Page 33 – Attain Partners

Tips for the Dreamforce Newbie

September 24, 2014/in ACF Solutions/by Josue

Twenty days and counting until Dreamforce 2014 gets underway and I cannot wait. This is my first Dreamforce and I admit to being a little overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. So I’ve consulted the wealth of Dreamforce knowledge that exists at ACF Solutions. (That’s 50+ years of Dreamforce experience.) Here’s what I learned:

Delivery Manager Virginia Berkenkotter, after attending her first (and apparently very rainy) Dreamforce last year, tells me to bring an umbrella. Last year, it rained the entire conference and they had only so many umbrellas to give out. Check!
Senior Consultant Reed Garland, who has two Dreamforces under his belt, tells me that “[t]he coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Note to self: bring warm clothes!
Ever the practical one, ACF President Kristin Sharpe, who is attending her 6th Dreamforce this year and who is known for her high-heels, says wear comfortable shoes; there is a lot more walking than you think. Okay, no 5-inch Manolo Blahniks for me this trip.
Solutions Architect Watt Hamlett, who is attending his 4th Dreamforce, suggests that I plan to spend plenty of time in the Foundation Zone. This is where I’ll find members of the Salesforce ecosystem – peer organizations, Foundation staff, and Foundation partners. Lots of good networking.
Senior Consultant Sandy Whitten, who attended her first Dreamforce last year, suggests spending time in the Developer Zone. This is where I’ll find out about all that is new (and to come) from a technical front. Plus, she adds, she “gathered lots of great materials (manuals, developer cheat sheets & more) for freeeeee!” I need to bring an extra suitcase.
CTO Doug Sharpe, a musician in his own right, says be sure to catch the big name music acts. (This year: Bruno Mars and Cake.) His personal favorite of the last 8 Dreamforces is Foo Fighters in 2008!
Kristin warns me not to overload my schedule, pick 2 or 3 key sessions. Delivery Manager Deepa Bedi, a 1-year Dreamforce veteran, suggests that I attend at least one roadmap session. And, if the choice is between a roadmap session and another session, Doug says opt for the roadmap. They provide future product information and I’ll be able to watch the other sessions on YouTube later.
San Francisco native and Business Development Director for Higher Ed Susan Tobes, who is attending her 7th Dreamforce, advises me to schedule some downtime away from the crowds and chaos of Dreamforce. Doug does his recuperating at the Thirsty Bear Brewing Company.
Delivery Manager Chris Pokrana, the granddaddy of them all clocking in at 10 consecutive Dreamforces this year (and arguably a record in the nonprofit community), urges me to watch my first keynote live; the excitement is palpable. I should plan, however, to get in line 30 to 45 minutes early. Good to know!

Thanks to all the ACF’ers for their invaluable advice. I’ll add my two cents to next year’s list. See you in San Francisco!

NGO Connect: What is it? And is it a good thing?

September 18, 2014/in Nonprofit Kristin Sharpe/by Josue

As you have probably seen by now, the Salesforce Foundation just announced their new NGO Connect product. This is an exciting next step for the Foundation and our ecosystem, but also has raised a lot of questions. Here’s my take and why I’m thrilled.

What is NGO Connect?

NGO Connect is the result of Salesforce Foundation doubling down on developing the best nonprofit CRM product including Fundraising, Events, and Volunteer Management. NGO Connect is a rebranding of roundCause, the fundraising software product from roundCorner, now backed by the power of the Salesforce Foundation.

Why I think this is great?

Investment and expertise by salesforce.com (the world’s #1 CRM company) and the Foundation means exponentially more rapid innovation for NGO Connect. NGO Connect rocks today and the pace of innovation going forward will be amazing.
Product support for NGO Connect will be integrated with the Salesforce support team via existing Basic or Premier support plans. Clients will be able to go to one place for support for core Salesforce and NGO Connect.
Closer collaboration between the roundCorner and core Salesforce product development teams mean that the nonprofit community will benefit more directly from Salesforce product innovations.
The Foundation will drive NGO Connect product development and roadmap, ensuring that the needs of the nonprofit community will be heard.

