Notes for 29 January, 2010

These notes are based on my preview of Salesforce today. I’ve Identified the
following challenges for setting up Salesforce and training:

• Don’t know yet how well I need to understand Salesforce. My previous relational
  database and SaaS knowledge makes following the tutorials really easy.
• Beyond knowing what sort of organization they are and that we’re going
  to start with basic contacts, I don’t know TPE’s specific needs yet.
• Need contacts (.csv)
• Need list of users

Business Objects

These are notes

Business objects is a part of SF that includes:

• Campaigns (such as sales campaigns)
• Accounts (companies)
• Contacts (individuals at companies)
• Documents
• Reports
• Dashboards (overall snapshot of set up)

I believe we need the above objects, although there are others. It is possible to create custom business objects if we need.

Security

Logging in on a new computer requires that the computer be activated with
Salesforce. User is prompted to send email and confirm activation.

Login restrictions

Training

Some training could be done online.

Need list of trainees.

Need to know training levels.

System should be completely set up for regular user training (probably in
read-only mode)

System admins needing training need to know how to set up the system, so it
doesn’t necessarilly need to be set up.

Fields

There are two types of fields:

• Standard - pre-defined by SF. Cannot be deleted, but can be hidden.
• Custom – user defined to business model.

I need to identify TPE needs. What Standard fields can they use? What Custom
fields need to be created.

Profiles

Users are assigned profiles. Profiles controll security and access priveleges.

What
profiles does TPE need?

Default profiles:

• Contract manager
• Marketing user
• Office manager
• Read only
• Solution manager
• Standard manager
• Standard user
• System administrator

Users

With profiles defined, users can be created (and then assigned to a profile).

Big Note: email becomes username, therefore only one email per user. Jeremy
should not use info@turningpointensemble.ca, unless we can determine that no
one else will need to use it. I would prefer something like jeremy@turningpointensemble.ca
and it protrays the organization as being composed of real people.

• Users associated with profile and role.
• Records used by users.
• Need to ensure I understand SF terminology (I think records is the aggregate
  for all informaiton about contacts).

Page Layouts

Can be customized to profiles to control what users see.