CRM Insights Blog

If you're a Salesforce power user or a System Administrator, you've likely found yourself in the position of having to import or export data at one time or another. Whether you're importing new marketing leads, exporting data for advanced reporting or updating account and contact information, it doesn't need to be difficult. The Jitterbit Data Loader for Salesforce provides an easy and functional tool for doing just this... and it's FREE (Who doesn't love free?!).

If you're in sales management or sales operations, you may find it handy to know just how many times a sales rep has "pushed" back the close date to a new month. Let's face it ... you can't trust a forecast if an opportunity keeps rolling from month to month.

Salesforce Labs has a handy app on the AppExchange called "Opportunity Push Counter". This simple counter tracks how many times an Opportunity has been pushed back. This push count field would be a great metric to track on a dashboard!

One reviewer on the AppExchange listing said, "This is SO much easier than having to run Opportunity Field History reports to track down the changes in Close Dates! Absolutely wonderful!"

This app works in the Enterprise, Unlimited and Developer editions and Free (my favorite word)!

Check out some screen shots below of the Opportunity Push Counter app.

Looking for a fast and easy way to log Salesforce activity while you're on the go? Check out Logger by Salesforce Labs.  With this application, you can log your activity in as little as 10 seconds, take notes, check-in and more!  You can even use your cell phone's voice commands (Google voice for Android; Siri for iPhone) to make the entry that much quicker!

AppExchange Mobile is an application provided by Salesforce to keep your sales team connected while they’re on the road by leveraging the Salesforce systems.  The mobile solution keeps your team in touch with the latest information and data at all times, no matter where they are or when they need it.  The wireless platform is available for almost all mobile devices and operating systems, including Palm OS, Treo, and RIM Blackberry, and is an excellent way to keep your sales team connected to the home office and customer database for targeted leads, customer profiles, and real-time pricing.  AppExchange Mobile is designed for use with the Salesforce CRM consulting application.

• SalesView - Drive Sales Productivity with Integrated Sales Intelligence
• VerticalResponse for AppExchange - Send marketing emails & postcards from Salesforce in minutes.
• Skype for Salesforce - Adds full Skype integration to your Salesforce CRM software organization.
• Draggin' Role - Manage your role hierarchy with ease! Now you can drag and drop your way through any hierarchy modifications.
• Conga Composer - One click to proposals, account plans, contracts and more from multiple objects and related lists.
• Click here to browse for more Aloha Apps!

Need more information on Aloha Apps? Please feel free to comment here!

Over the years I have seen our customers come up with interesting uses for their CRM software. Recently, one of my customers has started tracking employee time-off requests. The Salesforce CRM software users enter the dates that they wish to have off. Once entered, it goes through an approval process. To make it more efficient, I recently added a dashboard set that shows the status of their requests.

Love the AppExchange?  Wish you could find out about new solutions that are posted to the AppExchange?  Look no further.  The Salesforce AppExchange now offers a newsletter which includes: