Have you been checking this site daily and wondering where I’ve
been? Were you concerned? Frustrated? Or even sad? Hmmm… wouldn’t have known it
– you didn’t even email me to make sure I was okay. But alas, I am back and
ready to help you learn Salesforce.com so that you can become prepared to pass
your certification exams!
I have started something new in my office – an
Implementation Boot Camp. It’s an opportunity to learn more about Salesforce
and to be creative and have some fun. I split my trainees into two groups and
they each are defining a company to implement Salesforce for. I am going to do
the same here and would encourage you to do the same.
What do you need to do first? Sign up for a free developer
org from Salesforce.com. To do that, go here: http://developer.force.com/
Next, come up with your company name. I am going to use
Strive Training.
And here is the fun part… you need to define your business
requirements. Here’s what I have and know about the org I am going to set up for this exercise. Use
these same questions to define your company before you play around!
Below is a short list of high level questions you should
have the answers to before beginning any implementation:
Users
Who should have access?
Sales and Marketing
Will our hierarchy in
Salesforce.com reflect our organizational hierarchy? Yes
What should each user have access
to? Sales should be able to see any account but only edit the accounts
they own. Marketing should have the ability to see and edit all accounts.
Should the application display
different data for different users? No
Accounts
What is our company definition of
an account? A customer that has booked or is booking a speaking engagement
Who will own each account? A
Sales Representative
What will the sharing rules be?
A Sales Rep can share an account and those users above the Reps in the
hierarchy should be able to see and edit the accounts
What accounts will we load into the
system? 10 Active Customers and 20 Active Leads
Who can create accounts? Any
Sales Rep
What fields are required and when?
Account name, address, phone number, contact name, and email
What custom fields do we need?
Typical Event Speaking Budget
Contacts
Who will own each contact?
The Account Owner
What will the sharing rules be?
Same as Account
How will we record activities with
contacts? Tasks and Events
What custom fields do we need? None
Opportunities
What is our sales process? Networking
and Prospecting (Lead) -> Qualification (Account) -> Proposal ->
Booking -> Event Completed -> Schedule follow up for next year’s event
How many sales processes do we
have? 1
Should we associate products with
opportunities? Yes
What fields are required and when?
How do we track competitive
information? When an opportunity is Closed-Lost the winning company
should be recorded
What custom fields do we need?
# of attendees, Handouts Required?, Charge Expenses (Y/N)
Products & Price Books
How many price books should we
have? 2 (Standard and Specials)
Should our products in
Salesforce.com be integrated with our finance system? No
Should we use list price? Yes
How do we handle discounting? Specials
price book
What custom fields do we need?
Can we add attachments as a related list?
Reporting
What reports do we need?
Events, Opportunities, Inactive Accounts, Leads
Who needs access to the reports?
Everyone
How will we distribute reports
throughout the organization? Scheduled / Emailed reports and Dashboards
Of course, this is just a small, sample list of
questions. There are hundreds of
additional questions related to forecasting, campaigns, customer support,
document management, lead management, and analytics. And because this is a mock
company and pretend implementation we can’t really do interviews with our
Executive Sponsor, Stakeholders, or Users. Ideally, though, you would want to
have your implementation deliverables include the following documents:
Vision & Scope Document
- Vision / Goals
- Business Needs
- Scope of Implementation
- Success Measures
Requirements Document
- Business Requirements
- Technical Specifications
- Application Settings
- Customizations Needed: e.g. Data migration controls to improve data quality (reduction of outdated and duplicated data, etc.) and Transfer of legacy data
- Reports Needed
- 3rd Party Applications / Integration Needed
- Custom Software Development (if necessary)
- Training
- Support
Now it is time to start your implementation. Begin with
setting up the security, roles, and profiles. Then meet me back here to see
what to do next.
