Attention ALL Chicago Salesforce.com Community Members...

We would like to get together one last time in 2008 and are looking for a meeting location that is large enough to host at least 60 people.  Our meeting attendance has grown significantly, so room size has become a challenge.  The meeting would be scheduled on a day within the week beginning December 8th or 15th, the exact date will be announced once a location is secured. 

If you have the space available or would like to suggest a meeting location, please contact Denise Carbone, 312-377-3560 or Cecile Horsky, at 312-894-4694, or email us at chicagosfdc@live.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Denise & Cecile

Chicago's August 27th Meeting, Another Success!

Thanks to our meeting hosts Stefanie & Chris at The Chicago Tribune.

We'd also like to thank our sponsor & presenter, Mark Esdale from CRM Fusion for an informative 90 minutes. If you are interested in learning more about the data management/quality solutions demonstrated, or have questions about the free trial contact Mark Esdale, mark.esdale@crmfusion.com, Office: 416.907.9749, or Cell: 416.627.1756.

After the meeting fellow members provided us with tips for future meetings.  It was suggested that we spend some more time in “Group Therapy”, specifically we would break into groups based on “Industry” to see how other companies use their Salesforce.com instance.  This is similar to how Salesforce.com uses the “Birds of a Feather” breakout sessions, it's based on the user roles. Group Therapy should be helpful for all who attend!  Any other suggestions?  Please send to us directly, ChicagoSFDC@live.com

Stay tuned for updates on our next webinar learning session as well as the details on our next meeting.  The webinar is being planned for October.

Lastly, If your organization has space available and you’re interested in playing host to a future Chicago User Group Meeting , please contact Denise & Cecile at ChicagoSFDC@live.com

Sincerely!

Denise & Cecile!

A sincere Thank You to the knowledgeable folks at Model Metrics for sponsoring our first ever virtual meeting!

We had great response on the topic of “Everything you wanted to know about Salesforce.com, but were afraid to ask...”. The success of this event validates the desire to have additional virtual meetings planned for our group. We'd also like to extend our gratitude to our community of users who submitted their questions in advance, thanks to all who had participated in making this event a success.

If you were unable to join us on August 6th, you may view/listen to the webinar replay by clicking into this link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/713343819

“We were happy to serve the Chicago Salesforce user community with today’s webinar. It’s always interesting to learn about unique Salesforce.com customer challenges, it helps drive creativity in the way we deliver solutions to our customers.” Jim Prothe, Marketing Manager Model Metrics

If you would like additional information or have a direct question for Model Metrics, you may contact Jim Prothe at 312-994-8038 or jprothe@modelmetrics.com.

Thanks again!

Cecile & Denise

ChicagoSFA@live.com

The next meeting for the Chicago User Group will be hosted at the Chicago Tribune.

When: Wednesday, August 27th

Where: Chicago Tribune

Additional meeting details to follow over the next week, we'll be in touch!! To become a Chicago User Group Member, simply register here to be included on all member communications:  http://usergroups.salesforce.com/chicago/

Talk to you soon!

Denise & Cecile

Chicago User Group Leaders

Everything you wanted to know about Salesforce.com, but were afraid to ask...

Model Metrics, a Premier Salesforce Consulting Partner based here in Chicago, will be answering those questions you have and more in a webinar format for the Chicago User Group, on Wednesday, August 6th, beginning at 11:30AM CST.  This sponsored event will allow you to have the opportunity to ask the experts! 

Please submit your questions in advance to Denise & Cecile at  ChicagoSFDC@live.com

An invitation to register and join this event will be sent to all Chicago User Groups members.  To become a user group member, join here;  http://usergroups.salesforce.com/chicago/

We are looking forward to hearing from you! 

Also, stay tuned, we are planning the next User Group Meeting, last Wednesday of August, hosted at the Tribune (thanks Stefanie!).  Details to follow...

Talk to you soon!

