Yesterday I had Salesforce training with Cathy, Joel, Garlenzka, Ken M, Mary M, Alyse and Stacey B so they could start testing the new "Dexter in Salesforce" process. A big thank you to all of them for doing this testing. When you're a beta-tester it means you deal with the glitches and bugs so others don't have to. That can be bothersome. Here's hoping it goes well and soon a lot of more of you will join in.
Before they could truly use the new Project object in Salesforce I needed to get the sites from the Sites Database into Salesforce. I thought that'd be pretty easy and straightforward but, as is usually the case, nothing's ever simple. I worked on it for a couple days with no luck but finally yesterday, with some help from Apprivo, the consultant we've been using for Salesforce customization help, I got it. So now the sites from the Sites database for the companies that were sent to Salesforce from Contact are in Salesforce, too.
It feels good to make this progress. I'm excited about moving forward. A few days ago I reviewed Salesforce.com with Harvey, the sales ops managers and Sandy. It was fun to watch ideas for more and more ways we could use Salesforce bubble up from everyone. There are so many possibilities it's almost overwhelming. Now we need to figure out the priorities together and forge ahead!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Ready for prime time
So the "Dexter project" in Salesforce is ready. I've tested it and shown it to Sherri and it's ready to be used by a pilot group. I'll be asking some teams if they're willing to try it out this week. I'm thinking we'll test it for 2 weeks and then roll it out.
This new project form in Salesforce accomplishes one main thing: It makes it so people don't have to put company & contact information both into Contact and Salesforce in order for the information to be used in Dexter.
Next is the bigger step. How do we move more functionality into the cloud? Stay tuned.
This new project form in Salesforce accomplishes one main thing: It makes it so people don't have to put company & contact information both into Contact and Salesforce in order for the information to be used in Dexter.
Next is the bigger step. How do we move more functionality into the cloud? Stay tuned.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Wanted: Testers of the new system
I'm very close to having the new "Salesforce Dexter" ready to test. My plan is to have one sales team, maybe two, try using the new process for a week or two, then roll it out to everyone. If you're interested, let me know.
The connection between Salesforce and Notes has been going well for a few days. Now I'm working on a way to enable users to create the Project Checklist and Project Cover Sheet right from Salesforce. I had hoped that as soon as you created a Project in Salesforce, a process would kick off to send it to Dexter, and then you'd immediately be able to get going on the rest of your work within Dexter.
However, it turns out that's not quite possible -- not the way I envisioned it anyway. On both sides, in Salesforce and in Notes, there's no way to trigger the automated process right when a new project is created. The automation has to run on a time interval schedule. In Salesforce, I've set it to run every 1 minute, and look for any new projects. However, the process to send it to Dexter takes longer than a minute, and if it happens that 2 projects were created, the process works serially, the first project is processed first and then the next and so on. So it can add up to a few minutes before a project gets sent down.
Then on the Notes side, again the automatic process to send the requested messages (such as request for a labor quote, or Kham number or whatever) also runs on a schedule, probably every 5 minutes. I talked with Sherri and a few other users and found that there are times when, at the same time as you create the Project, you also print the Project Checklist and Cover Sheet and put it with the order entry package. It would be an inconvenience if, every time you did that, you had to wait 5 minutes or more before you could complete those steps.
So, I tried to come up with a way to prevent that inconvenience. After a bit of thinking and experimenting, I finally remembered, hey, maybe there's an app for that. I sometimes forget that Salesforce, like the iPhone and other programs and devices, has applications that developers share with others, sometimes free, sometimes paid. I found one called FormFactory that looks promising. It has both a free and paid version. I'm learning how to use it. The extra few minutes doesn't matter so much when all you're doing is sending an email request but I hope FormFactory will work as the way you'll be able to print Project Checklists and Cover Sheets from Salesforce.
I'll let you know how it goes. Next week I'll be on PTO for a week so testing won't start until after then, but I'm really, really close!
