Insights

Salesforce is the world's most powerful, and most popular CRM for a reason. Companies all over the world invest huge amounts of capital and resources to make sure that their Salesforce instance is streamlined and functional. But even though your Salesforce has been tailored and fine-tuned to do exactly what you need, using it day to day provides it's own sets of challenges. Sometimes you need an easier way to access an API field name, hop across multiple sandboxes or simply need to find an easier way to add contacts from LinkedIn to your Salesforce org. That's where Google Chrome extensions become so invaluable.

So let's take a look at Relay's top five Chrome extensions to transform your Salesforce workflow.

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Salesforce Inspector

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If you're a power user or Salesforce admin, you are probably well aware of Salesforce Inspector by now. An invaluable tool for developers, Salesforce Inspector adds a metadata layout on top of the standard Salesforce UI. This allows you to quickly view field information directly from a record detail page or even see all data related to a record even if it's not on the page layout.

This gives every Salesforce power user deep insight into how a Salesforce org is composed and structured.

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ORGanizer for Salesforce

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If you find yourself bouncing between different Salesforce orgs all day, then you will want to take a close look at ORGanizer for Salesforce. Not only does it allow you to store all credentials related to all your Salesforce orgs, but it allows you to organize how your orgs are structured within your browser. You can also use the built in Quick Link tool to quickly access your most used Salesforce links or even customize these quick links to open a custom relative link.

Stop juggling logins for multiple Salesforce orgs and install ORGanizer for Salesforce.

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Salesforce Navigator

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While we all know and love Salesforce, we have to admit there is a lot of clicking around to find the page you need. Especially if you need to access admin settings. That's where Salesforce Navigator takes over. Using a custom keyboard shortcut, simply search for any page within Salesforce and Salesforce Navigator will take you right to it.

Saving those three or four clicks over the course of eight plus hours, will definitely add up and you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

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Salesforce Hotkeys

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If you're ready to dive further into the world of hotkeys, take a look at Salesforce Hotkeys to absolutely enhance your workflow. Any power user will tell you that a mouse can sometimes be the least efficient way to navigate any application and this includes Salesforce. With over fifty hotkey presets including creating new accounts, logging a call, saving a record or editing a record; you can save minutes or even hours a day navigating Salesforce via your keyboard.

While there is a slight learning curve to learning all the hotkeys, you will be flying through Salesforce like never before.

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AssistLead

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LinkedIn can be a representative's best friend in the sales process, but enriching your Salesforce data with LinkedIn information can be a bit of a manual affair. That's where Assistlead comes in to bridge the gap. Once on LinkedIn, activate the extension and then you can create new leads and contacts with a single click. Since all the lead information is culled directly from LinkedIn, this ensures your data is precise and more importantly up-to-date.

Make sure your leads and contacts never go stale and definitely take a look at AssistLead.

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The Chrome app store is full of new extensions and add-ons that can completely change the way you use Salesforce. These are just a few of our favorites, but let us know which ones you rely on to make the most out of Salesforce.

The Salesforce platform has come a long way since its inception in 1999. In the early days, the platform was focused primarily on customer relationship management (CRM) and didn't offer much in the way of custom development. But as the platform evolved, it began to support custom development, opening up new possibilities for businesses to build custom applications on the Salesforce platform.

In 2005, Salesforce introduced the AppExchange, a marketplace for third-party applications that could be integrated with the Salesforce platform. This was a major step forward, as it allowed businesses to access a wide range of pre-built applications that could be tailored to their specific needs.

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In 2009, Salesforce introduced the Force.com platform, which was specifically designed for custom development. This platform allowed businesses to build custom applications using a variety of languages and tools, such as Apex, Visualforce, and Lightning. This opened up the Salesforce platform to a wider range of developers and made it possible to build more complex and sophisticated custom applications.

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Over the years, the Salesforce platform has continued to evolve and expand, adding new features and capabilities that make it easier and more effective to build custom applications. Today, the platform is used by businesses of all sizes to build a wide range of custom applications, from simple tools to complex, mission-critical systems.

The history of custom development on the Salesforce platform has been one of steady growth and evolution. From its early days as a CRM platform to its current state as a powerful and flexible development platform, Salesforce has come a long way. And with the continued support and investment of the Salesforce team, the future looks bright for custom development on the Salesforce platform.

