by Cloud for Good Blog | Jun 30, 2015 | Blog
Data is a four letter word, but it doesn’t have to be a dirty one. Clean and complete data means trustworthy data, and trustworthy data is what will ensure user adoption at your organization. Importing and maintaining clean data can feel like a daunting chore, especially when you’re just getting up and running in Salesforce, but there are a number of tools to lighten your load. These range from the basic import wizards and merge tools that are built into Salesforce, to a number of more powerful applications. And the really good news is, all of it, even the third-party programs, are free to Nonprofits, so there’s no added cost to making sure you avoid the heavy price of dirty data. Best Practices: Start by Improving the quality of your data files Whether you need to load data records into Salesforce for the first time, or you want to improve the quality of the data that’s already in your system, or you need to augment that data with new information, there are some best practices you should follow before running any imports. No tool will perform its functions well if the file you’re importing with it contains sloppy or incomplete data. Your first step should always be to do some basic level of cleanup on the data files you plan to import. This can include: Put First Names and Last Names in separate fields. Unless your constituents are pop singers and Brazilian soccer players, they probably have at least two names, and you should load them that way. Last Name should be 100% populated. Keep the data in your...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Jun 23, 2015 | Blog
There are times, in the life of a database administrator, when you just have to go back to good ol’ Excel. We use it for taking data apart, for finding duplicates and flagging them, for sorting up and down to find anomalies and errors. We use it to replace whole columns of one number with another. Francis Scudellari from the Cloud for Good team started this discussion with this excellent post, Keeping it Clean: The Data Import Basics. Check that out to get started thinking about your data importing. One of the most common uses, however is for putting cells TOGETHER. Usually this happens when I have a FirstName column and a LastName column and we need a Full Name column also. Sometimes we need to put one line of the address together with the second line. Excel calls this function “concatenation,” but I always think of it as “sticking things together.” Let’s see just how easy this is. We start with a name issue. Here we have a list of names. Some are husbands and wives, but for the first example, all we want to do is get full names for everybody. Say I’m addressing envelopes for an invitation and I want to invite each individual. I’ve exported my contacts pages, and I’m looking at split names. I need to find a way to get them all into one cell. Click the formula button above your table. It looks like fx. Notice that I’ve already created the “destination” column. Your concatenation needs someplace to go! Insert function comes up and CONCATENATE is at the top of the list!...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Jun 16, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. As Francis wrote a few weeks ago, it’s important to import clean data into your Salesforce system. Gaining & keeping users’ trust is especially critical at the beginning of a project. When we work on a QuickStart project, the client is always tasked with preparing their data in a spreadsheet file with all the columns named and set-up. Even if you’re paying a consultant to manage your data import, you can save money by making sure you’re giving them the best data possible for import. And consultants won’t be able to catch anomalies in your data the way someone who’s more familiar with it can. Whether you’re migrating from another database, or finally moving away from multiple spreadsheets to manage your data, there are a few principles you want to keep in mind, and some tools you can use in Excel or another spreadsheet program to achieve them. SEPARATING COUPLES’ NAMES Many organizations have data where both members of the couple are listed in one field. If your data has a separate Last Name column, and you have a single column in which couples’ names are together, you’ll want to separate them (unlike Trish’s post from last week about sticking them together). You’ll have a lot more flexibility going forward with Salesforce if we use the 1 Contact = 1 Person concept consistently. What you can do for data import, that will make your data preparation much easier, is to just separate the column with the two first names together into two columns: If there is a mix of “Chris &...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Jun 9, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. “The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -” ― Heraclitus Change can be hard. So hard, in fact, that there are whole sections of bookstores dedicated to managing change. When we work with clients to implement Salesforce, there is often a system we’re replacing. Clients are used to that old system. We sometimes hear, “But we’ve always done it this way!” So how can you make sure that this change to a new system (Salesforce) sticks? Here are some tips: Have an executive sponsor for the project. An executive sponsor should provide clear vision as to the reasons for the change, and should be involved in the process. The executive sponsor should embrace the new processes and should work to incorporate the new toolset into their management toolkit. This could include new reports, new workflows, or new ways of gathering information. Organizations don’t change, individuals change. Just because it is software that is being implemented doesn’t mean that the people don’t have to change. Often, it is the staff member who creates the mailings, reports or call lists, whose job is about to be automated. That’s not a bad thing as it frees them up to do other mission critical tasks, but it can be scary. Acknowledge that fear. The ADKAR model (http://www.change-management.com/adkar-book.htm) says that in order to be successful with change individuals have to have the following 5 characteristics: Awareness – I know why the change is needed. Desire – I’ve made the personal decision to participate and support the change. Knowledge – I know how to...
by Cloud for Good Blog | Jun 2, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. Standard Salesforce reporting works fairly well for many people. Unfortunately, for those users with more complex analytics requirements, even the addition of joined reports to the Salesforce toolkit doesn’t quite fit the bill. The problem is essentially that we are still looking primarily at one object and its directly adjacent relationships. For example, all cases grouped by Priority and listed by Status, or all Opportunities grouped by Owner and listed by Stage (see more examples here). But what if you wanted to show the top 10 most frequently sold Products by the 5 users with the highest total Closed-Won Opportunity value this year? Now, you see, the limitations of standard reporting are becoming clearer. Where to turn now? I’d recommend trying out Apsona Multi-Step Reporting (fondly referred to as MSR). What’s Apsona Multi-Step Reporting? If you haven’t heard about Apsona, Francis wrote a great overview post just a couple months ago. The two sentence summary is this: Apsona is a great app that sits directly inside of Salesforce and provides users some powerful options for querying, updating, importing and exporting, and reporting on their Salesforce data. It even has a mail merge add-on that Dylan wrote about last month! The best thing is that Apsona donates free licenses to non-profits for Apsona for Salesforce, so those organizations only ever pay for the extras, like Email and Document Merge or MSR. [To learn more, sign up for our Apsona webinar later this year, led by Cloud For Good CEO Tal Frankfurt.] If Apsona for Salesforce allows for reporting, why would I pay extra for the Multi-Step Reporting add-on? The reporting capabilities of Apsona for Salesforce are awesome, especially when...
by Cloud for Good Blog | May 26, 2015 | Blog
This is a cross post from the Cloud for Good blog. Just about everyone wishes they had ESP (extrasensory perception) when it came to choosing an appropriate ESP (Email Service Provider) for their organization. We hear all the time from our clients that this is a difficult process since they just do not know how to begin comparing. My first response is generally, “You are correct, choosing an ESP can be challenging.” This may not be the answer someone wishes to hear but there are several factors that come into play when needing to make this decision. Each ESP has its strengths, weaknesses, and even unknowns. As with any new tool, it is difficult to understand how it can be used or more importantly, how it was intended to be used. Of course comparing ESPs is a bit like trying to compare apples to oranges or beer to wine. Here are a few basics to help get you started on your search for the ESP that best fits and meets your needs. Basic Terminology Global Opt Out – When an email recipient selects “Unsubscribe” from an email, they are opting out of receiving ALL emails from you, the sending organization. (Some ESPs only supports global opt out with their salesforce integration). Native Salesforce Application – An application built entirely on the salesforce.com platform. These applications live inside your salesforce environment and there is no need for you to log into another providers portal or environment. User Licenses – Who can access the application? Is there a cost associated to each user who will need to build, design, and send...
