The Official Salesforce Blog
The Official Salesforce Blog - Personal Productivity
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Summer '08 Feature Showcase: Enhanced Lists
Jun 4, 2008Hello! It's your friendly Salesforce product manager here, with some great news to share about an awesome feature being delivered in the Summer '08 release - Enhanced Lists!
Last year, we gave you inline editing on record detail pages. While I knew it would be a hit (or, at least, I certainly hoped it would be), I also knew that it would only be a matter of time before the requests would start pouring in for inline editing from list views. Sure enough, Tannic didn't waste any time, and 6 days after the Winter '08 release, an idea was logged. :-)I'm happy to announce that the new Enhanced List feature in the Summer '08 release offers you powerful, easy-to-use tools to quickly display, customize (and even edit!) lists of records imperative for your day-to-day work routine.
The sensational new editing capabilities we've included allow you to edit a single record, or multiple - up to 200 - records, directly from a list, never leaving the page. And with a wide range of new navigation options - for example, displaying the record count (up to 2000), specifying number of records displayed per page, jump to a specific page, and first & last page links - you can find the information you’re looking for in no time.
We also included drag-and-drop support for moving columns around, as well as changing a column's width by dragging the right side of the column header.
For those of you who have created custom mass action buttons to act on multiple records in a list view, we also now remember selections across multiple pages. Gone are the days of selecting records on a single page, then clicking the action button, then going to the next page, selecting more records, etc.
In order to realize the full benefit of this feature, administrators must turn on both the "Enable Inline Editing" and "Enable Enhanced Lists" preferences from the Setup | Customize | User Interface page.Full Disclosure: There are also some things about this new feature that we want to improve upon in the near future. For one, the fields excluded from inline editing on list views are the same ones excluded on detail pages (Opportunity Stage, Opportunity Forecast Category, Contract Status, most Task and Event fields) with the addition of Opportunity Amount, Opportunity Quantity, Lead Status, and Case Status. The good news is that we're working closely with other teams internally to get these fields enabled for you as soon as we can. (Note that some of these fields already have mass action buttons on list views so you still have a way to edit them.) Also, for companies using record types, the list view has to have filter criteria specified that restricts the result set to one record type in order for editing to be available. There are similar filter restrictions for tasks and events as well, but you can read all about it in both the Summer '08 release notes, as well as the online help. Just navigate to any list view, and click the "Help for this Page" link in the upper right.
We know we still have some work to do, but hopefully you'll find these new enhancements to be both time-saving and fun to use. Everyone have a great summer, and keep those ideas coming!
-- Eric
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Salesforce and Google OneBox for Enterprise
Apr 19, 2006Today we announced a partnership with Google to make it even easier to access information stored in Salesforce and AppExchange applications. Google OneBox for Enterprise is a new feature of the Google Search Appliance, a piece of hardware you can purchase from Google and install behind your firewall.
Now, in the same way that you can find information on stock tickers or weather on Google.com, you can use the Salesforce OneBox modules to quickly look up Account, Contact, or Opportunity information from inside Salesforce, using search modules codeveloped by salesforce.com and Google.
For more information you can, read the press release, visit the landing page on salesforce.com, watch an online presentation explaining how it works for salesforce.com customers, or visit the Google Search Appliance page.
Update: "Here's more on the announcement from the Google Enterprise blog. They've also put together a video of their partners discussing the Google search box." Via Salesforcewatch.com
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Suggested Documents using Custom Formula Fields
Oct 24, 2005“Do your reps ever complain that it’s hard to find documents in the document library? Do you want to cut down on training? Leverage custom formula fields to suggest resources based upon fielded information in the contact, opportunity, or account record.”
Now you can deliver different content for your sales force based upon the different stages of their opportunity.
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Add Salesforce to Your Firefox Search Bar
Aug 4, 2005For those of you who haven’t made the switch to Firefox, this is yet another incentive to do so. Paul Constantinides created a very simple plug-in which allows you to run a Salesforce advanced search or a Supportforce solution search, right from the Firefox search bar.
This is also exciting because it demonstrates the extendibility and open nature of both salesforce.com and Firefox. For all the developers reading this post, what other types of Firefox Extensions could you build? Who’s going to be the first to design a salesforce widget?
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Spell Check Anywhere in Salesforce
Aug 1, 2005Many customers have asked about spell check tools for long text fields such as call notes or descriptions.
Ed Tcheleshev, a Customer Success Manager in New York came up with a great solution utilizing the new google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com.)
It’s free to install and will provide spell checking anywhere you edit text in salesforce. Give it a try.
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Integrate Skype's IP-based phone solution with Salesforce for one click dialing
Jul 13, 2005Some companies are turning to IP-based phone solutions like Skype and Vonage to save money. Skype is a peer-to-peer telecommunications company that has attracted over 40 million users in the past few years. Their plug-in allows PC-based calls through a USB headset or a PC's microphone and speakers. They offer free calls to any other Skype user and very low cost calls to regular phone numbers (2 cents per minute for the US, Western Europe, and Australia.
The example below shows how you might add pop-up dialing functionality to salesforce.com such that a user can click on a web link from a contact record and automatically launches the Skype client.
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Delegated Activity Report
May 2, 2005When assigning a task in salesforce we often take for granted the fact that it will get done in a timely manner. To improve your level of customer service and ensure things don’t slip through the cracks it might be worth setting up a report to monitor your delegated tasks.
