Colin Loretz (@colinloretz) is the CEO and co-founder of Cloudsnap--an integration start-up that connects web apps.  He started using Salesforce six years ago as an end user. Since then he has grown to become an implementation consultant, Force.com developer, and ISV partner.  He has implemented Salesforce for web startups, healthcare providers, casinos, and resorts and has built a variety of custom solutions with Force.com. 

I’ve been working in and around the Salesforce ecosystem for about 6 years and it has been great to see the platform grow and expand. Over those years, I’ve used and recommended countless apps from the AppExchange to our own customers but the following apps are my must haves.

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Field Trip

When I worked as a Salesforce consultant and implementation partner, Field Trip was invaluable for discovering what fields and objects were actually being used by our customers. It is really easy to use and gives you a great view into what fields are being not being utilized. This is great for checking the completeness of your Salesforce records and see if there are any important fields that need to be enforced or if any unnecessary fields exist that can be consolidated or removed.

Geopointe: Google Maps & MapQuest for Salesforce

Geopointe gives you a whole new view of your Salesforce data. With the Geopointe mobile app for both iOS and Android, you can view your leads, accounts and other records that are near you so you can plan daily routes and check-in to those locations when you’ve visited them, just like you would in Foursquare. If you work with customers and partners and want to see a geographical view of your Salesforce data, Geopointe is for you.

ToutApp - Analytics, Templating and Scheduling for your Sales Emails

If you spend a lot of time in email, you owe it to yourself to check out Tout. It can be integrated right inside of both Salesforce and Gmail. Tout claims to streamline the email workflow and it really does. You can get insight into how many times someone has opened your sent messages, write emails faster with tout templates and you can do it all from within your email client or Salesforce.

DocuSign Electronic Signatures (eSignature)

It is a personal goal of mine to be rid of paper. We are still many years away from being 100% paperless but Docusign for Salesforce really helps cut down on the paper and the time it takes to get things signed. If you constantly have contracts being sent around your email inbox, you need to check this out.

Each of these apps help you be more productive and get new insights into your Salesforce data. Personally, project management within Salesforce has been the holy grail of applications. So much in fact, that I decided to solve the problem with my team. We’re big fans of Basecamp from 37Signals and we will be launching Altitude: Basecamp Sync  in just a couple weeks that will finally allow you to manage projects right alongside your customer data.