The connection between Salesforce and Notes has been going well for a few days. Now I'm working on a way to enable users to create the Project Checklist and Project Cover Sheet right from Salesforce. I had hoped that as soon as you created a Project in Salesforce, a process would kick off to send it to Dexter, and then you'd immediately be able to get going on the rest of your work within Dexter.
However, it turns out that's not quite possible -- not the way I envisioned it anyway. On both sides, in Salesforce and in Notes, there's no way to trigger the automated process right when a new project is created. The automation has to run on a time interval schedule. In Salesforce, I've set it to run every 1 minute, and look for any new projects. However, the process to send it to Dexter takes longer than a minute, and if it happens that 2 projects were created, the process works serially, the first project is processed first and then the next and so on. So it can add up to a few minutes before a project gets sent down.
Then on the Notes side, again the automatic process to send the requested messages (such as request for a labor quote, or Kham number or whatever) also runs on a schedule, probably every 5 minutes. I talked with Sherri and a few other users and found that there are times when, at the same time as you create the Project, you also print the Project Checklist and Cover Sheet and put it with the order entry package. It would be an inconvenience if, every time you did that, you had to wait 5 minutes or more before you could complete those steps.
So, I tried to come up with a way to prevent that inconvenience. After a bit of thinking and experimenting, I finally remembered, hey, maybe there's an app for that. I sometimes forget that Salesforce, like the iPhone and other programs and devices, has applications that developers share with others, sometimes free, sometimes paid. I found one called FormFactory that looks promising. It has both a free and paid version. I'm learning how to use it. The extra few minutes doesn't matter so much when all you're doing is sending an email request but I hope FormFactory will work as the way you'll be able to print Project Checklists and Cover Sheets from Salesforce.
I'll let you know how it goes. Next week I'll be on PTO for a week so testing won't start until after then, but I'm really, really close!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Managing Projects and RFPs in Salesforce - Promising Stuff
I've been working as much as I can on getting the Project object set up in Salesforce. It's the first step to getting the project management functionality of Dexter into Salesforce and I'm excited for it to be ready.
I don't mean to sound like I'm making excuses but I haven't been able to do as much work on it as I'd like because there are so many other things that I also need to do. A week or so ago I was lying in bed around 3 in the morning, unable to sleep, thinking and worrying about all the stuff I had to do. Finally I decided to just get up and clean up my Inbox. I thought at least I'd feel like things were more under control if I did that. I decided to delete or "folder-ize" anything that wasn't a task I needed to do, and the tasks I'd mark with a little green follow-up flag. I went through everything in my Inbox ... and ended up with a huge list of emails with green flags on them! Click scroll, scroll, scroll and everything has a green flag. Not helpful. I'm sure you all can relate.
Anyway, I will keep plugging away on the Salesforce Project. I'm hoping to have a pilot test team within a week or so. I'm feeling a little discouraged about finding an already-made application for managing projects in Salesforce. I'd hoped there might be something "out of the box" rather than my designing everything from scratch. So far what I've seen doesn't seem like a good fit. But I have an appointment next week to see a demo of one that our Salesforce rep recommends. For now I decided not to spend as much time on that search because I want to spend my time getting the Project ready. Then I'll get back into a more dedicated search.
Oh, I did have a kind of exciting development this week. Sandy talked to me about wanting to figure out a better way to manage bids / RFPs. She at first was thinking of ways we could assign teams, tasks, deadlines, etc. in Notes. We met to talk over how we could use Salesforce to accomplish this and I'm eager to work on that (again, waiting until I get the Project working). The exciting development was that when I mentioned this whole RFP management thing to our Salesforce rep he said, in so many words, "We have an app for that." Salesforce themselves has a process they use for managing RFPs and they are offering it to their customers. He sent me a link. Haven't checked it out yet but it sounds very promising.
