Save the date!

The next meeting of the Salesforce.com Orange County User Group is scheduled for Wednesday morning, April 23, 2008 from 8:30am - 10:30am.  Continental breakfast included!  Morning meetings have produced great results for other local User Groups, so we're going to give it a try here in Orange County. 

The topic for this meeting is one that is - I'm sure - near and dear to all of us:  User Adoption & Productivity.

Are you in Sales, Marketing, or Management and looking for ways to improve Salesforce adoption in your organization?  Are you an Administrator tasked with evaluating adoption in your organization?  If so, you don't want to miss this meeting! 

Our sponsor, Voice2insight will present its incredible sales enablement tool which "allows field sales professionals from any industry to update SalesForce by leaving voice messages. You have to see this!  The typical sales professional spends several hours per week entering data rather than selling.  V2i’s solution enables these professionals to spend more time selling and driving revenue while still maintaining updated info in SalesForce”  "Voice2insight is considered the "Must Have" for increased SFA/CRM success as it addresses the "user adoption - good or bad" / "people" / "no time" issues with CRM which are the most critical components of CRM success...data (gas) to make the CRM (engine) perform to client's expectations." 

We will also have a short training session for anyone who wants to learn more about creating and managing Adoption Dashboards. 

Please join us!  And, if possible, bring an executive and sales/marketing user with you!

Date:  April 23, 2008 (Wednesday)

Time:   8:30 AM – 10:30 AM

Location: HireRight Inc.

5151 California Ave.

Irvine, CA 92617

Directions: http://www.hireright.com/directions.html

Please note that for security reasons, you will be asked to show ID when you arrive at HireRight, and will be escorted to the conference room for the meeting.

Sponsor: Voice2insight

Meeting Agenda: 

8:30 - 9:00    Arrivals and Mingling

9:00 - 9:45    Voice2insight - Improve User Adoption & Productivity

9:45 - 10:15  Adoption Dashboard How-to

10:15 - 10:30 Q&A, Wrap Up

Future meeting dates - put them on your calendar now:  June 11, August 13, October 22, December 10

About the sponsor for this meeting: 

Voice2insight is a privately held company established in 1994 to assist organizations with their strategic development and now serves a national clientele. Clients included Allergan, Phoenix Life, FFF Enterprises, HP, Regent Seven Seas, 3M, Procter & Gamble, Philips Lighting and many more.

Today, (their) team of skilled technical and management leaders is poised to change the way organizations communicate customer information and make strategic decisions.

Voice2insight is a Salesforce.com Certified and App Exchange Partner. 

US Corporate Headquarters is located at 12244 South Business Park Drive, Suite 115

Draper, UT 84020.  Phone: 1.800.665.6803  Website:  www.voice2insight.com.

The next Orange County User Group meeting will be held Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at the Paciolan, Inc. office:

5171 California, Ave.

Ste 200 (2nd floor)

Irvine, CA 92617

Paciolan is located at the NW corner of Bison and California Ave - right off the 73 freeway at Bison.  Lots of FREE parking available!

Meeting Agenda:

3:00pm - 3:45pm - 'Visibility on Demand' Chris Haase & Darren Cunningham, LucidEra
3:45pm - 4:30pm - Dreamforce recap, Open issues/demos from members 
4:30pm - 5:30pm - 'Happy Hour'

As always, please come prepared with questions or your own personal 'lessons learned based on experience.'  Sharing those experiences is the real benefit of these users groups!

This meeting is being sponsored by LucidEra.  Founded in 2005, LucidEra delivers focused analytic solutions built on the industry’s first complete on-demand business intelligence platform.  Their Sales Cycle Analysis solution is available on the AppExchange where it received an average user rating of 5 out of 5 stars! 

Please RSVP if you’re planning to attend the meeting by emailing me or adding a comment on the blog. I look forward to hearing from you!

This is just a reminder that Salesforce.com’s 2006 Success On Demand Tour is coming to our home - Orange County - this Wednesday afternoon!  Event details below.  Seating is limited -- be sure to get there early to reserve your spot. And don’t forget to bring your business cards…

Thursday, June 8th
Registration 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Seminar 2:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Reception 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach
21500 Pacific Coast Highway
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
P: 714-698-1234   
F: 714-845-4990
http://huntingtonbeach.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/ 

Haven't yet registered?  Want to bring a friend or colleague? No problem! You can register on-site.

