DUG members,

It's Friday morning of a long action-packed week at Dreamforce, and the show is winding down. Dreamforce is always a good time, with lots of new info, great vendor apps, a rock show (Black Crowes this year), high-powered speakers (Colin Powell was incredible) and the big 'wow' announcement from Salesforce. This year's big news is the unveiling of Chatter, a social computing app for Salesforce. Think of it as a Facebook for enterprise, with the ability to add notes, comments, files, etc. to any object in your SF org, and users can pick the feeds they want to subscribe to. I think our sales team will use it pretty heavily once they see the power of using each account or opportunity record as its own portal. Chatter is scheduled to be available sometime in 2010, is compatible with all editions of SF, and is FREE!

More about the show when I'm back in sunny Denver, and have a great weekend!

Rich

Over at the Force.com blog, Rasmus Mencke of Salesforce addresses an issue that has always frustrated many SF users – the default task type when sending an email.

The system sets the task type to the default task type of the user sending the email. Rasmus created a long overdue trigger that overwrites the default Task Type and sets it to “Email” when sending an email from Salesforce.

Nice work, Rasmus!

-------------------------------

trigger SetTaskType on Task (before insert) {
 For (Task nc:Trigger.new) {
  String subject = nc.Subject;
  String description = nc.Description;
 
  if ( subject != null && subject.startsWith('Email:') && description.startsWith('Additional To:')) {
  nc.Type = 'Email';
  }
 }
}

Fellow DUGers,

Thanks to everybody who participated in the November 11 meeting of the Denver User Group. Thanks especially to our presenters Erik Karlberg at Salesforce and Lee Shainis at Intercambio, and also to Jason Page and the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado for kindly allowing us to use their facilities for the meeting! I appreciate everybody's efforts, and am already looking forward to the next meeting... after the holidays are over, that is!

I saw a lot of people at the meeting who were scribbling notes about various tips and tricks that came up in some of the discussions, which is always a good sign! I also had some great conversations with DUG members after the meeting, and am going to explore having an upcoming meeting dedicated specifically to problem-solving... e.g., "we had this problem and here's what we did to solve it using Salesforce". More on that soon.

For those of you who are heading to Dreamforce, let me know and we'll see if we can get together. And as usual, I welcome your feedback and input!

-Rich

Your next Denver Salesforce.com user group will be held at:

The Alliance for Sustainable Colorado
1536 Wynkoop Street, B500
Denver, CO 80202
Phone 303-572-1536

What: SalesForce.com Denver users group - November 2009 Meeting. This month, we'll be focusing on Salesforce for non-profit organizations. Erik Karlberg, Senior Customer Success Manager with Salesforce, will give an overview of how Salesforce supports NPOs. Plus, Lee Shainis, Executive Director of Intercambio de Communidades [website] in Boulder CO, will be on hand to discuss how Salesforce has been of benefit to his organization.

When: **NOTE DATE CORRECTION** 5:30 - 7:00 PM on Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Where: The Alliance for Sustainable Colorado   [website]  [map]

Fellow DUG Members,

I'm going to see if we can get some threads going here that might be of interest to the group at large... best practices, tips and tricks, industry news, jobs, etc. If you come across any articles that catch your attention -- Salesforce-related or otherwise -- send them to me and I'll post them. Thanks!

That said, I came across a great posting by Peter Coffee on the Salesforce.com Blog, where he states that we should consider "the cloud as first resort". He uses the example of trying to convert a word-processing format to a PDF... faced with this situation, many of us tend to focus on the various solutions available as downloads, but Peter suggests uploading to Google Docs then pulling it back down in PDF format. No software to download or configure, and no changes to your printer settings!

Peter says that too often, cloud computing has been relegated to the "edges of the IT map" instead of at front and center where they belong. His advice? "The cloud should not be the mere connective tissue between pockets of local capability. ... Rather, the growing range of powerful and convenient services in the cloud should be the center of your thinking about what to do, in the quickest and most economical way—because that center is getting bigger, and richer, and more attractive in every way, every day."

Good stuff! Full article is available for your viewing pleasure here. What do you think? Is the cloud migrating to the center of your IT "amoeba" (as we call it at my company)?

Rich

Join us on September 17th!  For a hands-on session with Winter 10 and Summer 09.

The Alliance for Sustainable Colorado
1536 Wynkoop Street, B500
 Denver, CO 80202
 Phone 303-572-1536, Fax 303-572-0032

What: SalesForce.com Denver users group- Summer 09 and coming attractions 

When: 5:30PM-7:00PM on Thursday, September 17th 2009.

Where:
The Alliance for Sustainable Colorado

Attention User Group members:  Once again we are offering a special $100 discount.  This can be applied during the current Early Bird period which means you can register for $699.  (This cannot be combined with any other discounts.) 

Product Name:  $100 Discount for User Group Members
Promotion Code:  CDUSER

Click here to register: DreamForce Early Bird

Hello Salesforce.com Denver Users!

I have a few updates regarding the up coming meeting on the 17th:

1) With the recent announcement of Winter 10 sandboxes availability on the 18th, we will be including a quick pre-view of Winter 10 functionality and release preparation.  

2) I am still working on a sponsor and presenter.  The show will go on regardless; and hopefully, we will have a trainer or SFDC Sales Engineer doing the demo, but if needed, I will do the presenting.  Drop me a line at brianc at coloradocollins dot com if your interested in sponsorship or presenting.

3) Thanks to ExactTarget we now have the ability to manage RSVP's and overall member communications.  Yay!  (and as soon as I figure out how to use all the new tools, I will be sending a formal meeting announcement).

If you are not part of the group yet, make sure to sign-up here: http://usergroups.salesforce.com/denver/ (the left hand side of this blog)

If you have questions, use this contact page to drop me a note http://www.coloradocollins.com/contact or call me 303/7206313

See you all in September!

\Brian Collins

Your next Denver Salesforce.com user group will be held  at:

The Alliance for Sustainable Colorado
1536 Wynkoop Street, B500
 Denver, CO 80202
 Phone 303-572-1536, Fax 303-572-0032

What: SalesForce.com Denver users group- Summer 09 and coming attractions 

When: 5:30PM-7:00PM on Thursday, September 17th 2009.

Where:
The Alliance for Sustainable Colorado