Salesforce offers its users a Chatter for Business feature that intuitively connects you with the people and information you need to be successful. Salesforce Chatter for Business is primarily marketed as a Salesforce communications tool. While this is a function of Chatter, it really is just the tip of the iceberg of what it can do for a business.
When considering Salesforce Chatter for business, it helps to think outside of the box. Imagine ways Chatter can improve a user’s performance and provide ways to increase internal adoption and productivity. Revolution Group’s Salesforce Admin Jessika Botruff shares her favorite features:
Great Salesforce Chatter for Business Features
Following Data. Chatter not only allows a user to follow another user, it also allows a user to follow a record, file, dashboard, etc. This can be a very powerful and important feature for users, allowing them to be notified of changes in real time. If a user is following a record, they can be notified if a specific field is changed on the record.
Profile based roll-out. The Summer ’14 release allowed Admins to roll-out Chatter by profile. This means the admin can selectively roll-out Chatter to those users who may get the most value. This is a nice feature for larger organizations who need a methodical approach for rolling out new features.
Approving records in Chatter. There are times when a manager may not be in the office at the time a user needs to have a record approved (ex. discount approval on an Opportunity). If ‘Approvals in Chatter’ is enabled, when the user submits the record for approval, the manager can approve the record directly from their Chatter feed in Salesforce1 or browser.
Chatter for Business Actions
Salesforce admins can create quick, easy actions that give a user the ability to create or update a record, send an email, log a call, or create a custom action specific to their company’s needs.
Actions can live specifically on a record or if you have the Salesforce for Outlook plugin installed, you can publish them to be used within Outlook as well. Actions are also available in Salesforce1, as long as they are displayed on a record’s page layout.
For example, as a Salesforce admin, I am consistently asked about new features, answering questions, and troubleshooting current issues. To help me better manage these requests, I setup a Case Queue. However, when I began to think about the user, I realized that they are not always working in Salesforce – some operate from a system outside of Salesforce. But, ALL of my users access Outlook. Knowing this would be a hurdle, I created a Global Action that created a case record and made this action visible in the browser, Outlook and Salesforce1.
Within this Global Action, my target object was Case. With actions, you are allowed to set predefined field values. I choose the values for the standard field Status and two custom fields that I needed to be pre-populated. Next, I created a simple layout of only 4 fields. I wanted to make sure this was user friendly while still allowing me to gather all the information I needed to assist with their request.
◦ Contact Name
◦ Type (options are Feature Request, Question, and Problem)
◦ Case Name (Subject)
◦ Description
Then, I added this to the Chatter page layout as well as a few other object page layouts where I know my users are often working. This also allowed the action to be visible within Salesforce1 on the same objects I added to the page layouts. Now, when a user is working within the app, or browser, and they have a question or issue they need me to address, they are able to quickly create a case for me without having to leave where they are currently working. They just select the action from the Chatter feed “Log SF/PSA Support Case”, fill in the fields, and click create.
For the users that are not always working in Salesforce, I added the same Global Action to my Outlook Publisher Action layout. Now, any user with the Salesforce for Outlook plugin installed can quickly create a case for me right in Outlook. The user simply clicks the + icon to open the action tools menu, selects the “Log SF/PSA Support Case”, fills in the fields, and clicks the green check mark to submit.
Want to know more about Salesforce Chatter for Business? Take a look at the Chatter Basics module in Trailhead and contact Revolution Group’s Salesforce Services Division at 614-212-1111 or fill out the form below. If you would like more information on Salesforce features that we love, see our blog, “3 Service Cloud Features You Should Get Excited About.”
