Salesforce.com Summer ’10 Release

Salesforce.com Summer ’10 release is here and is even better than before. Here are my top 5 favorite features from the new release.

1. Chatter

What is Chatter? Chatter is a collaboration application that can help you join forces with your co-workers, the applications in with which you work, and the content on which you work, in real time. For example, your development team can use chatter to share updates and exchange information directly on the Donations records – no more endless email exchange (did you send the thank you letter? Did we receive the donation? Etc…)

To enable Chatter:

Setup | Customize | Chatter | Settings

Note:

To turn on Chatter, the new user interface is required.
All users have Chatter profiles with a personal photo, contact information, and professional experience.
The People Tab provides a list of all users.
Feeds provide real time information (just like Facebook…i.e when a person changes a status on facebook, you get notified. For Chatter, when collaborating on a document and your coworkers complete a thank you email, you get notified with a status update immediately. )

2. Cloud Scheduler

Wow! This will make my life much easier! The Cloud Scheduler allows users to propose multiple meeting times – this should reduce all the back and forth communication when scheduling a multi-attendance meeting. You can let Salesforce propose meeting times, based on the Salesforce users’ calendar (it should be up-to-date!), or select your own meeting times.

To enable the Cloud Scheduler:

a. Setup | Customize | Activities | Activity Settings and click on Show Requested Meetings in Calendar Section.

b. Add the new Meeting Request button to the page layouts for Contacts and Leads.

3. Campaigns

More control over the Campaign Members object. For example, with cross-object formula fields it is now possible to display information from Leads, Contacts or Organizations on the Campaign Members object.

4. Answers Available in Force.com Sites!

Force.com Sites allows people create public websites and applications that are directly integrated with your Salesforce database. We have already delivered several Site based solutions for nonprofits, such as a fully featured university admission process (we also used Salesforce Customer Portal) and program enrollment forms.

Now, it is possible to expose the Answers community on Sites as well! The new release even enables the moderator to escalate a question into a case or promote a reply to an article. Salesforce has
been using Answers for a while now. Check it out!

5. Last but not least, Drag-and-Drop Dashboards

Dashboards are great, but they can take time to create. With the new release most dashboard customizations happen on a single screen, therefore, it makes it easier for administrators to edit dashboards and minimize the time that it takes to create a new dashboards. The builder layout is a completely new way of creating dashboards and was very much needed.

Note: Your profile should include “Drag-and-Drop Dashboard Builder”