Cross-posted at the Appirio Tech Blog.

During Dreamforce 09 Kyle Roche and I participated in the Developer Hackathon. We hacked-up an application using Force.com and Twilio for inbound and outbound calling. We were only allotted two hours so we were not able to finish off the application during the hackathon.

Here is the final demo with all of the major working pieces. The application has two major parts:

1. Kyle’s part (much harder and more glamourous) uses the Twilioforce toolkit to make outbound calls from a contact in Salesforce. The user clicks the contact’s phone number and the Force.com platform makes an outbound call to the contact using Twilio. Once the contact picks up Twilio then calls the phone number on the user’s record and connects the two calls together.
2. My part of the application uses Twilio with a Sites application for inbound calling. The person calls a phone number that reads a script generated from a Force.com Sites page. The greeting welcomes the person, plays an MP3 and then prompts them to records a message. After they are finished with the message it posts the results to another Sites page with attaches the message to the contact’s record in Salesforce. It looks up the contact record based upon the incoming phone number.

Here’s a video of the final application and the code for my part is below. I may be easier to view it at YouTube so you can see it at a lager size.

The code for Kyle’s part is somewhat similar to the Click to Call demo he posted on the Appirio Tech Blog. Here’s the code for my part of the application. The Twilio phone number is setup so that when you call it, it reads the script from the Answer_Call Visualforce Sites page below. Twilio reads the <Say> script and then plays the mp3 in the <Play> section. It then record a message for 5 seconds and posts the results to Record_Call.

<apex:page showHeader="false" contentType="text/xml">
<Response>
    <Say>Thank you for calling the hackathon hotline. Leave a message after the monkey tone.</Say>
    <Play>http://demo.twilio.com/hellomonkey/monkey.mp3</Play>
    <Record maxLength="5" action="http://kyle-twilio-developer-edition.na7.force.com/Record_Call" />
</Response>
</apex:page>

Most of the work in the Record_Call Visualforce page is done by the RecordCallController Apex Controller. When the page initially loads, the saveMessage() method is called in the Apex script below. The page is rendered and Twilio reads the <Say> script and then plays the recording back to the caller.

<apex:page controller="RecordCallController" action="{!saveMessage}"
	showHeader="false"
	contentType="text/xml">
<Response>
    <Say>Thanks for howling {!callerName}. Take a listen to your message.</Say>
    <Play>{!recordingUrl}</Play>
    <Say>Goodbye</Say>
</Response>
</apex:page>

The RecordCallController Apex Controller does all of the heavy lifting. The constructor grabs the URL of the recording that is posted back as well as the caller’s phone number. The constructor then tries to find the contact associated with the caller’s phone number. The saveMessage() method inserts a record into Twilio_Message__c custom object so that the message can be replayed back from the contact’s related list. If a contact was not found by the caller’s phone number, we should probably create a task to create a new contact at a later time.

public with sharing class RecordCallController {

    private Contact contact {get;set;}
    private ID callerId {get;set;}
    public String recordingUrl {get;set;}
    public String callerName {get;set;}

     // initialize the controller
    public RecordCallController() {

    	try {

			recordingUrl = ApexPages.currentPage().getParameters().get('RecordingUrl');

			List<Contact> callers = [select id, name from contact where
				twilio_number__c = :ApexPages.currentPage().getParameters().get('Caller')];

			if (callers.size() > 0) {
				contact = callers.get(0);
				callerName = contact.Name;
				callerId = contact.Id;
			} else {
				callerName = 'Unknown Caller';
			}

    	} catch (Exception e) {
			System.debug('====================== exception: '+e);
    	}

    }

    public PageReference saveMessage() {

    	if (contact != null) {

	   		try {

	          Twilio_Message__c m = new Twilio_Message__c();
	          m.contact__c = contact.Id;
	          m.message__c = recordingUrl;
	          insert m;

			} catch (Exception e) {
				System.debug('====================== exception: '+e);
			}

    	} else {
    		// create a follow up task if contact was not found
    	}

    	return null;

    }

}

Fornecedores estruturam oferta. CEO da Plusoft acredita que aplicativos de gestão de clientes serão vendidos apenas como serviço
 

Os sistemas de gestão de clientes (CRM, na sigla em inglês) evoluíram consideravelmente ao longo dos últimos anos e ganharam espaço no universo corporativo. Um pouco pelo aperfeiçoamento tecnológico, um tanto devido à evangelização sobre as potencialidades da ferramenta e muito graças às lições aprendidas nos meses de turbulência econômica – informação virou um artigo valioso no direcionamento de estratégias.

