If you are like me, you wanted to be there, but couldn’t. So these videos are an excellent resource to explore and learn about what happened at Dreamforce this year. It makes me want to go to next years event.

Check it out!

So, in this lesson, we continue to examine the creation and use of reports to help manage our tasks. If you recall from our earlier discussion, we generally want to know the following things about individual tasks…

1. What is the Task.
2. Who is the Task assigned to.
3. When was it assigned.
4. When is it due (if has a due date).
5. Is it on time, or is it late

More below the fold!

Along those lines, we need to start considering what kinds of questions we might ask ourselves, or our bosses might be asking themselves, with regards to the tasks assigned to us or our team members. Consider the following scenario:

It is the start of the work day, and we want to look at a list of the tasks we have assigned to us. Now, this has already been done for us (as we showed in Part 2 of this series) but lets add some twists. What we are doing here is trying to define the criteria for our list of tasks.

• We only want to look at tasks assigned to us.
• We want to see who created the tasks (because our coworkers might be telling us what to do).
• We want to group these by overdue and not overdue, with overdue tasks being shown first.
• We want to group these things by priority. High priority tasks first, then normal, then low.
• We want to see the age of the task, and have our lists be ordered by the age, oldest to lowest.

In order to accomplish this, we need to create fields for Salesforce to “group” off of when we run reports. We need to somehow indicate whether the task is overdue or not. Salesforce does not by default tell us these things, but we can accomplish them.

To accomplish this we make use of a powerful feature provided to us, the custom formula field. Now, in order to make use of this feature, you are going to need to be an administrator, or you are going to need to sit down with one.

When reports are written (and we will cover this later) they can be made to group around certain fields. For example, you might make a report that shows all of the opportunities you have created, grouped by the account name. Therefore, for the task reports we want to design, we need to make some changes the existing list of task fields (which you can see below).

Now, in order to sort by the age, and to group by whether or not this task is overdue or not, we are going to have to make some new custom task fields. The fields we will need to make are:

Field Label	Field Name	Description
Age (Days)	Task_Age_Days	This formula field will calculate the age of the task
Task Due Date	Task_Due_Date	If you want to determine whether a task is overdue or not, you are going to need to create a new due date field to overide the existing field. See the discussion below.
Ontime Status	Task_OnTime_Status	This formula field uses the custom due date field above to calculate whether or not the task is on time or not.

Before we go to the video, lets take a moment to discuss the theory behind these modifications.

When calculating the age of the task, we want to consider the following “cases” or “states”. What I mean is, consider for a moment the lifecycle of a task and how its age is affected. The task lifecycle might be briefly described as…

• Task is created and assigned.
• Task is worked on. Status changes are recorded, notes are taken. Repeat as needed.
• Task is completed.

Now, consider what you might think of the age of this task. When the task is still not completed (ie. Open), then the age of the task should be considered as the difference in time between the moment you look at the task and the date/time it was created. For example, you look at the task on 10/16/2006 12:00:00, it was created on 10/15/2006 12:00:00 and it is still open. Then the task is one day old.

Now consider the effect of the task being completed. Lets say for example, your boss assigns you a task on 10/15/2006 12:00:00. You complete the task on 10/16/2006 12:00:00. Your boss comes back from vacation and checks on that task to see if it is complete on 10/18/2006 12:00:00. Now, if we used the same consideration as in the previous example, the task would be 3 days old. But really the task was only 1 day old when you completed it.

The video demonstrates the process in detail, but to facilitate your own efforts, I present the final formula here.

IF( {!IsClosed} , {!LastModifiedDate} - {!CreatedDate} , NOW() - {!CreatedDate} )

Lets break the formula down. We use a conditional statement to test whether or not the case is open. In this case, the condition statement takes the form of…

IF(Logical Test, Do this if true, Do this if false)

So, in our example, we test to see if the Task is closed (i.e. complete). Depending on the result of that test we use on of two different formulas to evaluate the age of the Task.

We also make use of some Salesforce fields and functions. We use the NOW() function/subroutine. This function gives us the current date when it is used. We also use fields from Salesforce. These fields (as we have discussed in previous lessons). When we use Salesforce fields, they come in the following format. A field always starts with “{!” and ends with “}“. In between the two ends, we have the Field Name. For example, if we use {!CreatedDate} in a formula, Saleforce will evaluate that and return the Created Date. Field names and field labels should not be confused, they are related but are not identical.

Case 1 (The Task is Closed/Complete): If it is, we evaluate the Age of the Task as “The date it was last modified - date it was created”. Using the Task fields, this is represented as…

{!LastModifiedDate} - {!CreatedDate}

Case 2 (The Task is Not Closed/Complete): If the Task is not closed, the we evaluate the Age of the Task as “What is the date at this moment - date it was created”. Using the Task fields, this is represented as…

NOW() - {!CreatedDate}

———— Begin Advaced Section ————

Ok, this section is more advanced, and involves some extra effort. You should pursue this section if you are really interested in writing reports that show an ontime status and allow you to group by it.

