According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are approximately 30.7 million small businesses in the United States. While our team works with companies of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 1000, we find it particularly gratifying to deliver solutions for small businesses. Small businesses are often challenged by budgets, time, and their team's bandwidth. That's why they benefit more from focusing their efforts on implementing applications and tools that streamline processes and automate manual and repetitive steps. Salesforce is often seen as a heavyweight CRM that is challenging to implement for small businesses, but with a trusted Salesforce partner they too can reap the benefits of a world-class CRM and business process automation platform.

In this week's Small Business Spotlight, we are excited to highlight Industrial Fire Products Corp. Our team worked with IPFC to implement Salesforce for their sales and accounting processes, and we're excited to share some of their insights about their business, their challenges, and their advice for implementing Salesforce!

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What does IFPC do

Founded in 1992, we are a corporation dedicated to serve our customers in all Firefighting, Rescue and Safety Equipment needs. We are equipped with the knowledge, the skills, the experience, and commitment to meet our customer’s requirements. IFPC is a distributor of public safety equipment and vehicles serving Puerto Rico and the Caribbean since 1992. We sell anything from PPE equipment to an emergency vehicle (ex. fire truck). If a first responder uses it, we sell it.

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What are some of your business or client goals?

Our customers main objective is to save lives and property and IFPCs main goal is to protect our communities by providing the best service and equipment to first responders. We help them have the best equipment on the market so they can do their jobs safely and efficiently.

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What would you say was your greatest business challenge before implementing Salesforce?

We didn’t have a CRM so it was difficult to track all of our contacts in one place as well as tracking the actual status of each quote or opportunity.

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What has been the biggest benefit you’ve seen from your Salesforce investment?

We now have visibility, through the use of Dashboards, to structure our sales teams with sales targets and real-time opportunities/sales status. In addition, Sales Reps now receive notifications when all the items from a sales order have arrived and are ready to be delivered. This was not possible with our previous software (Quickbooks).

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What advice would you give to small businesses thinking about whether they should implement Salesforce into their workflow?

Go for it! At first, the president of our company thought it was overkill for our small business. However, thanks to the help our implementation partner, Relay, we quickly were able to demonstrate that Salesforce would provide a solid foundation for our growth plans. I recommend implementing it together with a native accounting software like Accounting Seed to keep all your data in one system. Salesforce is more than just a CRM, it lets you build simple automations that can eliminate busy work.

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If you are interested in learning more about how Salesforce custom apps and integrations can help you run your business processes more efficiently and unlock insights into your operations, schedule a 30 minute consultation with one of our Salesforce Architects today or send us a message!

Salesforce for Law Firms: Our Guide

Successful law firms are organized, efficient, and effective. When a law firm such as yours is beginning to grow and you’re seemingly playing “catch-up” every week, you can begin to feel extremely burdened with employee management, record maintenance, handling of cases, and admin work. In this post, we’ll be discussing how you can best implement a customized Salesforce approach with our team here at Relay. Read on to discover the power of Salesforce when paired with Relay custom applications can help your law firm accelerate and grow over the upcoming years.

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How Salesforce Can Benefit Your Law Firm

Salesforce has a way of allowing your law firm to thrive without having to be inundated with extra amounts of task management and administrative work every single day. The main purpose of Salesforce, at least when Relay is customizing the approach, is to empower your law firm with the best foundation for future growth. Whether you need to know what is on the docket for the day, case status and case management, payment status, or even past client case outcomes, Salesforce can handle that.  Need to feed recent arrests into Salesforce? We can create an integration for that. Every implementation we make to your custom Salesforce environment is designed with you and your company in mind. There are many nuanced components of a Salesforce solution we’ve been able to identify over the years, and we’re thrilled to be able to incorporate our knowledge and expertise into your everyday practices.

