Passage Technology Blog

Dear PT, 

Like many Salesforce^® users, we have to manually assign Leads to their related Account. Of course, this opens up the potential for errors. It would be nice if we could automate this process and then notify the correct salesperson about the new Lead. Any thoughts on how we could easily do this?

Dom Main from Lincoln, NE

Dear PT, 

We use Salesforce^® at our company, but we manage projects outside of Salesforce. This creates numerous challenges, and never more than when an established project plan has dates and deadlines that must be adjusted. Obviously, there is a ripple effect on the project, and most project planning software can handle that. However, when it comes to the associated projects and tasks that also reside in Salesforce, extra work is required, and it can be subject to error.  What can we do about this?

Ty M. Schiff in Gantt, AL

Dear PT, 

Our company displays products, quantity, and revenue on our Opportunity records. Unfortunately, the revenue figures are from the last 12 months to date, so the total may span two different years. We need to separate the revenue into two different categories, this year and last year. And we’d also like to display this information at the Account level. What do you suggest?

Rev. Nu Kalander from Fields, IN

Dear PT, 

Salesforce^® functionality will let you view open Cases within your org. However, sometimes there are situations where it would be useful to view this information on a more granular level, for specific Contacts or Accounts. How could our company set up this at-a-glance list view, which also has filters for priority and status?

Dear PT, 

With every customer project, there are billable and non-billable hours required to complete the objectives. Of course, customers are very interested in proper accounting—it’s their money on the line. But for our company, the non-billable hours are a necessary cost to us for deploying resources and getting the job done. It is an important metric for measuring efficiency and billing properly, overall and in various departments. Can you help us make sure we are not unnecessarily losing money on these customer engagements?

Bud Jetting in Costa Mesa, CA

Dear PT, 

Is there an easy way to show how many Tasks are left to be completed in an open Salesforce^® Case? This would help us to manage resources better and ultimately be more productive as an organization. It also might prevent us from closing a Case before it’s truly complete.

Dear PT, 

Buyer expectations are rapidly evolving. Now you can measure buyer intent in nearly real-time. However, at our company, our new Lead response time is often measured in days, not hours. Studies show that best practices require a response measured in minutes. Any ideas on how we can extend Salesforce^® capabilities to make this internal improvement?

Hawt Leede from Prospect Heights, IL

Dear PT, 

We use multiple clouds from Salesforce^® throughout our company. Our various functional teams successfully use Projects to track and complete their activities. However, when it comes time for new product creation and launch, it's difficult to manage resource allocation as well as coordinate all of the functions and all of the work. Adding in external partners makes it even more complicated. How can we execute our new product in Salesforce Projects and Tasks in a more cohesive manner?

Gotom Arkett from Revel, France

Dear PT, 

We need to better aggregate our data so various business functions can create insights. On a number of Objects, we need a way to easily rollup records scattered across numerous child, parent, and grand-parent hierarchies—for example, Accounts. However, our company has limited developer resources internally. So when we need a solution, we have to pay for outsourcing. This can be expensive, but often it is more expensive to not obtain that solution, in terms of productivity and competitiveness. Are there other options to coding?

Rhee Layshuns in Progress, PA

Dear PT, 

With Salesforce^® Contacts, you can view their Account information. But at our company, we like to classify leads as Leads, not as Contacts. But Leads don’t display Account information. How can we extend Salesforce to get this functionality?

Moe Enfo from Lead Mine, WI