No primeiro semestre, a IDC percorreu 339 empresas brasileiras e descobriu que uma das três prioridades dos CEOs vincula-se a entender melhor e aprimorar o atendimento aos clientes. “Durante o período de crise, muitas empresas descobriram que tinham pouca ou nenhuma informação para tomar decisões”, comenta Reinaldo Roveri, gerente de análise de mercado da consultoria no País, apontando que CRM e BI, assim, entraram mais fortemente na pauta.

Pelo que mostram os acontecimentos, a proliferação dos conceitos de web 2.0 impulsionarão transformações ainda mais profundas nesse tipo de tecnologia e impactarão as rotinas dos usuários. Duas orientações são latentes: o advento da computação em nuvem que transforma quase tudo em serviço e a importância das redes sociais.

Fornecedores estão atentos a essas duas frentes. “Em um prazo de três anos, não enxergo mais a venda de licenças de CRM”, prevê Guilherme Porto, CEO da fabricante nacional desse tipo de ferramenta Plusoft, acreditando que esses aplicativos serão vendidos como serviço (SaaS, na sigla em inglês). O executivo apoia sua afirmação numa orientação percebida junto aos seus clientes. “Hoje, em 50% das cotações, os clientes já pedem opções tanto no modelo de venda quanto no de locação de software”, avalia o executivo, citando que há cerca de dois anos, o porcentual girava na casa dos 15%.

Roveri, da IDC, é um pouco mais conservador nas previsões, mas compartilha a visão do executivo. “Este modelo de entrega (SaaS) é uma forte tendência”, avalia, sem precisar uma data para transformação completa no modelo de venda dos sistemas. O especialista justifica sua opinião com a atratividade da compra “como serviço”, a capacidade de otimização do fluxo de caixa e ao avanço das redes e da internet.

Os provedores de tecnologia atentaram-se para a tendência e traçam suas estratégias. Nesse campo de batalha, a Microsoft luta com seu CRM Online; a Oracle contra-ataca com o CRM on Demand e a Salesforce.com tenta ostentar o estandarte de um dos ícones e pioneira no mercado de sistemas de gestão de clientes no modelo SaaS.

Assim como seus concorrentes internacionais, a Plusoft quer aproveitar as mensagens do mercado e atender as duas tendências que se anunciam. Há cerca de três meses, a empresa investiu R$ 700 mil em desenvolvimento e fechou parceria para hospedar uma versão “as a service” de seu CRM nos data centers do UOL. De acordo com Porto, a tecnologia é um dos ingredientes da “loja de aplicativos” anunciada pela unidade de host da empresa de internet.

Dois contratos – ambos por um prazo de 36 meses – foram fechados até o momento. O acordo, com uma universidade e uma empresa do setor agroquímico, contempla 56 posições comercializadas a R$ 189, cada.

Porto estima que a iniciativa de CRM SaaS represente entre 18 e 20% do faturamento (não revelado) da Plusoft no ano de 2010 e ajudar a companhia a ingressar em uma camada de clientes de médio porte. A ferramenta, por exemplo, poderá ser comercializada pelo UOL, que pagará comissão à fabricante.

O software de gestão desenvolvido pela companhia nacional se divide em seis partes. Uma delas, lançado no final de agosto, alinha-se justamente à outra tendência que permeia o mercado. Batizado de iCustomer, o módulo mapeia e analisa redes sociais.

Em meados de novembro, a Salesforce.com – um dos expoentes no fornecimento de CRM no modelo SaaS – apresentou a ferramenta Chatter. O sistema é um mix entre uma aplicação de colaboração corporativa e uma plataforma de desenvolvimento social, provando que os conceitos de web 2.0 se enraízam no mercado. 

I would like to share with everyone a piece of Cool Life Systems new work.  Recently, we relaunched the website for Financial Consulting Group website in addition to providing the organization a new back office system and a member and organization management system.  Financial Consulting Group, also known as FCG, is the largest organization of independently owned accounting, business valuation, and financial services firms in North America.

Cool Life Systems is responsible for the revised look, feel and functionality of FCG’s new website as well the technology that runs behind the scenes which includes member and event management, marketing systems and the exclusive FCG member extranet. The new extranet system will offer FCG members a better way to request assistance on engagements, learn to use resources, and post questions and receive answers from other FCG members.

FCG only showcases a portion of the technology and services we offer to our client base every day.  So go ahead, take a look around our website look at some of our work and let us know what you think.  This blog regularly points out shortcoming that we see in the small to mid size business segment whether it is data management, sales and marketing efforts, or organization management.   The shortcomings pointed out are all too often easily corrected, and unabashedly can be easily corrected with use of the Cool Life Systems product.  We look forward to speaking with you soon.

