Connect directly to partners with the exciting new features in Winter '09.

Drive Partner Loyalty and Productivity with Mobile Support

(Enterprise and Unlimited Editions, Gold Partner Portal Licenses)

• Give partners anytime, anywhere access
• Provide partners with the Partner Portal on their mobile devices
• Let partners update customer and sales data on the go

Channel partners, brokers, and agents are often out in the field meeting with customers, without a laptop or access to the Internet. But no matter where they are, partners need customer and sales information at their fingertips to close business. With Salesforce CRM Mobile for Partners, channel partners can view, update, and interact with leads, opportunities, contacts, and custom objects right from their handheld devices.

Portal tab access for mobile devices
Give channel partners the same access to sales data, whether they’re in the portal or on their mobile devices.

View and update records
Let agents and brokers view and update customer and sales data from anywhere.

Mobile device support
Enable partners using mobile devices by RIM (BlackBerry), Palm, Microsoft, or Apple (iPhone) to get up and running in minutes.

Note: Mobile licenses for partners are not included with the Gold Partner Portal license fee and must be purchased separately. Please contact your account executive for more information.

Increase Productivity by Empowering Partners to Manage their Calendars

(Enterprise and Unlimited Editions, Silver and Gold Partner Portal Licenses)

• Give channel partners intuitive and robust calendar features to manage their schedules
• Publish marketing and program events to partners' calendars

Your partners need to keep track of their customer appointments and manage their overall schedules. With Calendar and Events in the Partner Portal, your partners can easily manage their time using intuitive Web 2.0 calendar functionality. You can also “push” marketing events to partners to provide details on the what, where, and when of upcoming marketing events.

Full calendar management
Partners can see daily, weekly, and monthly calendar views.

Calendar sharing
Partners can share their calendars with others and view multiuser calendars to easily schedule meetings.

Partner marketing calendars
You can ensure partners are aware of upcoming events by placing your marketing events directly into their calendars.

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Get Your Marketing Message Out to Partners

(Enterprise and Unlimited Editions, Gold Partner Portal Licenses)

• Provide in-context messages to channel partners
• Use HTML Messages to guide partners through processes
• Leverage HTML Messages to brand messages in all languages

You spend time training and ramping up your channel partners so they can be successful. Now, with HTML Messages for Partner Portal, you can deliver process, product, and sales tips right to the main portal pages to drive home the message and increase productivity. HTML Messages lets you define branded HTML content on standard and custom object home pages. With HTML Messages, you can keep partners up to speed on new products, promotions, and partner programs. You can also use HTML Messages to provide instructions to partners to help them with their jobs.

HTML setup
A simple HTML editor lets you broadcast targeted messages in multiple languages for global deployments.

Branding for all portal pages
Brand your messages and expose them on all portal pages, including custom object pages.

Schedule messages
Build your messaging schedule by setting time periods that ensure your messages are always current.

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Share Multiple Records at Once

(All Editions)

• Easily select multiple records to share from list views
• Share both records and their related lists at once

Although you may have wanted to share multiple records with your connections in the past, doing so one record at a time was cumbersome. With Mass Share Records in Salesforce to Salesforce, you can use list views to define your criteria and easily share as many records—including related records—with one or more of your connections as you want.

Define business criteria for sharing
Use list views to define what you want to share and select all the records you want to share at once.

Share related lists when mass sharing
You can share related lists to share thousands of “parent” records with all of their “child” records.

Note: This feature is available, but not enabled by default for Salesforce CRM customers. It is available only to administrators and users with “Manage Connections” permission.

Connect with Any Salesforce CRM Customer for Free

(All Editions)

• Let all Salesforce CRM customers connect with each other and share records for free
• Send multiple connection invitations at once

In Winter ’09, any Salesforce CRM customer can connect to any other Salesforce CRM customer, regardless of what edition either customer is using. With Mass Invite, customers can send invitations to thousands of contacts at once, making it easier to get started sharing information.

Multiple email addresses in invitations
Send invitations to all your contacts with a single click, as long as they have a valid email address.

Note: Automatically visible to all users. No setup required.

Improve Collaboration by Sharing More Information

(All Editions)

• Instantly share an object and its related lists in a single click
• Let connections choose whether to accept or reject related-list details
• Provide better visibility into accounts with more complete information
  

With Related List Sharing with Salesforce to Salesforce, you can increase visibility into your networks and share more information. You can share an account with a connection that includes all Related Activities, Opportunities, Contacts, Orders, or other data, giving your connection a 360-degree view of that Account.

Note: Automatically visible to all users. No setup required.

