdt :
Oh my God. I feel like I feel as much joy for this as I do when we could customize the homepage.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
It sounds so small. We're getting in super knee-deep. Let's zoom out for a second because I'm sure there's a lot of new admins that are like, "What are they talking about?"
Cheryl, for people that haven't met you and heard you in some of the True to the Core, and some of the Q&A sessions where I feel like Parker just calls on you constantly, could you do a little bit of an introduction of what you do and the fun stuff you get to work on at Salesforce?
Cheryl Feldman:
Sure. My name is Cheryl Feldman, and I'm a Product Manager in platform. Been at Salesforce about four and a half years now. Prior to joining Salesforce, I was actually a customer for just over 18 years in, starting out as an admin, moved into more leadership and management roles, was running a COE at a very large bank before I joined Salesforce. And when I joined Salesforce, I started in the user access area, specifically managing the authorization side of things, and then started to really advocate that we improve admin experiences. That led me to my role now where I act as the product domain lead for Setup with Agentforce, and improving experiences for admins and really addressing a lot of the issues that admins have in setup because speaking of True to the Core, setup has come up pretty much every True to the Core has ever existed. And that's what I do here at Salesforce.
Mike Gerholdt :
Which is a lot to say the least. I will fan out a little bit because I remember when Cheryl, you were a customer, you always had questions I couldn't answer, which challenged me. And now to see you on the inside, I mean, it's one thing to hang an identity and say admin developer architect, but that kind of core identity that people have that you made your name on of configuring one of the most complex CRMs to meet business needs without deploying code is just so empowering. And I just, for me, on behalf of all the people like me, I'm just so appreciative to have you inside the PM org championing for people that want to be in tech that don't understand or know how to write code. I had to say that early just because-
Cheryl Feldman:
Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
Mike Gerholdt :
... I don't get to talk to you a whole lot. You're a busy person, especially with the new setup stuff. I mean, I remember demoing permission sets and permission set groups and feeling like, "Holy cow, Cheryl just moved a mountain."
But you're like, "Yeah, I can move mountains, but what about planets?" And now you're tackling setup. Where did this come from?
Cheryl Feldman:
This came from back, I think it was June 1st, 2022, one of our incredible Trailblazers, Andrew Russo, hope he doesn't mind me shouting him out, stood up at True to the Core and said, "When are you actually fixing setup? When are you doing anything, something?"
And I had been pushing internally that we needed to do something. And I said, "Well, if not me, then who?" And so I started looking at the usage of setup, and something that it didn't necessarily surprise me, but it validated a lot of things that I believe that the areas and user access were the most used areas and setup, which was the area that I was managing at that point from a product standpoint. And I said, "Well, what are the big issues that we need to sell for admins?" And a lot of it was around troubleshooting. So we introduced the user access summaries, and we did a lot of great work in user access, but we didn't really expand beyond that.
And so we said, "What would it take to actually fix all of setup?" And trying to actually do that is... Actually, I'll be honest, it would be an impossible task given the state and that there's no framework behind setup. So when Agentforce started to come about, we said, "Well, what if we looked at Agentforce, and what if we could help admins and rethink setup using Agentforce, and revamp things and revamp the experience that way?" And so that's how everything came about.
We started with, let's improve some of the pages to then let's see if we can tackle a larger part of setup, and that's what we've been doing. And Agentforce has helped unlock that for us because I'll be honest, the way we were going previously, we probably would've been here for 20 years because there were over almost 1,300 pages in setup, there's a lot.
Mike Gerholdt :
Wow. Well, and as I come to find out, I mean, there was no real governance of setup.
Cheryl Feldman:
That's true. That is very true.
Mike Gerholdt :
And so everybody, when they created a new product would just add it to the setup menu.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt :
Wow. And I happened to think that the solution actually in 2022 maybe was, it had been invented. I'm sure somebody will call me out on when AI was birthed, but it wasn't in our nomenclature for another year or so.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yep.
Mike Gerholdt :
And that was actually the solution because I remember thinking, I was at a world tour in Boston and somebody came up and said, "With the innovations coming out around AI, why can't I just send screenshots of my problems or my formulas to AI to fix it?" And I thought, well, you should just solve that on the platform.
Cheryl Feldman:
Exactly. And we actually do, and so one of the things that Setup with Agentforce can help you with is to troubleshoot your formulas. It doesn't just troubleshoot user access, because that's one of the things we started looking at, what are customers asking in the Trailblazer community? And a lot of it is, I always see Steve Mo and I always say, "We need to help our agent think like Steve Mo helping out all those new admins with their formulas."