Our Supply Chain Management Application will boost your efficiency in Acquiring, Managing and Selling your inventory by enabling you to better manage your logistics and order fulfillment processes. Visit Less Software For Supply Chain Management Software

Before we break away for the Thanksgiving Holiday – I wanted to post an article concerning B2B marketing and the importance of having the neccessary tools in place to manage, track and engage clients, referral channels, and leads.

In today’s world of B2B marketing there are multiple channels used to for audience development, client retention and referral channel development.  These channels typically include the use of various media segments such as:

• eMail (both one to one and one to many)
• Newsletters
• Live In Person events, such as seminars and conferences
• Webinars (both live and recorded)
• Print Media

If this communication is to be effective, the sender must deploy a message of perceived value to a targeted/segmented audience that may or may not include some form of tangible takeaway benefit besides the initial content. For example, offering a free 1 hour online marketing seminar to CPA’s and accounting professionals for referral channel development that is delivered by a marketing expert from a Fortune 100 company and you should expect a 10% participation rate.  If you a add a tangible takeaway benefit to the seminar such as including 2 free CPE credits, your participation rate will increase to 20% or higher.  And your goal for the seminar?  Develop referral channels for your product.  This same scenario can be applied to consumers and businesses alike.

On the surface the above scenario appears to be a relatively benign process. You setup a conference and invite a bunch of people to attend and hope for the best.  However, if you break down the process there is a lot of administrative/organization work involved to achieve your goals.

1. Development, distribution and promotion of event via email and print,
2. Tracking results of that distribution,
3. Event registration and tracking of event registration,
4. Tieback of yes/no responses to database records,
5. Results of seminar; comments from participants, generation of referrals?

In addition to the above:

1. What the event promoted to the correct segment?
2. Did you record who did and did not respond to the event and showed up?
3. Did the attendees refer a client?
4. How does any of this tie into your contact management system? If at all?

The real question is do you have a system in place to perform this type of marketing and event management without a lot of manual interaction?  And does your ’system’  integrate with your contact management system?

In today’s world a professional services firm requires a system to distribute content to all market segments.  The result of the distribution need to be trackable, reportable and return definable measurable benefits to acquire valid ROI costs.  Systems like those developed by Cool Life Systems allow firms to perform this functions for creation and distribution of content, tracking the success of each distribution, and providing tools for follow up with persons in each identified channel.  These tools work together to allow you and your firm to increase competitive market share, achieve market differentiation from competitors and influence audience segments for a desired outcome.

Last week I headed over to San Francisco to attend Dreamforce 2009; the Salesforce.com user and partner conference. What an experience! 19,000+ people crammed into the Moscone centre talking about every aspect of Salesforce and force.com from the tiniest detail of the technology to the widest application of the Salesforce approach to business.

Marc Benioff’s keynotes were something to behold. The opening keynote was scheduled for 2 hours and yet somehow still managed to run over by 75 minutes. Short and sweet it was not but there was still something very powerful in the relentless bombardment of success stories, testimonials and new feature demos. It felt a bit like being in a timeshare sales pitch where they don’t let you leave until you’ve bought something … except that the majority of the attendees are customers already. In many ways the lengthy build up to the grand reveal – the new Collaboration Cloud application and platform extensions – detracted from the impact of the announcement. Reaction to Chatter has been mixed (see this and this) but I can’t help thinking that it is a bold move and will ultimately come to be seen as a big step forward in support for self-organizing businesses.

One of the key things that struck me was Benioff’s constant reference to the best of innovative technologies targeted at the consumer market. It is no secret that his early ambition for Salesforce.com was to make it as easy to manage sales as it was to order a book from Amazon.com, but every new feature of the platform and applications was described in terms of the consumer technology that inspired it. Chatter in particular is quite clearly facebook for the enterprise. As Benioff said, so many people have been trained to work with the facebook interface and metaphors and all he is doing is helping people at work know as much about what their colleagues are doing as they do about ‘friends’ on facebook. As a cynical Brit it would be easy to use ‘ripped off’ in place of ‘inspired’ but Benioff is also totally upfront about how Salesforce.com “stands on the shoulders of giants” as he puts it and is quick to acknowledge the genius of those that move consumer technology forwards in leaps and bounds. Whilst happily banking record revenues and profits; a great lesson there.

