Do I really need a Certified Consultant to implement Salesforce.com? In short, yes. Salesforce.com’s complexity is growing at an amazing rate. Thier agile development model allows them to release huge amounts of new features with each seasonal release. The changes can be so significant release to release that it is not uncommon that Salesforce.com certified…
If your company is running 100% on Salesforce.com, you can ignore my little diatribe below. In most instances Salesforce (the new kid on the block) will have to coexist with legacy tools or alternative tools. Détente – A word made popular by Henry Kissinger during the cold war meaning “peaceful coexistence.” Why IT Departments Hate…
With Salesforce.com’s inherent ease of configuration comes the temptation to skimp on documenting your org. My experience working with companies that are rushing to migrate over to Salesforce.com is that they are not willing to spend the extra time and dollars to fully document not only the implementation, but also the ongoing “care and feeding”…
What is a Custom Object? Custom Objects allow Salesforce to extend functionality past the native CRM suite (Leads, Accounts, Opportunities, etc). Custom Objects are simply tables you create to store records that categorically do not belong in any of the existing tabs or objects. For example Human Resources is a department that does not fit…
If you sell with the help of outside vendors or Partners, a Partner portal might be the ticket. Users with a Gold Partner license can access the Documents tab, My Account Profile, Leads, Custom Objects, Approvals, Accounts, Cases, and Opportunities. Pricing got better on this type of license when the feature was renamed from PRM…
Advantages of a Customer Portal over a Self Service Portal: UPDATE 2/28/2014 – This is a good overview of some of the changes taking places with portal licenses. Customer Portal licenses are now referred to as “legacy portal licenses” by Salesforce (vs the newer Community licenses). If you already have these licenses in place, you…
When you really dig in you’ll be shocked to discover all the places customer data resides – ACT! and Goldmine databases, Microsoft Outlook, mobile devices, day planners, spreadsheets, legacy accounting systems, Rolodexes, home-grown company databases, SQL databases that run your back office systems, old CRM software, and stacks of business cards secured by an old…