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What Is SalesForce ? It’s Features And Pricing

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With over decades of experience in handling SalesForce implementation service , Winklix is fully capable of answering all question related to Salesforce and that’s so without going into technicalities . In this article we are going to explore the potential of SalesForce CRM , the industries it serves and why actually the SalesForce CRM is loveable by customers worldwide .

Facts About Salesforce 

What Exactly Is SalesForce ? 

We can define Salesforce as Software-as-a-service ( SaaS) CRM developed by Salesforce.com ( abbreviated as SDFC for Salesforce Dot Com ) which is popular for its cloud computing technology . SalesForce CRM is being used for customer relationship management in sales , marketing and customer service . Salesforce includes various list of products which are described below : 

  • Sales Cloud – This CRM helps automation of sales process as well as management of lead , opportunity , sales reporting and forecasting .
  • Service Cloud – This helps in automation of omnichannel customer service , case management , field service management and at last customer service analytics .
  • Marketing Cloud – This aids in automation of marketing campaigns as well as advertising on social media platforms , creation of customer communication scenarios .

The best thing about Salesforce is it has also released industry specific products like health cloud , Financial service cloud , Government cloud which is customised as per industry specific needs in order to process the peculiarities of organisation . 

Is There Anything Like Salesforce ERP ? 

In general there is no official Salesforce ERP in the market . But yes there are number of cloud based ERP built by third party which can be easily integrated with Salesforce for free and can be lower than the total cost of ERP software which you may be willing to purchase .

SalesForce Cost 

How Much Does SalesForce CRM Cost ? 

SalesForce CRM consist of multiple Salesforce products and the cost totally depends on editions of these products and number of license you want to purchase . You can consult more about Salesforce costing over here .

Is Salesforce Also Offers Free Version ?

Unfortunately Salesforce does not offer free CRM version , but you may avail free 30 days trial of Sales and Service cloud .

Can You Pay For Salesforce Monthly ? 

All Salesforce products are being sold on per user basis which additionally requires annual billing . If billing is an issue , you can have chit chat with Salesforce executive and find possible opportunity for billing .

Salesforce Customers 

Which Type Of Companies Use Salesforce ? 

Although Salesforce has been providing industry specific solution be it professional services , IT , manufacturing , retail , healthcare , banking or finance . Some of the famous Salesforce clients are Adidas , AWS , T- Mobile and so on .

How Many Customers SalesForce Is Serving ?

Salesforce currently serves more than 1,50,000 customers worldwide thereby helping them in increasing their sales revenue and overall employee productivity .

Technology Aspects 

How Does SalesForce CRM Work ? 

SalesForce CRM enables punching of customer information and tracking of integration with customers . In addition to it , SalesForce CRM offers tons of features for internal business process of organisation with automated email notification , assignment of task and so on . 

Sets of key Salesforce features includes :  

  • Customer Profile : It helps management of customer information which also includes management of account and contact objects .
  • Sales Automation : It allows features which includes workflow rules , approvals and process builder which facilitate sales process related automation .
  • Marketing Automation : Sales  automates mass email features thereby allowing targeted emails and tracking of contacts received .The auto campaign management helps customers to deliver personalised message , manage marketing campaign across all channels and tracking their result .
  • Customer Service Automation : Salesforce has omnichannel features which allows multiple customer communication channels under one roof . The case management automates lifecycle from from creation to its closure 

What Coding Languages Does SalesForce Use ? 

Apex Code is Salesforce coding language , which is known as object oriented language with Java like syntax . Apex automates many internal business process like expected revenue and discount calculation and thereby enable automated field updates , email notification and task assignments .

What Database Does SalesForce Use ? 

Salesforce used Oracle database .

Still Have Question ?

If you still have question , feel free to contact Winklix’s Salesforce consultants  to solve your particular CRM issue as well as customisation .

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How Much Time Does It Take For SalesForce Data Migration Project ? Ask Winklix

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This is one of the most important task to be performed at salesforce migration projects . If you want to efficiently use your salesforce CRM , you have to take care of this with utmost care .

In order to better plan and forecast your Salesforce migration , our in house team of Salesforce certified developers can help you with Salesforce implementation from their past experience . Let’s look at different stages of migration process one by one .

1. Preparation Of Data Migration 

This initial stage starts with pre analysing by developers to inspect existing CRM so that they can get overview of data structure of their existing CRM , data formats , business workflows and also create migration checklist with data to transfer . Once the database tables has been identified , developers check on the possibility in correspondence with Salesforce CRM right from mapping fields to data quality check and more in a way that data which is yet to be transferred is in readable format with no data duplicity . This places usually takes up to 5 days .