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Designing and developing custom business software using Salesforce can be a complex and involved process. But with the right team of experts, it can also be an incredibly powerful and effective way to streamline your operations and improve your bottom line.

The first step in the process is to assess your business needs and goals. This involves conducting a thorough analysis of your current operations and identifying areas where custom software can help. This will provide the foundation for the design and development process and ensure that the final product is tailored to your specific needs.

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Next, the design phase begins. This is where the user experience and overall look and feel of the software are developed. The design should be intuitive and user-friendly, with a focus on making the software as easy to use as possible.

Once the design is finalized, the development phase begins. This is where the software is actually built, with the help of experienced Salesforce developers. This phase can be complex and time-consuming, but it is crucial to the success of the final product.

Throughout the development process, regular check-ins and testing are important to ensure that the software is meeting the original goals and requirements. This also allows for any necessary adjustments or changes to be made along the way.

Once the development is complete, the software is ready for deployment. This may involve training for your team, as well as ongoing support and maintenance to ensure that the software continues to meet your needs and evolve with your business.

The process of designing and developing custom business software using Salesforce may seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be. With the help of an experienced team like Relay, based in Philadelphia, you can streamline your operations and achieve your goals faster. So why not reach out to the experts at Relay and see what they can do for your business?

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Since Salesforce's acquisition of Slack back in July for an eye-popping $27.7 billion, we have slowly started to see how the two companies will co-exist. If you're unaware, Slack is a workplace behemoth that has transformed the way remote teams work and communicate and has been a staple for hundreds of thousands of companies since the start of 2020. When Salesforce acquired them it seemed like a natural fit to expand their reach into the new work anywhere world. It's what they have dubbed, the "digital HQ" that allows organizations to deliver customer and employee success from anywhere.

Dreamforce, Salesforce's massive annual event, was held just a few weeks back where of course the focus was on the Salesforce platform. There were however quite a few announcements for how deep the marriage between Slack and Salesforce will become. Let's go over three of the biggest ones.

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Slack-First Sales

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The first one to highlight is the announcement of "Slack-First Sales" which changes the game for sales teams across the world. The introduction of "digital deal rooms" allows sales teams to collaborate in real-time with files, conversation, and most importantly Salesforce data in one place. No longer do they have to switch between multiple platforms to get the information they need. Without ever leaving Slack, they can access customer data and meeting information in one collaborative space. Add in the capability to set Slack alerts for inactive accounts and a pipeline view to monitor and manage pipeline health, and Slack-First Sales is looking like a boon to Sales teams everywhere.

These capabilities are set to be rolled out in the summer of 2022.

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Slack-First Service

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If your team is on Salesforce's Service Cloud, then their Slack-First Service is going to be a huge addition to your ticket management workflow. The introduction of Case Swarming and Incident Swarming allows service teams to automatically create channels or threads related to high-priority cases or tickets. This allows teams from all across your organization to collaborate on an incident directly in Slack without having divergent discussions on other platforms. Expert Finder is a new addition as well where you can bring in just the right people for an incident based on availability, capacity, and skills.

Expert Finder and Case Swarming are expected to be available in the Spring 2022 release while Incident Swarming is expected in the Summer 2022 release.

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Slack-First Nonprofit

The introduction of Slack-First Nonprofit will be more of an extension of the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, but it's a huge one. Streamlining communication is the big feature where case managers can bring the right external parties and experts into the conversation with ease. Daily Digests and notifications will allow case managers to see their agenda and tasks for the entire day across all their clients, all within Slack. Review and Approval features allow teams to approve documents directly in Slack while syncing those approvals and changes back to Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.

Slack-First Nonprofit is expected to launch with the Spring 2022 release.

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Of course, there were tons of other great Slack-focused features announced at Dreamforce, including Slack-First Marketing, Slack-First Trailhead, and GovSlack. What this shows us and the rest of the world is that the connection between Salesforce and Slack is still in its infancy stages and the two platforms are going to only become more powerful over time.

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Technology is growing at a lightning speed. But for some reason we look around, we are still using Excel and a notepad to scribble information about meetings and customers. Don’t we?

