Partner Networks Blog
Partner Networks Blog - PRM Training
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Find and connect with partners using Salesforce.com
Oct 15, 2009Interested in finding out which of your partners use Salesforce.com so that you can connect and start collaborating on deals, leads and other business processes? With Winter ’10, customers can use the Connection Finder feature to survey their partners to find out if the partner uses Salesforce.com as their CRM system of choice.
With Connection Finder customers can:
· Send a simple branded survey to all their partner contacts
· Partners can respond with their Salesforce.com usage status
· Partners can also include details on their Salesforce.com Administrator (e.g. name, email) if they have this information
· Partner responses are captured on the partner contact record in the ‘Uses Salesforce’ field
· Customers can use this information to connect with partners who already use Salesforce.com using Salesforce to Salesforce; that is free for all our customers
Feature can be enabled by customers at the following location in setup: Setup|Customize|Salesforce to Salesforce|Connection Finder
If you have any questions, send them to: s2s@salesforce.com
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New Winter '10 features from Salesforce Partners
Oct 9, 2009The Salesforce Partners team has delivered some key features with the Winter ’10 release. These features were a direct output of your feedback over the past few months. You can get additional details on each feature by clicking on the links below and by referring to the FAQs and Demo's available at this blog.
Salesforce to Salesforce*
Partner Portal
2. Connection Finder: find partners using Salesforce.com
3. Log Errors in Connection Audit
1. SAML for partner users** * Salesforce to Salesforce is free for all editions, including Group edition
** Gold and Partner Edition only. Available in Portal 3.0
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Summer '09 spotlight: Third-party service management with Salesforce Partners
Jun 24, 2009With Summer '09, Salesforce to Salesforce now supports sharing Cases and Case Comments. In Spring '09 we released Cases in the Partner Portal as well - so the Salesforce Partners product line completely supports Third-Party Service Management.
Some of the business processes supported include:
- End customer using Salesforce CRM directly logs Case with one or more vendors and service agents that also use Salesforce CRM
- Vendor shares Cases with other Vendors as well as Service agents and Resellers
- Partner logs Case with Vendor on their behalf
- Partner logs Case with Vendor on behalf of the end customer
- Sharing the same customer case with multiple stakeholders (i.e. Vendors, Resellers, Third-party service agents) and all parties receiving real-time visibility on changes to cases
The above processes can be supported using both Salesforce to Salesforce and Partner Portal. The former would be used if the stakeholder (Vendor, Partner or Customer) uses Salesforce CRM while the latter would be used if the stakeholder (Vendor, Partner) does not use Salesforce CRM. Customer portal should be used for end customers that do not use Salesforce CRM. Most use cases involve using a combination of Salesforce to Salesforce, partner portal and customer portal.
You can find more information on the Cases features on this blog
Remember, Salesforce to Salesforce is free for all customers including Group Edition. If customers have any questions or need help running a pilot feel free to contact Product Management at: s2s@salesforce.com
- End customer using Salesforce CRM directly logs Case with one or more vendors and service agents that also use Salesforce CRM
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New Summer '09 features from Salesforce Partners
Jun 10, 2009The Salesforce Partners team has delivered some key features with the Summer ’09 release. These features were a direct output of your feedback over the past few months. You can get additional details on each feature by clicking on the links below and by referring to the FAQs and Demo's available at this blog.
Salesforce to Salesforce*
Partner Portal
1. Share Cases with public Comments
2. Auto-Accept Records from Connections
3. Auto-Map Subscribed fields
4. Share auto-number fields
1. Partner Portal Administrative Tools ** * Salesforce to Salesforce is free for all editions, including Group edition
** Gold and Partner Edition only. Available in Portal 3.0
If you have any questions, send your emails to product management at: s2s@salesforce.com
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Spring 09 spotlight: Sharing Opportunity Products with Connections
Feb 27, 2009As you are probably aware, Salesforce to Salesforce now supports sharing Product Catalog and Opportunity Products with connections. Additionally, customers can automate this process using the API feature and share the same product with multiple connections (e.g. reseller and distributor) using the 1:Many feature. Sharing opportunity products is a little more involved compared to other objects. Below is a checklist that you should be aware of to successfully share Products on opportunities:
1) Parent Opportunity must be shared with the connections
2) Product Catalog must be shared with the connections (use the Products list view feature on the Products tab to select Products Catalogs to share)
3) Product Catalog must be active and also be in the price book of the target opportunity
4) Source's Opportunity currency and target's Opportunity currency should match and the product in the target's opportunity price list must also have the currency available and active
5) If the target product has schedules then Quantity and Sales Price are only inserted but never updated
6) Opportunity Product can be shared when sharing the opportunity or using the 'Manage Connections' link on the Sent Connection Name column on the Products related list on the OpportunityIf you have any questions, reach out to product management at: s2s@salesforce.com
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New Spring '09 features from Salesforce Partners
Feb 10, 2009The Salesforce Partners team has delivered some key features with the Spring ’09 release. These features were a direct output of your feedback over the past few months. You can get additional details on each feature by clicking on the links below.