What questions did our team have about NGO Connect?

As much as I was excited by the NGO Connect announcement, our team had a number of questions. Here’s what I found out…

Q: Will NGO Connect be available via the Power of 10 Grant program?
A: Yes, 2 licenses of NGO Connect will be included with the P10 Grant.

Q: Will other AppExchange products work seamlessly with NGO Connect?
A: At present, some do and some do not. However, getting the key AppExchange products that serve the nonprofit community to work seamlessly with NGO Connect is a top priority. NGO Connect is currently providing the schema and support for implementors who want to integrate with their solution.

Q: What about NPSP 3.0?
A: The Foundation has been adamant; they will continue to support the NPSP. In fact, the Foundation’s NPSP and NGO Connect teams are one in the same. Over time I suspect that the best of NPSP 3.0 will make its way into NGO Connect and vice versa.

Q: Will roundCorner still exist or is it now part of the Foundation?
A: The company roundCorner will continue to exist and will continue to develop NGO Connect (formerly roundCause) better and faster with their investment from Salesforce.com, closer collaboration with the Salesforce CRM development team, and support from the Salesforce Foundation.

Q: What about other Fundraising, Event Management and Volunteer Management apps on the AppExchange today that could be seen as “competitors” to NGO Connect?
A: All those Apps will still be available and will continue to be a part of Salesforce’s thriving ecosystem. And some of them may even coexist with NGO Connect when that’s appropriate for organizations with specific needs.

6 Steps to Effective Data Integration

August 14, 2014/in Alanna Steffens/by Josue

The goal of Salesforce is to bring your various data sources into one central location to make the right data available to the right people at the right time in a way that they can use. However, getting the right data into Salesforce is key and can also be a key challenge. To help you tame the challenge, we’ve compiled six steps to help you best prepare for a successful data integration between your systems of record and Salesforce.

Identify the specific data you need to support the development of targeted lists, identify top candidates and improve outreach. Just because data can be brought into Salesforce, doesn’t mean that it should.
Determine the frequency of data coming info Salesforce. Should it be imported hourly, daily, weekly?
Identify unique record keys to reduce duplicates, e.g. email address. This is an important step to keep your data clean. If there is no unique record key in the source data, one can always be created by using several fields together.
Determine if the integration is one- or two-way. Two-way is appealing but will add to the timeline and expense of the project. One-way integration gets the data into Salesforce where it can be used to engage constituents, but still keeps it locked down to maintain the source system as the system of record.
Document any transformations that may need to occur on the data and determine where that transformation will occur. For example, if a field in your source system currently displays to users with the values of Hot, Lukewarm, or Cold, and the values in Salesforce display as High, Medium, and Low, this difference should be documented and a decision made as to when and where that change in the data value will be made and who will be making the change.
Determine if a middleware tool is required to assist with extraction, transformation and load. A middleware tool will sit between the data source and Salesforce and help in getting the data load prepped in a format that can be loaded into the Salesforce data model, as well as automate the regular exchange of data.. These tools are offered through various products such as Informatica, Jitterbit and CastIron just to name a few.

Improve Your Business School Recruiting with an Integrated Salesforce Solution

August 1, 2014/in Higher Education Alanna Steffens/by Josue

Tracking business school prospects and applicants is often a tedious task and requires many sources of data to get a complete picture. For many of our B-School clients, the existing recruiting and admissions environment is complicated by legacy SIS systems, shadow systems and even spreadsheets. Access to central campus systems and information isn’t always easy, timely or straightforward. Engagement information, such as one-off emails, phone calls, or event attendance, is often buried with a specific recruiter or in a shadow system and not easily accessible or usable by the entire recruiting team. Just imagine having all of this engagement data in one place:

Core Student Data Has the applicant previously applied to or attended the main campus? Is the applicant a legacy?
Event Attendance Has the prospect attended any recruitment events or toured the campus? Interactions What communications, i.e., email or telephone calls, has the school had with the prospect or applicant?
Social Media Monitoring & Marketing What is the prospect or applicant saying on social channels? What social media campaigns has a prospect engaged with?
Application Status Where is the applicant in the application process?
Geolocation Where is the prospect/applicant located vis-a-vis other candidates or school events?
Email Marketing What email marketing campaigns have we sent the prospect? Have they engaged with the email(s), i.e., opened, clicked through, unsubscribed?