Where as Benioff’s keynotes left my head buzzing and my backside numb, it was truly a privilege to get to hear Gen. Colin Powell speak. For a guy in his 70’s Gen. Powell is an incredibly energetic and charismatic speaker; he talked for 90 minutes without notes and not a single “err” or “umm” (and managed to keep to time …). I particularly enjoyed hearing about some of the detail of his extraordinary life, such as the day he got a bollocking from Mikhail Gorbachev on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the time when he fancied a Hot Dog in New York and had to be escorted by a cadre of bodyguards and three NYPD cruisers to the cart at the end of the block, scaring the life out of the immigrant vendor. Many of his comments about leadership were inspiring and I was impressed by his commitment to improving education amongst the poorer members of US society.

Outside of the razzle-dazzle of the set-pieces, there was plenty of opportunity to hear from and talk with Salesforce customers and partners. Salesforce prides themselves on the power of testimonials and fosters and spirit of openness and collaboration that most attendees sign up to. Talking to a friend on the Friday night I commented that it felt like the early days of the dotcom boom to me. Sure there’s plenty of hype, some unrealistic expectations, and plenty of people scrambling to get on the bandwagon, but there is also some fantastic work going on and great opportunity to do innovative, powerful and valuable stuff. I found myself saying “dude”, “awesome” and “take it to the next level” somewhat more than is strictly healthy, but that was okay. There was a lot of excitement at Dreamforce 2009 and it was infectious.

Here’s a small Apex Trigger that demonstrates how to programmatically create sharing rules for objects with a private sharing model. It came in handy on a project about a year ago so I thought I’d post it.

So the scenario is that the object has a private sharing model (Contacts in this case) so that only the record owner and users higher in the role hierarchy have access to it. I added a checkbox to the Contact object called “Make Public” that when set to TRUE, creates a sharing record for a specific group (e.g., All Internal Users). When set to FALSE, it deletes all manual sharing rules for the record. You can modify this to add multiple groups or even make it operate on the reverse (public by default and then remove the sharing rules).

ContactMakePublicTrigger

trigger ContactMakePublicTrigger on Contact (after insert, after update) {

	// get the id for the group for everyone in the org
	ID groupId = [select id from Group where Type = 'Organization'].id;

	// inserting new records
	if (Trigger.isInsert) {

		List<ContactShare> sharesToCreate = new List<ContactShare>();

		for (Contact contact : Trigger.new) {
			if (contact.Make_Public__c == true) {

				// create the new share for group
				ContactShare cs = new ContactShare();
				cs.ContactAccessLevel = 'Edit';
				cs.ContactId = contact.Id;
				cs.UserOrGroupId =  groupId;
				sharesToCreate.add(cs);

			}
		}

		// do the DML to create shares
		if (!sharesToCreate.isEmpty())
			insert sharesToCreate;

	// updating existing records
	} else if (Trigger.isUpdate) {

		List<ContactShare> sharesToCreate = new List<ContactShare>();
		List<ID> shareIdsToDelete = new List<ID>();

		for (Contact contact : Trigger.new) {

			// if the record was public but is now private -- delete the existing share
			if (Trigger.oldMap.get(contact.id).Make_Public__c == true && contact.Make_Public__c == false) {
				shareIdsToDelete.add(contact.id);

			// if the record was private but now is public -- create the new share for the group
			} else if (Trigger.oldMap.get(contact.id).Make_Public__c == false && contact.Make_Public__c == true) {

				// create the new share with read/write access
				ContactShare cs = new ContactShare();
				cs.ContactAccessLevel = 'Edit';
				cs.ContactId = contact.Id;
				cs.UserOrGroupId =  groupId;
				sharesToCreate.add(cs);

			}

		}

		// do the DML to delete shares
		if (!shareIdsToDelete.isEmpty())
			delete [select id from ContactShare where ContactId IN :shareIdsToDelete and RowCause = 'Manual'];

		// do the DML to create shares
		if (!sharesToCreate.isEmpty())
			insert sharesToCreate;

	}

}

TestContactMakePublicTrigger

@isTest
private class TestContactMakePublicTrigger {

	// test that newly inserted records marked as pubic=true have corresponding shares created
    static testMethod void testAddShares() {

		Set<ID> ids = new Set<ID>();
		List<Contact> contacts = new List<Contact>();

		for (Integer i=0;i<50;i++)
			contacts.add(new Contact(FirstName='First ',LastName='Name '+i,
				Email='email'+i+'@email.com',Make_Public__c=true));

		insert contacts;

		// get a set of all new created ids
		for (Contact c : contacts)
			ids.add(c.id);

		// assert that 50 shares were created
		List<ContactShare> shares = [select id from ContactShare where ContactId IN :ids and RowCause = 'Manual'];
		System.assertEquals(shares.size(),50);

    }

    // insert records and switch them from public = true to public = false
    static testMethod void testUpdateContacts() {