Lets consider the slightly different scenario of On Time Status. Unfortunately for us, we can not work with the standard Due Date for Tasks when working with Formula Fields. For whatever reason, Salesforce does not make this accessible to us when creating formula fields (Hello, Salesforce, feature request!). This presents a problem for us. Without the ability to access the due date, we can not create a custom formula field that would calculate for us whether this is late or not. This means that we are limited to using the age of the task, and making visual comparisons.

There is a work around however. We can create our own due date field, and use that as the basis for a formula that determines if we are on time or not. There are issues with this approach.

1. This approach creates a field keeping duplicate data, never a good thing.
2. If you want to keep the functionality that works with the existing due date (being able to search for overdue tasks on the home tab as an example), then users will need to put the date in twice (once for each due date field).

This is probably not a good idea, but it is a great training exercise, so we will complete it anyway. There are some software work arounds that will allow us to duplicate some of this functionality without creating new fields, and we will cover that in another post.

The video demonstrates the process in detail, but to facilitate your own efforts, I present the final formula here.

IF({!IsComplete},"Is Completed",IF(ISNULL({!Task_Due_Date__c}) ,"No Due Date", IF( {!Task_Due_Date__c} < TODAY(), "Overdue","On Time")))

Lets break the formula down. We use four conditional statements. First we need to determine if the task is complete or not, and if it isn’t complete we must then determine if there is even a due date, if there is, we must further determine if we are “On Time” or “Overdue”. If there is no due date, we can simply indicate that there is none.

Instead of the NOW() field, we use the TODAY() field. It is quite similar to the NOW() field, but instead of returning a Date/Time value, it only returns a Date value, which we need when making a comparison.
We also make use of our new custom Due Date field, as well as the built in TODAY() function/subroutine. You should also notice the presence of our new custom Due Date field {!Task_Due_Date__c}. All custom fields added to Saleforce by us will take the form of “{!” + “Field Name” + “_c” + “}“.

Test 1: Using the IF(Logical Test, Do this if true, Do this if false) as before, we evaluate if there is the Task is complete.

Test 1 Result if True: If the Task is complete, we simply return “Is Completed”.

IF({!IsClosed},“Is Completed”, ** Omitted **)

Test 1 Result if False: If the Task is not complete, we simply run the next series of tests.

IF({!IsClosed},”Is Completed”, Test 2)

Test 2: Using the IF(Logical Test, Do this if true, Do this if false) as before, we evaluate if there is a Due Date. The test we need to perform is one that sees if a date has been entered. Depending on the result, we run one of the two following statements.

Test 2 Resut is True: If there is no Due Date, then we simply indicate that there is “No Due Date”.

IF( ISNULL({!Task_Due_Date__c}) ,“No Due Date”, Test 3)

Test 2 Result is False: If there is a Due Date, we know that the task can be either “On Time” or “Overdue”, so we run Test 3.
Test 3: We simply need to compare the Due Date with the Current Date to see if we are “On Time” or not. We use the same conditional as before, only with a new test.

IF( {!Task_Due_Date__c} < TODAY(), “Overdue”,”On Time”)

Just as before, make the test, and if the Due Date comes before the Current Date, we now we are “Overdue”. If the Due Date comes after the Current Date, we know we still are “On Time”.

IF( {!Task_Due_Date__c} < TODAY(), “Overdue”,“On Time”)

By using all of these conditional tests, in conjunction with our custom date field, we are able to determine whether or not a Task is “Complete”, “On Time”, “Over Due” or “No Due Date”. We can use these results to sort our Tasks in reports and s-controls to better manage tasks. For now, go ahead an watch Video Lesson #2b: Creating an OnTime Status Custom Field.

In our next part of this series, we will create the report using this criteria. As always, keep your emails coming with your suggestions.

Lets review, for a moment, some of the questions we should be asking ourselves, and then begin to put together a way of answering those questions using Salesforce.

Question 1: What tasks are assigned to me?

This is a pretty basic question, and probably one of the most important. Thankfully, it has already been answered for us. On our home tab is a quick list of all of our current tasks. If we examine the list, you should notice that there is a drop down selector in the upper right corner that allows us to filter the list of tasks. It should be noted that when we exceed a certain number of tasks, the display on the front page stops, and we are presented instead with a “view more” option. This takes us the second screen which shows us all of our tasks as well as calendar events.

You can see this demonstrated in the attached Lesson Video #1: Creating and Finding Tasks (11m26s, 3.48mb).