Hope to see you there!

Barbara Kuntz
Group Leader
Orange County User Group

I'm a little tardy in posting this wrap up, so I'm going to get right to the good stuff.  Our last meeting, held March 22, was attended by about 15 people, many of whom were attending for the first time.  Participation from the group was good - nice for me as I get tired of listening to myself talk.  Topics of discussion included:

OC User Group Charter
A place to network, share, and learn with other Salesforce.com users and administrators in Orange County:
    -Explore unused features of Salesforce.com
    -Share best practices
The goal of the group as a whole - in combination with the other user groups worldwide - is to use our collective knowledge to influence the direction of future releases.

AppExchange
We spent quite a bit of time talking about the AppExchange - what's available, what it costs (if anything), and how incredibly easy it is to implement new apps in our individual production environments.  Matt Moye, CSM for Salesforce.com gave us a high-level AppExchange overview and then we dove right into looking at some "apps that might be useful TODAY:"

Mass Update Opportunity Close Dates - a simple tool which allows your salespeople to update all of their opportunity close dates in one screen.  This app is available free from Salesforce.com.

Mass Update Address Change - ever notice that when you change the address on an account it does NOT automatically update the addresses of the associated contacts?  Simplify the update with process with this free-from-Salesforce.com tool which allows you to quickly update contact addresses.  Note that the tool defaults to pulling the billing address from the account, so if you use the shipping address (as my company does) you'll need to modify the html a bit before implementing.  Or, better yet, just call me and I'll send you a copy the file I modified to use the shipping address.

Marketing Influence Report - an interesting report which shows you all the ways that an account has been touched by campaigns leading up to the opportunity.  Over time, will give you some good data re: what kinds of campaigns are most effective?  How many times do you need to touch an account/contact before he is ready to buy?  Good for your marketing folks!  And, of course, FREE from Salesforce.com.

Vertical Response
At the first meeting, many people expressed an interest in learning more about running successful campaigns using Salesforce.com.  One of my favorite tools is Vertical Response for mass email blasts.  So we dedicated the last half hour of the meeting to an online demo of the product with a representative Vertical Response.  Here's the good stuff:  1.  You can download the app at no cost from the AppExchange.  2. The product is not available on a license basis, but rather, pay as you go (very cost effective)  3.  It is very inexpensive.  I sent about 30,000 emails last year using Vertical Response and the total cost to my company was less than $300!  4.  The best part - low maintenance!  The program is completely integrated with Salesforce.com campaigns, so you don't have to manually update any member statuses, and it is self-policing, meaning that it won't allow you to send to someone who requested to be removed from the list (you're protected where SPAM laws are concerned), or to an address that previously bounced (saving you money).  Give it a go today!

I was planning to schedule our next meeting near the end of this month, but since we have the User Group City Tour coming to Huntington Beach on June 8, I would like to encourage all of you to attend that event, and we'll schedule a follow-up meeting near the end of June.  If you've not registered for the HB event yet, visit http://www.salesforce.com/crm-success-tour/citytours.jsp?ct_session=x1&ct_tab=&eid=70130000000CEJC&d=70130000000CEJW and do so today!

Looking forward to seeing you all on June 8!

Barbara
barbara.kuntz@miyachiunitek.com
626-930-8560

With about 15 attendees from 13 differenct companies, I think I can call our first user group meeting a resounding success!  Thank you to each and every one of you for your participation in that meeting and for providing me with plenty of ideas for future meetings.  Among the things we discussed:

www.crmsuccess.com - Have you visited crmsuccess.com yet?  If not, do take some time to visit.  There are message boards full of users with solutions to your Salesforce.com challenges. You'll also find Salesforce.com's published tips & tricks, videos of presentations from Dreamforce, and, of course, the Orange County User Group blog!

Dependent Picklists - make entering data in Salesforce simpler and more efficient by minimizing the sometimes massive drop-down lists that grow, as we do, in our use of the product.  Available in all editions, dependencies are defined at the field level.  Custom fields may be either controlling for dependent fields, but standard fields may only be controlling.  We demonstrated the creation of a dependency during the meeting.  For more information, see 'Dependent Field Considertions' in the online help.

