I am Force Monkey, hear me Chatter!

The Force Monkey blog has a new look tonight. While I was playing with the new Blogger Template Designer, I updated the background, the font templates, and changed the blog sub-title. The old "Never understimate the power of the Force!" sub-title is gone, replaced with the new "I am Force Monkey, hear me Chatter!" All credits go to Gary Breavington (@gbreavin on Twitter), and here's the background story ...

Earlier today, I received an email from a fellow Salesforce.com User Group member,

"Hi JP, I was just on a partner webinar with Salesforce and they are reiterating the branding rules in their [Salesforce Partner Terms & Conditions Agreement]. One of the rules is no "force" in a company or product name. I don't know if this is applicable if you are not a partner, but wanted to mention it to the key Force Monkey!"

I understand the position entirely. As Salesforce.com rebrands it's identity around the Force.com name, it has to be protective of it. Customers might presume that any other company that uses "Force" in their own product or company is endorsed or more directly affiliated with Salesforce.com. At the same time, I'm a rebel at heart!

Here's the twitter conversation that spontaneously led to the sub-title change on this blog:

So there you go, the source and inspiration for the new blog sub-title. Thanks, @gbreavin, @IdaApps and @DarthGarry for the mid-day laugh. Ha!

I should explain where Force Monkey comes from, I get asked about it often. The origin actually predates Salesforce's rebranding on the Force.com name.

About 4-5 years back, I worked as a Technical Support Engineer for a small, start-up company. We had just brought in a consulting firm to help us select a CRM vendor, and settled on Salesforce.com. The consulting partner gave a price tag for helping us with the initial deployment and data migration, which weighed in somewhere near half my annual salary -- and was a four month project. We were actually at risk of not going forward with the CRM deployment, because the company wasn't prepared to make that investment.

I told my boss, "The consultants have been great in helping us narrow down a CRM vendor, but I think I can manage the roll-out faster. Let me take a crack at it."

He did. I was surprised at the speed and efficiency with which we could customize the tool. I rolled out the company's first Salesforce.com deployment in just four weeks. After the initial turn-up, I scheduled a two week window for doing rapid changes / updates to the package, based on user needs and requests.

One of the Resident Engineers came in to the office that I shared with another colleague and asked, "What are you force monkies doing in here? This is crazy fast, I just asked for that feature this morning!"

The name stuck, and Force Monkey found it's way to my "unofficial" job title. I've since done several consulting engagements and freelance projects as Force Monkey and Force Monkey Labs, although I've never incorporated as such. Now that it's been expressly forbidden, I just might have to!

So Google Wants to do Broadband?

Full Disclosure: I am currently employed by Comcast. As such, my employer would potentially be impacted by the Google Fiber for Communities project. Depending on where Google deploys their proposed Open Access Network, Comcast might lose 50K - 500K subscribers. That said, I'm also a believer in laissez-faire economics, Adam Smith's "invisible hand", and welcome the idea of free market competition. I enjoy the open rivalry between Comast, Dish and Verizon (in my local area). Competition fosters innovation, reduces consumer cost, and drives companies to optimal performance. Competition is good for consumers and it's good for companies, too. Adding Google to the list of Comcast competitors would be interesting, not worrisome. Still ... I've seen and participated in a number of failed Google experiments, including the Nexus One. My own frustration with the Nexus One is the true reason for this blog, not worries about competition between Google and Comcast. Oh, and lest I forget, the views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not reflect those of my employer.

When you make $23 Billion a year as a company, you can try all kinds of whacky "experiments", see if they work, and if they don't, just pull the plug. Think Google.

Google broke into the mobile industry last year by offering the Nexus One smartphone. Although the device was made in a close partnership with HTC (a Taiwan-based hardware vendor), Google sold the device exclusively through its website.

The Nexus One was designed to showcase the Android software, which was also developed by Google. Unfortunately, Google soon found that making a great mobile phone isn't enough -- you also have to support it. Soon after the phone went on sale, buyers started to complain on Google's support forums: they weren't getting prompt assistance when they had problems with their phones. There were also angry at the $550 early termination fee.