In our next lesson, we discuss how to create a report which will show us all of the tasks that are assigned to us.

• Continuing the series on task management.
• Discussion of new Saleforce programming language.
• Discussion of data securtiy and privacy.
• And so much more!

See you all when I get back.

But you might be saying to yourself right now “But I saw all my tasks and events, thats pretty visible, isn’t it?”.

You would be right about that, it is pretty visible to you, but what about this scenario. Lets say we have used the activity creation tools to create a task for another one of our team members. How do we know its complete? Heck, how do we even remember that we created the task in the first place. Well, this series of articles is going to cover this in some detail. Get your propeller hats out, because we are going to dive in to some advanced tips and tricks below the fold!

Ok, your still here. Now, lets not be nervous, only some of this is going to be difficult, and we are going to take it in nice easy steps. This article will cover the following.

• Writing reports to find out the status of tasks that you have assigned to team members.
• Writing manager level reports to look at the performance of our team with respect to tasks.
• Creating dashboards to help visualize this information.
• And finally, the desert, writing an S-Control that shows the status of all the tasks we have assigned and placing it on our Home Tab.

For the rest of this article, lets take a moment to discuss the reasons for these kind of reports, and the kinds of questions they answer.

Salesforce is not Outlook or Exchange, but it can emulate some of those features. As we occupy different roles within an organization, perform different support duties within that organization. Salespeople are going to be writing quotes, making appointments, doing research, etc. Inside support staff are going to be handling invoices, support calls, and much more. Managers are going to be watching the whole process and trying to keep it running smoothly.

One of the tools Salesforce gives us to help us do this are the tasks that we can create. We have already shown how we can create tasks and events for ourselves, but what we haven’t shown is that we can create tasks and events for other people in our organization.

Lets look at a scenario like this one. As an outside salesperson away from the office, we are interacting with a lot of customers and each of them is likely to generate action items for ourselves and our team. We can use Salesforce to help us do this. Sure, email and phone calls do the same thing, but I think that violates a basic rule that as an organization we need to be trying to follow.

• Keep it Visible!

We need to keep this information visible to ourselves, to our bosses, to the rest of our team. We need to be able to relate it to our accounts, our opportunities, our leads. Visibility means being able to find information as it relates to any of these things and more.

So, now that I have sold you on using Tasks to communicate, lets take a moment to briefly consider what we want to know about these communications. I would argue that we would want to know at least the following things about the tasks we have assigned to ourselves and others:

1. What is the Task.
2. Who is the Task assigned to.
3. When was it assigned.
4. When is it due (if has a due date).
5. Is it on time, or is it late.

Further more, if I am a manager, I would also like to know:

1. How many task have been assigned within the team.
2. How long is it taking for team members to complete tasks.
3. Which team members have the latest tasks.

I am certain you are begining to see all sorts of possibilities, and can probably add to this simple list quite quickly. Please do so. Go ahead and add comments with your suggestions, and I will try and accomodate them in the rest of the article. Stay tuned for part 2!

After Scoble and Charlie Wood blogged about how well SAP treated bloggers at their conference, I’ve been wondering - how can we treat our bloggers better?

And for those of you who wonder why we would want to engage bloggers, it’s because they write about us, and often in a way that appeals to the greatest PR machine on earth: Google. We would love for more of you to write about us (good or bad), and I’d welcome any ideas on how we can help you along.

Well, here are my thoughts, below the fold.

Great question. I have been wondering that myself. As I recently just started a new blog about Salesforce, I wondered, how do you put an emphasis on community creation.

I think one way is to get the word out in the first place about the blogs that are out there. Part of the reason I started my own blog was that other than a short list of “Official” blogs from Salesforce directly (like Successforce ) and some others that are out there (”Thoughts on Salesforce”, “Perspectives on Salesforce”, “Salesforce Watch” and “Salesforce Heretic”) I had a lot of trouble finding that information.

Perhaps a community outreach to bloggers is required. I am not sure what that would look like, but we can look at the objectives of a blogger for some guidance. As I see it, a Salesforce blogger has two primary objectives.

• Get a message out that is important to them.
• Be noticed and read

Simple as that. Perhaps the thought process should lean towards finding ways to make that happen easier.

Just a thought from this “n00b” blogger.

The Info Center was developed to fill a common need. During a rollout, users typically go through well constructed training sessions and will usually walk away with training materials, quick reference guides, etc. However, once the system has been in production for a while, people rarely ever reference that material again. When people have questions, the answers can be hard to find in the training materials. Training materials are typically not organized to answer specific questions that arise.

This is a problem we would frequently run into, and I have often thought that the Salesforce document solution wasn’t very strong in its basic implimentation. This is something I am going to have to play with. You can read more here and here.

