Salesforce Sales Cloud-Products, Price Books and Assets

February 17th, 2012
Product and Product Family
-      Product family is a pick list field under product object
-      Forecasting can be filtered by product family
Price book
-         A product always has to be listed under master list, which is standard price book
-         Can be listed in customized price books.
-         Custom price book can have DISCOUNT. Discount can be higher than the standard price.
-         An opportunity can use only one price book.
-         New price book is create on Product tab

Three difference access rights to Price book.

  • Use
  • View Only(only users with Edit Opportunity OR USE access to Price book can add it)
  • No Access
Schedule
-         Quantity Schedule(magazine)
-         Revenue Schedule (car)
-         Revenue & Quantity Schedule (arrowhead water)
-         It is created under price book in the setup
-         First you need to enable schedule in Price Book before use it. It can also be enabled to all products
Assets
Assets are automatically enables when you enable products.
- You may need to manually add the following
- Assets related list to account, contact or product page layouts.
- Cases related list to the asset page layout.
- Asset lookup field to case page layouts.

Schedule

- Quantity Schedule(magazine)

- Revenue Schedule (car)

- Revenue & Quantity Schedule (arrowhead water)

- Schedule is created under price book in the setup.

- First you need to enable schedule in Price Book before use it. It can also be enabled to all products.

 

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Salesforce Sales Cloud – Chatter

February 16th, 2012

Chatter is changing the way your company connects. It is like using Fackbook within your company.

How chatter revolutionzies the way we share information?
Chatter Home Page – track People, records, post content and files, groups and more. Everyone can see your homepage post.

Profile Page-track post made by you and to you. Everyone can see your profile post.

Record-only Record page-user must have records access to follow, view, post to record.

Groups page-group you belong to.  You can create both public and private groups.
Call center agent can follow cases, solutions, knowledge articles and product specialist so that she can be sure her information is up to date.

Sales rep can follows a deal/opportunity, anything on that deal changes, he will  see it instantly. Also allows sales team to share docs and track the changes in a secure “ROOM”.

Peer knowledge allows users to tap into the experts and experience with their peer.

Group collaboration puts everyhitng in a team needs in one place.

The best practices for Chatter.

-Update profile

-Follow records that is important to you

-Follow people in your company

-Check your chatter email settings

The steps for enabling Chatter.
Chatter Feeds – admin can turn on feed tracking under chatter to automatically track certain objects and fields.

People and Profile-admin add these two tabs to your most popular apps.

Admin can enable it from pop up or setup.
Chatter Desktop
@:posts directed at you
People:access feeds of people you follow

Group: access feeds of groupyou follow

Chatter: all posts of all people

Chatter Mobile

Admin must enable chatter mobile.

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Salesforce Sales Cloud-Campaign and ROI

February 15th, 2012

Campaign contains name, start/end date, expected revenue, budget cost, actual cost. .  Can have different page layouts for each campaign type.

Campaign members can be lead, contact, person account, with status. Can have different page layouts for each campaign type. Status can be set up through advanced setup.

How to add campaign members to a campaign

1.Add members by search

2.Add members by importing files

3.Add members by creating a report

Campaign Hierarchy allows grouping campaigns together.

-Standard fields in Campaign Hierarchy includes summary level fields, for example, Total actual cost in Hierarchy.

Campaign Influence tracks multiple campaigns on a single opportunity, also tracks which campaign has the primary influence.  Can be configured “enabled” and “automatically”
by rules and timeframe.

How Marketer measure the campaign effectiveness?

1.Which campaign drives more business? (pipeline report in Sales)

2.Which campaign drives more revenue?(closed won opportunities for Sales)

3. Which campaign have the best ROI? (ROI)

 

 

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Salesforce Sales Cloud – Common CRM business requirements

February 14th, 2012

Common CRM business requirements / challenges are security, user adoption and trusted clean data.