Simply create an activity report for all open activities and filter for my delegated activities. By referencing this report once or twice a week you can escalate those things that need attention. Did your customer get their billing question answered? Did your colleague follow up on a lead you passed them? With this report you'll have piece of mind that every customer is provided the level of service they deserve.
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Keyboard Tricks to Make You More Productive
Apr 11, 2005When investment bankers go through their training programs, the first thing they learn is how to use Excel without a mouse. There are a series of simple Window’s shortcuts that can dramatically speed up how you navigate through the application.
Some common examples include:
- Tab moves between fields
- Shift-tab moves backwards between fields
- Enter in a field will press the "default" or "highlighted" button (usually save or next)
- Scrolling with "page up" / "page down" on details is much faster than using the scrollbar
- Using the "mouse wheel" to scroll details is much faster as well
- The "home" key will move back to the top of a detail page
- The "end" key will move to the bottom of a detail page
- Alt-left arrow moves back one page
- Alt-tab lets you flip between applications
- Ctl-c lets you copy information and Ctl-v lets you paste it
- Alt-<number> will select and visit the <number> item in the recent item list
Take a couple minutes to learn one of these commands and see if it speeds up your day.
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Shift Click
Apr 5, 2005This is one of those simple tricks you might well know by now, but when using Salesforce it’s one of THE biggest time savers.
For example, if you do a search and there are multiple entries you can hold down the shift key and click on the name of the account. This will launch the account page in a new window so you don’t loose your original search results. It also works great when drilling down into a report. You might want to spot check several of the opportunities. Using shift click to launch the opportunity record, you can quickly return to the original report.Note that shift click applies to the Internet Explorer web browser. If you’ve converted over to Firefox it’s ctrl click to launch a new tab.
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Offline PDA Edition
Mar 28, 2005If you want access to Salesforce.com on your PDA, one option is the Offline PDA Edition. It works with your Pocket PC or Palm OS device and allows you to read, modify, and create new records in Salesforce.com. This is a great solution for individuals who don’t have wireless access but need to leverage customer information while on the road. When you get back to the office it is one click to sync back up and refresh your data.
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Nugget - Org email limit
Mar 23, 2005If you're wanting to use Salesforce's, SFDC, mass email feature you would soon learn the limit of 1000 emails limit. excerpt from SFDC help: "Your organization is limited to 1000 mass emails per day."
You may freak out, like I did, when your VP of marketing hits that limit and you may think, oh my gosh. Now no one is able to send an email from SFDC. However that's not the case.
This only applies to the mass email feature only.
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Integrating Google Maps with Salesforce.com
Feb 11, 2005
From: For those of you who haven't seen google maps yet, it's really amazing.
Here's a WIL that works on contacts:
Here's one from Matt Browning that gives directions from the user’s address to the contact’s address.
Doing a search on a custom homepage might also be useful.
How about using maps to do data cleansing? If you don't have the zip, it figures it out, then somehow we write it back? They have an XML interface where maybe we could consume that info with an scontrol?
I'm sure you could also build a web link that would take the user's home address, and immediately route the directions from the user's address to the contact address.
Other ideas for how this could be used? -B
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Intellisync User Guide
Feb 9, 2005The Intellisync for salesforce.com User Guide provides in-depth instructions to help you synchronize your Salesforce.com contacts and activities with Microsoft® Outlook® and/or a Palm OS device. Included are steps on installing and configuring Intellisync for salesforce.com, setting up Outlook or your Palm, and syncing your data. Plus troubleshooting tips and advanced topics such as changing which Outlook folders to sync.
Download salesforce_sync_user_guide.pdf
Download Intellisync -
Office Edition Cheat Sheet
Feb 4, 2005
Salesforce.com Office Edition allows you to access your Salesforce.com data from Microsoft Office. After installing a small plug-in, Salesforce.com menus are added to Microsoft Excel and Word. From these menus, you can access your Salesforce.com reports with Excel, and create mail merge templates in Word for use with Salesforce.com.
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Using Web Links for Driving Directions
Jan 28, 2005This is a great post from Gene on the Community Board. Click Here to view the full post.
Here's a neat little web link that's a slight variation on the default "Map" web link. When you click on the web link, it will take you to Yahoo! Driving Directions with the address on your salesforce.com user profile as the starting point and the contact address as the destination. http://maps.yahoo.com/dd?cn={!User_Country}
&csz={!User_City}+{!User_State}+{!User_PostalCode}
&addr={!User_Address}
&tcountry={!Contact_MailingCountry}
&tcsz={!Contact_MailingCity}+
{!Contact_MailingState}+{!Contact_MailingPostalCode}
&taddr={!Contact_MailingAddress}You could easily modify this into a driving directions web link and put it on the Account page layout instead.
Give it a try!
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Wireless CRM
Jan 28, 2005 -
Salesforce.com Office Edition
Jan 27, 2005
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Using Firefox with Salesforce.com
Jan 27, 2005If you haven't yet discovered the Firefox web browser we highly recommend giving it a try.
Among the features which make Firefox standout, the Tabbed Browsing has proven immensely popular amongst salesforce.com
users. It allows you to view more than one web page in a single window.
Whether you’re de-duping leads, juggling calls, auditing a report or
customizing salesforce.com, this feature will save you a tremendous
amount of time and make multitasking easier.
The other thing that I really like about it is the find utility. When you've got a long report and are looking for a specific account, the find toolbar is a lifesaver. It’s a free download so give it a try. www.firefox.com
Note that you'll probablly want to keep Internet Explorer as well. There are some plugins that don't work with Firefox and I've heard there are some problems editing the HTML email templates within salesforce. All in all, it's definetly worth using.
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