Mike Gerholdt :
Yeah. I think one important thing, and we don't have to get into the details of it, but one important thing is for you, this was, yes, a really cool thing to come out with, but you also dug into, "Well, but how does this help on the back end? How does this help our customer service? How does this help our admins?" And you don't have to share it, but you really found what the percentage of cases and the reason some of the admins were calling into our customer support line.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes. This is probably not a shock to a lot of admins out there, but it was very hard if you are not familiar with SOQL to answer the question, "Why can't my user do a thing or why can't my user edit this record?" That was very complicated to figure out. So unless you had a developer working with you who could run SOQL for you, you ended up contacting support. And so we started looking at how could we help admins help themselves in an experience through natural language. And so that is one of the first use cases that we took what setup with the Agentforce was around that troubleshooting.
Mike Gerholdt :
Wow. That's amazing. So fast-forward, it's January 2026. I almost said '25. I don't know why. It's like the brain didn't move ahead a year. How are we doing? Where are we at with our agentifying setup?
Cheryl Feldman:
The exciting announcement as of today, or you'll be listening to us in a couple of weeks. It'll be out for a couple of weeks already, but we are now an open beta. We were, announced our pilot at Dreamforce, so we're now in open beta, so customers can go enable this and try it out. We solve use cases and we handle use cases across user access, formulas, data model, flow, a lot of the most common areas and setup. Now, I don't want to say we handle everything, but we do handle a lot, but we want customer feedback. We want to hear from admins is, does it help you and what do you want us to solve next? And so that's where we are right now.
Mike Gerholdt :
Okay. And just to clarify, because sometimes I know for a long time as an admin, I wasn't able to do some of the things. Pilot was totally, you had to sign up, and Cheryl had to interview you, and you had to shake hands and there was a vetting process, right?
Cheryl Feldman:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt :
Open beta for an admin sitting there listening to the podcast means they can access it in their sandbox or?
Cheryl Feldman:
They can access it in production, or a sandbox, or in a developer org. It just has to be for developer org. It has to be the specific developer org that has access to Agentforce and Data Cloud.
Mike Gerholdt :
Okay.
Cheryl Feldman:
And then they can enable it. And so they'll see, if their org has Agentforce and Data Cloud, they'll see a banner at the top of setup that will redirect them to enable this.
Mike Gerholdt :
Awesome. You're super close to the product. If you were an admin now, what would be the first thing you would suggest an admin should do when they try this out?
Cheryl Feldman:
I would say think about an issue that you had, whether it was an issue writing a formula or an issue trying to figure out what a user of access was, and ask that question to Setup with Agentforce and see where you get. One of the things that I think is really cool that I would've loved this when I was a customer, because I had to answer this question all the time. You could actually ask the agent, "Show me a list of users that have access to customized application or modify all data or manage users or managing public list fees," and it'll show you a list. There is no great way in the platform to actually figure that out without running a SOQL query.
Mike Gerholdt :
Right.
Cheryl Feldman:
And so that is something I'm actually really, really, really excited about. That's where I would start is start thinking about some of the questions that you have. One of the other features that we have is we actually have and help a navigation action. If we don't actually have actions that actually help you do something or analyze something, it will actually take our help in training documentation and generate an answer for you and also help you navigate to the right setup page.
Let's say you ask the agent, "How do I setup Agentforce for sales?" Instead of having to go out to the help and training site or out to Google to figure that out, you could ask that right and setup and this will help generate an answer. And then if there's something where you need to redirect to a setup page, it'll give you a link that'll just navigate you to the right setup page.
Mike Gerholdt :
Wow, okay. I mean, this takes setup from an area where I'm navigating a million little dropdown carets to a whole experience where I can actually query. I remember a while back, it was like we used to say you could talk to your data. Now, you can talk to your setup menu.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes. Now you can talk to setup.
Mike Gerholdt :
In the lifespan of Salesforce products, you said it went from pilot to now open beta. I'm not going to hit you up for timelines, but what is the next step?
Cheryl Feldman:
The next step is we want to start enabling some more use cases and handling more of setup. We can, I'm sure, share a link to a presentation we did at Dreamforce called the Feature of Setup. We talked about introducing essentially another framework that essentially runs Setup with Agentforce. We're working towards that. And so we handle, we actually started with, we looked at the most used areas in setup and we started with that, but that essentially the most used areas in setup are essentially sit within 40 pages within setup. I mentioned there are 1,300. The next step is how do we expand this beyond these most used common use cases to everything in setup? And that is the framework that we're building.