Campaign Builder - the coolest new tool for marketing folks like me. This tool enables you to skip the report-export-import exercise we used to have to go through to add contacts to a campaign.  Now, you can add members quickly and easily by creating a view within the campaign 'manage members' tab!  You can also mass update member status. If you prefer to do it from a report you've created - you can!  Simply open you  report and click 'add to campaign.'  It's really that easy!  Campaign Builder is available in Enterprise, Professional, and Developer Editions.

Formula Fields & AppExchange - we were lucky to have Randy Case, Sr. Sales Engineer with Salesforce.com in attendance at the meeting.  He spent some time showing us how to create and use formula fields on page layouts and in reports.  He also took some time to show us around the AppExchange.  Many expressed interest in learning more about the AppExchange in upcoming meetings.

One thing we kind of discussed, but didn't really resolve is what our charter as a group might be.  In reviewing the forms you all filled out I see that we are a pretty equal split of Professional and Enterprise users, many of us are administrators, and most of us are interested in the User Group as a place to bring our challenges and have them addressed by others who have been there. 

We did have a brief discussion on how often we should meet and while we initially said 'quarterly' I think we should try every other month for a while and see how that works.  If it's too much, we can cut it back to quarterly.  I will send out the next meeting date to all soon.  We didn't have any volunteers for meeting space (I would offer my office, but I don't think you all want to drive up to Monrovia!), so we will continue to meet at the Salesforce.com office for as long as they will allow and can accommodate us.

If you have anything in particular that you'd like the group to address at the next meeting, please email me at barbara.kuntz@miyachiunitek.com or post a reply to this blog!  Looking foward to seeing you all in March.

Barbara

Just a reminder that the next Orange County Users Group Meeting will be held this Wednesday, January 27 at 3pm.  See previous post for address.  One of our key discussions will center on the "charter" for our group - that which will determine the direction of future meetings - so think about what you, personally want to get out of your participation and let us know!

See you all on Wednesday!

Barbara

Welcome to the Orange County User Group!  We had just one meeting in 2005, but I was so impressed by what I saw and the people I met that I enthusiastically said “yes” when Matt asked if I were interested in assuming the Leader position.  To those of you that I’ve already met – I’m looking forward to meeting you again!  To those I’ve not yet met, I am anxious to make your acquaintance and share Salesforce.com success tips and tricks.

Our first User Group Meeting of 2006 will be held on Wednesday, January 25, in Newport Beach, at the Salesforce.com office:

895 Dove St.
3rd Floor
Newport Beach, CA

Agenda:
3:00pm – 3:15pm Registration, Refreshments and Mingling
3:15pm – 4:00pm Winter ’06 Release
4:00pm – 4:30pm Challenge the Group – bring a challenge you are having
4:30pm – 5:00pm Orange County User Group “charter” discussion

Winter ’06 Release – Since this meeting is scheduled for about 3 weeks after the Winter ’06 Release, I’d really like a couple of you (2 or 3) to volunteer to talk about what new features you’ve implemented and the response you’ve had from your users.  Please email me to volunteer to speak for 10 minutes or so.

Please RSVP if you’re planning to attend the meeting by emailing me or adding a comment on the blog. I look forward to hearing from you!

Barbara Kuntz has volunteered  to assume the position of User Group Leader for Orange County.  Barbara is the Marketing Manager for Miyachi Unitek Corporation, a 60-year old, Southern California based manufacturer of equipment and systems for resistance welding, laser welding, laser marking and hermetic sealing.  She has 15 years of marketing experience.  2 years ago, she managed Miyachi's Salesforce.com implementation of 130 users and continues to serve as the administrator for the same.

We are very excited about the re-launch of the Orange County user group and hope that you will be able to participate with Barbara on a regular basis.  She will be working with Matt Moye, Salesforce.com CSM to make your local user group a success.

Click here to provide Barbara with feedback regarding topics or locations for future sessions, or to volunteer meeting space in the Orange County area.  Click the comments link, below, if you'd just like to post a comment to the blog for everyone to see.

Dreamforce Local User Groups Are Back!

The Salesforce Summer '05 release adds hundreds of new ways to succeed with CRM. Get all the updates you need—in a single afternoon—at our Dreamforce Local User Groups.

Learn how salesforce.com helps you experience CRM success:

• Pick up Summer '05 best practices
• Review the product roadmap with experts
• Find out how to best leverage Multiforce
• Learn to tailor CRM with Customforce

Afterwards, unwind over cocktails while you network with peers and the salesforce.com team.

All attendees get $100 off Dreamforce registration.

To register for the June 8th event, click here.