August 24, 2011: Salesforce.com Atlanta User Group Meeting

6 Steps to Data Integration in The Cloud

Allan Schwab, Informatica

Why integrate?

• Collaboration between departments and data centers
• Drive success of Salesforce
• Greater adoption
• Stronger connection
• More business value
• Make Salesforce more valuable by bringing in non-CRM data

What are the options of Salesforce.com integration?

• Hand Code
  • Advantages: Most Flexibility
  • Disadvantages: Maintenance Requirements
• Free Tools
  • Advantages: Free, Easiest Way
  • Disadvantages: Ad Hoc vs. Automated, Loading data is just one requirement
• On-premise tools for IT
  • Advantages: Mature, proven platform
  • Disadvantages: Not a tool for masses, takes specialized training to perform
• Cloud Services
  • Advantages: Rapid deployment, minimal training, seamless upgrades, fewer IT resources
  • Disadvantages: None!

Informatica has won AppExchange's Best of Apps for 3 years in a row

Demo:

• All access is through the browser
• Secure Agent is a one-time download
• Create tasks with easy-to-use wizard
• At runtime, Agent runs tasks, replicating data based on configuration of the task (full refresh, incremental, etc)
• Create connections, pointing services to your data
• For Salesforce connections, log in and everything else is after that is point and click
• Mapping can be auto
• matched or drag and drop
• Can concatenate 2 fields to map to one field
• Over 100 functions and operator lookups
• Can create formula that will perform lookups
• Can migrate tasks from Developer org to Production org

 

Using Formula Fields to Enhance Reports

James Martucci, Salesforce.com

• Exception reporting - used to show data that doesn't exist
  • i.e. Which Opportunity doesn't have Products?
• CRT (Custom Report Types) with or without framework don't show expectations
• Leverage roll-up summary fields in a Master-Detail relationship

EXAMPLE: Accounts without Opportunities

Setup - Customize - Accounts - Fields - Custom Fields

• Roll-Up summary, labeled 'Number of Opportunities'
• Use IF function for Opportunities < $100k

IF(Amount >100000, 1, 0)

• Create Opportunity field formula in report and summarize on "Deal over 100k" Value to identify all 0's
• Create comparison bar chart labeled "Large vs. Total Opportunities"

EXAMPLE: Reporting on Multiple Time Frames

"How did company do this August compared to last August in Sales?

• Create formula, MonthstoClose:

((YEAR(ClosedDate)

• (YEAR(Today())) X 12) + (MONTH(ClosedDate)
• MONTH (Today ()))

   

• Create report and filter "Months to Close" = 0 (Current Month), -1 (Last Month), -2 (Two months ago), -12 (Current Month last year), -13 (Last month last year), -14 (Two months ago last year)
• To make months lay beside each other in chart, add Month Value field (Jan = 1, Feb = 2) and sort by Month Value in report

Introduction to Salesforce Partner Portal

Venkat Polisetti, Fiserv

Setup - Create - Partners - Settings - New

• 2 types of licenses: Silver and Gold - you must purchase these licenses
• Can customize Portal to show company branding
• Single sign on available for Customer and Partner portal
• Need to set private security settings on data
• Look and Feel will reflect on their website after signon
• Portal Tab Set Editor - shows what tabs are available on portal website
• Clone standard portal profiles
• Create Account and Contact, then enable Account as Partner User (button titled "Work with Portal")
• Change email template to have sign-on URL