1. Security

Security Levels
- Industry
- Departments using salesforce

- Salesforce application/objects/data
Security Access levels
Salesforce(User setup, ID, IP,passwords, remote users, external user setup, API and integration, session settings,licenses, single sign on)
-Records (OWD, access to records is based on roles and role hierarchy, forecast hierarchy, profiles, delegated administration, grant login access, sharing rules, public groups, account, selling and case teams, record level sharing, record ownerhip)

-Data Values (record types, page, layouts, field-level security, views, reports, dashboards, folders)

Design consideration

-   Password policies and security settings

-   Access to records, fields, related lists
-   Roles, users and profile

-    Admin Burden(page layouts, profiles maintenance) vs Security

-    Folder and List View Management (use public groups, role hierarchy to share folders or views, use object level list views)

Reports

-    Account Owner Report

-    Security Health Check AppExchange Package
2. User adoption
ISO definition
- Efficiency

- Effectiveness

- Satisfaction
Design consideration
-  Involve users in design, testing, ask for feedback throughout the development and continue feedback after go live.

-  UI Management(Tab, field naming, Reduced clicks, Search, record types and page layouts, Minimized Redundant data entry)

-  Logic Automation(workflow rules and approvals
Reports
-    All records created: Last 60 days by object

-    All Users Logged in: last 7 days

-    Leads converted: last 60 days

-     Cases Closed: last 60 days

-     Can be added as a link on a record
Training

-  Role based

- Scenario based

- Manager/Admin training  starts with Report, drill down to detail

- User training starts with data entry, then reports
3. Trusted data

Design consideration
-Authenticity

-Reliance

- Completeness

-Data Quality Plan: Standardize, clean, Enrich, De-Dupe, Validate

- Initial Migration

- Ongoing Data Management

- Minimize Dirty Data(user need to find records easily, adding page layout, link, formula, data validation rules, help text, required fields, use Jigsaw)

- Maintain Clean Data(de-dupe, merge accounts/contacts,ringLead, request update to contact, use jigsaw)

- Data loading (import wizards for <50,000,data loader, ETL, Integration, Manual Entry)

Reports

-Data Quality Average report by object

-Data quality description repots by object

-Data quality score reports by object
Force.com Allows custom Interface to any support device.

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Salesforce Sales Cloud – salesforce to salesforce connection

February 14th, 2012

What is Salesforce to Salesforce connection?

It is a connections tab, which allow channel managers with your organization to share account, contact, leads and opportunity.

-        Manages connection

-         Manages connection templates (admin use template to share certain objects)
-         FREE to all any edition
-         Either side can deactivate connection anytime

Five steps to set up a Salesforce to Salesforce connection

  1. Manage customization of your email templates(recommend HTML)
  2. Invite a contact to share data.
  3. Contact receives and accepts the invitation
  4. Define the objects and fields to be sent-Publisher
  5. Define the objects and fields to be received-Subscriber

 

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Salesforce Sales Cloud – Explain the concept of and use cases for sales territories

February 13th, 2012

How Territory Management works in Salesforce

Territory Management Overview

Territory management is an account sharing system that grants
accounts based on the characteristics of the accounts. They can be focused on
geography, industry, revenue, or a custom field or however you like, By
default, it is turned off. You need to contact salesforce.com to enable it. By
enabling it, you lose the collaborative forecasting features. Reasons are
because Territory is associated with accounts , opportunities and users. The
account assignment rules which will assign each account to proper territory
during creation or saving. The collaborative forecasting would not be including
territory. By switching to territory management, you will have to use
customized forecasting. A territory is a flexible collection of accounts and
users where the users have at least read access to the accounts, regardless of
who owns the account. By configuring territory settings, users in a territory
can be granted read, read/write, or owner-like access (that is, the ability to
view, edit, transfer, and delete records) to the accounts in that territory.
Both accounts and users can exist in multiple territories. You can manually add
accounts to territories, or you can define account assignment rules that assign
accounts to territories for you.

