December 2005 - Successforce Blog

Public Knowledgebase with Solution Categories

This week we rolled out the Public Knowledgebase with Solution Categories on the Successforce.com site. As an administrator this might be interesting to you for two reasons.

First, it gives you a new way to deflect questions and make your users more self-sufficient. The Public Knowledgebase is the exact same knowledgebase that salesforce.com’s support team uses, only this way you can find answers to your questions immediately vs. logging a case and waiting for a response. You might add the link to your intranet, as a custom link on your salesforce.com homepage, or include it your emails when replying to questions.

The second reason this might be of interest is that this is native Salesforce functionality available to all Professional and Enterprise Edition customers. It’s very easy to add it to your site and once you have it set up, all the administration is done from within salesforce.com. Click here to begin the setup process.

Public Knowledgebase with Solution Categories

This week we rolled out the Public Knowledgebase with Solution Categories on the Successforce.com site. As an administrator this might be interesting to you for two reasons.

First, it gives you a new way to deflect questions and make your users more self-sufficient. The Public Knowledgebase is the exact same knowledgebase that salesforce.com’s support team uses, only this way you can find answers to your questions immediately vs. logging a case and waiting for a response. You might add the link to your intranet, as a custom link on your salesforce.com homepage, or include it your emails when replying to questions.

The second reason this might be of interest is that this is native Salesforce functionality available to all Professional and Enterprise Edition customers. It’s very easy to add it to your site and once you have it set up, all the administration is done from within salesforce.com. Click here to begin the setup process.

Streamline Partner Recruitment with Salesforce

Many customers today use Salesforce to manage new partner registration and recruitment programs. To this end, companies use Record Types, Page Layouts, Custom Fields, Lead Processes, Web to Lead, Find Duplicates, Lead Conversion, Assignment Rules, Reports/Dashboards and Workflow to streamline new partner recruitment. Here are the steps and the recommended approach to make it happen in your companies. First, create a Record Type called new partner registration. Note that multiple Record Types can be used to support customer leads, partner recruitment, and deal registration business models. Each record type is assigned a Lead Process. Here is an example of how multiple record types with corresponding lead processes are set up in Salesforce.

Streamline Partner Recruitment with Salesforce

Many customers today use Salesforce to manage new partner registration and recruitment programs. To this end, companies use Record Types, Page Layouts, Custom Fields, Lead Processes, Web to Lead, Find Duplicates, Lead Conversion, Assignment Rules, Reports/Dashboards and Workflow to streamline new partner recruitment. Here are the steps and the recommended approach to make it happen in your companies. First, create a Record Type called new partner registration. Note that multiple Record Types can be used to support customer leads, partner recruitment, and deal registration business models. Each record type is assigned a Lead Process. Here is an example of how multiple record types with corresponding lead processes are set up in Salesforce.

Yesterday's Service Issues

Salesforce.com System Update

On Tuesday December 20^th, some salesforce.com users experienced intermittent access (between approximately 9:30 am and 12:41 pm ET & 2:00 pm and 4:45 pm ET) on one of the company’s four global nodes. The root cause of the intermittent access was an error in the database cluster. Salesforce.com addressed the issue with the database vendor. By Tuesday afternoon EST, the system was running normally for all users.

All four global nodes are currently operational and running normally. There are no outstanding issues in the system at this time. No other aspects of the system were involved.

We apologize to any customer who was inconvenienced.

Update 12/23/05: For a more detailed explanation, steps taken to mitigate risk of recurrence, and new outage communication procedures, click here.

Yesterday's Service Issues

Salesforce.com System Update

On Tuesday December 20^th, some salesforce.com users experienced intermittent access (between approximately 9:30 am and 12:41 pm ET & 2:00 pm and 4:45 pm ET) on one of the company’s four global nodes. The root cause of the intermittent access was an error in the database cluster. Salesforce.com addressed the issue with the database vendor. By Tuesday afternoon EST, the system was running normally for all users.

All four global nodes are currently operational and running normally. There are no outstanding issues in the system at this time. No other aspects of the system were involved.

We apologize to any customer who was inconvenienced.

Update 12/23/05: For a more detailed explanation, steps taken to mitigate risk of recurrence, and new outage communication procedures, click here.

Keep Offline Edition Always Synched!

Offline salesforce.com offers an Offline Edition of its application for use by mobile salespeople. It provides access to Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, and Activity history, within a familiar salesforce.com interface, and bidirectionally synchs with salesforce.com's classic "online edition".

There is the catch: You have to synch it, both before you go on the road, and when you get back!

Here is how you can ensure you never work with stale data again! Be a hero, and recommend this to all your Offline users: Schedule the synching using Microsoft Windows Scheduler. For example, schedule offline to popup every day at 3pm, to remind you to click the synch button.

Keep Offline Edition Always Synched!

Offline salesforce.com offers an Offline Edition of its application for use by mobile salespeople. It provides access to Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, and Activity history, within a familiar salesforce.com interface, and bidirectionally synchs with salesforce.com's classic "online edition".

There is the catch: You have to synch it, both before you go on the road, and when you get back!

Here is how you can ensure you never work with stale data again! Be a hero, and recommend this to all your Offline users: Schedule the synching using Microsoft Windows Scheduler. For example, schedule offline to popup every day at 3pm, to remind you to click the synch button.

December's Personalized Account Review

Today the Personalized Account Review was sent out to all Salesforce.com Administrators and those opted in to the Admin Newsletter. If you didn’t receive the Personalized Account Review and want more information on opting in, click here.

December's Personalized Account Review

Today the Personalized Account Review was sent out to all Salesforce.com Administrators and those opted in to the Admin Newsletter. If you didn’t receive the Personalized Account Review and want more information on opting in, click here.