Salesforce reguraly develop and distribute apps on the Salesforce AppExchange. They have recently pulled together a list of the top 50 most popular apps that they have developed.

Ive found a few gems in the list like CMSForce 2 to allow clients to build and manage their website through the force.com platform or even EventForce which allow client to manage upcoming events and trade shows all within the familiar layout of Salesforce.com.

I was working on a site for a client today and they had changed domain names from .co.uk to .com. They had a Google Map on the old site to show the location of their offices. The code used to generate the a Google map no longer worked after the move to the .com domain.  After messing the the code for 10 mins, the map would not load, so I resorted to searching on Google. It turns out the Google have developed a wizard to quickly generate the code to gernerate a map for a specific loaction.

All you have to do is enter the location name, link to the location, and the address and google then does the hard work and gives you a nice piece of html+javascript which you can insert into your site. http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/wizards/mapsearch.html

Below is an example map that I just created for my site.

A quick way to login to Salesforce.com without having to enter your username and password every time is to create a short cut link in your web browser to the login page on Salesforce.

1. Copy the link below.
2. Create a new short cut in your favouraite web browser and paste this link in
3. Replace your login details with the text in CAPS
4. Save and you should be good to go, no more having to login to Salesforce.com

https://login.salesforce.com/?un=YOURUSERNAMS@SOMTHING.COM&pw=YOURPASSWORD

A word of warning on this.  I would not recommend that you use this only on Development versions of Salesforce.com as when you click the link your password will be displayed in the browsers URL bar for all to see and you run the risk of someone stealing your login credentials.

One of the complaints that I often get from clients in regards to Salesforce.com is about the speed when moving from page to page.

The thing that really slows down Salesforce is the amount of Javascript that is used on the pages. Javascript is used to load menus, related lists, hover overs, pop-ups etc. Your Salesforce Admin is able to disable these fancy bells and whistles function on the system, but that would make the system even less user friendly and you would miss out on some really nice features.

Of course having a high speed internet connection helps to load things faster but in most cases users are on broadband connections at work or at home.

So how what else can be done to speed up Salesforce.com?

One of the best and fastest web browsers to load Javascript is Google Chrome which is free to download and install.   If you are using Internet Explorer I would strongly suggest that you make the switch to Chrome or even the latest version of Firefox and you will nice a dramatic increase in the speed of pages loading on Salesforce

Google Chrome Features

• Speed
  Chrome is designed to be fast in every possible way: It’s quick to start up from your desktop, loads Salesforce pages in a snap, and runs complex web applications fast. Learn more about Chrome and speed.Watch video
• Simplicity
  Chrome’s browser window is streamlined, clean and simple.Chrome also includes features that are designed for efficiency and ease of use. For example, you can search and navigate from the same box, and arrange tabs however you wish — quickly and easily.

  Watch video

• Security
  Chrome is designed to keep you safer and more secure on the web with built-in malware and phishing protection, autoupdates to make sure the browser is up-to-date with the latest security updates, and more. Learn more aboutChrome’s security features.Watch video
• And more features
  Chrome has many useful features built in, including extensions, translation in the browser, themes, and more. Learn more about Chrome’s newest and most-loved features.

What Chrome WONT do on Salesforce.com

One of the disadvantages on using Chrome on Salesforce.com is that is cannot load the applet used to build and edit html emails and email templates that you send to leads and contacts.  But if this is not something you do or something you do often then I would suggest that you consider using Google Chrome for Salesforce.com.

I am sitting in my living room watching cartoons with my daughter, while tapping away on my iPhone writting this post thanks to a nice little App I found to publish dirrectly to my blog.
It never fails to amaze me what can be done with a phone these days.

I recently implemented the Salesforce.com Quotes module for a client.  They had begun using the system when one of the Sales guys asked could we get the Quote Number to start with something higher than ’000007′.  Could it not be something like ‘QU-00101′.

On the Quotes object the ID cannot be edited to be a custom format so I had to add a new field to the quote object to replace the standard Quote Number field.

First I had to create a new Auto-Number field on the quotes object by doing the following:

1. Setup -> Customise -> Quotes -> Fields, then press the ‘NEW’ button
2. Choose Auto-Number from the list of different field types and press next
3. Field Labels could be ‘Quote#‘ or something similar
4. Display Format should be something like ‘QU-{0000}‘
5. Starting from can be anything you like, in my case I started the numbers in the 1000′s
6. If quotes have already been created on Salesforce then make sure you check the option ‘Generate Auto Number for existing records‘ so that all quotes have this new Quote# added to their record
7. Click ‘Next‘ then add the new field the required page layouts and then save

Now that you have the new Quote# field added to Salesforce you also need to add the new quote to any Quote Templates.