Not only can you control access to accounts for users in each
territory, you can also control users’ access to the opportunities and cases
associated with the accounts in the territory, regardless of who owns the
records. For more information, see Territory Fields.

When to use territory management

  • Most often when your organization has a private sharing model and
    you need to grant users access based on criteria such as zip code, industry
    etc.
  • Allow users to gain access to accounts, opportunities based on
    territory, not on record ownership
  • You may need to generate forecasts for these diverse categories of
    accounts

Key benefits of territory management include:

  • The ability to use account criteria to expand a private sharing
    model.
  • Support for complex and frequently changed sales organization
    structures.
  • Support for transferring users between territories, with the
    option to retain opportunities.
  • Multiple forecasts per user, based on territory membership.
  • Territory-based sales reports.

Note:

  • Account ownership and its effect on record sharing remains valid
    and unchanged when territory management is in use
  • You can associate an opportunity with a territory. An opportunity
    can only be associated with one territory.
  • Territory management only affects accounts and the standard
    objects that have a master-detail relationship to accounts. For example,
    opportunities, accounts, cases, contacts, forecast managers, sharing groups are
    included in territory management but leads are not.
  • You must have the “Manage Territories” permission to assign
    territories to accounts
  • You must have the “Edit” permission on opportunities to change the
    territories for an opportunity.

What is a Territory Hierarchy?

Territories exist in a hierarchy which you can set up with as many
nested levels as you wish. Note that territory hierarchies do not have to be
focused on geography; they can be defined however you like. For more
information, see Building Your Territory Hierarchy.

How Do Territories Affect Forecasting?

When you enable territory management for your organization, your
forecast data is derived from the opportunities that are associated with the
accounts in your territories. Users will have a different forecast for each
territory to which they are assigned. For example, if you are assigned to both
“California” and “Arizona,” you will have one forecast for the opportunities
you have in “California,” and another forecast for the opportunities you have
in “Arizona.” See Viewing Customizable Forecasts.

What kinds of records have territories?

Accounts, opportunities, and users have territory fields. Accounts
and users can be associated with multiple territories. An opportunity can be
associated with only one territory.

Are the territory hierarchy and the role hierarchy different?

Yes. The territory hierarchy and the role hierarchy are
independent. See the following comparison:

Territory Hierarchy Role Hierarchy
Is
available by contacting salesforce.com		 Is
available by default
Determines
forecasts		 Has no
impact on forecasting when territory management is enabled
Supports
assigning a user to multiple territories		 Supports
assigning a user to only one role
Affects
account and opportunity reports		 Affects
all other reports
Grants
access to records regardless of ownership. Users receive whatever access is
most permissive across both hierarchies.		 Grants
access to records based on ownership. Users receive whatever access is most
permissive across both hierarchies.

How are opportunities assigned to territories?

Opportunities are automatically assigned to territories based on
the following actions:

  • Creating a new opportunity

Opportunities that you create are automatically assigned a
territory when you meet both of the following conditions:

  • You belong to or have edit privileges on the same territory as the
    account on the opportunity.
  • You have no other territories in common with that account.

For example, if you are in the territories Berkeley and San
Francisco and the account is in the territories Portland, San Francisco, and
Seattle, the opportunity will be assigned to the San Francisco territory.

  • Running account assignment rules

When account assignment rules are run, opportunities are
automatically assigned to the same territory as the account when:

  • An opportunity does not have a territory and its account is added
    to a territory.
  • An account moves from one territory to another. However, if an
    account assignment rule prohibits opportunities from moving outside a given part
    of the territory hierarchy, the opportunities do not move and no longer belong
    to any territories.