Salesforce can take over many of your core recruiting functions like email marketing, events management, social media monitoring, and interaction tracking, while also integrating with your other systems of record for your core prospect profile, making the right data, available to your recruiters at the right time in a way that they can use.

With increased competition for students, it is critical for B-schools to bring this data into one central location through a strategic client relationship management (or CRM) tool like Salesforce, to help recruiters determine the likeliness that a prospect will apply and that an admitted applicant will enroll.

Salesforce1 Mobile: Revolutionizing Productivity in the Field

July 28, 2014/in ACF Solutions/by Josue

If you are a Salesforce user, you have no doubt heard of the new Salesforce1 mobile app, and most likely you have installed it and love it. It is a major improvement in usability compared to previous Salesforce mobile solutions such as Salesforce Classic. It is purpose-built for the touch paradigm and integrates well with your device’s calendar, phone, and email capabilities.

However, when it comes down to it, you probably think of the Salesforce1 mobile app as a way to view and update records from the field – and you have been able to do that with Salesforce mobile solutions for over 5 years. So what’s really new here?

MOBILE BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS: THE GAME CHANGER

Allowing every organization to conduct business transactions in the field is going to totally change the way many nonprofits and higher education institutions work. Do you remember the first time the UPS guy showed up at your door with a device that allowed him to scan your package as delivered and have you sign electronically? I bet you said “wow, that’s really cool”!

Do you also remember what the process was before that magic device? The delivery guy had you sign on a big paper roster of packages – with a sticker stuck next to the signature line. Definitely not cool – and a really inefficient way to capture accurate and timely business transaction information.

How many of the field business transactions at your nonprofit or higher education institution are still done on paper – or even worse, solely in people’s memory such that they never get captured in your business systems? I expect the answer is “too many”!

The Salesforce1 mobile app can help you transform your field business transactions into constituent interactions that are efficient, accurate, and automatically captured in Salesforce.

PUBLISHER ACTIONS = MOBILE EFFICIENCY

The key feature that makes the Salesforce1 mobile app a game changer for mobile business transactions is Publisher Actions. A Publisher Action is a shortcut to quickly capture a bit of data and update an existing record or create a new one. If you are already using Salesforce1 you will find a few Publisher Actions within the big “+” button in the lower right of your mobile screen when you are viewing a record. A simple example is using the standard Log a Call action to capture an interaction with a constituent, such as a Major Gift Officer logging notes after a prospect meeting.

One benefit of Publisher Actions is that you can configure them to only capture the data that is critical to the transaction being performed – and pre-fill default field values appropriate to that transaction. For example, you may have 200 fields on the contact record, but you really only need to update 3 fields in this situation in the field. This dramatically enhances user satisfaction with working remotely and improves data quality.

You can configure Publisher Actions unique to your organization’s mission, most often with clicks not code. Let’s say you are a human services organization that distributes blankets to homeless citizens in the winter. You could configure an action that allows staff to capture with each blanket distributed a quick record of the location and a few characteristics of the recipient. Imagine how the resulting data could help focus your service delivery and measure outcomes.

THINK PROCESS INNOVATION

Automating existing field processes has a lot of benefit. However, the real leap forward is when you start to invent entirely new business processes only possible with an efficient mobile Salesforce platform. If you sent your nonprofit’s staff out to visit your constituents in the field with connected devices, what metrics could they capture to help you target your investment or measure your outcomes? If you mobilized your university’s alumni association volunteers at the next big football game, what new ways of engaging with alumni and donors could you dream up?

Once you begin pairing the innovations of Salesforce1 with innovations in your own organization or institution, that’s when things really start to get interesting.

A River Runs Through It

June 13, 2014/in Higher Education Leidy Smith/by Josue

As I return and reflect on my recent visit to Boise State University for The Business School Roundtable (TBSr) annual event, I was struck by two things:

Boise is beautiful with the Boise River running through town and the surrounding green belt of outdoor activity.
Salesforce is making rapid inroads within business schools helping them improve productivity and engagement across the school.