Denise & Cecile

Meeting Notes

The main objective of this meeting was to reengage the Chicago User Group Community. As part of the introductions each participant was asked to identify at least one topic of interest. These topics will be used to help identify the main focus of future meetings.

The Chicago User Group had over 40 attendees with a mix of experience which contributed to the great discussions over several topics. We would like to thank everyone for their participation. Because of you the meeting was a success.

Below is a recap of the topics of interest and notes from each section of the meeting.

Next Chicago User Group Meeting is being Planned for August 2008! We’ll keep you informed, please continue to check the blog or contact either Denise or Cecile for details.

• Attendees Topic of Interest...Data Management, Reports/Quality Reports, Admistration Best Practices, Best Practice Tips, Implementation/Adoption, Google AdWords, Integration Issues, Apex-how to Customize, Integration with Marketing, Objects Working Together, General Integration, Security, i-Pod Integration, Campaigns, Summer '08 Release, Cross Object Formula's, Salesforce to Salesforce, Products/Price Books, Dashboards - KPI's, Everything! 

The Chicago User Community will meet Wednesday, May 21st at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.  The meeting will be held in the Water Tower Room, on the Bronze Level in the West Tower of the Hyatt from 3 to 5PM. We'll focus on ways to make our User Community Successful and take a look as to "What's new in Summer '08", presented by a local SFDC Success Manager.   

If you're not currently a member & would like to receive information on future meetings, join the Chicago User Group, now by clicking this link http://usergroups.salesforce.com/chicago/

We hope to see you there! 

Hello Chicago Salesforce.com Users!  We are pleased to announce that we have secured a date and venue to hold the first Chicago User Group meeting of 2008.  It will be held Wednesday, May 21st, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, from 3 to 5PM. 

If you are currently a user group member, an email invitation will be sent to you later this week, please RSVP at that time. If you are not a member and are interested in joining the Chicago User Group, click here to join now: http://usergroups.salesforce.com/chicago/

We'll be updating this blog frequently to keep you in the loop...so check back soon!

Best Regards.

Denise Carbone

We are pleased to announce that the Chicago user group will be restarting.  A local customer has volunteered to lead and will make meeting details available soon.  If you are a salesforce.com based in Chicago and would like to co-lead the group, send me a note and let me know.  The meetings will likely be held downtown so we are looking for a co-leader with an office in the area.

Stay tuned for details!

The 6/20 Chicagoforce Meeting was dedicated to Marketing. Here are the highlights of what we covered:

Presentations
Salesforce.com Marketing Product Roadmap - Rasmus Mencke & Bhavin Shah, Salesforce.com
Marketing Campaigns & Dashboards - Lynn Zimmerman, Solucient
Marketing Automation & Demand Generation - Matt Sepos, Eloqua - Download Eloqua Presentation 

Discussion Topics

Using Account Record Types ("Competitor") and Custom Objects ("Product Offerings") to capture & track competitive information--strengths, weaknesses, solution/service offerings, pricing, etc.

Best practices on Email templates vs. mail merge templates.

Using "Stay-in-touch" functionality to keep SFDC contact records up-to-date.

Outlook-SFDC data synchronization.

How to overcome the challenges associated with the 15-character case-senstive SFDC record IDs (Excel doesn't recognize case when doing VLOOKUP formulas). Recommended blog posts on this subject:

Better yet: Use this formula in Excel to create a unique, non-case-sensitive ID. Just replace “# “ for the cell number where the ID is located:

=#&CODE(MID(#,12,1))&CODE(MID(#,13,1))&CODE(MID(#,14,1))&CODE(MID(#,15,1))

When I plugged in this code and tried it out, here's what I got:

Connect with other members of the SFDC community throught the Connect On Demand website. Sign up at www.salesforce.com/connect/signup, then login at www.salesforce.com/connect every time thereafter.

Discounts to Dreamforce '06 (October 8 - 11 in San Francisco) are available to all User Group members. Register for Dreamforce at www.salesforce.com/conference using the discount code  UGME06D and save $100! You must be a registered member of a SFDC User Group in order to qualify.