I don't mean to sound like I'm making excuses but I haven't been able to do as much work on it as I'd like because there are so many other things that I also need to do. A week or so ago I was lying in bed around 3 in the morning, unable to sleep, thinking and worrying about all the stuff I had to do. Finally I decided to just get up and clean up my Inbox. I thought at least I'd feel like things were more under control if I did that. I decided to delete or "folder-ize" anything that wasn't a task I needed to do, and the tasks I'd mark with a little green follow-up flag. I went through everything in my Inbox ... and ended up with a huge list of emails with green flags on them! Click scroll, scroll, scroll and everything has a green flag. Not helpful. I'm sure you all can relate.
Anyway, I will keep plugging away on the Salesforce Project. I'm hoping to have a pilot test team within a week or so. I'm feeling a little discouraged about finding an already-made application for managing projects in Salesforce. I'd hoped there might be something "out of the box" rather than my designing everything from scratch. So far what I've seen doesn't seem like a good fit. But I have an appointment next week to see a demo of one that our Salesforce rep recommends. For now I decided not to spend as much time on that search because I want to spend my time getting the Project ready. Then I'll get back into a more dedicated search.
Oh, I did have a kind of exciting development this week. Sandy talked to me about wanting to figure out a better way to manage bids / RFPs. She at first was thinking of ways we could assign teams, tasks, deadlines, etc. in Notes. We met to talk over how we could use Salesforce to accomplish this and I'm eager to work on that (again, waiting until I get the Project working). The exciting development was that when I mentioned this whole RFP management thing to our Salesforce rep he said, in so many words, "We have an app for that." Salesforce themselves has a process they use for managing RFPs and they are offering it to their customers. He sent me a link. Haven't checked it out yet but it sounds very promising.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Oh. My. Goodness.
Oh, my goodness (my version of OMG)!! Salesforce is even cooler than I thought! I finished a 4 day class on Salesorce Thursday and my brain runneth over. There are so many possibilities with Salesforce that I can hardly keep track!
Automation is one thing I think we are really going to like. I can create "workflows" that trigger when you save records. They can update fields, send tasks (to do list items) to yourself or others, or emails. It will be fun to figure out what will help you the most. They can be timed, too, so for example something can happen a week after you save a record, and then a week after that, and so on.
The final day we talked about leads and marketing. Very exciting. I already emailed Mica about meeting with our current email marketing partner, ExactTarget, which has an integration with Salesforce. Even the instructor said that to get the full benefit of marketing with Salesforce, it's best to work with a partner. Last week Mica was asking for updates to some vertical market lists. In the future, we can send the email blasts out, then see the results - even to the point of seeing when and how many times the recipient clicked to open the email.
One cool thing I learned is I can include "web tabs." Salesforce uses tabs, such as "Accounts," "Contacts," and "Opportunities." I can create tabs that are a portal to anything on the web. I already experimented with creating a "Khameleon" tab that brings up the login to Khameleon. We could have one for Kiosk, for Google, whatever. As we start to live in Salesforce more and more, this will make a lot of sense.
I've still got to work on the Lotus Notes connection first but I am so excited about the possiblities for us!
Automation is one thing I think we are really going to like. I can create "workflows" that trigger when you save records. They can update fields, send tasks (to do list items) to yourself or others, or emails. It will be fun to figure out what will help you the most. They can be timed, too, so for example something can happen a week after you save a record, and then a week after that, and so on.
The final day we talked about leads and marketing. Very exciting. I already emailed Mica about meeting with our current email marketing partner, ExactTarget, which has an integration with Salesforce. Even the instructor said that to get the full benefit of marketing with Salesforce, it's best to work with a partner. Last week Mica was asking for updates to some vertical market lists. In the future, we can send the email blasts out, then see the results - even to the point of seeing when and how many times the recipient clicked to open the email.
One cool thing I learned is I can include "web tabs." Salesforce uses tabs, such as "Accounts," "Contacts," and "Opportunities." I can create tabs that are a portal to anything on the web. I already experimented with creating a "Khameleon" tab that brings up the login to Khameleon. We could have one for Kiosk, for Google, whatever. As we start to live in Salesforce more and more, this will make a lot of sense.