Employee Management

With any successful law firm, there are going to be growing pains with employee management. With Salesforce, you’ll be able to manage your employees efficiently and effectively, across multiple departments with ease. From identifying skillsets of case managers so they are assigned the right kind of cases that match their strengths to being able to audit interactions they've recorded with clients and even keeping track of reviews and professional development plans, Salesforce can help with that. A customized approach to Salesforce will allow you to ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to company-wide goals. Bridging the gap between employee departments as your law firm begins to transform from small to large is a critical component of your future success.

Maintaining Records

If your business records are scattered all over the place, both physically and digitally, you’ll probably end up experiencing issues along the way. With Salesforce, everything is housed digitally and cloud-based. Whether you’re visiting another city within your state to gain a better understanding of an ongoing case, or you’re on the other side of the world attending a legal conference; you’ll be able to pull the data you need within seconds. International law firms often have unintentional overlap between office locations and this could result in everything from miscommunication to an accidental over-billing of clients. Both of these scenarios are not ideal and may end up causing you undue grief and issues. Avoid this with a custom Salesforce application for your law firm.

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Managing Complex Cases

Many law firms will encounter complex cases which require many hands in the pot, so to speak. When there are multiple variables at play, alongside multiple attorneys within your firm handling a single case; it can become complicated quite rapidly. To avoid a pending fiasco, you’ll want to manage your complex cases by having a clear understanding from the onset. This can be accomplished by establishing a solid plan, developing processes for common and uncommon actions, and coordinating the Salesforce workflow to meet your law firm’s unique needs. From there, it’ll most likely be much easier to manage complex cases, far and wide, across the globe.

Consolidating Administrative Work

Administrative work can be the final straw for many law firms when it comes to a buildup of stress and paperwork. A custom Salesforce build from Relay can help minimize redundancy and prevent a large buildup of to-do lists from overtaking all of your employees’ entire days. Automated emails which are trigged when case statuses update, or when court dates are set keep your client in the know. They know what is happening with their case, when the next court date is, and whether or not they need to be there. If their payment is overdue they can get automatic notifications, and you can process payment right in salesforce via an integration with your payment gateway. When Salesforce is implemented correctly from the start, you’ll often find there are many benefits to the overall day-to-day workflow; especially when it comes to admin work.

Contact Relay for a Customized Approach to Salesforce

If you’re a growing law firm, or even a highly established law firm seeking customized Salesforce applications; you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to help your law firm exceed expectations, both internally and externally. Feel free to contact us using the form below and we’ll be sure to respond to your inquiry within one business day. We look forward to hearing from you soon and can’t wait to learn more about your law firm, your goals, and how we can help you quickly achieve your ambitions.

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Salesforce for Startups: How Salesforce Can Accelerate Your Startup

The startup field is fiercely competitive. Anything which can be done to better yourself and your startup should be considered to accelerate and advance your business to new heights. With a customized Salesforce approach from Relay, you’ll be able to differentiate your brand when compared to other startups in the field. Throughout this post, we’ll be discussing the various components of a successful, custom Salesforce development and how it can benefit your startup as each milestone is met. As you read along, we will share how Relay can help your startup reach its new heights on a much more efficient and effective basis.

Combining Custom Salesforce Apps & Startups Such as Yours

When Salesforce and startups meet eye-to-eye, there are many benefits to be had. The main benefit we’ve seen is the concise nature of a custom Salesforce development which is custom-catered to every aspect of your startup’s ecosystem. There are many moving  parts with any successful startup, and when there are many moving parts; you may run into issues across the board. With a custom Salesforce app or integration, you’ll not have to worry about the “what ifs” of problems and instead can focus on the “what ifs” of solutions. Within the Salesforce ecosystem, Innovation is the key to progress. Partnering with Relay as you join the ecosystem, you will be immersed within a community that allows you to capture more useful insights, engage in strategic learning and have the support from subject matter experts to tailor your salesforce to  your startups specific needs.

