Importing legacy data into Salesforce is something we deal with almost on a daily basis. Since 70% of our business comes from clients that are “moving in” to Salesforce for the first time, we get asked quite a bit about best practices on how to tackle old data. First thing to know – just because you can import…
Any good Admin from time to time has to roll-up their sleeves and do some work with the Apex Data Loader (or LexiLoader if you’re using a Mac). It’s the “go to” data utility for mass uploading, updating and deleting records – but did you know you can also use it to mass upload attachments?…
Even with the meteoric resurgence of Apple in the past few years, Salesforce does not have an official email sync solution for Mac Mail (at least at the time of this article). Fortunately for us there is a Salesforce developer named Simon Fell that has come to our rescue with a solution called Maildrop (BTW…
On September 21, 2011, Shell Black teamed up with Salesforce MVP Matt Lamb to present “Usability and Salesforce” to the Dallas Salesforce Users Group. The agenda consisted of: What is Usability? What is Usability Testing? Configuring Salesforce for Usability Usability Boot Camp Q & A Matt and I presented for an hour sharing our secrets…
On August 7th ShellBlack.com became a premium supporter of the Salesforce community site We Are Daryl Shaber For those that don’t know, @DarylShaber on Twitter is the alter ego of a Salesforce Community member and fellow Salesforce evangelist. Daryl Shaber is a constant promoter (tweeter) of all things Salesforce. Project Charter from We Are Daryl Shaber:…
There are a handful of fields that I want in the same place at the top of every record for consistency. I’ll call this the record “header.” In the Left column I prefer: Record Owner Link to Parent (e.g. Account “Parent Account” or Contact “Reports To”) Record Name Picklists that help categorize the record (e.g….
In our previous post we discussed why Usability is important. In this installment let’s get started configuring Salesforce with Usability in mind. First stop – the Home Tab! Salesforce out-of-the-box likes to put a lot of noise on the Home Tab. Again, my preference but I like to turn a couple of things off. Remove the Dashboard…
I can tell in a manner of minutes looking at someone’s Salesforce org and talking to Users if a prior implementation partner or Administrator spent any time optimizing Salesforce to be easy to use. Here are some symptoms of a Salesforce org that has not been optimized for usability: Users complain of not being able…
By far, Accounts and Contacts are the most popular set of records to be imported into Salesforce.com when you “move in.” Most likely Accounts and Contacts are your customers, but very well may also include your partners, vendors and even your competitors! Importing legacy data is typically the very last step prior to training end…
The Salesforce.com Mail Merge feature can be a lifesaver if you want to make a letter, direct mail piece, invoice, proposal, or even a contract in Microsoft Word using data from your records in Salesforce. If you have created form letters, labels or envelopes in MS Word from a database or Excel file, Mail Merge…