Upon reflection, I realized the first thing I was most impressed with was really a metaphor for the second. As the river beautifully and seamlessly connects the city, Salesforce connects disparate groups at a school who are working with many of the same constituents. Like different functional areas using Salesforce, the river provides multiple points of entry and engagement, from fishing to kayaking, and each group enriches the experience of the other in contributing to the river’s vibrant ecosystem. And, at the risk of stretching this analogy too far, the river is similar to Salesforce’s cloud-based platform – no one in Boise has to worry about setting it up and keeping it running, it just keeps flowing, ready for you to engage however you choose.

It was energizing to hear how these top business schools at TBSr are using Salesforce to improve productivity and engagement. I was struck by a few quotes from the event:

“According to Gartner, any school that does not have an enterprise CRM in place by 2016 will be at a significant disadvantage.”

“We received an immediate ROI from our Salesforce implementation.”

And my personal favorite:

“Nobody understands the use of Salesforce in higher ed like ACF.”

So, as Higher Ed expands its use of CRM and Salesforce, business schools are moving ahead rapidly, representing a microcosm of what is happening all across campus. Whether it be in Recruiting & Admissions, Student Services, Alumni Relations, Executive Education or Career Services, business schools are dipping their toes into the Salesforce river at different points with the goal of getting into the flow and creating a platform with a fully integrated view of their constituents. A truly connected school with Salesforce running through it….

The Connected Campus

June 13, 2014/in Higher Education ACF Solutions/by Josue

The ACF team was thrilled to be a part of the second-annual Salesforce Higher Ed Summit in Tempe, Arizona last week. Over 600 attendees braved 110 degree heat to discuss creating a 360-degree view of the student constituent, and forging more meaningful and enduring relationships with students, parents, alumni, corporations, and friends. Salesforce envisions this as “The Connected Campus”.

The “Connected Campus” is centered on four solutions:

Recruit the right students
Ensure student success and retention
Engage alumni and raise more funds
Communicate more effectively

In addition to these goals, there was plenty of talk of efficiency and effectiveness. Constituents expect your institution to know who they are, understand their needs and approach them with targeted information and communication. And, in this era of “do more with less”, your staff needs systems that enhance, rather than impede, their ability to meet those expectations.

Thank you to the many ACF clients who made the trip to the Higher Ed Summit last week. Our special thanks to the speakers who participated in the Advancement and Alumni Relations track, of which ACF was this year’s sponsor: Karen Stevens of Northeastern University, Gerald Bridwell of Smith College, and Mark Naman of Notre Dame. Like these speakers, so many of you are already well on your way to the “Connected Campus” and have plans to do more. Breaking down the walls of the often fragmented and siloed world of a university is the work we do together and we love it!

On behalf of the ACF team, we thank you for partnering with us to support your continued success.

Salesforce1 for Nonprofits Connects Organizations Anytime, Anywhere

June 7, 2014/in Nonprofit Doug Sharpe/by Josue

What if your nonprofit could be connected — anywhere, anytime — and on your mobile device? A far-off dream? No — it’s now! Last week, the Salesforce Foundation announced Salesforce1 for Nonprofits at the Innovation Force + Social Good conference in Washington, DC. It’s a plan to strategically connect organizations and constituents to:

Manage cases, call centers, hotlines, advocacy and policy tracking, centrally within a single CRM.
Communicate and engage with their communities anytime, anywhere, with social intranets, member communities, chapter and affiliate communities and partner communities.
Enable real-time communication with volunteers, supporters and other constituents with multi-channel marketing, email marketing, marketing automation and social engagement.
All while still raising funds with features for donor, event, volunteer and grant management – a truly connected nonprofit.