Opportunities are not automatically assigned to the same territory
as the account when:

  • An account is removed from a territory and not reassigned to a new
    territory in the same operation. The account’s opportunities from the original
    territory no longer belong to any territories.
  • An account is reassigned to multiple territories in one operation.
    The account’s opportunities from the original territory no longer belong to any
    territories, unless the Confine Opportunity Assignment checkbox is checked.

Note

If the opportunity owner is not part of the new territory, he or
she is added as an inactive member of the territory.

The following actions do not change an opportunity’s territory:

  • Manually assigning the opportunity’s account to a territory
  • Changing which account is associated with the opportunity
  • Changing the account’s territory as a result of account assignment
    rules if the opportunity and its account are in different territories
  • Transferring the opportunity to a new owner.

reference

https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTSearchResults?qry=Building+Your+Territory+Hierarchy

By Tina on 2/10/2012

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Salesforce Sales Cloud – The factors that influence sales metrics, KPIs(Key Performance Indicatiors), and business challenges

February 13th, 2012

The challenges for the Sales departments are constantly changing and unique for each industry and line of business. Each organization needs to carefully choose their Sales KPIs, monitor and reinforce its strategies and behaviors.

Top 10 Most Common Sales Metrics

1. Top X in Sales Revenue. (X can be products, reps, cities etc.)

  • Measures your top performers based on Sales Revenue
  • To know where your profits/revenue are
  • Benefit: Know your top performers.

Audience: Managers, Executives
Calculation: Rank top 3/10/25 performers by sales revenue
Example: Best Sellers = Item 1, $2.3 million; Item 2, $1.9 million; Item 3, $1.5 million

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Displaying this KPI on a tabular in dashboard
  • Or in a bar chart using dashboard
  • With dashboard, you can schedule refresh on a daily, weekly, monthly basis within certain time frame.
  • Since this KPI benefits to the managers, executives, it is a good idea to implement the dashboard on each profile homepage and schedule emails to be sent out these key users.

2. Bottom 10% of Products by Sales

  • Measure your low performers based on sales revenue.
  • To know which area you are not performing well, so that the top management can phase out products or change the poor sales.
  • Benefit: Know which products need to be reassessed.

Audience: Executives, Managers
Calculation: Rank each product based on amount of revenue from least to most
Example: Poor Performers = Item 1, $0.1 million; Item 2, $0.21 million; Item 3, $0.29 million…

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce, which similar to #1 Top X in sales revenue :

  • Displaying this KPI on a tabular in dashboard
  • Or in a bar chart using dashboard
  • With dashboard, you can schedule refresh on a daily, weekly, monthly basis within certain time frame.
  • Since this KPI benefits to the managers, executives, it is a good idea to implement the dashboard on each profile homepage and schedule emails to be sent out these key users.

3. Percentage of Sales Growth

  • Measures sales growth over a set period of time.
  • Make sure you use a time period, which is long enough to avoid being fixated on constantly fluctuating numbers
  • But short enough to uncover trends.
  • The key is to gain insight into long term sales trends.
  • Benefit: Gain insight into long term sales trends.

Audience: Executives, Managers
Calculation: (Current period sales revenue – Previous period sales revenue) / Previous period sales revenue
Example: ($20.5M Q3-2011 – $18.3M Q2-2011) / $18.3M Q2-2011 = 12% Sales Growth Q3 compared against Q2

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Use Snapshot to capture whatever the summary level sales by weekly, monthly or quarterly.
  • Calculation: (Current period sales revenue – Previous period sales revenue) / Previous period sales revenue
  • Recommend a line chart in dashboard
  • Schedule it refresh periodically

4. New vs. Repeated Business

  • Measures sales made to new customers compares to loyal or repeat customers.
  • Time frame-long enough to measure
  • Frequencies- preferable on a monthly basis
  • Benefit: Gain insight into customer trends and focus your energy where it matters most.

