One of the best parts of my job is getting to share cool new stuff with customers, and between our three awesome releases per year, our ever-expanding suite of killer products, and innovation from our partner ecosystem, I never run out of things to share. When it comes to sharing cool stuff, I love talking with customers about the AppExchange, because it delivers both extraordinary variety (2,600+ apps) and value (more than 44% are free).

This is part four of a five-part blog series where we’re highlighting Apps for Admins. In this series, we’re digging into some of the key challenges admins face and the AppExchange apps, free and paid, that have made some of my customers more successful.

It’s Time to Take This Show on the Road

“Can I get that sent to me in an email?” This is a question every Salesforce Administrator hears regularly, and it speaks to the need to get notifications and access data on the go. While a single timely email update can be helpful, digging through an inbox full of emails doesn’t boost a field sales rep’s productivity. What they really need is a great mobile experience.

Admins know that the Salesforce1 Platform allows access to core customer data simply by downloading the Salesforce1 Mobile App and logging in. But super savvy admins also know that careful planning and a little configuration magic go a long way toward boosting adoption.

When planning out a Salesforce1 mobile strategy for your company, consider the following:

Which employees and teams are good candidates for mobile? These may include:

○      Executives and other company leaders
○      Employees in the field or who travel frequently
○      Employees with irregular schedules or who need access at a moment’s notice (e.g., IT help desk)
○      Employees who are more tech-savvy and likely to adopt what’s new

What are the use cases that will deliver the greatest impact? These may include:

○      Creating and editing records
○      Logging calls, meetings, and capturing notes
○      Accessing reports and dashboards
○      Collaborating with colleagues

What is the existing mobile landscape at your company today?

○      Does your company have a mobile device policy?
○      Will you need to upgrade an existing legacy mobile application? (e.g., Salesforce Classic)

How can you position your rollout to boost adoption?

○      Run a pilot with a group of your best candidates for mobile
○      Conduct training and provide demonstrations for users
○      Following your pilot, consider conducting an official launch at an annual company meeting or kickoff to generate buzz and excitement

Design for an enhanced mobile experience:

○      Keep page layouts short and sweet
○      Use default values for fields wherever possible
○      Use publisher actions to simplify routine tasks, like creating or editing a record
○      Performance is key

When you’re designing that great mobile experience to solve for your key use cases, don’t forget that an app can also help you deliver the magic. Power your field sales and service organizations, and give your executive team and company leaders insights from any device, anywhere, with a little help from the AppExchange. Check out the apps below to learn about popular mobile themes, including geolocation, electronic signature, and note taking.

Notes and Notifications

• NotifyMe: Free app allowing any user to create personal notifications on any object. Get notified via SMS or email. Workflow is awesome, but NotifyMe empowers your users to make their own notification rules!
• Evernote for Salesforce: Are your users looking for note-taking solutions? This free app allows you to capture notes, links, and attachments, all in context to records in Salesforce.

Contracts and Approvals

• Approval Central for Salesforce1: Do your managers need the ability to see all their pending approvals in one place? Look no further than this free app. Simply open the Salesforce1 Mobile App and tap My Approvals from the left-hand navigation to see and approve all of your pending requests.
• DocuSign: Send documents for digital signature or sign in person from an iPad within the Salesforce1 Mobile App. Automate workflows and merge data from any Salesforce object. Paid app.

Geolocation

• Geopointe: Map any object, anywhere. Includes optimized routing, navigation, proximity searching, territory management, demographics, and more. Paid app.
• Check-in: Analytics, geolocation, and performance management app. Allows managers to verify sales visits and analyze call details. Paid app.

In addition, there are some enhancements for geolocation in the Spring ’15 release. Records with standard address will display a Google Maps image, and standard geolocation fields will now be available for use in Apex, Visual Workflow, Workflow, and more. See the Spring ’15 release notes for complete details.

Email and Collaboration

• Magpie: Free app allowing you to make photo albums on the fly and easily share with colleagues via Chatter.
• ScanBizCards: Ideal for salespeople in the field, scan a business card and transform it into a Lead or Contact in Salesforce. Paid app.
• Cirrus Insight: Connect Gmail and Gcal to Salesforce for easy syncing of emails, events, and contacts. View and update Salesforce data from Gmail. Paid app.
• Yesware: Sync emails, calls, and events to Salesforce, plus create reusable email templates with ease. Paid app.

Just Give Me One of Everything

If you’re looking for a bit of everything, look no further than the S1 Ignition Pack. This is a free pack of six applications to power micro-moments for salespeople in the field. Included are apps for account news, geolocation, cliff notes, and content deliveries, all optimized for the mobile experience. Some of the apps require Heroku, see AppExchange listing for full details.

Admins Need Mobile, Too

The SalesforceA app allows admins to handle basic functions while on the go. Enhance that functionality with the Clone This User app. This free app allows admins to look up a user, clone it, enter the new user’s name and email, and presto! Permission sets, public groups, and user features are copied over and a new Salesforce user is created, all from the Salesforce1 Mobile App. Now that’s administration efficiency on the go.

Conclusion

Employees, managers, executives, and your customers all need to collaborate, access information, and get assistance. Deploy powerful Salesforce1 mobile-ready apps from the AppExchange and power up your company’s mobile strategy.

Stay tuned for the final installment in our series as we continue with Apps for Admins. Up next, Learning!