Spring is just around the corner, and with it comes the new Salesforce Spring ’14 Release. There are over 150 new features being deployed, some of which have us really excited. We wanted to highlight the top five we think will prove very valuable to the productivity and management of your business. Our Top 6 favorite new features are:
2. Salesforce 1 Mobile App
The Salesforce app has gotten a complete makeover and now offers enhanced functionality on your mobile devices. You can now sell, service and market like never before, and get ahead of your customers even in this fast-paced digital world.
In addition to being able to use Chatter, users now have the same great functionality they have come to expect from the desktop site, including:
- Your Sales, Service and Marketing Clouds right at your fingertips, including all of the customizations you have made to your Salesforce.com platform to fit your unique business
- Access Salesforce’s world class AppExchange, with all of your customer, employee, and partner apps and CRM integrations ready to available for download and use from any device you choose
- Ability to view, edit and collaborate on cases, so lag time between cases logged and cases
resolved decreases drastically - Creating communities to better support your customer base and provide them with the answers
they need in a timely manner
All of these features allow you to keep your business moving, even when you are not at your desk.
2. Salesforce A Admin Mobile App
In addition to the great functionality being deployed on the Salesforce 1 mobile app, they are also offering Salesforce A for administrators, making it easier for them to manage the internal working of your company at your fingertips, including:
- Setting and resetting passwords for users
- Activating and deactivating users, which is especially useful for companies with high turnover, or growing companies who are always adding new employees
- Viewing release notes on the latest features
No longer does the administrator have to be tied to their desk to be able to keep the company’s Salesforce platform well maintained.
3. Chatter Announcements
Have you ever posted something important on Chatter and found that no one saw it because it got covered up too quickly?Due to popular request, Salesforce now offers Announcements, which will allow group managers and administrators to “promote” those important posts so they remain at the top of your Chatter feed for a defined amount of time.
4. Enhanced case feed features
With the Spring ’14 release, you will be able to give your customers a more complete answer to their support questions, including the ability to:
- Easily drag and drop files into your case email correspondence, rather than manually attaching them every time
- Include pictures inline with their step-by-step instructions
in the email publisher - Resize the email publisher window to include more of your message on the page, or decrease it when you want to see more of other things, making the UI more flexible and customizable so your customer service reps can be more productive and deliver answers to your customer base
more efficiently and effectively.
5. Salesforce File Sync
This ensures any files uploaded from your desktop to Salesforce.com will be synchronized across all devices so they will always be up to date and accurate.
This is especially critical for users who are traveling or working across multiple devices, and need access to the latest versions of all documents, even when getting online from their laptops is not an option.
6. Mobile Push
This new feature in the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud allows users to create targeted notifications for customers on their mobile apps, and send location-based notifications to a specified area, as well as rich messages that include multimedia content, making the customer experience with your app a more meaningful touchpoint.
In summary, we feel that Salesforce has made some crucial advancements to their platform to make it more user friendly and accessible, which will likely drive more value and productivity than ever before. We are excited to begin experimenting with the new functionality and encourage you to do the same.
Have questions on how to configure Salesforce.com to your needs? Or want further insight on how these new features could work best for you and your business? Don’t hesitate to send us a note at Eustace Consulting for all your cloud computing and Salesforce customization
and implementation needs.