So, of course, you are now asking how… The Salesforce Foundation has pulled these functions together with a solution roadmap called Salesforce1 for Nonprofits. This roadmap is the foundation of how this all fits together on the Salesforce platform. It includes the core Salesforce CRM components, nonprofit focused implementation partners like ACF, and a set of pre-integrated apps focused on the nonprofit sector including:

roundCorner: the roundCause platform allows organizations to build and retain lifetime constituents by executing fundraising campaigns at scale with built-in workflows, planning events and tracking volunteers all in one place.
Storybank: to collect powerful personal stories in order to demonstrate the real-world impact of events and policies.
WealthEngine: is a service that delivers donor research, screening and analytics to help nonprofits better target outreach efforts and raise more funds.
StayClassy: a sophisticated peer-to-peer fundraising solution.

At ACF, we think this is great news. The world is changing rapidly and to stay relevant, nonprofits must connect with their constituents when they want to be reached, how they want to be reached, and in a way that they will respond. Think about these facts:

There are 4.5 billion social network users
There will be 2.5 billion smartphones by 2017
Many of you serve constituents who do not have and never will have access to computers or even electricity regularly, but they do have mobile phones
Some donors still want to receive and respond via direct mail
You are competing for those constituents’ attention span, passion, and dollars

We are thrilled to be a part of the Salesforce Foundation’s Salesforce1 for Nonprofits solution to meeting and solving these challenges today! Find out how ACF Solutions can help your nonprofit. Contact us today!

The Power of the AppExchange

May 31, 2014/in Salesforce Scott Mostrom/by Reach Local

How many times has someone said to you ‘Hey, you gotta check out this app on my phone!”? Or better yet, have you said to someone “You won’t believe what you can do on your phone with this app I found”.

Like Apple’s App Store, Salesforce has cultivated an incredible ecosystem of partners on the Salesforce AppExchange with apps that plug right into your Salesforce instance. With over 2,300 apps – close to 950 free and 50 specifically for nonprofits – there are pre-built solutions ready to help enhance, streamline, and add to your existing business functions in Salesforce.

WHAT CAN THESE APPS DO FOR MY ORGANIZATION?

There are several ways AppExchange apps can add value to what you’re currently doing in Salesforce:

Enhance current processes – There are many great apps that make what you are already doing in Salesforce better. For example, Action Plans (free) is an app that helps you automate and better track sets of repeatable tasks designed to accomplish a specific goal – like the various activities in a major donor cultivation process that eventually leads to a major gift solicitation.
Extend the functional capabilities of core Salesforce – Out-of-the-box Salesforce has relatively limited functionality for mass emailing and events. Instead of using a separate system and an import/export process for contact information, there’s a wealth of mass email and event apps that cleanly integrate with the contacts you’re already storing in Salesforce. You can work those functions directly out of Salesforce and capture those important engagement touch points.
Bridge Salesforce gaps – You probably know the frustration of running into a Salesforce limitation, particularly around reporting or automation. Apps like Apsona Multi-Step Reporting and Rollup Helper go beyond what Salesforce allows you to do so you can work magic for your staff that would otherwise require custom development.
Tie into ancillary business functions– You may still have some of your business functions like Accounting in a completely separate system. What if you were able to integrate those with Salesforce so that your donations and event registrations could feed directly into your accounting system? Accounting Seed and FinancialForce Accounting are among many available options on the AppExchange.

HOW DO I KNOW THE RIGHT APP TO CHOOSE?

With so many apps available, the hard part can be choosing the right one. Start by searching for keywords like ‘events’, ‘email’, or ‘reporting’. The following tips will help you determine what will meet your needs:

Check out reviews – Like most online stores it’s a community, so there are star rankings and reviews for each product … good and bad.
Try it out – Many of the apps allow a free trial of some sort. Usually it’s a quick process to download and get started – just remember to try this in a sandbox instance first.
Look at costs– Many are free, and some are paid. As a nonprofit, you’re often eligible for a generous discount. If no discount is listed, contact the vendor directly.
Ask – If you need a suggestion for the right app for your specific need, there’s a good chance someone has already asked that question – or someone else is ready to answer it. Join the Power of Us HUB (PUB) Community and check out their many groups, including the AppExchange group.
Stay up to date – Sign up to get the weekly AppExchange newsletter to learn more about the newest and best apps.

