This Meeting:

Theresa DeRycke from CRM Fusion on Data Thereapy

Next meeting:

January, 21st from 4-6:30 at the Rochester Group Headquarters.600 Park Avenue.

Topic: Google Groups demonstration and training and a possible demonstration of Snapshot and Dream Factory Utilities.

Meeting notes as scribed by Rod MacKenzie as follows:

The meeting began at 4:15 PM at the headquarters of the Rochester Group on Park Avenue.

Welcome to new user group members: Janet Mahoney (Paychex), Adam Kranitz (Avid), and Jim Papin (Qioptiq, spelled correctly)!

Rod MacKenzie, who never won anything in his life, won the raffle, a GPS.  What a super gift, in exchange for which taking minutes is no big deal!

Reminder that the User Group meets the third Wednesday of each month, kindly hosted by the Rochester Group.

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Today we were lucky to have Theresa DeRycke of CRMfusion Inc. speak to us, on the subject "Data Therapy."  Also, she provided tasty munchies, as well as nifty miniature tool kits which perhaps symbolize one of the things her company does well - fix data.

14 years ago Theresa worked at Salesforce.com, on various projects involving data cleanup.  While there, she became acquainted with a CRMfusion product called DemandTools.  Eventually she left to work for CRMfusion.  It has 8-10 employees, and about 2,500 customers.

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Start of Theresa's presentation.

DemandTools features:
- MassEffect (similar to SFDC Data Loader)
- De-duplication (includes ability to de-dupe custom objects and attachments)
- Tools for massaging phone numbers, stree addresses, and email addresses
- Discovery tool (compares external data to data already loaded into SFDC)
- Lead clean-up
- Re-assignment of Account ownership

PeopleImport features:
- Tool for importing Leads, Contacts, and Accounts
- Can stop duplicates from being imported into SFDC

DupeBlocker features:
- Stops users from being able to create duplicates in REAL time
- 100% Force.com native app

- Data cleansing is an art, not a science. For example, you (or your customer) have to answer these questions: What is a dupicate? In what scenarios do duplicates arise?  What is the business impact of duplicate data?  Even in this age of computers, manual review of possible duplicates is required.  Look for things like: Why are dupes being created in my SFDC org?

- Largest de-dupe she has done: 89,000 records

- Question: Is it possible to customize the product's de-duping rules?
- Answer: Some rules are built-in, e.g. "&" -> " and ".  But beware of creating rules such as "so" -> "south".  Also, in order to enable SFDC users to find Account names with which they're familiar, don't go overboard when converting Account names to their "legal" or "standard" form.

- Question: Advice on importing data into SFDC from other systems?
- Answer: Create a custom field on the Account (or whatever object you're importing into) which indicates which foreign system the data came from.  Then's it's readily identifiable if the need arises.

- Question: Who do you engage with when you undertake a clean-up for a customer?
- Answer: The best person is the one who "knows where they want the data to be," and how to get there.  Also, you should give a list of the proposed merges/duplicates to the customer and ask for verification.  Note that an IT-type person may be useful in the discussion - don't depend on only the end-user.

- Discussion: "Data Therapy"
Data cleansing is one of those things people never talk about, or take seriously, but needs to be done.  And it's not rocket science.

- Reminder: Even if you're not currently a CRMfusion customer, feel free to contact me for some initial guidance/wisdom.

- Question: What about Best Practices?  What are the real benefits of data cleansing?  What are the catalysts?
- Answer: The hardest part of data cleansing is deciding what you want DemandTools to do.  The tool itself is easy to use.  Go to www.crmfusion.com and download a demo.  FYI, it's no big deal to extend the demo period if it's required.

- Remark by Paychex: We use PeopleImport and DemandTools. De-duping is part of my daily routine, especially de-duping our sales reps' contact data. Can the feature "Find ID" be run by the Windows Task Scheduler?
- Reponse from Theresa: I will find out if the feature "Find ID" can be run by the Windows Task Scheduler

- Question: What is the business value of cleansing data?  How much time will I spend monitoring and cleaning data?
- Answer: One of my customers used to spend 9 days cleaning data, now that's dropped to 3 hours.  You (or your customer) really have to answer this question.  Basically, whatever data you put into SFDC is a candidate for monitoring and cleaning.  In addition, you have to decide whether you're getting any value from the data you're putting in!  Ongoing maintenance will always be required because so many different organizations and persons are able to share SFDC data or create Accounts. You can also consider turning off the ability to create Accounts.  Let only specific persons or groups create them.  But don't die if someone accidentally deletes an Account.  There's always the Recycle Bin or a backup.

- Question: Channels and SFDC Accounts: How to ensure correct visibility, and differentiate multiple sites?
- Answer: Using Dunn & Bradstreet to maintain corporate hierarchies is one solution. Or, have the right person (not necessarily a management person) make the right decision about Account merging and deleting.  Note that it's important to enable different views of account hierarchies.  But regardless of which approach you take, make sure that someone's "vision" about how to fix something can be correctly implemented.  When you (or your sales rep) proposes a data cleansing solution for your customer, make sure you understand what the customer wants to accomplish, whether you're using CRMfusion or any other tool.

- Question: Any overseas experience doing data cleansing?
- Answer: Spain and Australia.  Now I can see how many ways people have of saying "Missing value" or "Invalid data" in multiple languages!

- Remark: DemandTools requires a 32-bit operating system, won't work with 64-bit.

- Question: Can your products deal with double-byte (e.g., Chinese character) data?
- Response from Theresa: I will find out

- Final remark by Theresa: DemandTools is free for non-profits

End of Theresa's presentation.

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Closing dicussion

- Question: Has anyone been using Google User Groups to submit questions?
- Answer: One did, but never got an answer.  Rich Bilsback will bring some screen prints to the next meeting, to illustrate how to do this.

- Topic for future meeting: How to Use Google User Groups

- Topic for future meeting: Mobile.
- Remark: This is hot.  Sprint would like to host a meeting, though it wouldn't necessarily be from a SFDC perspective.
- Remark: Paychex is trying to steer users away from mobile, and toward VisualForce pages.
- Remark: Different carriers treat SFDC integration differently.  E.g., AT&T sells IPhones, which have their own SFDC integration.
- Remark: Theresa might contact one of her customers who did a DreamForce presentation about mobile, which may be of use to us

- Question: Does anyone use the off-line version of SFDC?
- Answer: Not on a regular basis.  One person uses it only when she anticipates her network not being available.
- Answer: Uses it only sporadically.  Unfavorable opinion.

- Question: I'd like to see better integration between Outlook and SFDC. Any news?
- Answer: Theresa satisfied with Outlook integration.  Recommends you check for latest version of Outlook Edition from time to time
- Answer: Outlook Edition is not bad, and is always getting better.

- Remark by Rick Gary: SFDC is not the best tool for analytics - SAP Business Objects is better, especially when it comes to integrating SFDC data with other systems' data.  SFDC dashboards and reports have become unmanageable.  Report management seems to be easier with BO.
- Related remark by Theresa: Try submitting an enhancement request to CRMfusion, requesting a SFDC Report Management tool.

- Question: How do people manage reports?
- Answer: Xerox stopped people from using the data server for reporting purposes, due to performance problems.  Reporting has been completely offloaded to its own server.

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The meeting ended at 5:45 PM.

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Thanks to Rod for taking such great notes!