		Set<ID> ids = new Set<ID>();
		List<Contact> contacts = new List<Contact>();

		for (Integer i=0;i<50;i++)
			contacts.add(new Contact(FirstName='First ',LastName='Name '+i,
				Email='email'+i+'@email.com',Make_Public__c=false));

		insert contacts;

		for (Contact c : contacts)
			ids.add(c.id);

		update contacts;

		// assert that 0 shares exist
		List<ContactShare> shares = [select id from ContactShare where ContactId IN :ids and RowCause = 'Manual'];
		System.assertEquals(shares.size(),0);

		for (Contact c : contacts)
			c.Make_Public__c = true;

		update contacts;

		// assert that 50 shares were created
		shares = [select id from ContactShare where ContactId IN :ids and RowCause = 'Manual'];
		System.assertEquals(shares.size(),50);

		for (Contact c : contacts)
			c.Make_Public__c = false;

		update contacts;

		// assert that 0 shares exist
		shares = [select id from ContactShare where ContactId IN :ids and RowCause = 'Manual'];
		System.assertEquals(shares.size(),0);

    }
}

One thing to remember. When transferring accounts and their related data, all existing sharing rules will be removed. Any relevant sharing rules are then applied to the records based upon the new owners. You may need to manually share these accounts and opportunities to grant access to certain users and/or groups.

Que do caralho! Nesse vídeo aí embaixo, o vocalista conta por 6 minutos sobre o aplicativo criado pela banda no salesforce.com.

In Winter ‘10, Salesforce.com released the Apex Scheduler. This feature allows you to schedule Apex classes to run at specific times. The features appears to be widely popular (200+ votes on the IdeaExchange) but is only in limited release. I’ve heard from a number of companies that they were not able to get on the pilot. The L1 Support Rep told me that an org would need 5000+ seats to qualify for the Apex Scheduler.

Hopefully Apex Scheduler will be GA next release but in the meantime here’s a short-term solution that Kyle Roche and I were discussing last week. You can sign up for a free Google App Engine account and then schedule tasks with cron in either Java or Python.

The solution is relative straight forward and you can find all the info you need in our book Beginning Java Google App Engine. We not only cover cron jobs but have a number of examples using the Force.com for Google App Engine Java toolkit.

Pre-order your copy now just in time for Christmas. It goes nicely with eggnog and figgy pudding.

Have a client who needs some Flash to HTTPS webservice functionality. Flash and HTTPS are a difficult pair when not on the same host and all the policy files aren’t in place. The simple solution is a proxy. But this particular client’s webserver doesn’t have cURL. What to do? Making streams with a custom context is really simple. Looks good too. In the end I didn’t use fopen, stream_get_contents, etc. though. I used file_get_contents.

HTTP POST from PHP, without cURL – Evil, as in Dr.

I don’t think we do a very good job of evangelizing some of the nice things that the PHP streams layer does in the PHP manual, or even in general. At least, every time I search for the code snippet that allows you to do an HTTP POST request, I don’t find it in the manual and resort to reading the source. (You can find it if you search for “HTTP wrapper” in the online documentation, but that’s not really what you think you’re searching for when you’re looking).

And there is also a note on php.net about doing this with https.

So in the end my code looked like (no closing php tag intentional):

<?php
$url = "https://www.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToLead?encoding=UTF-8";
$data = $_POST;
$data = http_build_query($data);
$result = do_post_request($url, $data);
echo $result;

function do_post_request($url, $data, $optional_headers = null)
{
   $params = array('http' => array(
                'method' => 'POST',
                'header'=> "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n"
	                . "Content-Length: " . strlen($data) . "\r\n",
                'content' => $data
             ));
   if ($optional_headers !== null) {
      $params['http']['header'] = $optional_headers;
   }
   $ctx = stream_context_create($params);
   $response = file_get_contents($url, false, $ctx);
   if ($response === false) {
      throw new Exception("Problem reading data from $url, $php_errormsg");
   }
   //var_dump($response);
   return $response;
}

The new build introduces the revolutionary QuoteWerks Communicator SPAM filter neutralizer and includes an enhanced Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration, improved Maximizer integration, and support for QuickBooks 2010 (USA and Canada).

ORLANDO, FL November 23, 2009 — Aspire Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of sales quoting software solutions for the global small and mid-markets, announced today the release of a new build which includes over twenty-two new features.  Included in the build are numerous features designed to help companies of all sizes reduce their cost-of-sales and improve sales worker efficiencies.

