CRM FYI

Here is a list of apps that I use that I think are really useful and recommended.

• Sales Clarity – Bluetide Management has a nicely done app called Sales Clarity that really helps Sales Managers and Executives know what’s going on in their pipeline. Part of the beauty of this app is that it’s built on Adobe Flex and requires no download to even use. It’s just a link within Salesforce or a Web Tab if you want it to be one. The other great benefit you get from Sales Clarity is that you don’t need a separate data warehouse to dig into Opportunity details. See what’s happening to your pipeline all along the way.
• Home Tab Messaging – Interactive Ties sells one of the most useful apps I’ve ever purchased for Salesforce. Essentially, it’s a few S-Controls that allow you to target messages to different user profiles on the Home Page of Salesforce. Need to send a message about some new functionality that only affects the Marketing team? Put out a message just for them. You can set effective dates for the message to automatically start and stop showing. You can also allow users to delete the message after they’ve seen it. Beyond that, you can even run a report of who has then opted-out of each message. The cost is extremely low and it’s a one time license fee. Worth every penny!
• Conga Merge – AppExtremes has a tool that I think everyone has a need for. It’s like Mail Merge on steroids. If you need to output your Salesforce data into any kind of form, whether it be MS Word, MS Excel, or PDF formats, you can do it with Conga Merge. My biggest report to date is a Sales Review Report that my Sales guys fire out of one click on the Opportunity. In the background, Conga Merge runs 25 Salesforce reports, parses the data out into my beautiful PDF form, saves the file as an attachment on the Opportunity, and creates a completed Task on the Opportunity. It’s really a work of art. On top of that, Conga Merge also works with EchoSign so you can create forms that can be digitally signed.
• Appirio – Not only is Appirio a premier CRM implementation partner of Salesforce, they do some pretty stellar apps development too. Appirio is a bit of the glue between Google and Salesforce. They’ve come up with many of the components that tie Google Apps to Salesforce as well as designing apps to build Google Gadgets out of Salesforce data. Another great development from Appirio has been their Cloud Storage. They give you increased storage capacity for Salesforce documents at a really low price. They do this by making use of Amazon’s S3 service. Cheap storage in the cloud…..awesome.