As we enter the The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a CRM system like Salesforce is important to every business. If you are focused on improving your profitability, satisfying customers throughout their journey and helping your employees accelerate deals, then Salesforce is your tool.

In this article, we will cover tips on how to best implement Salesforce for immediate success.

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Salesforce Implementation - What is it?

It takes a lot of resources to properly implement an “out of the box” Salesforce solution, and it takes even more resources to implement a highly customized solution. There’s a reason Salesforce has training programs, communities, and MVPs. Assuming you can just do it yourself without having expertise is one of the biggest mistakes you could make.

Your team will need to devote a significant amount of time to the implementation process – even if you hire someone to help.

Salesforce Implementation Partners

One question every business may have is - Should I hire a Salesforce partner to implement (or) should I do it on my own? Many small and medium size businesses might have budget constraints and they prefer to do configurations themselves. On the other hand, it’s always good to have an expert or partner do the configuration and support for you.

As a company, you need to figure out the goals and business processes that work the best for you. A partner could give a hand and consult as to how to fit this process best within the Salesforce tool. That’s when their expertise kicks in. Its a opportunity to go with best in class for not a very big upfront investment, in dollars and time.

Considering that a good implementation is best done by investing in an experienced partner, plan to hire a professional to help with implementation and make sure you do your research. Being able to use Salesforce does not make someone the right partner for your Salesforce project. The partner you choose should have a deep understanding of business processes and be able to implement the tool to meet your business needs. They should be able to understand what your concerns and pain points are, and what solutions Salesforce can offer for you. You want them to ask the right questions upfront, so you’re sure they understand your business requirements. Starting an implementation project before your partner understands your processes and develops a strategy to solve your specific problems is a good way to waste time and spend money on a tool that ends up being underutilized.

Best Practices

User adoption is greatly influenced by the executive team. If there is a push from the executive team about the new tool’s importance, value, and the initiative itself, then the other employees will use the tool better. Having an assigned point person to over see the entire project is going to be extremely vital to ensure project is on track.

Migrating old data and integrating with tools that have data is crucial. Bad data may lead to users not adopting the tool or errors in business processes.

Salesforce features should be implemented in such a way that accounts for scale as the number of users and complexity increases in your company and in a way that is easy to use for end-users to understand and follow. As a rule of thumb, Salesforce should reduce your day-to-day tasks and not increase them. Automations, approvals, triggers, etc all are tools to be leveraged to make your business run smoother and more efficient.

Getting Started

At Relay we have created a simple six-step implementation Stage/Checklist that we follow with our customers.  Here’s a bird’ eye view of it.

1. Workshop - Meeting with the customer steak-holders to better understand requirements.
2. Configuration & Customization - Configuration is making changes to the default setup of Salesforce, and on the other hand, customization is adding capabilities to the existing Salesforce by extending the APEX code. End User feed-back is critical to making this stage successful.
3. Integrations - Making sure data can flow seamlessly between systems.
4. Data Hygiene and Migration - Passing along data from legacy systems.
5. Salesforce Training - User adoption is paramount. End users should have ample training as Salesforce is deployed.
6. Support - Investing in a Salesforce Admin or retaining a firm to tackle  support issues.

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Closing Thoughts

Investing in Salesforce is a huge step for your business! You need to make sure you have the proper knowledge, partner, reasons why, support, data, and training all in line to benefit from the usage of the tool. If you’d like a stellar partner, who will understand your process and asks the right questions, reach out today to the Relay team.

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Salesforce for Small Business

Small businesses are the backbone of the US economy and we at Relay want to help these businesses and provide the tools and resources they need to manage the business's interactions with existing customers and new prospects as well help every department from marketing, sales, commerce, service and IT teams to collaborate more effectively, even when individuals are working remotely. We know that the decision to implement Salesforce is not an easy one. But when done correctly, you can make sure it's the correct choice now and into the future.

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Customizable, Across All Aspects

The unique nature of Salesforce is that it allows your small business to grow and scale on one platform over time. While initially you may just need Sales Cloud to kickstart your sales pipeline, you may find that you need to expand your reach further as your business grows. If you need to expand your marketing efforts, there is the Marketing Cloud that allows you to create email campaigns and automate expansive campaigns. But if you need to cater to your existing clients, you may want to look into Service Cloud that allows you deliver personalized support to your customers and solve cases faster with a single source of truth. The best part is that it all starts and grows from one platform, so you and your employees never need to learn another complicated tool.

