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