The Official Salesforce Blog
The Official Salesforce Blog
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Finally, Chrome OS
Jul 8, 2009Is there a long-delayed echo in here? Yesterday's announcement of Google's Chrome OS observed that "The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web...For application developers, the web is the platform."
Pardon me if I'm reminded of something that appeared six years ago in eWEEK:
If I asked you to name the Internet's dominant operating system, you'd probably nominate Linux, Windows or possibly Solaris. My answer would be none of the above. Increasingly, our most value-adding interface layer is Google—and our industry's annals of operating system wars and browser wars are looking ever more like ancient history.
My point, in that May 2003 column, was that the major functions of a personal computer operating system are increasingly valued in the context of the Web at least as much as they are in the context of a single machine.
- As far back as CP/M or DOS, we've wanted to have access to data without concern for the details of the device that stores it; today, we want that abstraction to include the location as well as the type of hardware.
- As far back as the original Macintosh OS, we've wanted to be able to call up a piece of content without concern for which application created it; today, that abstraction resides in our browsers and their portfolios of plug-ins as much as it does in our local libraries of thick-client applications.
If you set out to design an operating system today, I'm sure you'd treat access to the assets of the cloud as a first-class function -- not as a secondary feature of some optional application called a "browser," suggesting that the user is casually exploring cyberspace in hope of running across something interesting. Further, you'd design for a model in which the cloud is at least as interesting for what it does as for what it knows: a world of active content, not just static pages or even Web 2.0's interactive communities.
The Web we have now is a place where people can package and offer their expertise in process, as well as their knowledge of facts. Making that expertise accessible, without the nuisance and complexity of the old model of thick-client computing, is the mission that's shared by cloud-committed companies like Google and salesforce.com.
Chrome OS has the potential to be an existence proof of a fundamentally better way. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.
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Best Practice Series: Adoption
Jul 8, 2009"If you don't change direction, you'll end up where you're going."
proverbThat’s good advice for pretty much anything you do. But—how do you know if you’re heading in the right direction, towards your goal?
If that goal is a successful CRM application, getting there means getting your users on board. It’s no surprise that the most common reason for failure is lack of user adoption. If your user adoption rates are flat or heading south, what can you do? Do you even know you’re in trouble? And, once you know, how can you entice, nudge, or—if necessary—compel people to use the app?
Two people with unique insight into these questions are Nancye Michaelian and Matt Jadhav. Both are customer success managers (CSMs) who know, from working with dozens of customers, how adoption can make or break a project. They've written Best Practice documents to share what works—how to track user adoption and how to improve it.
Here’s Nancye: "User adoption doesn’t happen overnight … it’s a constant challenge that needs a solid strategy. My most successful customers incorporate rewards programs into their plans. It really works ... I mean, who doesn’t like money or prizes?"
Join the conversation and tell us what you think of these suggestions. What’s your experience with user adoption? What’s worked for you? For additional adoption resources, visit this area of the community site.
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Join the Admin to Hero Roadshow - Free Force.com Training in Chicago and NY
Jul 6, 2009CRM Admins - Join us for a free Force.com training session and learn how you can build apps that go beyond CRM—using skills you already have.
- Learn to create apps on Force.com with your
existing CRM skills- Find out how to get more value from your
salesforce.com investment- Walk out with the confidence to build your
first complete app!Choose from the morning or afternoon session. Capacity is limited to 30 participants per session, so don’t delay!
Register for the Chicago session on July 14
Register for NY session on July 16
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Admin Webinar Series - From Admin to Hero with Force.com
Jul 2, 2009Calling all admins:
Ever wonder what other admins are doing with Force.com? Find out by joining us for an exciting Webinar series in which we feature CRM admins who built unique apps on Force.com. It’s called “From Admin to Hero with Force.com" and it’s bound to unleash the hero in you.
:: Nimbus - HR/recruiting app and many more
:: Cars.com - Training productivity app and quality assurance app
:: Model Metrics - Convert your spreadsheets into appsAnd in July we’ll be kicking off a "Talk to an Expert" series. Each month, one of our experts covers a popular Force.com topic and you get to ask all the questions you want.
Even better, you get to determine what those topics will be! Take just a minute and complete this 3- question survey so we’ll know what you want to hear from our experts.
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Great Customer Video Worth Checking Out
Jun 30, 2009YouTube has a slick tool called Hot Spots that lets you track the ups-and-downs at each moment in your video compared to videos of similar length. The higher the graph, the hotter the video, and for some reason this one is off the chart. Check it out!
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Salesforce.com wins volunteering award
Jun 24, 2009We’re proud to say that we just received one of the country’s top awards for our dedication to social service from Points of Light Institute. It recognizes the impact of our 1/1/1 philanthropy model in enabling our employees to be catalysts for social change. We’re one of only 5 winners including Capital One, Deloitte, Eli Lilly, and Pinnacol Assurance!
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Marc at GigaOm's Structure '09 Conference
Jun 22, 2009The theme this year is "Put Cloud Computing to Work."