Build 51 improves some existing integrations and also adds some new features for users.  The most notable features include:

• Support for QuickBooks 2010 (USA and Canadian versions)
• New enhanced Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 integration (including support for Multi-tenancy, quote entity support, and more)
• Improved Maximizer integration for Maximizer 10.0 and 10.5

<sp>
In this release, the new QuoteWerks Communicator was introduced.  The QuoteWerks Communicator enables Aspire Technologies, Inc. to periodically send messages to QuoteWerks users informing them of build updates, new features available, and other pertinent information.  These messages are received and viewed from within the QuoteWerks application. These messages are designed to be sent infrequently so as to not inundate the customers with messages.  It also enables the users to reply directly to the messages that they receive.  They can send questions and suggestions about the product allowing for bi-directional communication for purposes of feedback and to gauge customer responses to new features.

“Our customers often upgrade their systems and applications to take advantage of new features and technologies.  It is crucial that we inform our customers when we release new integrations and functionality, ensuring that their combined CRM and accounting solutions continue to work seamlessly with QuoteWerks.  Often however, customers are unaware of new additions to QuoteWerks because email SPAM filters trap or discard our build announcement emails, disrupting legitimate email communication between us and our customer base.  The new QuoteWerks Communicator will allow us to keep our customers informed and alert them when new features are available,” comments John C. Lewe IV, President of Aspire Technologies, Inc.

A full list of all the features added in Build 51 can be viewed here.

The new QuickBooks 2010 integrations, enhanced MS CRM integration, and improved Maximizer integration (plus more) are available in Build 51 or higher of QuoteWerks version 4.0.  Visit http://www.quotewerks.com/updates/UpdateAgent.asp to download build 51.

About Aspire Technologies and QuoteWerks^®

Aspire Technologies, the creators of the award winning QuoteWerks^® sales quoting software, is the leading provider of sales quoting software with its award winning QuoteWerks^® application deployed to thousands of businesses and

enterprises worldwide. QuoteWerks^® integrates with leading CRM and accounting packages, along with IT
distributors D&H^®, Ingram Micro^®, SYNNEX^®, and Tech Data^®, enabling businesses in all industries to integrate QuoteWerks^® seamlessly into their existing environments.  Aspire Technologies is headquartered in Orlando, Florida and is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.  For more information please visit www.quotewerks.com.

QuoteWerks is a registered trademark of Aspire Technologies, Inc.  Other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

Em conferência anual, companhia aponta para foco na integração entre redes sociais, ferramentas colaborativas e aplicativos corporativos 

É praticamente inevitável para uma companhia ignorar processos de colaboração, troca de ideias, redes sociais e outras funcionalidades que vieram com o apogeu da web 2.0, ainda que a empresa não tenha aplicado essa realidade ao seu dia a dia. A indústria assiste de perto a esta movimentação ávida para encontrar uma forma de ganhar sua fatia nessa chamada evolução social. E algumas têm conseguido algum sucesso. O Google tem capitalizado com sua plataforma Google Apps que, aos poucos, amplia presença no mercado empresarial e a Salesfoce.com, uma das pioneiras na oferta de programas no modelo software como serviço (SaaS, da sigla em inglês), mostra que está com os dois pés nesta era.

Prova dessa determinação é o lançamento do Salesforce Chatter, apresentado durante o Dreamforce 2009, conferência que a companhia realiza anualmente em São Francisco, Estados Unidos, cidade onde a empresa foi fundada, e que neste ano ocorre entre os dias 17 e 20 de novembro. Trata-se de uma espécie de Google Wave, mas totalmente voltado para o mundo das corporações. Como explica a própria empresa, o Chatter é, ao mesmo tempo, uma aplicação de colaboração corporativa e uma plataforma de desenvolvimento social. Por meio de uma interface aparentemente fácil, o funcionário pode acessar um aplicativo financeiro, observar dicas, criar fóruns, acessar redes sociais compartilhadas.

CEO da Salesforce diz que produtos das rivais são lentos ou complexos e caros 

De acordo com a companhia, os 135 mil aplicativos Salesforce se converterão para a plataforma social. Para Marc Benioff, CEO e chairman da empresa, o produto é uma forma de aproximar os funcionários da empresa, já que essas pessoas passam a acessar ferramentas que encontram fora da companhia e que podem contribuir com o processo de colaboração e inovação. É uma complexa combinação, em tempo real, de ferramentas de redes familiares e aplicativos empresariais dentro de um formato de compartilhamento seguro.