The other thing that we're working towards is how do we handle what we call multistep orchestration and being able to do multiple steps as far as setups. So think about when you create objects or fields, being able to grant access, adding it to layouts or dynamic forms, those are all multiple steps and being able to do those together. That's essentially what we're working towards from the framework. I can't give out exact timelines yet, but those-
Mike Gerholdt :
No, I don't expect you to.
Cheryl Feldman:
... that we're working towards right now to handle more of setup. And so that's what you're going to see start coming as we move throughout the year.
Mike Gerholdt :
So you envision a world where on Monday an admin could sit, take some requirements, vet out a process, maybe start talking to... I say talking, hello? Typing. Typing to Agentforce for setup and start building an app and then maybe on Wednesday or Thursday, continue building it and possibly even deploy it on Friday and doing it all conversationally.
Cheryl Feldman:
I think eventually, yes, we will get there. We're handling right now. We consider that. We're starting to think about our building use cases, and I'm actually working, I think you've met my colleague, Tian, and he's working towards the building use cases. And so he would actually be a great person to have on this podcast.
Mike Gerholdt :
I know. He's been in the admin keynote.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes. And so I think we're looking at, I would say overall, yes, but we're not handling those type of use cases yet as far as building an end-to-end app. I would say we're looking at more of the everyday configuration use cases and setup use cases right now, but we're starting to think about right now. So I would say Tian would be a great person to have on this podcast.
Mike Gerholdt :
Yeah, absolutely. Talk the building part. One thing that I've thought of, and it's come up in other AI conversations is Josh made a mention of it in a previous podcast too of AI almost feels like that first time you get to use a calculator in math class. And I remember my math teacher saying, "Well, the calculator's answer shouldn't be a surprise. You should know what its output is expecting."
Two years, one year, I don't know the timeline down the line, it's feasible that an admin could sit down and just conversationally build an app. What are the thought process behind also adding to that so that if they didn't use Agentforce for setup to build that app, that they would know how to jump into the configuration of it?
Cheryl Feldman:
That's a good question that I'm not sure I have an answer for right now, but I do see that we probably want to do something like that where, because I don't necessarily see a day where setup is going to completely go away. I think it'll still be there. And I think it's important for admins to understand what the agent is helping them do and why. Something we've talked about long-term, and this is further out, is something that I like to call architect in a box.
Mike Gerholdt :
Ooh.
Cheryl Feldman:
And I think there's a very big bridge between an admin and an architect. And this is not to downplay the role of an architect, super important role, but I think if you talk, and I played an architect role before I joined Salesforce, so I think it's very much how do we help admins think more like architects on their day-to-day tasks. And so how do we explain to them if they say, "Okay, let me update. If they tell an agent or even go into setup, let me update my sharing model." Doing that on Tuesday at three o'clock is probably not a great idea, right? And helping you think through the changes, what is the impact of the change that you're making and that's where we want to go directionally.
Mike Gerholdt :
Oh, I like that. I mean, that's being context aware of, you asked me this, but it's say January 29th and our quarter closes in three days, refactoring a sharing model or refactoring permissions might leave salespeople unable to update an important opportunity. What if we do this on February 1 and then have that delayed reaction or that delayed action in a queue or something?
Cheryl Feldman:
Yep. Or thinking about if you're making a change, is that going to impact you negatively from a security perspective? Those are some things that we're starting to think about on how we help admins make really good decisions.
Mike Gerholdt :
Right.
Cheryl Feldman:
It's not that admins don't make good decisions today. I think sometimes we make it really hard for admins to make good decisions because sometimes the tools to make those decisions are either sitting in where you have to run queries to the dev console, which not everybody is comfortable with, or you have to have read all of our documentation and have essentially what I like to call the PhD in Salesforce, which is either one of the big architect certifications or to actually be a CTA. And I think we need to bridge that gap.
Mike Gerholdt :
Yeah. No, that was always something along those lines that came up a hundred years ago when Process Builder was around was it's so easy to build processes and an admin or anybody could just theoretically sit down and load up an org with processes that would essentially be really more efficient as just one trigger and what's the trade-off and pros and cons there. That's a really good way of thinking of it. I mean, the other thing, future-looking, would be to have the setup agent or whatever we call them, they should have a name.
Cheryl Feldman:
Setup with Agentforce, yeah.
Mike Gerholdt :
Yeah, I know.
Cheryl Feldman:
But our actual agent is called Enhanced Agent for Setup.
