The software-as-a-service model (SaaS) interrupts traditional approaches to business analyzes. The long deployment cycles, high cost, complex update processes and IT infrastructure needed from traditional business intelligence solutions in the facilities are no longer acceptable at the age of demand. Instead, a new generation of analytical solutions that are easy to configure and easy to use and provide immediate commercial value. The trouble for the customers of Salesforce.com is to know where to start. With more than 50 analytical applications to choose from the Force.com AppPexchange and the functions of indigenous transaction reports that are constantly improving in the CRM program, it can look at a certain point the status quo of “Excel Hell”, the easiest And most option safe. Unless you are the spreadsheets that are difficult to handle, turning tables, disconnected access databases and numbers that do not even add, here is primer to help you move from the automation of business sales on demand:
Understand your sales alignment requirements.
If you are a salesforce administrator, you already know how important it is to be competent with the built-in reports and control panel capabilities. If you are not up to date, be sure to enroll in a training course, to observe a dreamforce presentation on the successful community website. (Acceptance panels, for example, is a good introduction and income panels to salesforce.com and will also be familiar with the application installation process in the AppExchange Government.)
But this is just the beginning. Inevitably with Salesforce, such as typical of transactional reports, since 4 or 5 reports are always reported to answer the question you really want to respond.
To understand your sales alignment requirements, consider the following:
o What information do the sales managers, the CFO and the Chief Executive Officer are needed to succeed today? (A clear understanding of your goals and success statistics is critical. How many of these questions can you answer today?) Or what business questions are the most difficult to answer today? Who asks these questions? When and why? O Do you prefer people to respond to their own business questions or trust information, business analysts and / or information function for information? o How do managers prefer to access business information: dynamic panels, spreadsheets, PDF, PowerPoint, e-mail, mobile device, etc?
o What other sources of information need and analyze people to achieve the success of sales? (Please note that critical sales data are often blocked in financial systems, orders, discussions, billing information; or outside the CRM system in spreadsheets, commissions, fees, forecasts).
Know your Analytics appexchange options
In your article, sales management 2.0: statistics, not the streams, describe the trailer of Barry and Jim Dickie of CSO ideas The main sales analysis criteria in this way:
“You can decide whether to shoot and analyze data from multiple data sources (for example, accounting, inventory, sales, etc.) or only one (CRM). The solutions are available in any way; what you want is an application it will Allow the commercial rules, historical trends and exceptions that notify a minimum of administrative / established effort “.
Here is a general description of some of the options for salesforce.com and their pre- and their disadvantages:
Production reports
It is tool designed for advanced report developers to create virtually any report on transactional data. Also known as “Enterprise reports”, these tools generally offer built-in programming of highly authorized “Pixel Pixel” reports, highly formatted, which may include requests or prepackaged filters to appear interactively. For salesforce.com clients, these tools, virtually any union can create, but the size of the data should be small. Try to repeat all your transaction data in a desktop report tool to get the queries you need, it won’t work. If people want to request spontaneous questions, iterative or trend-based trends, these tools are not a good fit. If you have someone at home who understand SQL (and soq), and you only need some static reports delivered, start here. Make sure you are sure to discover the adaptation, support and advanced reports that the cost and the improvements that come in the indigenous transactional functions of salesforce.com monitor. Also keep in mind what Neil Raden played on his role as Salesforce.com, called, accelerating the success of the question with the question:
“Wear a desk by removing its user interface and replaces it with a front-aging web mask, the fact that its internal operations TikTok Analytics Platform are not migrated to a multi-tenant architecture on demand. The result will probably do bad, a requirement. Labor requires a lot of time for updates and spots, and possibly possible, should be interrupted when the supplier releases his “real” product at any time from the future, it is likely that there is no conversion trajectory satisfactory. ”
Indigenous Council Applications
There are many interactive components, in real time in real-time and analytical panel boxes based on Adobe Flex at the AppExchange today. Some are easier to configure and use than others. Most are striking. Indigenous panel applications often impress managers and roles that are not analysts in the company, but because they are based on the force.com transaction force platform, usually do little for people who fight with Excel spreadsheets and historical requirements and analysis . Note that a nice dashboard widget can have “demo switch” and can even make sense to your business process, but all applications that focus on the dashboard in the AppleChange government are not the same. Make sure you discover the vision of the suppliers to continue as the operational or embedded business analyzes for a transaction system to determine whether it can comply with your short-term short-term short-term access and analysis requirements. .