The next Salesforce.com User Group meeting has been scheduled as follows:

Topic of Focus: Marketing Automation with Salesforce.com

With the economy on a rollercoaster ride, it is time to see how Salesforce.com can help you and I with pro active marketing.

Using the Campaign Tools, templates and customer lists you can see how to inject some “Economic Stimulisation” yourself using Salesforce.com.

This has to be something of major interest to any business and so very topical at this moment in time to help drive sales opportunities for you.

If you are interested in attending, please read on and RSVP as instructed below.

Remember to put the following date and time in your calendar.

If you have any questions or comments please feel to contact me directly.

My mobile number is: +6421614870
Email: michael.toi@firstmobile.co.nz

URL to Salesforce.com Usergroup Blog:

http://usergroups.salesforce.com/new_zealand/

Our Host: Telstra Clear and Sqware Peg

Venue: TelstraClear Centre
Smales Farm Office Park
Cnr Northcote & Taharoto Roads
Takapuna

Phone no is 9124200

Parking: You must sign in to reception on arrival and someone will meet you in the reception. There is plenty of parking available

Date: 28 July 2009
Time: 5:30pm to 7:00pm

Please RSVP by emailing me (michael.toi@firstmobile.co.nz)

Please Put "RSVP Salesforce" in the Subject

Meeting 4 Agenda:

Start at 5:30pm

Host 15 minutes:

Telstra Clear will talk about their use of Saleforce.com

More Detailed Discussion

Tom Risbrook from Sqware Peg will talk about the various options available within Salesforce.com and what add-on tools may be of interest to all of us

Craig Skinner/Stuart Jone will demonstrate the use of Salesforce.com Campaign Tool

Open discussion on this topic

Yes, there will be Pizza as usual

Finish 7:00pm

Look forward to seeing you there.

Hi everyone,

As mentioned in the last blog update from Craig Skinner, I have taken over as the new Salesforce.com User Group Leader. Being new to the role I am still trying to find my feet, who is involved in the group, what I have to do and how to use the Salesforce.com tools needed to send out message updates. In time I will get to know you as a member and what you are interested in, what you are doing with Salesforce.com and what you want from being part of this group.

Right now my first task is to simply organise the next User Group meeting as follows:

Please Note: As this is my first time as team leader, I volunteered to use my office (First Mobile) simply because I don't know anyone else to ask at this time.

When: Tuesday 12 May 2009 at 6:00pm (estimate 1.5 hours total running time)
Where: First Mobile Head Office - Shed 24 147 Quay St, Princes Wharf, Auckland

Please RSVP by emailing me (michael.toi@firstmobile.co.nz)

Please Put RSVP in the Subject

Directions: Auckland CBD, Downtown, Princes wharf is the wharf with Wildfire at the front and the Hilton Hotel at the end. To find First Mobile, simply drive right to the end of the wharf and First Mobile is directly opposite the Hilton Hotel.

Parking:  First Mobile has a small number of free parking spots where it is signed accordingly as "First Mobile" - (first in best dressed) but if you miss out then there is pleanty of "Pay and Display" Wilson parking in this area or you can also try Downtown, the Viaduct car parks or local side streets (side streets will be alot cheaper than right outside the door) - your choice.

Session Topics:

I have been told that based on the feedback from the last meeting one of the topics that was of interest was "Best Practice Reporting". This will be presented by one of the Salesforce.com partners (TBC). There will always be a "Topic of Interest" presented by someone who knows what they are doing to help us all learn.

One of the ideas I would like to introduce is the concept of whomever hosts the user group meeting will have a 15 minute time slot to tell us about their use of Salesforce.com (be it as a user, or as a partner). I would call this session "A Real World Example". As a result, I will be giving you all a brief overview of how we, First Mobile use Salesforce.com this time around.

The last formal part will be "What's New" in Salesforce.com which will be presented by someone from Salesforce.com.

There will also be time for open discussion - "Free Talk" where you can ask questions, make comments and discuss topics of interest.

I believe the main concept of the above format is to give us all new ideas and knowledge/skills to take back to the office and try yourself, hopefully benefiting you and your organisation

Timetable:

6:00pm Arrive at First Mobile
6:10pm Welcome from Michael Toi as new User Group Leader
6:15pm Topic of Interest: Best Practice Reporting - by Salesforce.com
6:30pm Real World Customer: First Mobile
6:45pm Pizza Arrives
6:50pm What's New: New features in Salesforce.com - by Salesforce.com
7:15pm Free Talk: Q&A
7:25pm Next Session Plan
7:30pm End of Session

If anyone has any questions or comments about the above please feel to contact me directly.

My mobile number is: +6421614870
Email: michael.toi@firstmobile.co.nz

Hi everyone- Great news! Michael Toi, CEO of First Mobile Response has agreed to take over the running of the New Zealand User Group. The User Group has been a great way to share best practice, build networks and discuss ideas- it's fantastic to see that it will continue!

I've started my role as Corporate Account Executive, based here in Auckland so I will continue to be involved with the User Group and will be in regular contact with those of you who are now my customers!

I've worked quite closely with Michael Toi in the past so I was delighted when he volunteered to take responsibility for the User Group.