Mike Gerholdt :
Okay. But I mean a nice name like Claude or I don't know. I can't think of another name. I know that's another AI, I just meant it as a human name. But to be like, "Hey, Cheryl, you just asked me this question, but I'm also chatting with your peer admin who's in New Jersey and Robin just asked me a similar thing," because there's also the idea that there's many admins working in an org to solve issues.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yeah, I don't think we've actually figured out how to do something like that yet, but that's an interesting use case.
Mike Gerholdt :
No, I mean, I'm not poking holes. Sometimes it's fun to think about what the future is once this gets out of the box.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yeah. And I think one thing for admins is I want to hear feedback as admins are listening to, what would you want us to solve? I want to hear from admins, especially as they're trying this out what they want us to sell.
Mike Gerholdt :
Yeah, absolutely. We'll put a link in the post so people can do that because I was just thinking, are there already agentic setup ideas coming in to the idea exchange about this? But I mean, obviously I think you want to filter them all into one location, right?
Cheryl Feldman:
I would love ideas. I actually haven't seen any ideas come in yet, but that is-
Mike Gerholdt :
Oh, somebody's got to put one out there.
Cheryl Feldman:
Somebody's got to [inaudible 00:23:12].
Mike Gerholdt :
Help Cheryl retire some points.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yeah. But there's definitely with Setup with Agentforce, we are retiring a lot of idea exchange points. And so one of the things customers have wanted us to solve for a long time is the ability to clone and use it. We're able to Setup with Agentforce to do that. Some of the troubleshooting things are things that customers have been asking from us forever, and so those are some really good things that we're able to do. And we also took that lens when we were looking at the initial launch, how can we solve some of these longtime admin requests that we just have not been able to solve because either it requires us to build this really, really complicated UI, or there's technical issues. How can we actually solve some of these things that admins have been asking for for a long time?
Mike Gerholdt :
Yeah. So you may have said this, but it just popped in my mind. It helps you with formulas, right?
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
Okay. Well, there goes a Dreamforce session. For those of us that have been in the community for a while, Daniel Hooks used to do best practices on formulas and validation rules session at Dreamforce. Packed to the walls every time. Now we have setup for Agentforce. Look at that. Efficiency.
Cheryl Feldman:
And I think we've actually proposed a session for TDX. Hint, hint.
Mike Gerholdt :
For the admin track, maybe?
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
Would you like it in the admin track?
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
I'll have to talk to that guy, he's a real stickler.
Cheryl Feldman:
And so I've actually started putting together a document of a number of sessions we would love that I think admins would love to see how Setup with Agentforce works live for some of their most common use cases.
Mike Gerholdt :
Oh yeah, that would be a fun thing. Almost like, this'll date me, like a Total Request Live.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
Remember when MTV used to do that?
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
Just show up and shout out your requests and DJ Cheryl will make Agentforce solve your problems.
Cheryl Feldman:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt :
I like that.
Cheryl Feldman:
Now there's going to be somebody listening who's going to be like, "What's TRL?"
Mike Gerholdt :
I know. That's okay. I say a lot of things that date me, so that's definitely not the first one, but you can Google it, it's out there. Ask an AI about what TRL is and then you'll slowly find out.
Cheryl, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule. I know you're in more meetings than one should have on their calendar about this, but I truly do mean the stuff that you're working on is just so impactful for people in their careers who are making a name for themselves inside of organizations and building their skill. Technology is such a fun ecosystem to work in and it's so empowering when it works the way you want it to. And I feel like you work on the stuff that you're making it work the way we all think it should work, so thank you.
Cheryl Feldman:
Thank you so much, Mike. And to all the admins out there, thank you for your support, so many of you give me great feedback. And also, I'm willing to take the hard feedback. I also really like when admins tell me, and I know you're all not shy, tell me if there's something we should be doing better. And I know we still have a ways to go, but I do want all of your feedback and I do value all of your feedback. And that's why True to the Core, even as an employee, is still my favorite session at Dreamforce and TDX because we get the hard truths that we need to look at, and that's something that's always near and dear to my heart. I know we can't do everything, but I do absolutely love hearing all of the feedback from the admin community.
Mike Gerholdt :
Absolutely. Thank you, Cheryl.
Huge thanks to Cheryl Feldman for walking us through where setup is headed and how Agentforce is opening the door to a more guided, intelligent admin experience. If you're curious about what an agent-driven future looks like in your org, now is the time to experiment, explore, and share your feedback. This evolution of setup is being shaped by you, the Salesforce admins.
So don't sit on the sidelines. Give the episode a listen, try it out in your org. If you enjoyed it, send it to another admin to see what they can think up next. Until next time, we'll see you in the cloud.
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