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Diving Deep into Data with Built-In Analytics Tools

Salesforce has many great features from the start with its built-in analytics toolset, yet with a custom build, you’ll be able to have nearly any and all features you need, placed throughout. This can allow you to better focus on the variables which matter most to your startup and have the right data, at the right time, in front of the right members of your team. Customers know you have their data. They know everything you can do with it. And they expect you to use it to provide fast, smart, personalized engagement across every interaction. Think of Data as an iceberg. What you see as a user is just the tip — but beneath the surface lurks a behemoth support system of data scientists and engineers, massive amounts of data, labor-intensive extraction and preparation of that data, and a huge technology infrastructure. It takes a specialized team of data scientists and developers to access the correct data, prepare the data, build the correct models, and then integrate the predictions back into an end-user experience such as CRM. Thats where Relay can come into play.

Focusing On the Customer Experience

Customer experience is everything when it comes to the underlying success of your startup. So many startups invest tons of time, effort, energy, and funds into ensuring their customers are taken care of from day one. We know you’re the same and we want to allow you to see every aspect of the customer experience, before it happens, when it happens, and after it happens. From there, you’ll be able to pivot accordingly and have all of your bases covered through automation, modification, and personalization. Today the customer feels the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services. We feel this way as well. At Relay, we pride ourselves on being a customer first company. We work for you!

Managing Small Problems, Before They Become Big Problems

No one makes it to the top without falling down once or twice. Just like in life, startups have high highs and low lows. Thats the name of the game, and if you’re determined enough to ride the wave of success, you’ll most likely be able to come out on top. With Salesforce, you’ll be able to correctly identify small problems before they become big problems. This is all thanks to the ability to bridge every department within your startup to allow clear and concise communication, day in and day out. With Salesforce you are able to create a single source of truth and will be the core enabler on your path to digital transformation and a thriving business. Relay's vision and expertise will allow you to create unified views across multiple business segments, so you can deliver the most optimal experiences at every customer touchpoint and when problems do arise you will have the foundation and support to pivot and act accordingly.

Discovering Solutions with Relay’s Custom Salesforce Apps

We want to learn more about your startup and how we can best align our skills with your skills. With the help of Relay, we strive to improve your customer’s customer’s (no, that’s not a typo) experience! If you are interested in taking your digital transformation strategy to the next level, feel free to contact us using the form below and we’ll be sure to follow up as soon as possible. We look forward to hearing from you soon and we’re very excited to show you a better future state and partner on the journey towards your startup’s success!

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Labor First is a full-service Retiree Benefit Manager, providing customized health benefit solutions and member advocacy services to the retirees of multi-employer group benefit plans. Since 2005, Labor First is the only Medicare Benefit Manager that solely services the union retiree healthcare marketplace.

Labor First offers unique Medicare benefit plans that enhances existing benefits for current retirees while offering savings for plan sponsors. But beyond this, they offer a team of Retiree Advocates that assist members through the complex world of retirement benefits; creating a truly holistic experience for the lifecycle of the relationship.

Relay has been a long standing partner of Labor First helping them innovate and grow on the Salesforce platform. We are sharing a chat with Kimberly Lundgren, Labor First's Vice President of Information Technology, about the company, challenges, and of course, Salesforce.

What are some of Labor First's biggest challenges in the next year?

Labor First is growing rapidly, and with growth comes change. We are working hard at figuring out how to scale our current technology stack to accommodate this growth.

‍What has been the biggest benefit you have seen from your Salesforce investment?

Having the ability to modify Salesforce to support current and future needs, has proven to be invaluable. Our Salesforce org has been built out to support the business processes used by every department.

What advice would you give to companies thinking about whether they should implement Salesforce into their workflow?

Don't try to re-create a legacy system in Salesforce. Take the time to understand how Salesforce works and all that can be done with a well thought out, outstanding implementation. Salesforce is extremely agile, and with proper planning, can break down silos, support business processes for multiple departments, thus providing better visibility into company operations.

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If you are interested in learning more about how Salesforce custom apps and integrations can help you run your business processes more efficiently and unlock insights into your operations, schedule a 30 minute consultation with one of our Salesforce Architects today or send us a message!