This week, Google announced that they are shutting down the Nexus One project. The phone will no longer be sold through the company's e-commerce site. Google will provide "support" for current owners, and will allow some carriers to continue distributing / supporting the phones -- but Google is effectively getting out of the mobile phone business.

Being a mobile phone carrier is hard. Maintaining a call center staff to deal with all your inbound customer complaints, technical issues, and service needs is difficult. But you know what? So is building, maintaining and supporting a broadband network infrastructure.

What happens after Google builds their ultra-high speed broadband network? Will they hire marketing personnel, to foster new marketing campaigns that compete and win market share from local broadband competitors? Will they hire Sales personnel to find new customers, win them over from competitors, etc. Will Google hire operations personnel, to provision the systems, hire technicians and engineers to maintain the fiber plant? Will they staff a call center to respond to customer issues, open trouble tickets, and dispatch service technicians? Will they engage with local government agencies / obtain permits (read "pay local government fees") to expand their network into adjacent communities? Or will they bail on the experiment after a few months?

I hope all those communities clamouring for the Google Fiber for Communities project are paying attention to Google's entry and subseuqent pull-out from the mobile phone market. I hope they look at other Google experiments (and the current state of those experiments), like Google Answer, Google Buzz, Google Catalogs, Google Directory, GOOG-411, Google Scholar, Google Search Appliance for Enterprise, Google SOAP Search API, Goog SMS, Friend Connect, Knol, Orkut, Google Wave, Web Accelerator, Google WiFi, Google Video ... the list goes on.

Don't get me wrong -- I like Google. I use their Search engine product every day (it's the default home screen for my home computer, and would be for my Work computer, if IT didn't lock down the ability to change the browser home page). I also use other Google products (Gmail, Picasa, Blogger, Google Voice, YouTube) routinely. But I know these other products don't make Google much money. At any time, they may suffer the same fate as the Nexus One (or all those other Google experiments, cited above), or be moved to a premium / subscription model (in which case I would likely discontinue using them).

Google is a Search Engine company. They make their money by reading, indexing, and storing all the data they can harvest from the internet, and presenting it to consumers through their search engine and/or search advertising product. Their entire business model is centered around making information public.

Frankly, I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of my data, even encrypted, flowing through Google's fiber network. Especially after it was discovered that Google Street View cars had been sniffing Wi-Fi data. Even in the aftermath, I don't believe Google thought the idea of sniffing WiFi packets (i.e., finding data, indexing it and storing it) was a bad thing.

Google wasn't a particularly good mobile phone retailer, I have doubts that they'll be any better at maintaining and supporting a fiber broadband network.

Will the Upcoming Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta Challenge Salesforce?

On the Salesforce Evangelist Power LinkedIn Discussion Board, Cheral Stewart submitted a great follow-up post to the following article:

Will the Upcoming Dynamics CRM 2011 Beta Challenge Salesforce?

She writes, "Having been a salesforce.com Administrator for over 5 years with a detour to MS CRM 3.0 in the middle, I have a hard time believing MS will be able to challenge salesforce.com. The inherent difference that I see is Microsoft is still too concerned with maintaining control of the CRM through IT Departments and IT consultants. This slows innovation, internal busines change, and most strikingly, empowerment of the business Users.

"The reason so many business users/departments now pay for their salesforce.com licenses and the support staff is that they want to quickly respond to changing business climate. They do not want to go through 2-4 weeks of CABs, written requests, funding allocation and final review while waiting to have the dropdown choices in one field change.

"IT Departments that are focused on quickly managed innovation, not just control, do not find their business users purchasing SaaS programs like salesforce.com outside of IT. The innovative IT Department welcomes the SaaS programs and seeks full integration between all the information systems to materialize the competitive advantage CRM offers."

Spot on.

I used to be a Microsoft Dynamics CRM User myself, although that was way back in version 1.2 days, before the rebranding to "Microsoft Dynamics". Back then, the product was simply horrible.

Although I'm a Salesforce.com Evangelist (some call me "fanboy", but I'm too old for that moniker), I watch the evolution of Microsoft CRM closely. Why?

First, because I believe competition is good. It helps drive innovation. Salesforce.com has emerged as the clear front-runner on the multi-tenant, highly-reliable, highly available CRM platform. They've pushed beyond that with their Force.com development platform. As high as they are in the cloud, I want them always watching with one eye below, to see who's coming up to unseat them.

