Shamrock CRM – Salesforce.com Consulting, Implementations and Web Development

Spring 2010 Salesforce.com Release is Here

The Salesforce.com Spring 2010 release is finally upon us and you are probably wondering what you can enable / setup within Salesforce.com to better streamline your business. I will briefly go through many of the top features (IMO) and let you know what to expect.

Real Time Quotes – This is a new feature that should have been around a long time ago, because most companies have already created their own quoting process by now and it will be difficult to convert to this new Salesforce functionality. Multiple quotes can be associated to one Opportunity, data can be synchronized between the Opportunity and Quotes, and PDF’s can be easily generated. I am really not too impressed by this, because there really are some excellent AppExchange products out there that already do this.

New Opportunity UI (User Interface) – This is actually pretty cool, but it is currently in Pilot mode and must be enabled. The idea behind this is that there are certain fields on an Opportunity, no matter what business you are in, that are vitally important, such as Stage and Amount. This UI places these fields directly on the top of the page and makes them highly visible and accessible. I like it.

Salesforce Mobile Lite for ALL Organizations, including Group – Congrats everyone! If you haven’t been able to access Salesforce Mobile before, you can now. Go to the BlackBerry and Iphone stores now and download and customize this app for your organization!

Rich Text Area fields – Once again, Pilot, but long needed in Salesforce.com. Contact your Salesforce reps for this.

Branded Event Invitiations – Salesforce has always neglected email marketing / email templates in Salesforce.com. You can now place your logos on outgoing calendar events, therefore branding them.

Entitlement Management (Service) – Salesforce is now making a BIG push for the service aspects of its product, ie. the Service Cloud. Entitlement management is a newly released feature, which will be highly beneficial for support companies that are actively managing Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). You can quickly identify if customers have support agreements, what level they are subscribed to, and the KPI’s that your customer support reps must adhere to. Workflows can be built to enforce these KPI’s and everything can be tracked with reports. There are additional components related to Entitlement Management to facilitate additional aspects, such as service contracts and milestones. This is a really big feature and is something that needed to be custom built and highly customized before. Let me know if you need assistance with setting this up.

Salesforce Answers – Just like Yahoo Answers, but built into the Salesforce platform. This will be built directly into your Salesforce community and will allow users to ask questions, answer questions, and vote on answers.

New Salesforce.com User Interface Design – Salesforce has been a little behind the times with their design when comparing their website to other SAAS / Web 2.0 sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. They have decided to upgrade their overall design. This will not be available immediately and will need to be enabled. It won’t be enabled by default. I hope this new design is faster. It seems that Chrome is not supported.

New Report Builder!!!!! Developer Only – This is going to be revolutionary. Instead of tons of steps in a report wizard, this will be one, all encompassing report builder that is easy to use for everyone, with an excellent preview mode. Developer mode only, which is saddening.

Custom Dashboard Tables – Outstanding! The table dashboard component now allows you to display 4 columns instead of 2. Previously, you could only display an Account Name and a Dollar value for an example. Now you could also display the Country field and Account #. This is a nice improvement.

SOQL Enhancements – This is huge. Now, advanced SOQL functions can be used, such as GROUP BY, HAVING, AVG, MAX, MIN, SUM, COUNT_DISTINCT, etc. There are also many additional Date filters. Why was this not there before? Do you know how much time this would have saved all developers if this previously existed? I am very pleased with this. There are also ANTI JOINS and SEMI JOINS.

Debug Log Improvements – Debug logs have drastically improved, which is a small, but very nice improvement if you are working with APEX code.

Change Sets and Cloud Deployment (beta) – Great idea, but needs a lot of work. I have rarely been able to use this feature successfully, because of minor errors. It will allow you to deploy sets of code, reports, fields, layouts, etc from the Sandbox to Production and vice versa from directly within the user interface, instead of Eclipse’s IDE or the awful ANT migration tool. This is similar to SAP transports.

Multilevel Master Detail Relationships – You can now create multiple levels deep. ex. Project, Requests for Bids, Actual Bid Submitted, Review of Bid could be multiple master detail relationships.

My Domain – Receive your own subdomain name directly on the Salesforce.com servers. Limited release only.

Take a detailed look through the Spring 2010 Release Notes.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of the new features or if you need any information about how they might apply to you or how you could enable them.

Salesforce.com Winter ‘10 New Features

Hey everybody! The features for the Salesforce.com Winter 2010 release are starting to be decided upon and there seem to be a lot of good ones, right in time for Dreamforce in November! Here are a few to look at and think about for now:

Scheduling of APEX – This will allow you to have Cronjobs in Salesforce.com. Before, if you didn’t have your own server or Cast Iron, you could not schedule some mass processing task to perform on a daily basis. This will add a lot of functionality on top of workflows existing functionality. Great feature. I wonder how the governors will work with this.

Batch Processing – I believe that this is becoming widely available in Winter ‘10. It will allow you to mass process thousands of records at once to do large scale transformations and calculations at once. Salesforce must be ramping up their data center.

Mass Uploading of Content – Self Explanatory. Could be beneficial for new projects and data migrations.

