Blog
January 15, 2016
As anyone who has been around the Salesforce world knows, you don’t get far into a conversation about Salesforce before theAppExchangecomes up. This is certainly true for the work ACF Solutions does in the nonprofit and higher ed sectors. We have completed over 500 Salesforce implementations for nonprofits and higher ed clients and, with few exceptions, they have all involved at least one app from the AppExchange. This week, as the AppExchange turns ten, we are reflecting on the positive impact that the AppExchange has had on our customers.
The AppExchange, of course, is the vast marketplace of Salesforce-compatible applications that enhance and extend the capabilities of Salesforce. Yes, Salesforce in and of itself is a fantastic application for managing data and engaging constituents. And yes, it is possible to build customizations or integrations for Salesforce to get it do things it does not natively do. But creating and maintaining such one-off customizations and integrations would be cost-prohibitive to the majority of our customers and would greatly increase the length of an implementation. That’s where the AppExchange comes in.
Thanks to the AppExchange, there are a wide variety of tested and approved applications designed specifically to work with Salesforce. These applications can be delivered much more quickly than customizations, and can do so more cost-effectively while also including benefits like upgrades, a product roadmap, documentation, customer support, and a community of users.
Here are some of the key categories of applications on the AppExchange that our nonprofit and higher ed clients frequently rely on. In each of these categories, there are multiple options for apps that enhance the native capabilities of Salesforce, connect Salesforce to external systems, and in some cases, both:
- Fundraising
- Recruiting and admissions
- Event management
- Email marketing
- Integration
- Productivity
That last category is a broad one. It includes an array of different tools that make Salesforce more functional – and even more fun – for day-to-day users. Examples here include apps for plotting and analyzing data on a built-in map, generating sophisticated merge documents, and connecting Salesforce with your inbox.
Happy 10th birthday, AppExchange! Thank you – and all the innovators at Salesforce and partner software companies who make you possible – for helping nonprofits, colleges, and universities do what they do better.