“Não conheço ninguém que discorde que Twitter e Facebook sejam fenômenos e trouxeram novas possibilidades para a indústria com meio bilhão de usuários. Eu uso Facebook e Twitter”, comentou Benioff, sobre a realidade das redes, diante de uma plateia formada por milhares de pessoas (foram 19 mil inscritos) entre analistas, clientes, jornalistas e desenvolvedores. “A mágica é levar a inteligência por meio da rede social. Une conteúdo, aplicativo e pessoas no mesmo espaço. Nas empresas, isso está separado. Por que não levar inteligência para as empresas? Você tem conteúdo por meio de compartilhamento de arquivo, intranet, Lotus Notes; tem aplicativo da Salesforce, Oracle, SAP e tem pessoas que utilizam e-mail, outlook e mensagem instantânea e porque não usar tudo isso junto?”, questionou o CEO da Salesforce.

De acordo com Benioff, a colaboração por meio do Chatter será tão fácil como ocorre no Facebook e os aplicativos “conversarão com o usuário”. Em relação à segurança e privacidade, ele esclareceu que a ferramenta traz funcionalidades que permitem determinar quem tem acesso à determinada apresentação que será compartilhada na rede, quais pessoas podem ingressar em um grupo recém criado. Os filtros funcionam inclusive para os aplicativos.

Logo após a apresentação que também marcou a abertura do evento, Benioff participou de um bate-papo com jornalistas. Ele explicou que a estratégia da companhia está, sobretudo, em criar produtos que possam ser integrados. Mas adiantou que, no caso do Chatter, “o primeiro passo é colocar o produto como a próxima geração de colaboração. Não é um software de rede social, é uma plataforma de colaboração e o segundo passo é diferenciar os produtos como CRM da plataforma de integração.”

Versões atualizadas
Além do lançamento do Chatter, a Salesforce.com apresentou versões atualizadas do Sales Cloud2 e Service Cloud2. Ambos produtos receberam ferramentas colaborativas e integração com redes sociais. Tudo para facilitar o trabalho, melhorar o desempenho das companhias e deixar tudo dentro do conceito integração e colaboração.

No caso do Service Cloud, Benioff avisou que se trata de uma nova geração de serviço ao cliente e apresentou um slide com dado creditado à Frost & Sullivan que, em 2009, a Salesforce terá 55% de market share em CRM no modelo SaaS. “Os contacts center estão desconectados e os clientes estão nas redes sociais. As empresas investem em SAP, Oracle e Microsoft, mas os clientes estão em outros lugares”, provocou o executivo.

O vice-presidente de marketing da companhia, Kraig Swensrud, mostrou que a Dell, por exemplo, adotou o CRM da Salesforce, já nesta nova era e lembrou que os usuários têm, na mesma tela, acesso a todos os canais como telefone, redes sociais, e-mail e site. “O sistema é totalmente integrado. Pode saber de onde e o que as pessoas estão falando. É possível fazer filtros por perfil de clientes ou produtos, por exemplo.”

I got bored yesterday on the flight home from Dreamforce 09 so I whipped up this bumper sticker as a way to encourage people to become Force.com developers. I have an old post titled “Start Developing With Salesforce.Com — Today!” that outlines why I think people should start developing on the Force.com platform.

You can order the bumper at zazzle.com if you are interested.

Intuits Quickbooks 2010 now offers a CRM functionality called Customer Manager  that integrates with Outlook and allows users to combine financial and contact information into one contact view.

So is Salesforce going to start offering bookkeeping software?

Frankly, I think vendors with deep expertise in one area should keep building on that success rather venture out into new territory where they don’t have as good a grasp of the market and challenges.  I’d rather see Quickbooks and Salesforce partner than to confuse Quickbooks customers who have Salesforce to learn a new way to handle contact data.  But that’s just me.

SalesForce is leading the way in tracking social media conversations, providing marketers with a way to monitor and prove that it can impact sales. Cloud 2, which launched last week, integrates Facebook and Twitter conversations into the sales funnel, adding a new channel for sales people to engage with clients and prospects. This is really cool and will no doubt further conversations on how social media affects the bottom line.

Salesforce.com verlagert die Entwicklung von Rich Internet Applications (RIA) in die Cloud. Möglich wird dies durch Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com, eine gemeinsam mit Adobe entwickelte integrierte Entwicklungsumgebung (Integrated Development Environment, IDE), auf Basis der bekannten Plattformen Adobe Flash Builder und Force.com. Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com überträgt die Vielfalt des Consumer Web auf Enterprise Cloud Computing-Anwendungen und erhöht die Produktivität in der Programmierung.