HOW WILL THESE APPS HELP THE BIG PICTURE?

Increased efficiency, better user adoption, and centralized constituent information are just some of the benefits of using the right apps to help you better engage and drive your cause. Plus, you’ll be able to say to your co-workers:“You won’t believe what you can do in Salesforce with this app I found”.

Have a Salesforce app you can’t live without? Let us know in the comments.

Salesforce Spring ’14 Release: Top Features to Enable at Your Organization

May 19, 2014/in Deepa Bedi/by Josue

The Salesforce Spring ’14 Release is here! I always anticipate the features of each release that can make a user’s life easier, and this release does not disappoint. Here is a quick run-down of the top features you might find useful at your organization, that you can take advantage of right now:

GENERAL

Topics for Objects: This enhancement allows users to add topics to records to organize them and does not require Chatter to be enabled. Topics can be used as a filter in List Views and are easily searchable. They replace “Public Tags”. For example, you can mark prospect records as “Global Conference 2013” and “Reviewed by Research”.
Feed-Based Page Layouts: Now you can have feed based layouts for Contact, Account, Lead, Opportunity and Custom Objects with two separate views: one for the record’s feed and one for its detail. No more scrolling down through the long feed to get to the fields!
Field History Data Retention (Pilot): This feature lets you specify date ranges for retaining field history. How does this help? It saves on data storage!
File Storage Increase: File storage is increased from 612 MB to 2 GB per user. With the increased use of Chatter files for sharing and for attaching documents to records, this is a big leap. (See release notes for specific increase by edition.)

CHATTER

Chatter Group Announcements: Now you can highlight important messages, by posting an announcement to a group. For example: “Register for the Non-Profit Conference by May 5th”. The group announcement displays in a yellow highlighted area below the group photo and as a post in the group feed. The announcement will expire on an “Expiration Date” specified by the author.
Knowledgeable People and Endorsements: Now users can tap into who is knowledgeable about a particular topic. The new Skills feature allows easy identification and search for experts in an area. Users can add or delete skills on their Chatter profile page or on the detail pages. Other users can endorse those skills – similar to LinkedIn, but within your organization.

REPORTS AND ANALYTICS

Historical Trending Enhancements: Select the fields in a custom report to create historical trend reports which analyze how cases and opportunities are moving through the pipeline and solutions lifecycle. For example: “what changed in cases assigned to my team” or “what opportunities/proposals NOT in the prospecting stage have a new close date this month.” The Spring ’14 release supports historical trending for Cases, Opportunities, Forecasting and up to 3 additional custom objects. Always consider data storage when enabling trending and field history tracking.
Sort for Report Groupings: This enhancement (much awaited!) allows you to sort a report by each level of grouping in a summary/matrix report. Previously, you had to create a tabular dashboard component to see this information.
Dashboard Analytics: There are some small, yet nice enhancements for Dashboards. When you run a dashboard, units can now be displayed in decimals and percentages. Administrators with the “Edit Dashboards” permission, but without the “View All Data” permission can now edit dashboard components even if they are not the running user of the dashboard. And, now with named dashboard filters, dashboard users can choose their preferred filter by name.

COMMUNITIES

Salesforce Communities: Is your organization using or considering using Salesforce Communities? Besides all the other nice features for stronger collaboration, users can now give and receive badges and recognition in Communities. At ACF Solutions, “#Brickworthy” is our topic tag to recognize the exceptional players on our team. With this release, users can now also send secure Private Chatter messages to other community members.

MOBILE aka SALESFORCE1

Salesforce1: This has been a favorite since Dreamforce! Now you can create new records, view dashboards, manage activities, send meeting invitations, manage daily tasks AND access Communities, all from Salesforce1 on your mobile device – and there is no additional mobile license cost. Dashboards are now available in global search. And, you can add charts within Salesforce1 using Embedded Analytics.

To enable a certain feature refer to the release notes table of contents.

Here is a link to Spring 2014 Release videos.

We will be back with a Summer ‘14 release update soon. The Summer ‘14 release preview will be available in the sandbox starting June 6, 2014. Please contact [email protected] for specific consulting questions.