I've still got to work on the Lotus Notes connection first but I am so excited about the possiblities for us!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
So, now what?
Now that Salesforce is here, now what?
Well, my first priority is to get the Project object set up and sending itself down to Dexter so we can keep from having to duplicate data entry.
Beyond that, though, what do we want to accomplish with Salesforce? I've started reading a book called Salesforce.com: Secrets of Success by David Taber. Yes, believe it or not, there are nerdy people who go to that geeky area of the bookstore and not only buy but actually read those incredibly boring looking computer books! :) In one section, the author lists mandates for Salesforce.com (SFDC). Here are some of them:
Well, my first priority is to get the Project object set up and sending itself down to Dexter so we can keep from having to duplicate data entry.
Beyond that, though, what do we want to accomplish with Salesforce? I've started reading a book called Salesforce.com: Secrets of Success by David Taber. Yes, believe it or not, there are nerdy people who go to that geeky area of the bookstore and not only buy but actually read those incredibly boring looking computer books! :) In one section, the author lists mandates for Salesforce.com (SFDC). Here are some of them:
- To be the only source of information about customer relationships. If other systems contain customer data, they need to be integrated with Salesforce.com over time so that the company achieves a 360 degree view of the customer.
- Not to be used as a spying machine or a micromanagement tool.
- To be used as the command center or virtual war room for winning accounts and keeping customers happy. The data entered into the system needs to be good enough to drive real decisions and allocate resources.
- To eliminate excessive emails, data reentry, and forgotten action items.
- To use Salesforce.com data for management meetings, as the system-of-record data.
- To enable the company to move toward an MBE -- Manage By Exception -- policy, meaning routine decisions should be handled "in process." SFDC's alerts, thresholds, workflows and reports should be used to handle normal situations and to automatically flag or escalate the unusual cases.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wanna chat? In Salesforce!
Today I went to a meeting of the Silicon Valley Salesforce.com user's group. The topic of the day was "Chatter," a new feature in Salesforce. It's still in beta but we can start using it any time we're ready.
Chatter gives us the ability to do a sort of combination Facebook/Instant Messaging within Salesforce. At first thought, it's hard to imagine what the benefit would be of that kind of capability. In fact, several of the speakers at the meeting today confessed they were skeptics but now they were all touting the benefits.
As with Facebook, you can post a status - something saying what you're doing - and those who are following you will see that status. But, even more interestingly, you can follow objects within Salesforce and have live discussions about those.
Soon we'll be doing projects in Salesforce. Think of the possibilities there. What if the leads for each project were able to instantly post updates on how the project was going? OK, they'd need a internet-connected device for doing that, but still, wouldn't it be cool?
You can post links and files and discuss those. We can also bring in feeds from external sources. For example, we have a Pivot Facebook page, we could bring in the updates from there. We could bring the updates from Herman Miller's page and other of our vendors.
Chatter in Salesforce is an exciting development! It'll be fun to explore it.
Chatter gives us the ability to do a sort of combination Facebook/Instant Messaging within Salesforce. At first thought, it's hard to imagine what the benefit would be of that kind of capability. In fact, several of the speakers at the meeting today confessed they were skeptics but now they were all touting the benefits.
As with Facebook, you can post a status - something saying what you're doing - and those who are following you will see that status. But, even more interestingly, you can follow objects within Salesforce and have live discussions about those.
Soon we'll be doing projects in Salesforce. Think of the possibilities there. What if the leads for each project were able to instantly post updates on how the project was going? OK, they'd need a internet-connected device for doing that, but still, wouldn't it be cool?
You can post links and files and discuss those. We can also bring in feeds from external sources. For example, we have a Pivot Facebook page, we could bring in the updates from there. We could bring the updates from Herman Miller's page and other of our vendors.
Chatter in Salesforce is an exciting development! It'll be fun to explore it.
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