Misunderstanding data centres, privacy, and legal concerns
According to a Computer Weekly article, Alzheimers’ CIO Phil Shoesmith ‘slammed’ Salesforce’s lack of an EU datacentre. While I agree it would be nice for Salesforce have an EU data centre, and they did promise one, such a data centre would do nothing to alleviate Shoesmith’s concerns. Shoesmith is unhappy that Salesforce doesn’t have an EU data centre, as “there were some concerns about using cloud solutions, particularly US-based cloud solutions for our data.” This is where I start to wonder if...
read moreFree replacement for the retired Salesforce for Google Adwords (SFGA) plugin
[Update Dec 2012] Native Salesforce App replacement! If you want a Salesforce for Google Adwords replacement, check out Daddy Analytics – a native app on the app exchange. Prices are low, seems decent. Or, read on for the original post. It’s not elegant, but the following technical post will help people get a working replacement to the now unavailable Salesforce for Google Adwords (SFGA) plugin. Background: If you had installed & setup SFGA, and also added a tracking cookie on your Website, then when visitors submitted a...
read moreKeeping Your Pictures and Documents safe and secure
While Salesforce.com is our favorite cloud-based solution, there are other cloud solutions that solve different needs. This post is about keeping your valuable data safe, even if you experience fire, theft, or dead hard drives. I’ve talked to inconsolable friends who lost five years of baby pictures when their laptops crashed, and others when their their business files ended up on a dead hard drive. It’s an awful place to be, and can be prevented easily, and sometimes for free. Some people backup with an external hard drive, but...
read moreFormula Tips and Tricks at the UK Salesforce NfP Usergroup
Today I had the pleasure of presenting one of my favorite topics, and what is hopefully a favorite topic of lazy (er, I mean efficient…) Salesforce Admins the world over: Formulas. You can use Salesforce Fomulas to link to other databases and websites, to bring in images from the likes of Yahoo Finance and Google Charts, or even to help you auto-fill objects by adding / overriding a New Object button. The slide deck below references a tremendous wealth of further reading, videos, and documentation, including a Dreamforce video on using...
read moreSocial Enterprise Contests and Awards…and Coffee
Warning – this post contains strong language and nudity. Just joking – it’s only strong language. But you were a bit more interested for a second, weren’t you? I’m a bit of a coffee nut. I weigh my beans, grind them in a burr grinder, and make my coffee using either a double walled french press or a manual espresso pump – my dependable Presso. I’ve blind-tested Lavazza against Illi, and firmly rejected Lavazza. I then moved on to local coffee roasters, settling for a while on Square Mile Coffee...
read moreThird Sector IT’s Partnership with Convio / Common Ground
We’re very excited to be partnering with Convio and their cloud-based fundraising solution for Non-Profits, Common Ground! Common Ground is deeply integrated into Salesforce, and allows charities using Salesforce to do so much more. We’re one of three organisations picked as UK partners – and quite frankly, we’re the coolest of the three. Best of all, Common Ground will help us defeat Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge. What? Blackbaud buying Convio? Errr…long live our new Database Overlords. If you’d...
read moreTaking the ADM 301 and Sales Cloud Consultant exam
I’m not too sure why I thought it would be a good idea, other than saving me a trip to the exam center, but I scheduled two Salesforce Certification exams back to back yesterday. I knew this was a bit chancy, as if I had failed the first I wouldn’t have been in a great mood to take the second, but happily I passed both. This means it’s also time to go back to Inkscape and add my certifications to my business card! We designed our business cards so people could stack up their certifications under their name. The funny thing is...
read moreSalesforce Reports – undocumented feature
One of the reasons I love teaching our Intro to Reports class is that I learn something every time, without fail. The last time a student asked me what the text and picklist on the bottom of a report meant, and I answered, “I have no idea!” I now know both what it is and why I didn’t know before – it’s an undocumented feature that doesn’t appear in either Google or Salesforce Help search results. If you look on the bottom of a report (Summary and Matrix, but not Tabular) you will see the text, “Check...
read moreReview of the Salesforce – Eventbrite Connector for Event Management
Whether you are running paid or free events, first-name-basis events or huge events with barcode ticket-scanning for admission, Eventbrite will likely suit your needs. And if you run your organisation with Salesforce, then the Eventbrite Connector is the missing link, bringing happiness and clarity to your world. The connector itself is free, and fairly straightforward. It can do one-way syncing from Eventbrite to Salesforce, so Salesforce will be able to grab all the info about your attendees, and report on it. The connector can even create a...
read moreWebsite Relaunched!
It’s been an amazing month here at Third Sector IT. We finished our rebranding, which started with a new logo, which led to a whole new business card design, which led to a new website, which also gave us the opportunity to update our listed offerings, and turn some of our services into fixed price products. And, we have another person on the team, Sisu Berhane, who I am so excited to be working with! We also tried something new with the business cards, which was to emphasise both our consultants certifications and our partnership with...
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