The 6 most interesting external tools for Salesforce

Salesforce is a powerful platform with a wide range of native processes that can be used without major customisation. If that's not enough, you can replicate your business processes in Salesforce itself.

But what if there are already specialised tools that can do exactly what you need? Tools that replicate the entire functionality of the external tool in Salesforce and allow you to use the tool in parallel with Salesforce?

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One of Salesforce's great strengths is that, provided you have the necessary programming skills, you can access interfaces (APIs) of other programmes to dramatically expand its functionality. This means that all master data for customers, service providers and other stakeholders can be maintained in one place (Salesforce), while specialised processes can be outsourced.

Here is a selection of connections that cloudworx has already implemented for customers:

#1. Storing data in Google Drive and Dropbox

Everyone is familiar with the large cloud storage services offered by Google and Dropbox. If you need to store large numbers of files such as quotes, invoices, marketing materials or other documents, you will often find yourself resorting to their virtually unlimited storage space.

Salesforce offers a native feature called ‘Salesforce Files Connect’ that allows you to access data from Google Drive, SharePoint and Box (unfortunately, Dropbox is not supported). This feature is easy to set up and is sufficient if you only want to access the stored data.

However, if you want to upload or manipulate new files, this is not yet possible with the native solution. Fortunately, both Google Drive and Dropbox provide a robust interface that allows you to do this.

#2. Account monitoring and payment allocation

Nothing is more time-consuming and monotonous than reconciling incoming and outgoing payments in various accounts with corresponding orders in Salesforce.

This is where the Salesforce Banking App millio can help. The app can be used to access almost all banks and display transaction data from individual accounts. The data is retrieved hourly via a time-controlled process logic, which results in very accurate payment tracking.

The next problem is assigning the transactions to the orders. Millio automates the reconciliation process using information such as the payment reference, invoice number or customer number. If the invoice number or another uniquely identifiable string is required as the transfer reason when invoicing, the payment can be assigned. This gives you complete control over which orders have already been paid and where you may need to follow up.

And even if the payment reference contains minor errors, e.g. because upper and lower case letters were used instead of lower case letters or a zero was interpreted as an O, these payments can still be assigned. If some payments cannot be assigned automatically, they can be quickly viewed in a report or list view and assigned manually.

In any case, the accounts no longer need to be checked individually.

#3. Mailbox monitoring

If you want to have all information in one place (i.e., Salesforce), this naturally applies in particular to emails, which in most cases account for a large part of communication.

Salesforce has a native feature that allows you to send emails that are stored in specific records, but you have to include the Salesforce ID of the record in the subject line and there are other restrictions.

The cloudworx solution monitors any number of mailboxes and compares the text with predefined fields in any objects in Salesforce. For example, if the invoice number is mentioned somewhere in the email and this field is defined as a field to be monitored, the email is stored in the invoice record and moved to a different folder in the inbox, if desired.

Here you can also select the priority of the objects or the individual identification numbers. If, for example, the invoice number and order number are recognised in an email, you can decide whether the email should be stored in the order or directly in the invoice.

This means you always have the email where you need it and all the relevant information at a glance. In combination with Salesforce's own lists, no message is lost.

#4. Collect and retrieve user feedback

Knowing how satisfied customers are with the product or service they have purchased is invaluable for identifying problems and further optimisation. There are therefore numerous tools available for feedback management, of which Ekomi is probably the best known.

But even the best tool is useless if you can't evaluate it properly. Ekomi displays a rating, and you can sometimes guess which customer gave the feedback from the text, but this is very imprecise and involves a lot of work.

It is much better if you can assign the feedback directly to individual orders. Ekomi provides an API for this purpose, which allows you to send an order-specific feedback form from Salesforce links. If you send the emails with the link to the form from Salesforce instead of directly from Ekomi, you also have the advantage that the text can be personalised using merge fields. This results in a higher feedback rate, which of course also has an impact on the significance of the feedback.

The feedback can be retrieved automatically via the API on a daily or weekly basis and saved directly to an order. This allows every sales representative to see at a glance how satisfied the customer was with their last purchase when they contact them and respond accordingly.

But that's not all: the APIs can also be used to send responses to feedback from Salesforce. And, of course, reporting is also possible here to identify trends and problems at an early stage. All without ever leaving Salesforce.

#5. Send and receive SMS messages

There are many channels through which you can communicate with a customer, service provider or supplier. The classic methods are by telephone, email or SMS. SMS messaging is particularly useful for messages that need to be read quickly. There are a wide variety of requirements here, such as sending departure times to customers or a verification code for logging into a customer portal (keyword: two-factor authentication). Of course, it may also be the case that you only have a customer's phone number and therefore want to contact them via text message. Or you may want to stand out from the sea of advertising by using a different, less frequently used channel.

There are no limits to your imagination here, but unfortunately Salesforce does not natively support sending messages via SMS. This is where Twilio comes in. Twilio has a good interface and an easy-to-use user interface for initial setup. After that, you can do pretty much anything. SMS messages can be sent and received, different numbers can be used (also depending on the country from which the SMS was sent) and much more.

Here, too, the goal is to perform as few tasks as possible manually and to automate as much as possible. It is therefore advisable to check whether an SMS has to be sent manually or whether there is a trigger in the system that could initiate the sending (such as the completion of an order) and whether the text of the SMS, enriched with merge fields for customisation, can be standardised to keep the time required as low as possible, ideally to zero.

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#6. Connection to Memsource

In many areas, there is specialised software that can save time, ensure consistent quality, or store specialist knowledge. All of these points apply to Memsource. Although little known to those outside the field, Memsource is very popular with translators and translation agencies. Texts can be uploaded here and are then automatically divided into segments. Translators can then translate these texts, either individually or in turns, for quality control purposes. There is also a rights management system to ensure that only authorised translators can access the relevant text at certain stages of the translation process. The real highlight, however, is the integrated translation memories. Here, translation suggestions are made to the translator for each section, based on previous translations. These can be displayed according to relevance, and the translator can either accept them in full, edit the suggestion or propose a new translation, which is then fed back into the translation memory.

The connection to Memsource allows projects to be created, texts to be uploaded and evaluated directly via Salesforce with the click of a button. With the help of existing translation memories, you can pre-translate, create new project-specific translation memories, create users and send access data from Salesforce.

But that's not all. The entire process that takes place in Memsource – from the translator accepting the job, to handing it over to the proofreader with activation and deactivation of the relevant users, to the subsequent transfer of the project translation memories to other translation memories, to downloading the translated texts – is mapped completely in Salesforce. Combined with native Salesforce functions such as task creation and monitoring key figures via reports and dashboards, there is no reason for the project manager to log into Memsource. The biggest advantage, however, is that the data is already in Salesforce and does not have to be re-entered manually in Memsource. The time savings are enormous and errors due to incorrectly entered data are reduced to a minimum.