Specification of how “Others” will be defined in dashboards – You can choose certain thresholds for how a record will show up in “Others” in a dashboard. We’ll see how this really works later.

Changing colors on dashboards – specify your own color schemas.

Compare User Profiles to view the differences – This is great, because it is VERY difficult to manage multiple profiles now.

Multiple Y-Axis Items Allowed in Charts – I guess I will need to see a real life example of this.

“Send From” with Workflow Emails – FINALLY! Instead of mailing from the person who last modified the record, this will allow you to specify an email to send workflow emails from.

Create Quote / Convert to Order / Convert to Assets – Whoa whoa whoa. Rewind. Is Salesforce really implementing some huge new functionality like this? Link

Dashboard drilldown to specified drilldown on report – Very cool

Help text for standard fields – Ok, this might be useful.

There’s more, but these are the most interesting so far. Take a look at the other ideas under consideration!

Salesforce.com Winter 2010 Logo – Snowman

I was hoping that they would choose the gingerbread man for the Salesforce.com Winter ‘10 Release, but they decided on the snowman. Get ready to see this little guy for a long time

New “Quick Summary” of Shamrock CRM, like it?

I made a new “quick summary”, “about Shamrock Crm”, high level description page for our company.

Let me know your thoughts/likes/dislikes? The purpose is to catch your eye immediately and tell you exactly what we do and why we are good at it.

Take a look and let me know!
Salesforce.com Developers

Salesforce.com Integrations

Do you have the need to integrate your Salesforce.com system with any of your ERP or legacy systems or databases?

Would you like to link up SAP Customer Orders with Salesforce.com?  Would you like to integrate the Contacts in your SQL database with all of your Accounts and Contacts in Salesforce.com?  Maybe you would like to seamlessly integrate multiple Salesforce.com org’s into one business warehouse?

I have performed countless Salesforce.com integrations including systems such as SAP, SQL, Oracle, Web Services, Salesforce.com, Flat Files and more.  All interfaces are possible.  It all comes down to gathering detailed functional and technical specifications.  Shamrock CRM has a massive amount of experience with Enterprise level integrations.

If you would like to pass data between Salesforce.com and another system, whether it be bi-directionally, uni-directionally or en masse, Shamrock CRM can set this up for you in a timely and cost effective manner.

Email Tanner at tanner@shamrockcrm.com for more information about Salesforce.com Integrations.

Take a look. I was on MSNBC, Bloomberg, AOL, etc for a Salesforce.com Cast Iron Integration with SAP that I performed:
MSNBC – Bloomberg

Customer Comments from LinkedIn.com

Just thought I’d post a few LinkedIn.com recommendations from some of my customers:

• Dave, the VP of Marketing at Clinipace, Inc. posted:

“Shamrock CRM knows “Salesforce.com”. We hired them to help us customize our sales pipeline management within our Salesforce.com deployment. Tanner and his developers got the job done at an affordable price. The consultants at Shamrock CRM are so much more than “developers”. They are CRM experts who understand process flow from lead generation to sales to operations. I simply explained what we were looking to accomplish and they developed a plan of attack and executed flawlessly. I have since used Shamrock CRM on 6+ additional projects.”

• Violet, a Sales Operations Project Manager at Intermec Technologies posted:

“Tanner Shamrock has been a tremendous resource to our company. The software development projects that he assisted us with involved complex processes that could not be easily accommodated within the out-of-box functionality of Salesforce.com. Throughout the development, Tanner would provide honest feedback and suggest creative approaches to problems so that we could achieve our end goals on time and within budget. Because of the initial success of the first project and our very positive experience, we engaged Tanner for a second, third, and soon to be fourth and fifth project — he has become the go-to resource for all of our Salesforce.com development projects and is highly recommended to anyone who is looking for a knowledgeable, reliable, and personable developer resource.”

• Brian, a Senior Marketing Manager at CenturyTel posted:

“As the Senior Marketing Manager for an S&P 500 company, I managed our Sales Operations Team and had responsibility for Salesforce.com. After extensive research, we located Tanner and presented him with a detailed set of requirements. Tanner was able to develop a custom application, code driven, for our organization, which enabled detailed reporting on sales activities for 75 direct sales representatives. Not only did Tanner deliver the product on time, the amount of “fine tuning” was minimal.”

• Keith, the CIO at Rico Equipment Inc posted:

“I have used Tanner for several salesforce development projects so far this year and have been pleased with the results every time. In fact, Tanner has become our “go to” resource for salesforce development projects. He is very easy to work with and his delivery times are fantastic. In addition to his programming skills, Tanner brings a valuable ability to translate high level business needs into working code.”

• Stefan, the CTO at Moo.com posted:

“Shamrock CRM helped customise our Salesforce integration at moo.com. Despite working entirely remotely (we’re in London, (I think) he’s in Florida), the work went very smoothly and has worked flawlessly since implementation. He just ‘got it done’ – happy to recommend him for any Salesforce work.”

• Jane, the Director of Development at Conservatory of Flowers (nonprofit) posted:

“Tanner Shamrock customized Salesforce for our non-profit. He was timely, efficient and reasonably priced. I highly recommend him.”