Secondly, I generally like Microsoft products. There, I said it. I've used OpenOffice, Google Docs, and Zoho Docs, but business needs always brought me back to Microsoft Office. The web-based apps just don't meet the breadth and depth of functionality in Office. When I need to make that professionally looking Word document (formatted just so, quickly and painlessly), or crunch serious numbers, formulas and data, or build a slide deck that wows and amazes, I load up Microsoft Office. I also use Outlook, Visio, Project and SharePoint heavily. They are critical tools in my daily work.

So truth be told ... I want Microsoft CRM to be successful. I believe they have the best chance to provide that clean, elegant, seamless integration between my CRM tool and all of my daily productivity tools.

There are signs that Microsoft "gets it", and wants to realize that vision, too. At Microsoft's Worldwide Partners conference this week, Business Division President Stephen Elop described a suite of interacting Microsoft programs, all accessible through the cloud. Marketing, Manufacturing, Sales, Procurement, Service, Accounting, Distribution, Human Resources, Collaboration, Service Delivery all in one tightly integrated cloud-based tool set? Sign me up!

I don't anticipate Microsoft realizing that vision any time soon, but they need two things to win me back to doing a serious evaluation of their CRM offering:

1.) The Microsoft version of Salesforce.com's "IdeaExchange". Microsoft is very much out of touch with the needs and interests of it's user community. The IdeaExchange has proven to be the ideal tool for crowd-sourcing new features and functionality, and influencing the Salesforce Roadmap. Every company should have one of these, and Microsoft needs it desperately.

2.) Tight integration with the other Microsoft produtivity products I use every day: Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio and SharePoint. I want the functionality of these products in the cloud, fully accessible through and tightly integrated with my CRM. Without hiring an army of IT consultants, Only then will I be free of my desktop, and able to access all of my work needs from any computer in the world. The company that implements this seamlessly (or comes closest to that) will capture my CRM interest.

Can they do it? Not soon enough.

Salesforce and Microsoft Outlook Integration

Image Credit: http://www.ihovik.com/sfdc/index.htm

Salesforce.com is my favorite CRM tool. Microsoft Office is my favorite productivity tool. Having a solid integration between the two applications is a no-brainer, but I've always been frustrated by current integration, particularly when it comes to synchronizing Salesforce / Outlook contacts, emails and calendar events.

This blog post takes a look at the current state of Salesforce / Outlook integration, gives Salesforce.com administrators some alternative options, and a glimpse of what's to come.

Salesforce.com / Outlook Integration Today

Today, Salesforce.com publishes a free Outlook plug-in called “Salesforce Connect for Microsoft Outlook”. akaCRM has written an excellent blog titled, "Outlook Integration with Salesforce.com". It's a great read, especially if you're looking to deploy this tool for your own Salesforce.com organization. The article describes the benefits of integrating Salesforce and Outlook, explains what data synchronization can be performed, and includes a high-level overview for installing the plug-in.

As a consultant, I've worked with many companies on different systems (Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba), various Microsoft OS (XP, Vista, Windows 7) and different versions of Microsoft Outlook (2003, 2007, 2010). While some users have a trouble-free experience, most admin teams I've worked with get hammered with support calls related to the plug-in. Problems include:

1.) The Outlook plug-in is "mysteriously" disabled at start-up. Users can't see the Salesforce icons/menu options in Outlook, and need to either enable the plug-in (in the best of cases) or remove/re-install the plug-in (in the worst of cases).

2.) After intsalling the plug-in, Outlook has a propensity of crashing, prompting the user to disable the plug-in whenever it does so

3.) Outlook slows to a crawl (possibly during data sync operations, though users complain that this occurs more frequently than their data sync operations are set for)

4.) No plug-in support for Windows 7 (64 bit)


Even when the Salesforce Connect for Microsoft Outlook plug-in works flawlessly, it's far too cumbersome for end-users. There are too many mouse clicks required to associate an outlook email with its corresponding contact / lead / opportunity / case / custom-object record in Salesforce. When first installing the plug-in, users frequently stumble (despite training and coaching), and end up loading the CRM with duplicate contacts / accounts / events. This frustrating user experience leads to low user adoption / CRM abandonment.

