We will have a surprise guest for our meeting - so don't miss out. We will also announce a new co-chair - another reason not to miss this meeting. In addition, we will also have Catherine Lang from Salesforce.com talk to us about certification. Cat is the Sr. Director of Certification & Course Development at Salesforce.com. The links to certification material is given below.

 When : Nov 18 2008 ( Tuesday) at 4.30PM

Where: Tarragon Restaurant , Sunnyvale 

DataSea is sponsoring this event, DataSea is a data architecture and a language processing program that gives single-step, natural data access and command control. It takes your data and lets you do things like make calls and send email in one step. Save time by reducing the need for navigation and clicking. DataSea gives answers based on your input by using human-like reasoning to find the relevant connections among data. It supports natural language and can access a wide range of data sources, including relational databases, as well as unstructured sources, such as ad-hoc notes

By popular demand, we are going to have a session during every meeting called TIPS which addresses a specific challenge faced by adminstrators and a solution implemented.

This time we are going to have Girish Balakrishnan, from Ironport (CISCO) talk about a solution he developed using custom objects and apex code to reduce data entry. Data entry is error prone, time consuming and requires training of your users. In this session he will give a demonstration of how a combination of custom objects and apex code will help streamline this.

Bring your questions and your appetite. We will serve light refreshments and appetizers.

Location & Details:
Date & Time: Tue,  November 18th at 4:30 pm.
New Location: Tarragon Restaurant
140 S Murphy Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 737-8003
http://www.dinetarragon.com/

This is a free member event.You can register for the user group at http://usergroups.salesforce.com/santaclara/

Certification guides

www.salesforce.com/certification - study guides, prep courses, sample questions etc.

http://www.qrelease.com/REVIEW/salesforce-exam/ - 3-minute video testimonial from certified professionals

The meeting was fantastic!

Everybody enjoyed the sessions and the participation was very good. The evangelists from SFDC were very inspiring and there were a lot of free flowing discussions . The TIPS session was quite well received and there were impromptu discussions

Sean from Cast Iron did a great job and Cast Iron - thank you for sponsoring the event .

I am reproducing an email below from Jesse Lorenz. Jesse is a Platform evangelist at Salesforce.com

From: Jesse Lorenz [mailto:jlorenz@salesforce.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:44 AM
To: Prithvi Kandanda
Subject: SFDC community boards

Prithvi,

In speaking to your members last night,  I discovered that some of them aren't regular readers of the SFDC community bulletin boards. (http://community.salesforce.com/) The boards a great place to find out if someone else has ever asked the same question as you and gotten an answer. They're also a great place to ask new questions, share expertise with other SFDC users and even find a new SFDC-related job! Ron, Dave, Andrew, myself and a number of other SFDC employees frequent the boards regularly. It might be worth posting a link to the boards on the SVUG blog and mentioning it during your next "TIPS" session.

Best,

Jesse

 Platform Evangelist

We are going to have a very interesting meeting this time - Be there, and you might win a Blue-ray DVD player !!!

When : August 19th 2008 ( Tuesday) at 4.30PM

Where: Tarragon Restaurant , Sunnyvale ( Yes, we have been assured  the Wifi will work this time )

Cast Iron Systems, an AppExchange partner providing a configuration-based solution specifically for integrating Salesforce with other applications will be our sponsor. Sean O'Connell, Product Marketing will teach us how to reduce integration time by 80%! . You can get more information on Cast Iron from  www.castiron.com

Sean Whiteley (Product Management) at salesforce.com has agreed to comeback and complete his demo of Google apps.

We will also have an evangelism team from Salesforce come and talk to us about "Mastering Visualforce - Move Beyond S-Controls"

By popular demand, we are going to have a session during every meeting called TIPS which addresses a specific challenge faced by adminstrators and a solution implemented. This time we are going to have Dan England, Marketing & Sales Operations Manager at Cast Iron talk about a solution he developed to speed up searches !

Bring your questions and your appetite. We will serve light refreshments and appetizers.

Location & Details:
Date & Time: Tue,  August 19th at 4:30 pm.
New Location: Tarragon Restaurant
140 S Murphy Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 737-8003
http://www.dinetarragon.com/

Meeting Agenda: Signup & Announcements Sean Whiteley, salesforce.com Sponsors: Cast Iron Systems Break & Networking Dan England - TIPS session "Mastering Visualforce - Move Beyond S-Controls"

This is a member only event and you can become a user group member to attend this event .

To become a member you can register here http://usergroups.salesforce.com/santaclara/

Josh and PK

We just wanted to let you know that we are planning our next Silicon Valley salesforce.com User Group meeting for Tue Aug 19th (4:30-7:00pm) at the Tarragon Restaurant in Sunnyvale sponsored by CastIron.
 
 
We are looking for volunteers!!!
If you are a SFDC Admin and you solved a problem you would like to share with the group... pls prepare a 5 minute mini-presentation!
State the problem and the solution... pls contact PK or me.
 
 
More details to be announced. Hope to see you there!

We just wanted to let you know that we are planning our next Silicon Valley salesforce.com User Group meeting for Tue Aug 19th (4:30-7:00pm) at the Tarragon Restaurant in Sunnyvale sponsored by CastIron.
 
 
We are looking for volunteers!!!
If you are a SFDC Admin and you solved a problem you would like to share with the group... pls prepare a 5 minute mini-presentation!
State the problem and the solution... pls contact PK or me.
 
 
More details to be announced. Hope to see you there!

WOW - What an event! Thx LucidEra & Sean Whiteley

Unbelievable - were you part of the largest SVUG meeting? We had well over 70 people last night! We had a great sponsor, LucidEra and a great guest speaker (Sean). Event w/o perfect wireless connection we managed to have a ball!

UG Members are interested in the following topics: (So come prepared to share/discuss these next meeting :L)
o    Configuration, Pricing, Proposal, and Contract Automation
o    Formulas
o    Best Practices for profiles (x2)
o    Google Apps (x2)
o    More effective use of the data stored in the Salesforce (treating the data like online db.)
o    Implementation
o    Pipeline Reports/Trends/Graphs Forecasting based on past sales as opposed to Oppty Forecasts
o    account clean-up and security without a sandbox
o    Reporting on multiple campaigns 
o    Volume pricing
o    Adaption of changes being made...how do you get people to adapt...using the partners side of SFDC.
o    We are facing Historical reporting issues
o    Sales Intelligence and data quality
o    Business-to-Consumer Limitation within for the Salesforce CRM.
o    flex and apex
o    Data Validation rules!
o    Territory Management.
o    Solutions for the reporting space....

Who we are? Here is how we describe ourselves (multi-select, >100%): (click image)

Hi There,
If you recall from last meeting... we discussed how to track goals in SFDC... David Belove created this file for your use... Enjoy... Thx David.

Please drink responsibly – you are responsible for your own safe transportation.

RSVP: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=gPISNeRCUN2_2bGQNQZREQIA_3d_3d

Enjoy!!!!

You got to take a look at this: Timeline S-Control Mashup

Based on Simile (MIT) Timeline. This will display time related items in a timeline/grid for most standard objects. If you are not afraid of code, you can extend it to other standard objects and custom ones. (see screen shot - I've changed icons... I've also added Contracts elsewhere).

This is great for "researching" Accounts or Cases! Give it a look/go.