Why Sales Teams Should Be Excited About Summer 15

In the Northeast, winter decided to stay with us through Spring but that has not stopped Salesforce from pushing ahead with Summer ‘15.   We are treated with 340 plus pages of notes outlining new and enhanced Salesforce features and functions. If you missed the first part  of our review series, feel free to check out our rapid reaction blog. In the second part we get a bit more focused and dive into the world of the Sales Cloud. Here are some features every sales team should be excited about and why.

Work.com

Any good sales manager knows the importance of goal setting and a timely feedback system.  As a new user of Work.com and as the head of sales at Arkus, I can understand why Salesforce went down this route to integrate this functionality into its core. There is no better place to manage your goals and feedback than in a system where all the data lives that drives it. It is not perfect but Salesforce continues to add a lot more functionality and flexibility to Work.com and hasn’t stopped with this release.  In Summer ‘15 Salesforce introduces more Thanks and Skill features along with Enhanced Feedback (Pilot) and Enhanced Performance Summaries.  A few specifics worth mentioning are managers can now create and assign goals for their employees along with having a new view to see all goals set for their team.  In Pilot, Enhanced Feedback provides the ability for users to manage feedback offers and requests all in one view. Lastly, it provides more flexibility in that it lets you customize feedback, including creating custom fields and layouts related to feedback requests. There are more worth taking a look at so I would suggest you take a few minutes to read them here to see if any more catch your eye.

Cumulative Forecast Rollups

Salesforce Forecasting has really gotten better over the last year with its flexibility and focus on a more collaborative forecasting experience.  For those who aren’t familiar with what it is, instead of a sales rep submitting and adjusting forecasts, it starts with the sales manager reviewing their direct reports and adjusting their forecasts from there. The focus shifts to the opportunity records which adjust the forecast in real time.  Salesforce introduces Cumulative Forecast Rollups with this release which rolls up opportunities from more than one forecast category into cumulative forecast amounts. With individual forecast category rollups, each total and subtotal represents opportunities from only one of the individual forecast categories like Commit and Best Case which gives a clearer view of the total monthly or quarterly sales numbers.

Quick Hits

Here are a few quick ones that are worth mentioning:  

• Salesforce Notes has been enhanced to allow for Rich Text, which allows users to add bulleted lists, numbered lists and text formatting.  (BETA)

• Data.com Prospecting Insights for Accounts is a new feature that combines D&B company details and industry intelligence in a new quick-view snapshot.

• Email Connect is a new feature which allows you to sync your users’ contacts and events between Exchange-based email systems and Salesforce, and view them and other sales-related records directly in Microsoft® Outlook Web App (OWA).

There are many other enhancements in Summer ‘15 which might be of interest to you.  I would recommend you take a look at our rapid reaction blog as mentioned above as well as skim through the release notes to see if anything else catches your attention.

Please feel free to comment below, on the Salesforce Success Community, on our Facebook page, or directly at me on Twitter @Salvatoriello