Give More Information to Your Connections

(All Editions)

• Give insight into record ownership
• Provide better alignment for channel managers and partner reps
• Give visibility into campaign information

Sharing details on records is critical for better collaboration. With Salesforce to Salesforce in Winter ’09, you can now share lookup (or reference field) information to give your connections greater visibility into details such as a record owner, an opportunity, or a campaign. Your connections become more aware of who is working an opportunity and what campaign helped generate the lead.

Lookup reference
Share lookup details with your connections for both standard and custom lookup fields.

Map lookups
Map your lookup information so data is updated appropriately.

Note: Automatically visible to all users. No setup required.

Collaborate with Partners and Customers by Managing Your Google Docs in Salesforce CRM Content

(Professional, Unlimited, and Enterprise Editions)

• Use Salesforce CRM Content to share documents in Google Apps
  
• Create Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in Salesforce CRM Content
• Provide a single place for users to find all relevant materials and track content use
  

Effective collaboration is much easier when you don’t have to deal with oversized email attachments, install new versions of office productivity software, and search through endless folders to find the files you need. With the integration of Salesforce CRM Content and Google Docs, you can handle the entire process of creating, sharing, and getting feedback on documents entirely over the Web. This approach saves time, improves team collaboration, and makes you more effective.

Publish documents created in Google Apps in Salesforce CRM Content
Use Salesforce CRM Content to quickly share content you created in Google Apps with groups of colleagues. Provide one central location for finding all content, regardless of where it was created.

Create new documents in Google Apps directly from Salesforce CRM Content
Save time by creating new materials in Google Apps from within Salesforce CRM Content.

Track use and get feedback from peers
Understand which Google Apps documents are most valuable by tracking use and reviewing votes and comments from end users.

Note: Automatically visible to all users. No setup required.

See Which Materials Are Most Helpful in Closing Deals

(Professional, Unlimited, and Enterprise Editions)

• View reports that detail content use relative to Opportunities, Accounts, and other objects
  
• Customize reports to identify the most effective content in certain types of deals

Which sales presentations and product collateral are most effective in winning new customers? With Opportunity Reporting, you get visibility into which materials are driving sales.

Custom Salesforce CRM Content – Opportunity reports
Create custom reports that show which materials were attached to Opportunities against particular competitors or for particular products. Measure the true ROI on content development by understanding what deals were influenced by key materials.

Custom reports on Salesforce CRM Content and other Salesforce objects
See which materials are related most often to Accounts, Contacts, and other select objects

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Pixel-Level Control to Match the Exact Look-and-Feel of Your Web Site

(Unlimited and Enterprise Editions)

• Take complete control over the user experience
  
• Modify the CSS and markup and extend Salesforce CRM Ideas with your own custom controllers

Leveraging the power of the Force.com platform, Visualforce for Salesforce CRM Ideas gives you pixel-level control over the Salesforce CRM Ideas application so you can customize the user experience to your exact specifications. With Visualforce for Salesforce CRM Ideas comes a complete set of templates that make up the Salesforce CRM Ideas application. You now have full control over these pages so you can modify the CSS, HTML, and even dig into the controllers themselves.

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Maintain High Data Quality and Scale Your Community through Enhanced Management Features

(Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited Editions)

• Automate moderation activities such as merging duplicates and blocking inappropriate language
  
• Show the community you are listening by providing timely updates on top ideas
• Highlight the active participation of subject matter experts in the community

As communities and activity volume grow over time, streamlined community management becomes increasingly important. The Winter ’09 release significantly enhances the community management experience with new features:

Merging Duplicate Ideas
This feature lets community managers merge duplicate postings with a few clicks.

Suggested Duplicates and Validation Rules on Comments
These features provide preventive measures for duplicate postings and inappropriate language.

Expert Icon
This icon highlights the participation of community experts.

Status Tags
These tags provide a powerful way to loop back with the community on top ideas.

Delete Voting
This feature lets community managers delete erroneous votes.

Note: Automatically visible to all users. No setup required. The Suggested Duplicates feature is only available with Visualforce pages.

Empower Your Community by Providing a Richer, Personalized Experience

(Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited Editions)

• Raise the profile of community members through individual pages
  
• Give users the ability to post ideas exactly as envisioned through rich text editing capabilities

The Winter ’09 release includes exciting new features that deepen the end user’s engagement in the community:

My Profile Page
This feature provides a single view into each community member’s activities, including submitted ideas, comments, and votes.

Rich Text on Ideas
This feature includes the ability to post hyperlinks so end users can express their ideas in more compelling ways.

Community Nicknames
This feature lets each end user choose a nickname for a community.

Down Voting
This feature lets end users actively demote ideas.

