Over the years, we have brought you a number of very different tips to help streamline processes, increase speed, improve reporting, and give your team valuable tools to help them with their every-day responsibilities. Often, I’ve seen recommendations from this and other blogs leveraged expertly in systems by awesome admins. But far too often, I’ve seen these tips used in silo. Today, I’d like to give you an example of how you can streamline processes by combining multiple tricks into one clean flow.
You may remember one of my favorite posts from back in 2014 about URL hacking to create useful custom buttons. You may also remember the tip about subscribing to Reports from 2015. A common process many companies implement is having their sales reps create their own commissions as invoices are paid on their deals. The problem is, sales reps aren’t always involved in the invoicing process, and commissions frequently have a lot of required information, including links to the invoice, opportunity, and rep, a percentage due, and a total amount. You want your reps spending their time selling, not digging through to find invoices and meticulously filling out loads of fields. Let me help simplify that for you.
Step 1: Create a Report with all the filters necessary to show a rep all the invoices where they may be due a commission. Assuming they can only see their own commission records (with a Private setting), add a cross object filter to the report to only show invoices without commissions. Show your team how to clone that Report, tweak it for their needs, and subscribe so that they’ll receive an email whenever there’s at least 1 invoice on the list for them.
Step 2: Create a custom button using URL hacking to fill in all the fields already contained on the invoice. Be sure to populate both the name and lookup ID (“_lkid” – see the link above for more details) for all lookup fields to make things as smooth as possible. You can add any Due To field by populating the Current User’s name there, and if the commission percentage is the same for everyone or very straight-forward, push that in as well. Now all they have to do is click the button and most of the data required will fall into place.
Step 3: Create a simple workflow to calculate the amount due based on the commission percent. Whether you were able to auto-populate that using the URL hacking or they needed to manually enter that, as soon as they save the record, it will be calculated, giving them yet one less thing to think about.
By combining these three relatively simple Salesforce tricks, your team will now be notified automatically if there’s anything they need to log, and will only have to click a button and fill in one or two fields to give you everything you need for your reporting and accounting team. Now they can focus on selling rather than monotonous data entry. But don’t stop here! If you have a process that needs improving, get creative. Use all the tools in your arsenal to come up with a powerful solution for every step along the way. Combine tips and tricks from here, other blogs, forums, and your own experience for a comprehensive way to streamline all of your processes in Salesforce!
Do you have any creative solutions you really love? I’d love to hear about them!
-Jared and the Salesforce Guys
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.