The Basics: What is the Salesforce AppExchange?

Short answer? It’s the Appstore for B2B business applications.

The Salesforce AppExchange is the biggest marketplace for B2B apps out there.

You’ll find apps from ISVs (Independent service vendors for) productivity, documentation, project management, marketing & sales, and of course, apps catering to specific verticals, niches, and use-cases.

Salesforce allows connecting the entire customer journey across sales, service, commerce, marketing, and every other touchpoint. This means it has got every approach that could bring a business closer to the customers. Reaching closer to the customers becomes easier when it is through an application that is easy to use and proves to be functional for them. This is where the role of a Salesforce AppExchange developer comes into play.

Having your application on AppExchange means that your business is visible to the customers. But this will be true when your app is good enough to leave an impression. A professional Salesforce AppExchange developer creates application for a business, creating something just what they had expected.

Here are some of the roles and responsibilities of the developer:

• To develop, configure, and deploy a business application using the Salesforce platform, ensuring that the security standards of the application are top-notch.
• To create, execute, and maintain APEX code, VisualForce, Salesforce incorporation, and AppExchange pages.
• To effectively test and implement the application, managing all the processes like coding, configuring, installation, maintenance, and debugging under proper timelines.
• To work closely with the business teams and develop custom workflows and CRM solutions.

As a quick take away, here are some top rated Apps that highly skilled Salesforce Developers leverage.

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1) Slack

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Salesforce developers have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this world by using Slack to surface the information their customers need at the time they need it. Developers can extend their apps and allow users to use Slack as their collaboration hub and take action on data from Salesforce and other business systems. Combining the low code capabilities of Salesforce and Slack’s user interface, developer toolsets, and API services, Salesforce developers are in a unique position to build apps that can provide a connected experience for employees and customers.

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2) RingLead

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Streamline the health of your database by continuously capturing, cleansing, protecting, and enriching your data with customizable technology and real-time, crowdsourced intelligence. The RingLead Platform orchestrates Salesforce and Marketing Automation processes like managing duplicates, data normalization, segmentation, enrichment, routing, and much more.

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3) Deployment Manager for Marketing Cloud

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Easy to use, no doubt that this app is a strong ally for those who have more than one business units to separate the production environments from the test environments. Deployment Manager was one of the highest rated sessions in the Partner Lodge at Dreamforce 2019 and it’s also the 2nd most downloaded Salesforce app which allows partners to streamline account creation, migration and setup.

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4) ORGanizer for Salesforce

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ORGanizer for Salesforce Extension lets you forget about your Salesforce.com username and passwords and help you to recognize Salesforce.com tabs on your browser. ... With ORGanizer you can choose color and title of every ORG tab you open. Developers work in many orgs and have individual passwords and logging for each that they use. With ORGanizer they now will have a user friendly and save way of accessing each org. As a Salesforce Developer anything that saves me time when it comes too tools is worth it's weight in gold.

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5) Building your own app

With Salesforce Platform, there’s no infrastructure or software to buy, set up, and manage. With a few clicks, you can start building custom cloud apps now. For developers, Trailhead is the easiest way to go further with Salesforce. Designed as a series of fun, interactive tutorials, Trailhead takes you step by step through Salesforce, and you can start at any level. As a Developer, building an app is a great way to pursue digital transformation. A great app becomes a tool customers and employees eventually feel like they couldn’t live without. In that sense, the “development” of an app doesn’t end with the launch. You’ll continue to iterate, improve and reimagine what your app will do. And as that happens, your business will keep on benefiting from the results. Salesforce is an eden for Developers as it has a tremendous amounts of support on the platform and provides a low code solution in building powerful apps.

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The AppExchange is a power marketplace and has thousands of Apps to help everyone on your team. For Developers the App exchange is where they can find new tools to innovate within the Salesforce instance and even create and publish new apps for other to use.