Audience: Sales Reps, Managers, Executives

Calculation: $15M New to $8.4M Repeat = 1.8:1 New to Repeat

Example: 1.8:1 New to Repeat Business or a line chart with two series (new and repeat business over the past x months)

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce

  • use a ratio and combine with a line chart with two series (new and repeat business over the past x months)
  • Ratio can be done using a pie chart for current ratio.
  • I can’t think of anything better than using a snapshot to capture the new sales revenue and repeating sales revenue on a monthly basis. Build a line chart in dashboard based on the snapshot target object.

5. Customer Loyalty

  • One of the most critical factors in the success of any business.
  • It is not simple. A line chart won’t work.
  • It can be correlated with campaigns and events.
  • Determine how many new customer you are turning into loyal customers.
  • In some business, it is called attrition (cancellation rate).

Audience: from sales rep to executive

Calculation: 1 – (Number of customers who cancelled or did not renew during the period / by the total number of customers)

Example: 1 – (35 / 2,482) = 98% Customer Loyalty (Past 30 days)

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • You have to help clients determine the processes of cancellation first.
  • It needs to correlate with other objects analysis, you probably want to look for an app on AppExchange which can do complex analysis.

6. Sales Per Sales Rep or % on Quota

  • Measures sales rep performance based on each individual.
  • Benefit: Gain insight into each rep’s performance based on revenue generated.

Audience: from sales rep to executives.

Calculation: Actual Sales / Quota Amount = Percentage on Target

Example: $23,250 / $28,000 = 83%

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Consider a bar graph representing each sales rep.
  • You can leverage it to new/repeat customer.
  • Refresh dashboard on a monthly basis (or business requirement accordingly)
  • The dashboard can be included on sales rep home page.

7. Sales by Contact “Method X”

  • Measure which contact methods generating sales, such as Email, telephone, or in-person contact.
  • Benefit: knowing which methods works the best for your business and capitalized on it.

Audience: from Sales Rep to Executives.

Calculation: For each contact type: # of sales / total # of contacts (email, calls, visits)

Example: Email contact = 183 wins / 1,524 contacts = 12% win rate

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Recommend the clients to integrate salesforce with Outlook and/or GoogleAPP to track the emails activities.
  • Recommend the clients to integrate Salesforce with CTI Phone system.
  • Recommend training session for the end users to master every activity loggings.
  • A bar graph in dashboard represing each sales contact method
  • You can also incorporate information such as sales per rep.

8. Quote to Closing Ration

  • Compare # of formal quotes to sales closed.
  • Benefit: Learn whether you are losing genuine sales leads based on quotes. Consider displaying this KPI as a simple number value.

Audience: Managers, Executives

Calculation: # of wins / # of quotes

Example: 74 wins / 183 quotes = 40% win rate

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Recommend the clients to do analysis on the ratio of closed deals in 30/60/90 days.

9. Units or Revenue Per Transaction (UPT)

  • UPT measures the units or $ per transaction
  • You can track UPT based on customer groups.
  • Help sales management to align sales strategy and target promotions to key customers.
  • Benefit: Determine the amount of units per transaction to learn more about your customers.

Audience: Executives, Managers

Calculation: Total # units sold / Total # of transactions

Example: 235,288 units / 13,982 transactions = 16.8 units per transaction

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Gather the information from the client regarding how much detail they want to include
  • Use line graph in dashboard to track the trend over time
  • Sales management can set up a goal for UPT on a monthly, quarterly basis for each customer group.

10. A) Sales Quota Attainment.

  • Measures the organization ability to meet its quota
  • Keep your monthly/quartery target at forefront
  • It is married to another KPI- sales forecast accuracy
  • Benefit: Keep on top of your sales quota day-to-day to support tactical decisions.

Audience: Sales Reps, Managers, Executives

Calculation: Sales in period / Quota for period – OR – (Sales in period – Quota in period) / Quota in period

Example: $230K sales / $300K quota = 76% – OR – ($230K sales – $300K quota) / $300 quota = -23%

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Collect and analyze information from your clients
  • You can use this KPI as model and add more details to it. For example, regional sales quota attainment, product sales attainment, sales team attainment, sales rep attainments.
  • Use Gauge chart in dashboard.

