The Winter'09 Release Schedule has been announced.  As with previous releases, there are two scheduled maintenance windows associated with the upgrade activity, one in September (4-hour outage) and a second in October (6-hour outage).  The schedule is posted here:

http://trust.salesforce.com/trust/status/maintenance.html

It seems like the Summer'08 Release was just out -- I still haven't been able to take advantage of all the features I wanted to turn-up yet.  I was hoping to implement the Analytic Snapshots last month, but that got side-tracked.  Instead, I've been doing a ton of Apex / Visualforce page work, kicking out some sweet customizations / enhancements for my organizations Case management application.

What about you?  What have you done with Summer'08?

Don't blink ... the Winter'09 Release will be here sooner than you think!  In fact, I got a alert reminder that the server pod that hosts my organizations instance of Salesforce.com will be updated October 10th.  Yikes!  That's only a few weeks away!

Want to see what's coming in Winter'09?  Check out this list:  http://ideas.salesforce.com/popular/coming_in_winter_09

There are a lot of neat things, and my favorite one is already topping the list:  Scheduled emailing of reports.  At my organization, we already take full advantage of the Scheduled Dashboards feature (which came out in Spring'08).  This feature allows you to automatically refresh and mail a dashboard from SFDC to a group of users, and I turned this feature up as soon as it became available.  Immediately, users asking if I could automate the same feature with some custom reports.  This feature will be handy, especially for communicating with Sr. Management!

Other neat stuff coming down the pipe:

• Storage capacity is going up
• Lots of new features for the Ideas app (ability to add pictures, status fields, idea moderators, de-dupe / merge tools, rich-content posts)
• Ability to package Visualforce pages (boo-yah!)
• Workflow from Case Comments (ability to update Case status when a customer adds a comment from the SSP or Web Portal -- very nice!)
• Give users ability to EDIT case comments (my tech team has been begging for this!)

Here are the Release Notes for Winter'09:
https://na1.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/salesforce_winter09_release_notes.pdf

We'll have to dedicate some time during the October NHUG meeting around the Winter'08 Release, ya think?

I know we have a couple of contract developers in our User Group.  I wanted to pass this along, in case anyone wants to pick up a short-term contract:

Location: NYC metro area

Description: Currently we are seeking a Senior Salesforce.com Technical Consultant to work on design and implementation of integrations between the client application and legacy systems, as well as functional components to the client application’s user interface. One will play a key role on a team of Fujitsu Consulting resources to deploy a customized version of Salesforce.com as a SaaS using our proprietary toolset in conjunction with SFDC-related technologies. Qualified individuals should possess both development and design experience in Salesforce.com (APEX, S-controls, etc.) as well as proven utilization of OOD, database platforms, enterprise integration (EAI) and ETL tools to develop highly scalable applications.

Will consider either contract traveling consultants or FTEs who are willing to relocate to NYC).

For immediate consideration kindly forward your resume to Michael.Yaffe@us.fujitsu.com. Fujitsu Consulting is an Equal Opportunity Employer; all qualified applicants are invited to apply.

A number of you have been telling me that you just can’t get to the current NHUG meetings, because they have all been scheduled “after business hours”.  At the same time, a different segment of you have been telling me that you can ONLY attend NHUG meetings when they ARE scheduled “after business hours”.  For September, we’re going to try a new meeting format which will hopefully appease just about everyone (they said it couldn't be done, but I'm a determined event coordinator!): we’ll have our next NHUG meeting during the day, and you can either attend “in person”, or you can attend "virtually" by tuning in from the convenience of your own office, via the web.

We're going to simulcast the September meeting over the internet, using GotoWebinar.  By holding this meeting during the day, I'm hoping those NHUG members who couldn't attend because of "after business hour" conflicts can now attend.  And, by simulcasting the meeting via GotoWebinar, those of you who live / work a fair driving distance away will be able to attend the meeting remotely.

If this meeting format works out, I'll advocate that we go to alternating meeting times (during business hours one month, then after hours the next), with all sessions broadcast via the Web.  C'est bien?

MEETING DETAILS
Date:  Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Time:  11:00am – 12:00pm EDT

TO JOIN REMOTE VIA THE WEB
URL:  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/248501519

TO ATTEND IN PERSON
Location:  Cedar Point Communications (16 Route 111, Bldg #3, Derry NH 03038)
Directions: http://www.cedarpointcom.com/pages/37_directions.cfm
Map: Click here

Please RSVP!  When sending your RSVP, please indicate if you will be joining via Webinar or In Person.  Especially for those attending "In Person", Your early RSVP is important, as it will allow me to reserve a meeting / conference room of appropriate size.

Topics:
- NHUG Online Community Forums
- Lead Processing - Best Practices Discussion
- Case Handling - Best Practices Discussion
- Tips and Tricks

NHUG Online Community Forums
Ken Quast was looking for a way to post a message on the NH User Group Blog.  Unfortunately, the blog tool that Salesforce.com makes available to User Groups only allows the User Group leader to submit blog entries.  There is no "message board" feature that allows the community to submit posts or articles.  That prompted me to start searching out other options.  We'll get a sneak peak at the NHUG Community Forum -- under development.

Lead Processing - Best Practices Discussion
From lead collection to qualification, and finally conversion / assignment -- how does your company handle lead processing?  Ken Quast (Melexis) opened this topic for User Group discussion, looking to get some tips and  insight on how other SFDC administrators handle lead processing.

Case Handling - Best Practices Discussion
Foris Anctil requested a best practices discussion on "support".  Are you using Salesforce.com for Customer Support?  How are you using the Cases and Solutions tools, and what customizations have you added to Salesforce.com?

Tips and Tricks
Have a SFDC-related problem that you need solved?  Want to learn some new tips and tricks?  Bring one problem or dilema that you need solved, and see if our team of user group members can help provide the answer or solution you've been searching for!

RSVP Required:
Please reply to this eMail, and/or please post a reply comment on the NH User Group Blog.

Who should attend?
SFDC New Hampshire User Group meetings are generally targeted towards the SFDC "champions" within an organization.  This includes administrators, implementers, power users, developers, etc.

Invite a work colleague to join you for the September User Group Meeting.  Chances are you'll both take away different ideas from the discussion topics, and will be able to collaborate on them back at the office in the days and weeks that follow.  If you do pass this invitation on to others, please have them register for the New Hampshire User Group here:
http://usergroups.salesforce.com/new_hampshire/

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding topics or locations for future meetings, please let me know!

See you (virtually) soon!

JP Seabury
jp.seabury@gmail.com