2.Using Ready Made Data Migration Tool Or Building Custom Tool From Scratch 

If number of records to import is no more than 50,00,000 , developers can easily use ready made tools such as Salesforce Data Loader . If any ready made tools are getting used , migration can be finished within few hours . But if developers are planning to build custom tool or script for carrying on migration to Salesforce , the development time varies which totally depends on the type of data structure and new CRM structure . Custom tool migration usually takes around a month .

3. Trial Data Migration 

Trial data migration is mandatory process before actually transferring all the data . This helps developers to see whether if there is any issue like data loss , or is there any way to improve migration tool to carry on final transfer in smooth way .This phase in total will take no more than 2 days .

4. Migration Validation By Customers 

This stage is wherein customer will validate the test data migration and will give their outcomes . If there is positive feedback form customers side , then there is no further room for improvement of data mapping and migration procedure and customer has deemed approved the project . This phase on an average takes around 4 days . But if there is some room for improvement on the basis of inputs by customer , it make linger on to upto a week .

5. Final Data Migration And Testing 

This is the final stage of which we are waiting for . At this stage all data gets migrated from legacy CRM to new Salesforce solution . Before getting final live , data is checked twice fro any kind of duplicity . Final migration takes around a day or two . It is always carries out in a way that it does not effect the existing CRM functionalities .

6. Post Go Live Support 

Support is what is needed right after the migration which a CRM user may encounter while starting using it . Such support is usually required during very first week after new Salesforce CRM goes live , and may be required upto a month .

Wrap Up

From our past experience , the migration process in Salesforce CRM usually taken between 20 days to around 2 months  . This time coves all stages as discussed above . Winklix is leading Salesforce consultant in USA providing wide range of Salesforce services .

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Which Is Best Strategy To Restore SalesForce Data

Which Is Best Strategy To Restore SalesForce Data

It is quite common for any salesforce user or admin to delete mass scale of data or modify significant amount of records in one go . As the same time it may be chances that due to someone’s bad decision the data may become corrupt also . You must be thankful to recycle bin who can assist you in data recovery in case of data loss , inspire of the fact that it may store certain volume of data for some limited time only .
Another means to recover overwritten data is by making use of filed history tracking in Salesforce . Field history tracking . Field history tracking needs to be enabled manually  , and thereby can’t be enabled for each of the objects . At the same time , it does not permit more than 20 fields per object .
Salesforce provides various back up options such as data export service , data loader and Report export , but in the event of disaster who quickly you will be able to recover the data is all it matters . 

SalesForce Data Backup And Recovery Service 

SalesForce always recommend its customers to opt for native metadata backup solutions or may also recommend third party intervention in backing up and management of data .

“Because of the manual intervention, there is a cost. The cost is relative to the amount of manual work and time needed to perform the recovery. The price for this service is a flat rate of $US 10,000 (Ten Thousand US Dollars) for the one Organization that’s being recovered. The work involved actually costs us much more than that, but we pay for a portion of the service.”

SalesForce Data Recovery Blog

Process

It all starts with the right procedure . Always keep an eye on recycle bin or review deleted records using “export all ” in Salesforce’s Data Loader before raising your case with Salesforce .
Lets quickly look at the steps for restoring data to Salesforce : 

Assess Damage And Defined Goals 

Till now it has been crystal clear in your mind that salesforce database is highly interlinked . For instance say you delete a single parent records in salesforce , all the parent-child database will be automatically deleted and thereby understanding the extent of data loss is essential .

Determination Of Which Data Has Been Lost Where

In order to determine the amount of data loss , the best way out to make a comparison of metadata with backup file of data which has already been exported to Salesforce org. You can use VLOOKUP in excel or any other equivalent to identify the whole relationship .

Creation Of Restoration File 

As you have already determined the missing objects/records , now its time to create separate files for parent and their related objects in “.csv” format 

Transformation Minimisation During Restoration 

The best way to minimise transformation process is :

  • It is always preferable to exclude Audit fields , as Salesforce auto updates it .
  • Always deactivate workflow or validation rules or triggers .
  • Switch auto-number field type to text .

Restore Data 

At the time of manual insert , always try to insert operations to upload parent and make an upsert for child 

What’s Next ? 

After going through the above stages we have seen that salesforce data recovery is cumbersome process right from starting to end point . There are high end chances of possibility of errors or loss of data , and It may also take as long as 20 days or more to recover it . 
One of the best readymade solution for data backup and recovery is Vault . Vault streamlines and automates data recovery process using 1-1 relationships , 1-n relationships and n-n relationships of salesforce data as well as metadata .