I just started using Salesforce for CRM. I’ll probably have some posts on automating stuff with SalesForce over the next few weeks..
One thing I already found is an open source Mac sync that looks quite useful. It syncs contacts, events and tasks from Address Book and iCal to Salesforce. What I’m not sure about is custom fields. However there is source. (And this might be a great way to delve into Cocoa) There’s also Maildrop for quickly associating mail in Mail or Entourage with contacts in Salesforce.
Salesforce appears to have a nice API so I might be able to put together some useful Python scripts. There’s actually a Python discussion board at Salesforce. So I should be having a lot of fun the next month or so getting this setup for our company.
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#1 by Clark on 2010/01/26 - 7:47 pm
Erg. Only the overly expensive Enterprise edition of Salesforce lets you use the API for syncing and so forth. I had hi hopes for sending a lot of data into Salesforce. I’ll have to come up with some hacks I suspect…
#2 by Clark on 2010/01/26 - 9:09 pm
OK, fortunately the Mac apps for syncing still work. The mail sync which lets you link mail and contacts is very nice. I think I like this web system better than Daylight. Normally I’m kind of opposed to web apps, but this one seems different. (Thus far)
#3 by Caroline @Shunpike on 2010/02/04 - 11:36 pm
Have just come across your blog while researching Salesforce tools for the Mac. I already use Simon Fell’s Lexi Loader, and it works well. Since I’m also a Google Apps fan, I haven’t looked at his other tools yet, but I’m working on a SF project with a company that currently uses Mail and Daylite, so I guess I might need to know about them. Can you post a bit more about why you like this web system better? Thanks.
#4 by Clark on 2010/02/05 - 10:43 pm
I found Daylite a bit of a mess to be honest. SalesForce is, surprisingly, much more intuitive and self-obvious in how to do things. “It just works.” However the biggest advantage to SalesForce is that folks can access it via the web. We have a mixed office (Macs and PCs) and being able to access all sale data anywhere including while on the road or at a trade show with only an iPhone is pretty helpful. I am a bit disappointed that the custom iPhone apps only work with the Enterprise version of SalesForce though.
I’ll be doing more posts on SalesForce over the next few weeks. So stay tuned.
Maybe had I stuck it out longer with Daylight or Contactizer I wouldn’t have gone with SalesForce. But for some reason I just felt frustrated with both. There are complaints I have with SalesForce thus far. But at this stage I can’t imagine switching.
What I would like is a simple and cheap front end to SalesForce that is a native Mac and a native iPhone app. But as I said the SalesForce API is pretty limited for use with any but the expensive Enterprise edition. Since we only have three people accessing the data right now that’s just not worth it. So I’m writing some scripts to try and get around things a bit.
#5 by Steve on 2010/02/17 - 12:17 pm
I have a Mac application ‘whopaste’ that runs as a service on Snow Leopard. It extracts contact data from a text selection (or spreadsheet) and creates records in Address Book, Google, Entourage, or Daylite. I’m considering adding SalesForce as an option.
I would really appreciate any thoughts you might have on this!
Steve
#6 by clark on 2010/02/18 - 2:16 pm
The problem is that what I’ve done is a bit of a hack. It assumes a given URL always opens up a new Salesforce lead or contact. Feel free to steal my method though.
I’ve been thinking of doing a more general case more like what yours sounds like. My problem is that some people put name, company while others put company, name. There are then the problem of two line addresses. I’ve not found a good general solution for solving this that was simple. (I can figure a few more Bayesian methods – but that’s a bit of overkill)