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Now that we discussed the features of Salesforce we don't like, let's talk about the features that we do like — and there are A LOT. At Relay we are not only experts in Salesforce, but we are incredible advocates for the platform as well. There is simply no competition to the breadth of features that Salesforce provides. Let's take a look at the five Salesforce features we are most thankful for.

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1) Can Prototype a Solution Very Quickly

Because Salesforce is such a broad platform and encompasses so many components, you can take an idea from inception to completion incredibly quick. Many Salesforce developers choose to use third party apps such as Avonni Creator or Sketch to prototype their UX ahead of time, but if you already have a sense of what you want your app to be, you can work right in Salesforce. Using Lightning Web Components, you can mock up a rough version of your app in no time, without ever writing a single piece of code.

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2) Free Apps on the AppExchange

It's no secret we are huge fans of the Salesforce AppExchange. Now due to the nature of Salesforce, most of the apps on the AppExchange skew towards the more expensive side. But in fact, there are a ton of great free apps that often go overlooked. Whether it's Ringlead Field Trip, to analyze your org's field usage or S-Docs to supercharge your Salesforce documents, there is no shortage of absolutely free apps that will improve your team's productivity.

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3) Paid Apps on the AppExchange

While we do love free apps on the AppExchange, it's only once you delve into paid apps that you can truly transform your Salesforce workspace. Looking to revolutionize your sales operations? Take a look at SalesPath+ that will give you full control of your sales lifecycle. Need advanced contract management? Docusign is the absolute king of that space. What if you need to build complex forms for data intake? Formstack will allow you to create forms natively right within Salesforce.

Whatever challenge you are trying to solve, the AppExchange will have an app that can provide a solution.

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4) Salesforce Community

Behind the entire Salesforce ecosystem, lies the community that has made Salesforce what it is today. Chances are that if you have an issue within Salesforce, there are hundreds of trailblazers and community members who are having the same issue. Join groups, ask questions, make connections and attend events — it's what makes the community extremely powerful.

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5) It's as Complex as You Want

What really makes Salesforce such a special platform is the adjusting learning curves based on what you are looking to do for a given task. If you are brand new and just learning, you can design page layouts in Lightning Experience or add fields using drag and drop without an ounce of code. If you're a more advanced user, you can use Apex to create very complex applications that do exactly what you need. Both users on the same platform, working in concert.

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These are only a few of the hundreds of reasons we love and are thankful for Salesforce. It's the world's most powerful platform and it's growth is only beginning.

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While we all know and love Salesforce, the platform is by no means perfect. Certain actions take just a little too long and some features don't make a ton of sense if you haven't been using Salesforce for many years. We're very thankful that Salesforce exists and is thriving, but if we're being completely honest, here are a few things that we would change within Salesforce.

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1) Can't use Dynamic Forms on Standard Objects

Dynamic forms is one of the more impressive and more powerful features that Salesforce has released quite some time. It allows you to create intuitive page layouts that present just the right information at just the right time. It's wonderful but for some reason you can only use it on custom objects and not standard objects. This limits how powerful dynamic forms can be, and this is something we hope changes very soon.

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2) Too Many Clicks

This is an easy one, but Salesforce is very mouse-centric. Easy actions and modifications sometimes requires click after click to do what you need to do. Need to modify a field — click the pencil icon, modify the field, then click save. If you need to modify a lot of fields, you will certainly feel the clicks start to add up.

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3) Better Merging for Non-Standard Objects

If you work with a large multi-developer team, then you are bound to face the issue of having to merge multiple objects for data cleanliness and efficiency. Salesforce makes this pretty easy for standard objects but a lot harder for non-standard objects. You can either write your own logic, or use one of the many apps in the AppExchange to accomplish this, but neither is ideal.

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4) Customizing Role Layouts is a Pain

We love the ability to customize lightning pages and layouts for different roles, but if you get upwards of ten or more roles, it can be a chore to manage these correctly. Keeping all layouts in sync to ensure each user has the right experience is a tedious task and one we wish was just a bit easier to manage.