Various Plans to Cater to Your Needs

While Salesforce has the reputation of being a costly platform, this actually could not be further from the truth. With plans starting at $25 per user, per month, the barrier to enter the Salesforce ecosystem remains very affordable. While yes, the costs do go up as you scale and add on more to your Salesforce platform, the initial cost can be quite minimal if you're hesitant to get started with Salesforce.

Connect the Apps you Already Use

Of course we realize that there are many apps that you use everyday to keep your small business running efficiently and effectively. Whether your team is cross-communicating on Slack or using Docusign to generate agreements, once you move to Salesforce you can rest assured that all of those existing apps will play nice with your new CRM. With over 3,000 current apps on the Salesforce AppExchange, there is a great chance that every single one of your current apps have a prebuilt connector to work with Salesforce.

Leveraging the Power of Custom Apps

But say you're scrolling through the AppExchange and you can't find that one crucial app that your business uses, or the current app that is there is just not powerful enough to do what you need it to do. Don't worry, that's where we here at Relay will come in to serve exactly your needs. We will work with you to build a custom app tailored just for your business and for your Salesforce environment. Rest assured it will do everything you need it to do, and nothing you don't.

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Reach Out to Relay

If you’d like to learn more about how we at Relay can help your small business,  please contact us using the form below. We’ll be sure to respond to your message within one business day and have a meeting scheduled to answer any initial questions you may have about our process. We look forward to working with you soon and we can’t wait to learn more about how we can best incorporate our Salesforce skills into your business.

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Contact Us

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As a business owner, you know that staying competitive in today's market means constantly striving to improve and streamline your operations. One way to do this is by using custom software tailored to your specific business needs. This is where a team of expert Salesforce consultants, like Relay, can help.

Custom software, as opposed to off-the-shelf solutions, is designed specifically to meet the unique requirements of your business. This means that it will be more effective at helping you achieve your goals and will be easier for your team to use. It also allows for greater flexibility and scalability as your business grows and changes.

But why choose Relay, a specialized Salesforce consulting team, over other options? The simple answer is experience and expertise. A team that has worked with Salesforce for years, like Relay, will have a deep understanding of the platform and how to customize it to meet your specific needs. This means that they will be able to deliver solutions faster and with fewer setbacks.

Working with an experienced team like Relay also means that you will have access to their wealth of knowledge and best practices. They can provide valuable insights and guidance throughout the development process, helping you make informed decisions that will benefit your business in the long run.

In addition to their expertise, a team like Relay can also provide a level of flexibility and scalability that may not be possible with in-house development. As your business grows and changes, they can quickly adapt and modify your custom software to meet your evolving needs. This means that you won't have to worry about outgrowing your software or having to start from scratch.

Overall, the benefits of hiring an expert Salesforce consulting team like Relay are numerous. From their expertise and experience, to their flexibility and scalability, they can help you streamline your operations and achieve your goals faster. So why not take the first step and see what a team like Relay can do for your business?

Salesforce Lightning Web Components (LWC) is a programming model for building web-based applications on the Salesforce platform. It offers several benefits over other development approaches, making it a great option for creating custom Salesforce applications.

One of the main benefits of using LWC is that it is built on modern web standards, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This means that it is easier to learn and use for developers who are already familiar with these technologies. It also makes it easier for your team to maintain and update the applications over time.

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Another benefit of LWC is that it is a part of the Lightning Platform, which is Salesforce's user interface framework. This means that applications built with LWC will have a consistent look and feel with the rest of the Salesforce platform, providing a seamless user experience for your team.

LWC also offers improved performance and scalability compared to other development approaches. It uses a state-of-the-art programming model that makes it easier to build high-performance applications that can handle large volumes of data. This can help improve the overall efficiency of your business operations.

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In addition, LWC offers better security compared to other development approaches. It uses a secure coding model that helps prevent common security vulnerabilities, such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). This can help protect your business data and ensure that it stays secure.

Overall, the benefits of creating custom Salesforce applications using LWC are numerous. From its modern web standards and consistent user experience, to its improved performance and security, LWC offers a powerful and effective way to build custom applications on the Salesforce platform.

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