Here's a little bit of a background provided by Michael:

I currently work for First Mobile for the past 6.5 years and have the following roles within this organisation:

1.       I am CEO of FMR (this is a service part of First Mobile supporting our Sales Teams and customers with technical support of Vodafone products and services)

2.       GM IT&C (I look after the First Mobile New Zealand operational aspects of their Computer systems)

3.       Systems support and training (I also provide support on the key systems we use including Salesforce.com – I administer this system across 125 users)

4.       Special projects (I provide project management and investigation of new services, or opportunities for us in this and other industries)

Salesforce.com within FMNZ:

We have been using Salesforce.com for one year (we started the rollout project 15 Feb 2008).

We have 20 Enterprise and 105 PRM licenses.

I Administer and manage the system including some customisation and updates of the data .

Our system was originally customised by Salesforce Results (a local partner) to provide Vodafone specific formats.

As a result, I have a general knowledge of Salesforce – I would say medium to above average....

I haven’t been on any training so believe I will learn a lot from being involved in this user group.

My Background

I have been in the IT industry since 1985 in the area of Database Administration and System/End User Support.

In 1991 I joined BellSouth (as employee 34, their first IT person at the time) and have since remained in the Mobile Industry (with Vodafone when they took over BellSouth, ITouch UK and First Mobile).

I'm working with Michael now to set up the next User Group session- keep an eye out for the invitation!

Cheers,
Craig
021 422 685

Download Usergroup_mtg_180209
Thanks to those of you who braved the weather to come to last night's User Group session. Once again, we had a lot of content to get through which hopefully was useful to you. Thanks very much to Annamarie Jamieson of Fairfax Sundays for hosting the session and putting up with straglers getting stuck in stairwells etc!

Attached is the ppt presentation (5.7MB) which has a number of slides that were 'hidden' last night due to time constraints.

Please let us know how you found the session by posting a response.

Thanks
Craig

No, I'm not burnt out after just two sessions.....On Monday 23 Feb I join Salesforce.com as Corporate Sales Executive so we need a new User Group Leader!

I will of course stay involved in the NZ User Group, but we need someone to step in to co-ordinate the sessions and content. As discussed at last nights meeting, it's been great to see the degree of enthusiasm that people have for the User Group so we're very keen to keep it going.

I'm happy to spend some time with the new leader to share my ideas regarding what we could do to ensure the role of leader is not too much of a burden, how we could utilise the Salesforce.com Partners to host events and contribute content.

If you're interested in taking over, please either drop me a line, or email Jeff Challis jchallis@salesforce.com

Regards, Craig

Location:
Fairfax Sundays
3rd Floor Boardroom
155 New North Road
Eden Terrace
(just before the Dominion Road overpass)

Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Agenda:
1. Introductions
2. Survey results
3. Overview of the Pollzter application
4. Spring '09 release highlights
5. Best Practice: Contact and Activity Management
6. Overview of the Certification Programme

See you all then!

In response to strong market demand, salesforce.com now offers official certifications for Salesforce CRM administrators and Force.com developers. The Salesforce.com Certification Program provides unique qualifications for cloud computing professionals who have best-in-class software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) skills. Ours is the world’s first accreditation program for SaaS and PaaS, designed and administered by salesforce.com.

Why Get Certified?
Demand for Salesforce CRM and Force.com experts continues to grow rapidly. By getting certified, you identify yourself as one of those experts.

Salesforce.com are holding the first series of exams for the following courses on 18th of February

• ADM 201: Administration Essentials (for Enterprise & Unlimited Editions)
  http://www.salesforce.com/au/services-training/training_certification/training_classes/adm_201.jsp
• ADM 301: Advanced Administration (for Enterprise & Unlimited Editions)
  http://www.salesforce.com/au/services-training/training_certification/training_classes/adm_301.jsp
• CON 201: Implementation Essentials for Consultants
  http://www.salesforce.com/services-training/training_certification/training_classes/con_201.jsp

Cost: $200 USD per exam (Salesforce are trying to see if they can organise discounts for User Group members- will post a follow up message if there is an update)

Exam times:
9:00am - ADM 201 / ADM 301 / Con 201 (90 minutes)
11:00am - ADM 201 / ADM 301 / Con 201 (90 minutes)

Location:
AULDHOUSE
338 Ponsonby Road
Ponsonby
Auckland
Ph +64 9 360 0338

Registration Process:
Go to the following site, create a username by clicking on link titled 'Create a new Webassessor login now'. You will be emailed a username/ password- log back in to the system then select New Zealand, Auckland - Auldhouse.

https://www.webassessor.com/wa.do?page=publicHome&branding=SALESFORCE

If you have any issues or questions, please contact Peter Durie, Practice Director, Salesforce.com on +61 2 9394 7352

Annamarie Jamieson of Fairfax Sundays has kindly agreed to host the second session at the following location:
Fairfax Sundays
3rd Floor Boardroom
155 New North Road
Eden Terrace
(just before the Dominion Road overpass)

The agenda for the session will be confirmed over the next couple of weeks, but will include sharing of the results of the survey that was sent out to you all, as well as an overview of how I found the survey tool (good, bad & ugly) as well as ideas for different ways that it could be used to help you get quality feedback from your customers.  

We'll have more to share, but some work is yet to be done to firm up speakers etc

Hi everyone- Jeff Challis has sent through this presentation which summarises which of the features released in Winter 09 are;

• automatically visible to users (no config required)
• not automatically visible to users/ is enabled but requires system administrator configuration
• not automatically enabled- need to contact Salesforce.com if you would like it set up for your org

This info needs to be used in conjunction with the previous Winter 09 presentation that shows which features are available in which Salesforce.com Editions.

Download winter_09_customer_releasesnapshot.ppt