Multiple Categories
These categories make it possible to tag an idea with multiple communities, thereby ensuring a richer dialogue around the idea.

Note: Automatically visible to all users. No setup required.

Make Your Community Visible to the World

• Let users browse your site without logging in
• Scale your community with seamless self-registration
• Extend your brand with a custom URL for your community

With Public Sites for Salesforce CRM Ideas, you can extend Salesforce CRM Ideas beyond private sites and make the community visible to the world. The Anonymous Browse feature lets anyone view the community without having to login to either a public Web site and an employee intranet site. This approach significantly broadens the reach and impact of your community by creating a compelling experience that draws viewers in, while allowing user-generated data in external communities to be indexed by search engines such as Google, which in turn increases your organic search referrals.

With Public Sites, you can syndicate content from your community, letting users grab feeds and add them to their Yahoo or Google homepage. It's now easy for them to stay up to date with the latest postings to a community or category.

With Seamless Self-Registration, you can scale the expansion of the community to serve many more users. And the Custom URL feature makes it easier to extend your brand footprint with a unique, memorable URL, as Starbucks did by choosing the MyStarbucksIdeas.com and MyStarbucksIdeas.force.com URLs for its community.

Note: Public Sites for Salesforce CRM Ideas is in Limited Release. Please contact Salesforce CRM Customer Service & Support to have this feature enabled.

Greater Accuracy in Pipeline Tracking for You and Your Team

(Pilot - Developer, Unlimited and Enterprise Editions)

• Align with your collaborative sales organization
• Increase visibility of each team member's contribution to the pipeline
• Improve data quality with a single source of truth for split opportunities

Sales organizations too often support collaborative sales environments in which multiple individuals join efforts to close valuable opportunities. A key element to successfully motivating and retaining your team in such an environment is giving credit where credit is due.

Assign Split (%) to Sales Team
Although you can already use the Team Selling feature to manage team members involved in a deal, you can now assign a percentage split to team members to reflect their share of credit for a deal. That functionality means no more duplicate opportunities just to capture each rep's portion of a deal.

Generate Accurate Pipeline Reports
Empower sales reps and executives with pipeline reporting that accurately reflects each team member's contribution. Opportunity Splitting reports automatically include opportunities with and without splits to provide a single starting point for a complete picture of your pipeline.

Note: Please contact Salesforce Customer Support to have this feature enabled.
To enable Opportunity Splits, Team Selling must also be enabled.

Improve Control and Flexibility for Users and Administrators

(Enterprise, Unlimited and Developer Editions)

• Enable users to recall and resubmit requests without administrator intervention
• Improve an administrator’s control over what happens when a record is recalled

With Approval Workflow Recall Actions, you can take actions whenever an approval request is recalled. Recall Actions also makes it possible for the submitter to edit a Force.com record and resubmit it for approval, without the administrator “resetting” the record for resubmission. You can use Approval Workflow Recall Actions to reverse any field updates performed in the approval process or notify key people in the organization whenever a record is recalled.

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Streamline Event Creation

(All Editions)

• Create events with just a few clicks from the daily and weekly calendars
• Configure Click-and-Create fields using the Event Mini Page layout

With Click-and-Create Events, you can double-click on the calendar, enter event details, and save an event without leaving your calendar. Administrators can also configure the layout and contents of the Click-and-Create screen.

Configure Click-and-Create fields to meet your company’s requirements
You can configure Click-and-Create fields to show any standard event field such as name, location, or phone. You can also define custom fields for when events are created using Click-and-Create Events.

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Effortlessly Create Events

(All Editions)

• Create events by simply dragging List View records to the weekly calendar

With Drag-and-Drop Scheduler, you can schedule an appointment with an account, contact, or lead by dragging customer information into your calendar. Creating events has never been easier. From a List View, you can drag customer records into a timeslot in your weekly calendar, provide additional event details, and save the event without leaving the list. Information about the customer, such as name and phone number, is automatically related to the event, saving you valuable time and effort.

Configure Drag-and-Drop Scheduler fields to meet your company’s requirements
Using the Event Mini Page layout, you can configure Drag-and-Drop Scheduler to show standard event fields such as name, location, or phone. You can also define custom fields for events that are created using the Drag-and-Drop Scheduler.

Note: Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.

Get Your Most Important Reports via Email, When You Want Them

(Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions)

• Push reports directly to users
• Eliminate the need for users to log into Salesforce CRM

With Schedule and Email Reports, you can set up a schedule and email reports to any user with the necessary permissions. For example, marketing managers can receive the status of their campaigns in a Summary report every Friday.

Note: Not automatically visible. Feature is enabled, but requires some setup.