Has user adoption got you down? Does connecting the dots between emails make you want to pull your hair out? Are you baffled by the endless task of sending scheduled reports to employees or customers outside your Salesforce system? Well, sit back and let me help you out. I’ve got the top 3 workarounds to make your Salesforce experience more successful!
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3: Collaborate & do business in one place with Chatter Publisher Actions
The biggest complaint I hear from users is that it takes too many steps to do X, Y, or Z in Salesforce. “I’m trying to meet my sales goals and make as many calls as possible. When do I have time to log a call or create a new opportunity? This is taking way too much time!”
Well, as of Summer ’13, Salesforce has a solution with the release of Chatter Publisher Actions. Chatter Actions can be used to create any type of record from any Chatter feed anywhere in Salesforce and is mobile-ready out of the box. And with a little more ingenuity and a custom Visualforce page, they can do even more. With Chatter Actions, your users can ask for a colleague’s advice, log a call, add a new contact, and create a new opportunity or case without ever leaving a record. When they’re done, everything will be logged in the Chatter feed for easy visibility later. Users love it, and you will to!
2: Reduce email clutter & automatically link emails to Cases using Thread ID
When you’re reviewing your notes before reaching out to a client, there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to find that crucial email from two weeks ago that has the information you need today. Although Email-to-Salesforce can make this task easier, you’re still left with the manual process of dealing with unresolved items and linking relevant emails to Cases before you can use them.
Many organizations have implemented Email-to-Case for creating new cases, but that’s not the end of what this powerful feature has to offer. Available in most editions of Salesforce, Email-to-Case allows you to add a thread id to all emails from your system and an organization-wide email address you can make available to some or all of your users. Users send an email from a Case record using the organization wide email address, and when a client responds to the email containing the thread id anywhere in the email, Salesforce will automatically connect that email with the corresponding Case record.
Now, every email relevant to the Case will be in one place, right on the Case record. You don’t have to worry about losing it, and if you need to get additional help, there are no emails to forward to a colleague. Just send them to the Case and everything they need is right there.
1: Scheduling reports to Chatter Free users
Scheduled reports are one of the more useful tools offered by the metrics-side of Salesforce. When you schedule a report, it is automatically sent to any user at a set time and day. This is fantastic when the people who need the data are users in your system, but when they are executives with no need for Salesforce access or on the accounts receivable team and just need to know what checks to be expecting, you have to either swallow the cost of another Salesforce license or forward them the reports they need manually.
But did you know that Chatter Free users can receive scheduled reports? That’s right, with just a Chatter Free license, you can automate the process and not pay a penny extra. And with hundreds of licenses available, you should never have to worry about hitting your limits.
With Chatter Actions making it easier for users to do their jobs while respecting your validation rules, user adoption and morale will skyrocket. Cases have never been easier to resolve than when all your emails are automatically linked to them. And with Chatter Free users getting scheduled reports without you having to send them yourself, you’ll have more time to check out more of the cool tools Salesforce has to offer. For other info, please check out CloudMyBiz.com
-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.