11. B) Sales Forecast Accuracy

  • It measures the business sales quota attainment accuracy
  • Keeps overly ambitious predictions in check
  • Setting unattainable goals can lower morale of the business.
  • Benefit: Learn what are realistic goals to challenge and keep attitudes positive.

Audience: Sales Reps, Managers, Executives

Calculation: Sales in period / Quota for period – OR – (Sales in period – Quota in period) / Quota in period

Example: $230K sales / $300K quota = 76% – OR – ($230K sales – $300K quota) / $300 quota = -23%

As a consultant, here is what you can recommend to implement in Salesforce:

  • Use Gauge chart in dashboard.

Reference:

http://www.klipfolio.com/resources/kpi-examples-top-sales-metrics

By Tina on 2/10/2012

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Add Additional Mobile Capabilities

February 6th, 2012

Microsoft is expected to launch a Dynamics CRM application for mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.  This feature will be included in the Dynamics CRM Q2 2012 service update.

According to an article from zdnet.com,  this service will start at $30 per user, per month and supports up to three mobile devices.  This price clearly challenges the competition as Salesforce starts at $65 per user, per month.  Also included in the service pack update, Microsoft will allow users a choice of which Internet browser they prefer to use and will add more social capabilities with a look and feel consistent with Facebook.  Microsoft Excel Workbooks and Business Intelligence functionality with SQL Server 2012 called Power View will also be included.  This will provide self-service analytical capabilities.

As promised, Quarterly updates are being delivered as Microsoft continues to provide top-notch technology and services to it’s clients.

Below is an example of what the Dynamics CRM app looks like on the iPad.  Click the image for a larger view.

Read the rest of the article by clicking here.

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Let’s Get Social – Announcement from Microsoft

October 27th, 2011

Microsoft announced a new update on October 25, 2011 in a press release that will allow for social capabilities.  Social CRM seems to be the hot buzz word in the marketplace as organizations are now trying to tap into integrating CRM with social technologies.  GM of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Management Group was quoted in saying, ” Across Microsoft, we deliver social capabilities that help customers and businesses build more productive relationships.  By bringing together new social collaboration capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM with familiar collaboration technologies such as Office, SharePoint and Lync, businesses will be able to expand their relationships with customers and gain even deeper insight and understanding.”

The new release will include the following capabilities:

  • Activity feeds:  Real-time notifications on important relationships and significant business events.
  • Mobile activity feeds:  View your feeds when you’re away from your desk and out of the office.
  • Micro-blogging:  Status updates and notifications regarding important events and actions.
  • Conversations: Post questions, observations, suggestions and status updates.  This will allow users to collaborate in real-time.
  • Automated activity updates: Post information to activity feeds directly.  This includes a subscribe function.

With these new capabilities, Microsoft is continuing to place itself as one of the top players and game changers in the CRM marketplace.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL RELEASE

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The Answers You Need, Anytime, Anywhere

August 9th, 2011

With today’s competition, if you’re not going mobile, you’re going backwards.

Make no mistake, mobile Business Intelligence is coming fast and its impact will be significant and lasting.  QlikView offers the first Business Discovery mobile BI experience.  It puts business users in control of exploring and exploiting their data without limits on any device.

Mobile Business Discovery offers new possibilities to bring informed answers right to the spot where people are asking questions.  This white paper provides a glimpse into some of its game-changing facets.

Where do you discover?

Get a copy for yourself.  ACCESS NOW

About the paper:

Mobility Is Exploding: Are You Ready?

This paper deals with the explosion of mobility and the implications for business users.  Includes use cases for how business users can bring business discovery tot he front lines of the business.  Written by CITO Research and sponsored by QlikView.

 

 

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