Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

These are the questions we hear a lot and you'll find their answers below. If you have others, please don't hesitate to contact us — we're here to help. 

Because Chatter is built on the Force.com platform, it benefits from all Salesforce security features. The sharing model and user permissions apply to Chatter, so users can see the same data they can see in the app. For example, sales users can only see their own accounts or those belonging to people below them in the role hierarchy. However, all users can see all profile information and posts.

Chatter uses a lot of the same paradigms that you see on sites like Facebook and Twitter, however, Chatter is completely secure and completely private. At the heart of Chatter is a feed with all of the things you choose to follow, like people, groups, accounts, and opportunities. You are in control. Chatter is not an app for monitoring other social media sites, like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Chatter is included at no extra cost for all editions. Chatter is also available to non-Salesforce users for $15/user/month. This paid Chatter license includes the Salesforce content library, the ideas and answers features of Salesforce CRM, read-only access to accounts and contacts, and the Force.com platform.

Chatter uses a lot of the same paradigms that you see on sites like Facebook and Twitter; however, Chatter is completely secure and completely private. At the heart of Chatter is a feed with all of the things you choose to follow, like people, groups, accounts, and opportunities. You are in control. Chatter is not an app for monitoring other social media sites, like Twitter or LinkedIn.

There are several differences. Collaboration happens in a business context. Users can collaborate around specific business situations, as represented in Salesforce CRM by opportunities, accounts, and cases. Other collaboration apps can’t do that. Chatter is built on the Force.com platform, so customers, developers, and partners can leverage feeds, profiles, and updates right out of the box. That makes their apps stickier and more collaborative without any extra coding. Chatter takes advantage of the security, sharing model, and reliability of Salesforce.            

Chatter is completely private and secure for your company. Anything posted in Chatter is just for people within your company to see and collaborate on.

Salesforce Files is available in the Chatter mobile app that you can purchase from the App Store. 

Every day, we hear more great examples of how our customers — and even our own employees — are using Chatter. Generally, people are using Chatter to stay on top of what’s happening at work, share files, work more closely with each other, find internal experts, and reduce email traffic. More detailed examples include: When a new competitor enters the market, a cross-functional team uses a Chatter group to share findings and tools to help beat the competition. A sales manager gets new insight into her team’s activities and can follow key opportunities so she always knows when something changes on an important deal. A customer service rep is on the phone with a customer and needs ideas to solve a new problem that doesn’t have a solution in the knowledge base yet. Within minutes of posting to a group on Chatter, several people chime in with suggestions. A sales rep is looking for an inroad at a large company. After posting on Chatter, he discovers that one of his colleagues is an old friend of one of the company’s top executives. When a marketing manager makes a major change to a popular product datasheet, she posts the document to the feed of a sales VP, knowing that most of the sales team follows her and will see the new version.

Chatter is included in all paid Salesforce licenses. You can also extend Chatter to everyone in your company for free with Chatter Invitations. Admins can either turn on this feature to allow current Salesforce users to invite co-workers to Chatter, or create Chatter users manually.

You can post updates in a lot of different places on Chatter, so it’s important that you understand who within your company will see what you post. Posts entered in the status box on your home or profile page will be visible to everyone. Posts entered on a colleague’s profile page will be visible to everyone. Posts to a record (account, opportunity, case, etc.) or group will be visible only to people with access to that record or group.

Chatter is a collaboration and communication tool for businesses. Use Chatter to post business-related updates, not what you had for breakfast or saw at the movies last night. A good rule of thumb to keep Chatter business-relevant is to ask yourself if you would mind your CEO or HR team reading your post before clicking submit.

Groups are a great way to share information on particular topics or within specific department or cross-functional teams. Groups can be completely public and open for everyone to join, or completely private so discussions can be kept confidential.

With Chatter, every record in Salesforce, such as an individual account or opportunity record, can be followed. This means that whenever something changes in that record, you’ll be notified instantly. With Chatter, your data talks to you.

With many common business file types — like Microsoft Office documents, unprotected PDFs, and many image files — you can preview the file right in your feed before downloading it.

Chatter works well with newer browsers, such as Internet Explorer 7 (or more recent versions), Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. Chatter will NOT work with Internet Explorer 6, so we recommend that users of this browser upgrade to a newer version of Explorer.

Chatter posts, like any other data in Salesforce, are stored forever unless deleted by an administrator or a user. Only users can delete their own posts or Chatter wall items. Administrators who have complete access to Salesforce can also delete posts in Chatter.

Chatter makes sharing files easier than ever. You can share files by uploading them in your feed, in groups, or on records (accounts, opportunities, cases, etc.). No more sending large files around or dealing with multiple versions.

Salesforce Files allows you to share and collaborate on files on any device. Salesforce Files delivers real-time file syncing across all devices, including desktop, cloud, and mobile.

Yes, once you place a file in your sync folder, you can share the file with People, Groups, or Records just like you can a standard Salesforce file.

Yes, users can select which files to have available offline.

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