Author Archives: lkao

How to Create Your Own Website on Salesforce.com

Posted on October 18, 2009 by lkao

Also known as Force.com Sites, Salesforce.com lets you build your website on top of their platform. What’s that mean?

  • Your tech folks no longer have to build a database from scratch to capture whatever information your website is trying to get from its visitors.
  • You no longer have to get your email inbox bogged down with unsortable data whenever someone fills out a form on your website. (And you really shouldn’t be using the outdated “send an email to contact us” method, because that just causes more pain for the person who has to receive those alerts)
  • The information that’s captured goes right into a well-organized database (ie Salesforce) and you can make use of that data right away. Or at least run reports to get a better picture of who’s coming to your site.

Here’s a spiffy demo of what sites can do for you. I enjoy how there’s a good variety of websites mentioned: big consumer names like Dell and Starbucks, as well as those in other sectors (like a blood bank!).

Posted in Salesforce.com - General, Tips | Comments Off on How to Create Your Own Website on Salesforce.com

How to Log a Voicemail Call in Salesforce

Posted on August 30, 2009 by lkao

The Salesforce folks have started publishing short best practice snippets over on YouTube.

Here’s a customization tip that describes how to create a custom button that performs two actions for you:

  • Logs a completed activity (that you made a call and left a voicemail),
  • Creates a new task to follow up later with a call

So if you’re confident in your basic Salesforce Administrator skills, this is a nice little productivity tool for your reps.

Note: The video only mentions that once this button is created, you’ll have to know how to add it to the appropriate page layouts, so you should be familiar with that concept.

Posted in SFA, Tips | 2 Comments

How to Add a Google Calendar into Salesforce.com

Posted on August 30, 2009 by lkao

User quintonwall has posted a quick demo on how to embed a Google Calendar into Salesforce.

Why not use Salesforce’s calendaring feature? That’s another story, but for now, let’s just say if you’re a current Google Calendar fan, and you’re using Salesforce, you (and the team, optionally) can incorporate your Google Calendar into your Salesforce Home Page.

Key points shown:

  • How to get the embed code from Google Calendar
  • Where to paste it in Salesforce
  • Who to share it with (if at all)

Note: There’s no audio, but there are text annotations along the way.

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Salesforce.com NonProfit Edition – Webinars

Posted on April 23, 2009 by lkao

In case you’re interested in learning about Salesforce’s support of nonprofits through its product donation program, they conduct weekly live webinars where you can hear about the program from a Foundation member, and then see a live demo of Nonprofit Edition.

Posted in Non-Profit / Foundation | Comments Off on Salesforce.com NonProfit Edition – Webinars