• Wendy, the Executive Director at Thrive posted:

“Our small non-profit hired Tanner Shamrock to customize Sales Force for our very specific database needs. He has been very easy to work with and we are very pleased with his work.”

• Neil, a Managing Consultant at TomTom Consultants posted:

“Tanner provided a great service and met the project objectives within budget. He is responsive, an expert on advanced salesforce.com development and we would/will engage Shamrock CRM in future to assist with the deep technical aspects of our projects.”

• Dixie, an Admissions Advisor at Boise State University (nonprofit) posted:

“We at Boise State, Department of Educational Technology, hired Tanner Shamrock as a consultant, web-designer to help us customize our Sales Force site to meet our specific needs. With Tanner Shamrock’s help, we have had great results in a short period of time. He is reliable, consistent, intelligent, and personable. We are going to continue our working relationship on an “as needed” basis, and we would recommend his work to everyone.”

• Jeanne, the Development Director at Casa Allegra Community Services (nonprofit) posted:

“Tanner is a pleasure to work with. Our Salesforce database is critical to fundraising and donor & volunteer cultivation. When we first contacted him, Tanner immediately understood our frustrations with a pre-exististing, customized and incomprehensible database that was originally designed with salespeople in mind. He had the experience with other non-profits to help us simplify our database appearance and functionality. He continues to guide us and provide the support that we need to better access, produce reports and update our Salesforce database. He is easy to reach and responds quickly to emails or calls. I am very pleased to recommend Tanner Shamrock.”

• Dave, the President at Connecting Members posted:

“Our firm has used Salesforce.com for over 5 years. Recently we cancelled our Premier Support from Salesforce because it was not providing exactly what we were looking for. That’s when we found Shamrock CRM to provide a higher level of SF knowledge and support. Our first project with Shamrock was awesome and we are now on to the second. Young, fresh, knowledgeable. A pleasure to work with.”

• Jared, the Director of Science Programs at Thirteen/WNET New York (nonprofit) posted:

“Tanner Shamrock did a great job actively distilling what we needed and creatively customizing a generic program to meet our specific needs.”

• Dave, an IT Manager at TIC Gums posted:

“We needed some enhancments to our Salesforce.com (SFDC) implementation that we were unable to create because we lacked the technical skills. We have in-house development staff and wanted to both implement the enhancements and also treat this as a learning experience for our staff. Shamrock CRM implemented our changes both quickly and inexpensively. After implementation we reviewed the changes with Shamrock and added to our in-house skill set. Shamrock demonstrated both functional and technical knowledge that contributed to a quick and accurate implementation. Shamrock CRM will be at the top of our list the next time we need help.”

• David, the President at San Diego CRM posted:

“I have never, ever worked with a consultant as talented and as easy to work with as Tanner Shamrock. If they handed out Nobel prizes for consulting, he would be one of the first that I would recommend!”

• Ron, a Board Member at Ad-Venture, LLC posted:

“Fast, Professional and priced right. I highly recommend Shamrock CRM!”

Shamrock CRM has many other very happy customers.  This is just a small sampling of our successes!

Our Project Quoting Process

Unlike many consulting companies that simply charge by the hour and tend to overrun their time and cost estimates, we provide specific quotes (both time and cost) for each project. We will gather the high level requirements of the project and then provide an estimate of time. Let’s say that we quote 15 hours of work for a project. We will never exceed this amount of time. It might require less time and thus cost you less, but you will never be charged any more. The project will be completed successfully and expertly in the amount of time and money quoted. For larger projects that require many different aspects, we will provide a defined range of time. You will always know what to expect from the beginning.

If you have any upcoming projects that you would be interested in having done by Shamrock CRM, contact us Today and we will build a no-hassle quote within 24 hours for you.

Tanner’s Salesforce.com Background

-I have acted as the Product Lifecycle Responsible for Salesforce.com for hundreds of users.  This consists of Web Development, Business Analysis, Project Management and Account Management.
-I have solely architected the system for a deployment of 2000+ users for a Global deployment with multiple interfaces and customizations.
-I have implemented many full Salesforce.com deployments for both profit and non-profit organizations.
-I have created thousands of lines of Javascript and APEX for custom S-Controls, Triggers and VisualForce to facilitate business needs.
-I have implemented system integrations using both Java and Cast Iron.  (SAP, SQL, SFDC<>SFDC, etc)
-I have utilized all features within Salesforce.com.  I am an expert with this system.
-I have a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and a Master’s degree in Management Information Systems.
-I am a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)

At Shamrock CRM, I perform ad-hoc Salesforce.com development work, consisting of configuration projects, code development, system administration and full Salesforce.com implementations.  My turnaround time is lightning fast.

Do you have any upcoming projects that would require a Salesforce expert?  Do you have any custom APEX / s-controls / formulas / workflows / VisualForce / etc that you need created?  Do you need a dedicated Salesforce.com Administrator and Developer?  What else can Shamrock CRM assist you with?  We are willing to take any size project.

View my personal Resume at http://www.tannershamrock.com