If you're in the area, come down and check out Marc's keynote and conversation with Om Malik.
Or, listen on the Web.
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The IdeaExchange: Your Channel for Influencing Our Product Roadmap
Jun 18, 2009Check out which of your Ideas made it into the Summer '09 Release: http://ideas.salesforce.com/popular/release_summer_09
Log on to the IdeaExchange and start posting, voting and commenting on Ideas! Watch our Dreamforce '08 breakout session to learn more about how you can use the IdeaExchange to influence our product roadmap.
~IdeaExchange Program Manager
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Salesforce CRM Mobile Updated for iPhone OS 3.0
Jun 17, 2009Salesforce CRM Mobile has been updated to take full advantage of the new iPhone 3.0 OS. This means that customers can use the industry's leading enterprise cloud computing applications and platform to take advantage of exciting new features including:
- Cut,
copy and paste - Quickly and easily cut, copy, and paste text from emails
and text messages directly into Salesforce CRM. Select entire blocks of
text with a tap.
- Clone
Records - Thumb-saving clone button lets users easily create identical
records and save a bunch of typing.
- Calendar-like
Events - Manage events with ease with a new date-indexed view and a
calendar-like interface.
- Custom
Filters - Quickly find information with custom filters on any list of data.
- Convert
Lead - Convert a lead as soon as the user hangs up the phone. The
iPhone now offers lead conversion on a single form.
- Visualforce
mobile custom linking - Create custom mobile links on any object in
Salesforce CRM: link from an Account directly to a Yahoo! news site with
the latest news about a company, or link to a custom Visualforce page to
show all related contacts and their images.
Here’s more info on how you can get started with Salesforce CRM Mobile: https://www.salesforce.com/mobile/lite.
- Cut,
copy and paste - Quickly and easily cut, copy, and paste text from emails
and text messages directly into Salesforce CRM. Select entire blocks of
text with a tap.
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4 Steps to Deciding if Territory Management is Right for You
Jun 17, 2009No, Territory Management has nothing to do with managing the Pacific Northwest - or anywhere else. Instead, you can use this feature to organize and share data beyond the traditional role hierarchy to include accounts, opportunities, and cases, based on any record characteristics you define. As a result, you can also start forecasting in a whole new way.
Territory Managment is available to customers with Salesforce CRM Enterprise or Unlimited Edition. It's a very powerful feature that cannot be disabled once it is turned on. For that reason, it's critical that you carefully consider whether this feature is right for your org. This best-practice document will help you decide.
Check back frequently for new best practices from salesforce.com. We'll have something for everyone -administrators, sales users, and general business users.
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See salesforce.com in a whole new way!
Jun 14, 2009If you were at Dreamforce last year, you remember the excitement when Force.com Sites was demoed for the first time. Today, we are thrilled to announce that Force.com Sites is generally available.
Over the last few months, 85 companies had access to the Force.com Sites customer preview. The sites and apps they built had 38 million page views and served more than 5 terabytes of data.
We saw some amazing Web sites and apps built on Force.com Sites in the preview program. Customers and partners built sites for e-commerce, recruiting, ticketing and scheduling, social networking, community management and much more.
Many of them are already live, like this Crocs Ideas Site,
Starbuck's Pledge 5 campaign, and
Dell's Social Innovation Competition site.
You can check out a showcase of sites created in the customer preview at http://www.force.com/sites.
And, here's a video that shows how to get started.
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Follow Us On Twitter @SalesforceNews
Jun 3, 2009Today we officially moved our Twitter Channel from @Successforce to @SalesforceNews. If you use Twitter, make sure you follow us for breaking news and best practice updates. -
What do you want to learn at Dreamforce?
Jun 1, 2009Do you want input on what gets presented at Dreamforce in November? Do you have a great idea for a session you could deliver? Help us build the agenda!
Thanks!
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Vote for salesforce.com!
May 28, 2009The Software Satisfaction Awards take place annually and are unique as they are based on primary research amongst genuine buyers and end-users of business software applications.
Voters are asked to rate the business software products on four key attributes: ease of use; functionality; reliability; and value for money.
Voting begins on May 1 and will end on June 30 and can be found here: http://www.salesforce.com/uk/campaigns/software- satisfaction-awards.jsp
Salesforce.com has entered the following categories and would appreciate your votes!
Contact Centre Software - Salesforce CRM
Enterprise CRM software - Salesforce.CRM
SME CRM Software - Salesforce CRM
Web-Hosted CRM - Salesforce CRM -
Easy to Remember URLS
May 27, 2009As the community grows there are more and more sites to keep track of.
Rather than navigate to YouTube or Facebook and try to find our respective channel…
Just type in… http://salesforce.com/YouTube
Or... http://salesforce.com/Twitter
Or... http://salesforce.com/Facebook
Or… http://salesforce.com/LinkedIn
Or... http://salesforce.com/Flickr
Because the links are all in a consistent format, they are easy to remember, making it super quick to pull up the page you are looking for.
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