Salesforce to Salesforce*
Partner Portal
1. Share Product Catalogs & Opportunity Products
2. Share records with multiple partners
3. Connection Invitation Templates
4. Automate sharing of records with API
5. Share formula and roll-up summary fields
1. Third Party Service Management **
2. Partner Service**
3. Email for Partners***
* Salesforce to Salesforce is free for all editions, including Group edition
** Gold and Partner Edition only. Available in Portal 3.0
*** Gold, Silver and Partner Edition only. Available in Portal 3.0
If you have any questions, send your emails to product management at: s2s@salesforce.com
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Impact of Salesforce to Salesforce on Validation Rules and Apex Triggers
Feb 4, 2009We've received a number of questions from customers on the impact of Salesforce to Salesforce on existing or new validation rules and apex triggers. The reality is when two companies connect their salesforce.com instances, in most cases each company has its own unique set of validation criteria and triggers. Additionally, these criteria might be looking at fields that haven't even been shared between the connected companies. Today, if a customers accepts a record from a connection and that record fails to meet validation or trigger criteria we provide a generic error message stating: 0 records accepted. It is on our roadmap to provide more useful error messages as well as log these errors in the Connection Audit so the customer can do something about it.
There is a way, however, for customers to bypass validation rules and triggers when either accepting a record from a connection or receiving an update on a connected record from the connection. The basic idea here is that we bypass these organization specific rules when first accepting the record or when a connection updates the record but these same rules are enforced if an internal user creates a new record or updates an existing record. This is how most of our customers have configured their connections. Once you make these changes - you're organization's rules will be Salesforce to Salesforce aware. It is good practice to include the tasks below in any S2S roll-out plan or when creating a validation rule or apex trigger.
Changes to Validation rules: the following should be included within an 'AND' statement with the rest of the rule
Text version:
IF(OR(ISNEW(), ISNULL(Id)), if(ConnectionReceivedId =null, TRUE, FALSE),NOT(AND(ISCHANGED(ConnectionReceivedId), NOT(ConnectionReceivedId = null)))),
NOT(Contains($User.Alias, "pnet"))
Example of Apex Trigger that is S2S aware: sample below is on Opportunities (same logic for other objects)
Apex trigger
Apex class
If you have any questions on this topic, email: s2s@salesforce.com
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New and improved PRM home page components
Jul 30, 2008Many customers leverage the PRM Home Page Components which include the following:
- Lead Inbox
- Approval Requests History
- Channel Manager Name and Profile Link
Previously these were implemented as S-Controls. The new version leverages VisualForce instead of S-controls. The new components load significantly faster and provide for a better user experience. You can download the latest PRM Home Page components here:
https://login.salesforce.com/?startURL=%2Fpackaging%2FinstallPackage.apexp%3Fp0%3D04t30000000RpQ3
The instructions are located here:
Download prm_home_page_components_guide_v1.2.doc
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Salesforce to Salesforce - Self help guides for customers
Jun 1, 2008I have updated this post with all the new features we've released with the Winter '10 release. Please note some of the features will not be activated until October 14th (after all instances are upgraded). With Winter '10, we've released a number of must-have features requested by our customers including:
- Sharing Attachments (October 14th)
- Connection Finder: find and connect with partners using Salesforce.com
- Log Errors in Connection Audit (October 14th)
Salesforce to Salesforce is free for all customers, including Group Edition customers. No additional charge to send invitations, accept invitations and share records!
Below, I have listed all the necessary documentation you will need to configure the Salesforce to Salesforce service. It includes an implementation guide, FAQ and self-help demos.
Your support rep or CSM should be your primary touchpoint (along with your AE), but if you have product specific questions please email them to: s2s@salesforce.com and we will try to get back to you within 48hrs.
Self help guides:
Self help videos (Adobe Captivate):
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New Partner Portal Migration Guide
Mar 12, 2008As many of you may know, we recently released the Spring 08 partner portal which is based on a new infrastructure. All customers that enabled PRM after Feb 15th 2008 should be using this new infrastructure. Customers that enabled PRM prior to Feb 15th, 2008 will likely still be using the old portal infrastructure. The migration guide walks you through the process of migrating your partner portal to the new infrastructure.
Download Migrating_from_portal_2.0
Some of the features included with the new portal include:
- Cases support
- Reports
- Calendar and Events
- Ability to send emails
- Support for VisualForce
- Support for custom buttons and custom links
- Support for webtabs
- Read only version of Salesforce Content
- A community forum for your partners based on the Salesforce Ideas product
- A consolidated task list and My Tasks component on the homepage
- Printer friendly views of Leads, Opportunities, etc.
- HTML Solutions
- Delegated Partner Administration
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