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5) Not Auto-Saving

We've all been there, you spend upwards of 30 minutes updating a page layout or editing a few records and then work gets the better of you and you get distracted. By the time you remember what you were doing, you've been logged out and all your precious Salesforce work is now gone. It's 2021 and it's about time Salesforce autosaves you work in progress instead of waiting on you to hit the save button.

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While the good still far outweighs the bad in the Salesforce world, nothing is perfect. At Relay, we fix all of your Salesforce issues no matter big or small. If there is something that you are not thankful for in Salesforce, get in touch and we will gladly correct it.

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Tahoe Dreamin' 2021 is upon us and although Relay won't physically be able to be there in person, it's so great to see in-person community events back. Tahoe Dreamin' never disappoints and this year is sure to be no different. So let's take a look at a few of the sessions we are most looking to at this year's conference.

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October 28th - Day 1

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You're Right - You Can't Do It All: Practical Tools and Perspectives to Manage Both Rapid Response Work AND Project Work with Rich Nevin (Co-Founder of HiFi Consulting Group)

At Relay we know that project work and supporting that project work go hand-in-hand. While it's always a challenge to juggle both, it's never impossible. We're excited to see what Rich Nevin has in store for this presentation.

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Work Smarter Not Harder in the NEW Success from Anywhere World with Ella Marks (Marketing Manager at Salesforce) and Rebecca Saar (Sr. Director Admin Relations at Salesforce)

We now live in the work anywhere world and Salesforce is leading the charge in changing how we operate. Whether it's automation, data insight or communication transparency — Salesforce is making our lives easier and more refined instead of more difficult. We can't wait to hear more tips straight from Salesforce themselves.

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Designing the Future of Work with Adam Doti (VP & Principle Design Architect, Salesforce) and Daniel Peter (Salesforce Practice Lead at Robots and Pencils)

Crafted design is now more crucial to a project's success than it has ever been. Customers expect for their applications to not only be functional but be designed and crafted with a purpose. Adam and Daniel will look at how we all need to be more design-minded when working in Salesforce and the role Slack will play in helping us get there.

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Turn Customer Feedback into Action - Lessons from Salesforce with Scott Allan (Sr. Manager, Product Strategy at Salesforce)

Gathering feedback is crucial to a project's long-term success. The more you scale, the harder it is to gather actionable feedback that your team can take to craft a more cohesive project. We're really looking forward to hearing from Scott and his willingness to let attendees provide feedback directly to team in charge of IdeaExchange and Known Issues.

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October 29th - Day 2

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Second place is First Loser: Automating Speed to Lead to Win the Customer with Stephanie Thornton (Director of Alliances at LeanData)

Automation could be the difference between closing that sale and losing it due to a time-delay. Every time your sales reps have to input data or resolve tasks manually, it not only leaves them open to errors but also delays their speed to lead timing. We're a firm believer in automation and we're looking forward to see how others are using it to their advantage.

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The Future of Salesforce Development with Stephan Chandler-Garcia (Lead Developer Advocate at Salesforce)

Salesforce Functions and Lightning Web Runtime have introduced two new powerful components for developers, but it also requires them to adapt to the changing platform. While these components will allow developers to work more closely with others in various languages, it absolutely provides some challenges. We  are interested in hearing the new features of both Salesforce Functions and Lightning Web Runtime.

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Salesforce Devops: Build versus Buy with Vernon Keenan (Senior Industry Analyst at SalesforceDevops.net)

If you're looking to understand and implement Salesforce devops, you will definitely want to attend this session with Vernon. Not only will he trace the origins of devops and how it works within Salesforce, but he will provide a framework for integrating solutions into repository management, Salesforce Release Management and more. Vernon is a titan of the industry so we are really looking forward to this one.

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We can't wait to see how Tahoe Dreamin 2021 turns out, the connections made from it and how it will shape the community going forward. In-person community events are back and we are looking forward to interacting with everyone in the very near future!

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