For Salesforce Administrators, it's no picnic either. Setup and configuration for the Salesforce Connect for Outlook plug-in is decentralized: each user downloads, installs and configures their Outlook plug-ins individually. Whlie it's possible to push the plug-in to all users, it's no simple task for most SFDC Administrators. Consequently, Admins spend hours responding to user questions, helping non-technical, SFDC users install the plug-in, sync their data, and then dealing with setup / plug-in technical issues. These technical support woes take Salesforce Adminstrators away form their core mission, which is to extend the functionality of Salesforce within the company and help the business realize greater value from their Salesforce.com investment.


Salesforce.com Has a Fix Coming Soon! (Insert Safe Harbor Statement)

The current Salesforce / Outlook integration stinks. There, I said it. And lest you think it's just me, comb the Salesforce.com Community Answers site and you'll find plenty of frustrated users reporting the same thing.

Fortunately, Salesforce.com is working on a fix! At last year's Dreamforce event, Blake Markham, Sr. Product Manager / Email Clients for Salesforce.com, gave a terrific demo on the upcoming Salesforce CRM for Outlook app. The product is still in beta, and while it doesn't have all features of the current Connect plug-in, the sync and seamless integration features demo’d were a vast improvement over the current solution. Email and calendar sync are seamless and automatic, lead/contact records can be created with a single click, and the new tool gives SFDC admins centralized control of the deployment and configuration for their users.

In the November 2009 demo, Blake indicated that the new Salesforce CRM for Outlook tool was being piloted with a few select customers, and that he hoped to have it generally available this summer (Safe Harbor statement). Unfortunately, the Summer'10 release has come and gone, and the new app was not included. The tool will most likely be deferred until the Winter’11 release. In the meanwhile, if you’re willing to be a “beta tester”, contact your Salesforce.com Account Manager, and see if they can help get you into the pilot.

I suspect the Salesforce.com Email Clients Development Team is understaffed. It must be! What else would contribute to both the delayed launch of the Salesforce CRM Outlook tool, the lack of support for Outlook 2010 and Windows 7 (64-bit), and the many unresolved bugs in the current Connect for Outlook plug-in?

Unfortunately, the current trademark war between Microsoft and Salesforce.com isn't likely to change that staffing problem soon. Salesforce Customers and Users are caught in the crossfire, and the only winners will be the lawyers on both sides.


3rd Party Vendors Put a Silver Lining on this Grey Cloud Integration

There are a several 3rd Party Vendors who can provide some immediate relief to your Salesforce / Outlook integration problems. Here are a few worth taking a closer look at:

Image Credit: Screenshot from a LinkPoint Vue Demo

App:

LinkPoint Vue – Outlook Integration for Salesforce
Publisher: LinkPoint360
Price: $29.95 (1 time license fee; discounts for Non-Profits / NGOs available)
Posted Date: 12/4/2009
SFDC Editions: Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited
Reviews: 1 review, rated 5 of 5 stars
Demo: click here

Description:
LinkPoint Vue is a mash-up between Microsoft Outlook and Salesforce.com. The tool is built directly into Microsoft Outlook and supports Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010. The mash-up creates a viewing window in Outlook. As you look at email from your leads or contacts, the mash-up searches for the matching email address in Salesforce.com, and pulls up the appropriate Lead or Contact record, as well as related Opportunities, Cases, Events, Tasks -- even custom objects -- related to that email originator's account. Bean-counters will like the one-time cost model (no monthly / annual subscription fees!)

Features:
- Ability to create Salesforce.com Contact and/or Lead records via drag-and-drop.
- Users can view Salesforce data inside Outlook without having to alt-tab / search in Salesforce
- Click on an email record in Outlook, and view all all contact history / activity related to that Lead/Contact in SFDC.
- Create / Update / View a Salesforce Account, Contact, Lead, Opportunity, or Case record from within Outlook with a single mouse-click (much easier than the Connect plug-in!)
- Get maps / directions to a contacts address with a single mouse-click (nice Google/MapQuest mash-up integration here!)

