Page 35 – Attain Partners

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 Joe DePalma

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.

Developing a CRM Roadmap for Your Institution

May 10, 2014/in ACF Solutions/by Josue

Institutions of Higher Education recognize the growing need to maximize revenue and reduce costs by effectively and collaboratively acquiring, retaining, connecting with and engaging their constituents throughout their lifecycles. Salesforce.com is an enterprise CRM solution that has the capacity to enable Colleges and Universities to achieve this goal by providing a platform to support lifetime, enterprise constituent engagement in real-time.

As Higher Education moves towards non-industry-specific platforms, like Salesforce, the need for a path to deliver an organization-wide (enterprise) solution is critical. By developing a tailored CRM Roadmap to address the needs of the functional users, your school can gain the desired benefits of improved recruiting, retention and graduation rates, operational efficiencies, strong alumni engagement, new revenue opportunities, and increased overall constituent satisfaction.

WHY DEVELOP A CRM ROADMAP?

A CRM strategy will help to ensure and strengthen your institution’s position by building greatly improved constituent relationships, enhancing internal operations, and making more effective use of human and data assets in service to those constituents. The roadmap is the tactical response to delivering your strategy.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

• Gain senior level sponsorship

• Assess current state and define future state gaps

• Identify opportunities for process improvements and efficiencies

• Define CRM requirements

• Develop a phased roll-out strategy

Achieving success in developing intimate and enduring relationships with constituents begins with a holistic consideration of your institution’s functions and abilities. Developing a CRM Roadmap will provide you with the plan to help your institution form deeper relationships with constituents.

Salesforce Service Cloud: Top 10 Features for Nonprofits and Higher Education

May 6, 2014/in Watt Hamlett/by Joe DePalma

One of the strongest core areas of Salesforce is what is known as the “Service Cloud” — the part of the platform that supports customer service functions.The Service Cloud is used by companies like Chipotle to manage customer feedback on their burritos, and Activision to manage help desk support for players of the Call of Duty video game series.

The Service Cloud is also used by nonprofits and associations to manage constituent support for donors and members, power information helplines, and support other types of constituent services. It is also used within higher education to manage prospect and student services, intellectual property licensing requests, and more.

But what exactly is the Service Cloud? It is actually made up of a series of integrated features designed to improve the customer service experience for both your constituents and staff alike. Here is a quick run-down of the top 10 features:

Cases: Cases are the core record type of Service Cloud. They enable your staff to track all the key details around each service incident, as well as easily create business rules that route or escalate support requests based on your business processes.
Case Feed: Harnessing the collaboration power of Salesforce Chatter, the Case Feed gives your staff an intuitive, chronological view of all activity on a case and enables service teams to “follow”, “like”, and “comment” on cases as needed.
Email-to-case: Set up one or more special email addresses (like “[email protected]”) that route your constituents’ requests directly to Salesforce to automatically create a case and notify the right staff members.
Web-to-case: Similarly, set up Web forms that enable constituents to enter their information across various fields, which automatically create cases that can be more efficiently routed and serviced based on the information provided.
Telephone Integration: With Salesforce CTI, your phone agents will see Salesforce records display automatically on their screens based on the incoming caller and nature of the call. There is also click-to-dial for outbound calls. Saleforce integrates with lots of telephony providers and there many pre-built connectors available.
Live Agent: Want to let your constituents chat online with your customer support team? Live Agent offers provides the tools you’ll need to manage inbound chat activity.
Knowledge: Not only does Salesforce give you great tools for managing a knowledge base, it also provides a recommendation engine, presenting suggested articles to your staff based on keywords in the case. You can also make your knowledge base public on your Web site.
Service Cloud Console: For high-volume call centers, the Service Cloud Console provides an optimized user interface, letting your staff efficiently manage lots of activity at once across all the Service Cloud features.
Communities: With Salesforce Communities, you can provide self-service options to your constituents to not only log and track their own cases, but also to post questions and receive support from other constituents.
Marketing Cloud: Many of the questions or needs that your organization or school could address are being posted elsewhere across the public Web, on sites like Twitter. Using the social listening capabilities of Radian6, you can efficiently monitor millions of sources and turn those questions into cases that your staff can respond to.
Salesforce1: OK, so this top 10 list goes to 11. But no discussion of Salesforce today is complete without mentioning Salesforce1. Salesforce1 means your customer service agents can quickly access customer and case data from their mobile devices, and your supervisors can likewise monitor escalations and service metrics from their tablet or smart phone.

When Saleforce Service Cloud is combined with other capabilities of Salesforce CRM within your organization or institution, it can contribute significantly toward helping you become more constituent-centric.

Want to know more about the Service Cloud? Contact ACF Solutions to speak to one of our nonprofit or higher education specialists.

Announcing the ACF Solutions Blog for Nonprofits & Higher Education

May 2, 2014/in Kristin Sharpe/by Josue

Welcome! I am excited to announce that ACF Solutions has launched a blog. We have an amazing team with a ton of collective knowledge to share. Our blog will allow us to share information of interest and best practices with the nonprofit and higher education communities. Look for insights on choosing and adopting cloud-based solutions, tips and strategies for leveraging Salesforce.com across your enterprise, commentary on industry news, and happenings at ACF.

We will be kicking off our blog with several posts over the next few weeks. Our first blog post is by Watt Hamlett, our Solutions Architect extraordinaire, on the Salesforce “Service Cloud”. Other upcoming topics include building a CRM roadmap, the Salesforce Spring release, and more.

We’d love to hear from you so please feel free to leave a comment below or e-mail us your thoughts at [email protected].