One last thing that I done was to rename the old Quote Number fields to Quote ID or something similar to avoid any confusion by users.

To rename the Quote Number fields label you need to do the following:

1. Setup -> Customise -> Tab Names and Labels – > Rename Tabs and Labels
2. Click on the Edit button beside the Quote object
3. You don’t need to make changes to the Quotes tab so just press next
4. Now find the Quote Number field and in the Singular text box enter in the new name of ‘Quote ID’ then press Save

Here is 3 short videos that outline, at a high level, what Cloud Computing is and how you may already be using it and why businesses should definitely be using it.

Cloud Computing (via CNN)

This is a pretty funny explanation on what cloud computing is and how it is used by most people online today without even realising it.

What is Cloud Computing? (via Salesforce.com)

Nice explanation of how an IT department can leverage the cloud to free up their time, save money and ease the head aches in the server room.

Cloud Computing Explained (via HighTechDad)

This video boils down a section of Cloud Computing, that of Cloud Infrastructure and Cloud Hosting in a way that everyone can understand!

So what is cloud computing and what does it really mean to a business?

Cloud computing is the latest buzz word in the IT industry with some analysts perdicting big things in the Cloud in the next couple of years.  But what does this mean for a business and how can a business hope to leverage this new Cloud power?

The term cloud computing probably comes from (at least partly) the use of a cloud image to represent the Internet or some large networked environment.  It is a term used to represent the running of SaaS (Software as a Service) which basically means to access and run the software all you need is a web browser and an internet connection.

Below are 10 of the key benefits that a businesses can gain from moving from traditional in-house IT software to using the various cloud based applications that are springing up all the time.

1. No Hardware Required

   No need to buy and setup expensive hardware or do upgrades to keep abreast of the latest technology trends.  All these costs are covered by the Cloud providers who make any changes automatically.

2. Free Up Your IT Department

   Reduce costs in the IT department by removing the whole burden of managing servers and network gear.   This will free up your IT team to work on more business critical projects.  A study conducted by Coleman Parkes Research for Salesforce.com showed that most CIO’s and IT directors were spending far too much time on “keeping the lights on” activities, rather than focusing on the IT to drive business strategy.

3. No More Expensive Servers to Run

   By hosting software and data centres remotely — out in the “cloud” and accessible via the Internet — companies can reduce their costs and the whole burden of managing servers and network gear.

4. Security

   Cloud companies invest vast sums of money on security, employing leading experts and buying latest technologies to ensure their customers are protected.

5. Faster Development Life Cycles

   Software as a Services (SaaS) – SaaS development can deliver fully functioning applications and in far less time than traditional custom software development projects, allowing you to take advantage of new opportunities for customer acquisition, customer retention, and workflow improvement.

6. Subscription Based Service

   As your business grows so can your cloud application as you can simply add more users to the cloud applications and just as easily scale back the costs if required.   Unlike traditional enterprise software vendors who change you a substantial one of fee to get the software + a user licence fee + a maintenance fee + costs for any customisations + upgrade costs.  Most cloud companies cover all these costs in their subscription models.

7. Easily Switch from Cloud to Cloud

   As the Cloud computing market grows and competition heats up the cloud service provider offering the best value and service will get the customers.  From a businesses point of view, switching between these cloud providers should be relatively easy when compared to upgrading or switches traditional in-house enterprise software.

8. Easy Access

   All you need to access your cloud platform is an active internet connection.  This can be really useful for business people who work on the road and who need access to files or software.

9. No or Very Little Downtime

   Cloud computing removed the need for business to run expensive and time consuming back-up processes, onsite and off side storage facilities for the backed up data.  If a storage server on the cloud fails due to hardware or software issues, the service provider needs only to shift the load over to other servers or bring up a backup server in its place.

10. Collaboration

    Collaborating with others online has never been easier. There are a number of options for everything from sharing images and video to presentations, tasks and more.  This removed the need to long email threads with different people pitching in different points with repeated requests or changes and the document owner spending a day trying to keep track of it all. 5 Ways to Collaborate Online in Real Time.

After doing a lot of changes to a new system in a Sandbox I went to deploy to the production org and ran into this problem ‘Problem: Required field is missing: businessProcess’.  This problem occoured for a few fields when pushing up a Object to the production org.

CAUSE

It seems that for a couple of the record types for the object did not have the <businessProcess>tags when I opened up the opject in the Force IDE.

FIX

I simply added a <businessProcess> tag to each of the recordtypes that the error occoured and voila we can push the changes to production.