The Official Salesforce Blog - Training

• Summer '08 Feature Showcase: Enhanced Lists

  Jun 4, 2008

  Hello! 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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• Free Online Training Inside the App

  Nov 30, 2006

  Astidia published a free AppExchange App that I recommend checking out. “ReadyCoach” contains a bunch of 1-3 minute instructional videos that answer basic questions like “How do I create a summary report,” or “How to convert a lead to an opportunity.”   

  It’s a great way for new users to get up to speed and dive right in to using the app. More experienced users can also sharpen their skills with tutorials on reporting and dashboards.

  Try it out!

  

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• AppExchange 101 Webcast: Everything You Need to Extend Your CRM Implementation

  Jun 5, 2006

  Join us for a FREE AppExchange Webinar — Live on June 14, at 11:00 AM PST. AppExchange is the first and only online marketplace for sharing applications. It makes finding and deploying new on-demand apps easy. Many of the apps in the AppExchange are free and all are pre-integrated with Salesforce. There are more than 250 apps to choose from including applications for every department like sales, service, HR, finance —and more. Find everything from project management to recruiting to email marketing and beyond. Learn what you need to know to get started with AppExchange. Plus, get all your questions answered in a live Q&A. Register for our free AppExchange 101 Webcast now.

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• AppExchange Mobile Admin Training

  May 23, 2006

  
  Today a training course was posted with instructions for How to Setup a New AppExchange Mobile Account. The 20 minute tutorial walks you through creating profiles for your mobile devices and configuring connections to everyone’s blackberries. From there you can add users and you’ll be on your way to leveraging the power of AppExchange Mobile.

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• Searching CRMSuccess.com

  Apr 5, 2005

  As the CRM Success site has grown, many people have asked for better ways of finding resources. While we’ve got a number of projects in the works, one good short term solution is to use a Google Site Search. This will allow you to quickly search across CRMSuccess.com for best practice materials using keywords. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

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• Intellisync User Guide

  Feb 9, 2005

  The 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

  
   
  
  

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• 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.

  Download salesforce_office_edition_cheatsheet.pdf

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• Case Management Implementation Guide

  Feb 2, 2005

  New Case Management Implementation Guide now available. Download case_management_implementation_guide.pdf

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• Difference Between a Lead and an Account

  Jan 28, 2005

  What is the difference between a lead and account?

  A best practice that I use is to define a lead as a unqualified prospect only. Trade shows, generic purchased lists, inbound calls etc. I generally stress to users that leads should be used to disqualify potential prospects so they stay out of accounts.

  A common misconception is that accounts are only customers. This is not true. Accounts in my world are customers, qualified prospects, competitors, vendors, even your own company should be an account within salesforce to take advantage of mass email and other communication vehicles.

  As soon as you have enough information to qualify a lead it should be converted immediately, the account "type" now being "prospect" One of the obvious advantages you have already seen is the ability to manage interactions with multiple contacts and/or opportunities.

  You may figure out a way to create custom lead fields for contact 2, contact 3 etc. DO NOT DO IT. You will compound your problems when you convert the lead because that information will now need to be turned into individual contacts.

  It sounds to me like your list contains what I would call "qualified prospects" and therefore I would save yourself a tremendous amount of troubla and simply import as a single account with multiple contacts. When you import set the account type to prospect or even pre-qualified prospect.

  Click Here to login to the community and view the full post.

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• Training and Support

  Jan 28, 2005

  Salesforce.com Public Knowledgebase
  Get Answers to your Common Application Questions

  
  
  

  Levels of Support
  Phone Support:(415) 901-7010 (US)  +353-1-2723503 (IE)
  Log a Case: Log a Case

  Training over a dozen classes to choose from
  
  Customer Success Managers - Program Overview

  Log a Contact Me Request for your Account Executive, Professional Services, or Your Customer Success Manager

  Join the Online Community and meet other Salesforce.com users solving challenges similar to your own

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