10 Things I wish I would have known on day 1 as a Salesforce Admin

  

Below are 10 things i wish i would have known on day 1 as a Salesforce Admin.  Most of these i learned the hard way so hopefully you won't have to : )

1. The ability to rename standard objects and fields.  Yes, you can do this! rename "Accounts" to "Organizations", rename "Cases" to "Help Requests", whatever fits your business needs. 
   
2.  Formula compile size includes referenced formula fields.  So if you reference other formula fields in a formula, the compile size is cumulative, often exceeding the 5000 character limit if you are working with a complex formula.  Here are some tips on how to reduce your formula size when you run into this:  https://help.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_formula_size_tipsheet.pdf
3. When testing time based workflow you can look into the queue to see if it is working.  It took me a while to find this when i first started:
   
4.  You CANNOT set up an email alert as a workflow action for Tasks or Events (Activities).  You can vote for the idea here: https://success.salesforce.com/ideaview?id=08730000000BpAuAAK 
5. You CANNOT create relationships to the Campaign Member object. 
6. If you use opportunity line items, the sum of the items will populate the standard Opportunity Amount field and there is no way to override this.
7. You CANNOT report on Field History Tracking for a Detail Object in a Master-Detail Relationship.  You can vote for the idea here: https://success.salesforce.com/ideaView?id=08730000000BrlxAAC
8. Salesforce ID's are case sensitive! I learned this the hard way.  If you are migrating data from Salesforce to Salesforce create formula fields on your objects using the CASESAFEID(id) Converts a 15-character ID into a case insensitive 18-character ID function.  If you do not there may be records with the same id in excel and you will have a data nightmare!
9. Before you customize a table component on a dashboard, you have to make sure your source report is in matrix or summary format and contains a chart.  See here for more info
10. The Answers Community!