What’s Missing:
- Outlook / Salesforce Calendar integration. Users want the ability to create their appointments in Outlook, and have them seamlessly updated as calendar events in Salesforce (or vice versa). Add this feature, and the tool gets 5 Force Monkey stars!
- Centralized Administration Tools to setup, configure, and/or maintain the tool.



App: SalesDesktop 3.0
Publisher: InvisibleCRM
Price: $18/user/month (discounts available for Non-Profits / NGOs)
Posted Date: 9/30/2006
SFDC Editions: Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Developer
Reviews: 5 reviews, rated 4.6 of 5 stars
Demo: click here

Description:
SalesDesktop 3.0 has been around for long while, steadily adding functionality and enhancements to the application for the past 3+ years. This application is an Outlook plug-in, allowing Sales Reps to seamlessly synchronize their Outlook and Salesforce data, including calendar and task synchronization.

Features:
- From within Outlook, create / update / view Salesforce.com Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunties) once, and the tool will automatically synchronize future inbound/outbound email activities.
- Synchronize Outlook / Salesforce.com data to your mobile device.
- One-click capture of lead / contact info
- Data synchronization occurs automatically, seamlessly, in the background
- All Salesforce CRM objects are viewable as folders in Outlook

What’s Missing:
- No support for Outlook 2007, 2010.
- Client-side App means you will inherit some of the same issues you have today with the Salesforce Connect plug-in: decentralized environment, users specify their own filtering rules, etc.


App: CureCRM Email
Publisher: CureCRM
Price: $4.95 / user / month (Limited Free version available, syncs outbound emails only)
Posted Date: 8/13/2009
SFDC Editions: Group, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Force.com, Developer
Reviews: 24 reviews, rated 4.9 of 5 stars
Demo: click here

Description:
What most impressed me about the CureCRM reviews were the many comments CureCRM customers gave regarding CureCRM technical support. These guys really stand behind their customers, going above and beyond to deliver outstanding product support!

As with other email integration tools, the application allows users to create Salesforce.com Contact and Lead records from within Outlook. Whenever those records are updated in Outlook they will be automatically updated in Salesforce. It also includes some nice social networking integration.

Features:
- From within Outlook, create / update / view Salesforce.com Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunties) once, and the tool will automatically synchronize future inbound/outbound email activities.
- Automatically synchronize Outlook / Salesforce.com email activity
- In Outlook, CRM email activity history are displayed in a Facebook-like “Conversation” window

What’s Missing:
- Messages are sync’d “on-demand”, rather than scheduled.
- Centralized Administration Tools to setup, configure, and/or maintain the tool.
- Outlook / Salesforce Calendar synchronization



App: Riva Integration Server
Publisher: Omni Technology Solutions
Price: $16.25 / user / month (Volume discounts available)
Posted Date: 2/23/2010
Outlook Editions: Windows 7, XP, Server 2003 or 2008 (on-premise)
Reviews: None
Demo: click here

Description:
Omni’s approach is unique from the other applications in that it is a Server-side integration, rather than a client-side Outlook plug-in. This implementation offers a much improved integration, and allows for seamless synchronization of all outlook records: contacts (flagged either as Salesforce Leads or Contacts), email activity, calendar events, tasks, notes, and more. The tool is delivered with Riva Single Sign-On, which means users don’t need to remember a separate Salesforce.com password. Instead, their ActiveDirectory/Exchange or eDirectory password will manage their Salesforce login – users simply need to login to their email. Because it’s a Server-side integration, it provides a centralized tool for administration: users don’t have to install any software or plug-ins, and there is nothing for them to configure.

Features:
- Server-side, transparent integration and data synchronization between Salesforce.com and Microsoft Exchange
- Install once at the server level; let administrators control and manage the app from the server for all users.
- Create / update Salesforce Contact and Lead records from within Outlook. Sales Reps flag which Outlook contacts should be synchronized, and if they are Leads or Contacts.
- Synchronize calendar events (appointments, phone calls, tasks,notes) and Address Books (Contacts, Leads, Accounts) transparently, at scheduled intervals.

What’s Missing:
- Nothing, although a server-side integration may put this product outside the expertise level of some Salesforce.com Administrators. Adding to this challenge, many IT / Email Server Administrators are reluctant to install software on the email server itself, so you may have to win over key stakeholders / decision makers.