Anwendungen, die mit Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com entwickelt wurden können online über Adobe Flash Player oder offline auf dem Desktop via Adobe AIR genutzt werden. Die Integration der Plattformen von salesforce.com und Adobe ermöglicht das Client-seitige Datenmanagement und die Synchronisierung zwischen Cloud und Client. Die Entwicklung von Anwendungen, die nahtlos online und offline, über verschiedene Betriebssysteme und Endgeräte hinweg laufen, wird damit vereinfacht. Gleichzeitig gilt für die mit Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com erstellten RIAs die von Force.com bekannte Skalierbarkeit, Sicherheit und Verlässlichkeit. Entwickler können die integrierte Entwicklungsumgebung verwenden, um bestehende Salesforce CRM-Implementierungen zu erweitern und zu verbessern sowie dazu, komplett neue Anwendungen für beliebige Geschäftsanforderungen zu entwickeln.

(Quelle)

As part of Appirio I was exposed to Chatter before the public announcement. I have to admit that when I originally first saw it I wasn’t really impressed. I understand that people, applications, documents, etc. can Chatter but to me it seemed just like another social network that I would have to check in addition to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Even when Marc Benioff publically unveiled Chatter I was still luke warm to the technology.

The light bulb finally clicked when our CMO and Head of R&D, Narinder Singh, demoed our Social PS Enterprise in the Day 2 Keynote. It was by far the best demo at Dreamforce 09 and I had a number of non-Appirio people tell me so. In the demo Narinder showed how he could enter a new timecard and the project would Chatter that its status had gone from green to yellow. That’s awesome in itself but the real magic was when he updated a spreadsheet in Google Docs and the project Chattered that it was now back on schedule. A number of people mentioned to me that there was a audible gasp when he pulled this off.

We have a really great demo of Social PS Enterprise on the Appirio site if you are interested in taking another look.

I’m really interested to see how they implement role and record based security to the Chatter that is broadcast. I’m also hoping that someone like Kyle Roche writes a client app that combines Chatter, Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps TweetDeck or Tweetie can be persuaded.

InformationWeek EUA
 
Depois de se convencer sobre qual fornecedor de nuvem escolher, as empresas devem determinar o quão confortável se sentem colocando dados e aplicativos nas nuvens. A maioria vai devagar, geralmente começa com um tipo de aplicativo apenas – o serviço de CRM da Salesforce, por exemplo – ou um tipo de atividade, como desenvolvimento e testes.

Apenas uns poucos corajosos mergulham de cabeça, como a Recurrent Energy, que financia, constrói e opera sistemas de distribuição de energia solar. “Nós não temos um data center agora e esperamos continuar assim conforme o negócio cresce”, disse o COO, Wyatt. “Não achamos que manter hardware, sistemas de gerenciamento de banco de dados, redes, aplicativos ou gerenciamento de segurança beneficia nosso negócio, portanto preferimos que terceiros façam isso pra gente”.

Além da eficiência em operações, Wyatt acredita que a nuvem ajuda na colaboração com parceiros do negócio. É ai que os sistemas de autenticação desempenham um papel importante: “Precisamos passar informações para os nossos parceiros financeiros sobre seus projetos, mas não queremos que eles tenham acesso aos nossos dados proprietários e possíveis informações vindas de concorrentes”, disse Wyatt.

Para isso, a Recurrent usa o gerenciador de conteúdo de serviços em nuvem da SpringCM Inc. O serviço armazena uma grande variedade de documentos de negócios relacionados à criação de sistemas de distribuição de energia, desde a criação do projeto até regulamentos para construções locais, estaduais e federais. Os documentos devem ser armazenados por diferentes períodos de tempo – entre alguns meses e décadas – e têm diferentes níveis de sigilo. Às vezes, um funcionário precisa acessar um documento mantido em uma pasta com vários outros materiais, a SpringCM lhe dá acesso àquele arquivo e nada mais dentro da mesma pasta.

Customer contacts and lead generation go hand in hand.  I have used all of the systems over the years.  Salesforce, Outlook, Act, MyMail List, Excel, custom builds, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.

The basic must do is Outlook, Linked in,  or my new find, Google Gmail contacts and calendar that syncs with my Blackberry.  If you need more than that or want to centralize contacts then something more robust is in order.

Salesforce.com  has been known around bigger company circles, but a friends blog professing love for Salesforce for under $100 per year for her small business, caught my eye.  If you are a small business or have independent sales reps, this may be a great option, without the heavy expense to check out.

Here is her feedback: “I love my new salesforce.com contact management system! They announced mid-Oct that they offer a few new versions for small biz. Mine is the base level, $99/year. web-based, easy to use, flexible. bye-bye horrible (Name withheld), hello being organized! I say, if you have multiple lists/contacts, use this,  better than outlook, ACT and excel for sure…”

So let us know what you are using and the pros and the cons to help others choose a contact management system that will work without a lot of expense.