Thats no good! Our managers are looking at their sales metrics and saying “What the heck is Peter doing?” and “Why isn’t Peter scheduled to make calls?” and most importantly, “Why do I keep this guy around as a Salesperson?”. These are questions we don’t want our bosses to ask us. As Salespeople, the only time we want to hear from our boss is when he or she is telling us how great we are and how they are planning on increasing our comission rate. Verbal reports are for “Old Style” sales organizations. This is the age of the computer! This is the age of “pulling data” rather than “pushing data”. In a word, we need to do some CALL PLANNING.

Call planning starts, as is evidenced from the previous article, with a blank slate. Our week is empty. Our tasks are complete. We need to fill these areas in. We need to show our bosses how busy we are. So lets get to it.

Activities

Events and Tasks are the two primary activities tracked within Salesforce . From the documentation…

Activities are both tasks and scheduled calendar events. You can define and track activities for many different objects, including campaigns, accounts, contacts, and leads. - https://na3.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/activities.htm

Note: The link above isn’t a link because, well, your mileage [in thise case mileage=server] may vary. If you look at your browser while using Salesforce you should see the URL. If you look at that URL you will see is starts with NA followed by a number. The NA stands for (I believe) North America. By taking the documentation link from above and changing the NA part appropriately, you will be able to go the relevant documentation. For example, if you are on NA2, the previous URL would be:

https://na2.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/activities.htm

It should also be noted that you will need to be logged into Salesforce for this to work. And thats it!

And that is the sum total of the documentation on what a Task or Event is. So lets take a little time to define them more clearly.

Events are things that we would put in our day planner. They are things that are going to do on a particular day and time. Examples of Events might be… “Meeting with ACME Publishing 10/3/2006 11:00 AM EST” or “Phone Call: Alice Smith 10/3/2006 8:00 AM”. The key is the time factor. Events (as the name implies) happen at a particular point in time. They don’t nessecarily need involve a physical meeting, they only need to be things that happen at a specfic time.

Tasks are things that we would put on our To Do list. They don’t nessecarily happen at specific time (though we might have a deadline by which to complete a task, i.e. scratch off a To Do). Examples of tasks might be “Schedule a meeting with ACME Publishing” or “Get a copy of the purchase order from Alice Smith”. The key in this case is that we have something to do, a time frame within which to do it, and a way of “crossing it off our list” when it is done.

Lets examine how these look in the interface.

To begin, we need to create an activity. Lets outline what we want to accomplish in our example. Here is what we are going to do.

• Schedule a meeting with Jack Rodgers of Burlington Textile Corp of America for 10/06/2006 at 11:00 AM.
• Set ourselves a task to Prepare a sales presentation for Jack Rodgers that should be do on 10/06/2006.

Now, there are essentially three basic approaches to creating any activitiy.

1. Create an Activity using the “Create” Control on left side of the interface. (See Image 1)
2. Use the New Event or New Task button on the Home Tab. (See Image 1)
3. Go to the account or contact directly and create the activity using the New Task or New Event button. (See Image 2)

Image 1: Creating Activities from the Home Tab

Image 2: Creating Activities from within Accounts or Contacts (in this case, a Contact)

My preference is for option three. I find that it is easiest, and provides us with the most information. When we create the Activity using options 1 or 2, we still have a lot of data entry to do, as all of the fields will be blank, as you can see in Images 3 and 4. We will need to provide the who, what and where. If we use option 3, much of the information is already filled in, as you can see in Images 5 and 6.

Image 3: Creating a Task from scratch using option 1 or 2.

Image 4: Creating an Event from scratch using option 1 or 2.

Image 5: Creating a Task using option 3.

Image 6: Creating an Event using option 3.

Though the difference is not significant, the few extra steps saved by not having to search around for the additional information to complete the fields means that we are that much faster and more efficient.

Now we can complete or example by filling in the fields with the remaining information and pressing the save buttons. Images 7 and 8 show the completed Task and Event prior to saving, while Image 9 shows the Home Tab and how it has changed.

Image 7: Task with fields completed.

Image 8: Event with fields completed.

Image 9: Updated Home Tab

With the updated Home Tab, we can now see our new Event and our new Task. If we had completed these steps earlier, and were merely checking Salesforce with our morning cup of coffee, we would see all of our scheduled activities for the day, as well as our To Do list. All immediately relevant information is displayed along with links to more detail. We are ready to plan our day, and better yet, we don’t need to let our bosses know what we are doing, because they can see our calendar to.

That would complete are basic goal, which was to schedule Tasks and Events during our morning planning process. This only covers the very general approach to working with Activities, and future posts will enhance the basics we have covered here. Obiviously, working with Activities isn’t something we do simply in the morning, but throughout our working day.

Happy scheduling!