Implementing Communities – Getting Started

Dan Fowler | Solution Architect | Summa Technologies

@danielhfowler @summa_tech

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Don’t be shy…

+Ask Questions at any time… I’m competing with lunch!

+I’m absolutely willing to talk later today or at happy hour.

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• High Impact, Business Focused, Technology Consultancy

• 17 Year Track Record Delivering High Quality Customer Solutions • HQ in Pittsburgh, PA

– Mid Atlantic and Great Lakes regional footprint

• 190+ Employees – Annual Recognition “Best Places to Work”

Summa Overview

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Communities Overview

‘Space to share information and

collaborate with people outside your company.’

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Communities Overview

Customer Community

+ Self-service for Cases, KB, Answers, Ideas

+ Authenticated and Unauthenticated Access

+ Collaboration with Chatter + File sharing + Access to up to 10 Custom Objects + Salesforce Identity

Partner Community

+ Only Authorized Users + Lead & Opportunity Management + Quoting & Orders + Campaigns + Content + Reporting + Dashboards + Chatter

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Login Licenses +Purchase monthly ‘bucket’ of

logins +A ‘login’ is consumed when a

User logs into the Community +Good for high volume or large

user base +Logins expire at end of every

month

Community Licensing

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Community Licensing

Member Licenses +User has dedicated

license +User has unlimited logins +Good for small user base

of consistent users

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+2 Options Basic: Site.com Custom: Force.com

Branding and Configuration Options

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Basic Branding Example

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+Basic Branding using Site.com Colors, Logos, Login Screen Good for less-technical users and basic needs Reusable pages, drag & drop, pre-made forms

Customization and Branding Option 1

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Site.com Config Options

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Highly Customized Branding Example

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+ Custom Branding using Force.com Sites Custom pages and actions using

VisualForce and Apex Controllers Developers will be needed for

any custom pages Customized landing pages, error

pages, private VisualForce pages Utilize Apex, API

Customization and Branding Option 2

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Force.com VisualForce Page

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Create Community Users

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Tips and Lessons Learned

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+Don’t have an ‘empty bar’ +Plant seed content +Plan for someone to be

responsible & listen +Connect to a business process

or customer need +Empower Internal and External

Champions

Community Moderation and Management

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+To expose Articles to Un-Authenticated Users

+Must install PKB from AppExchange (free)

+A lot of custom VisualForce development is needed to make it accessible to unauthenticated Users

Public Knowledge Base (PKB) Issues

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+Customers that self-register will be related to the same Account

+May create duplicate Contacts. A trigger was created to resolve this.

+A lot of custom VisualForce and Apex code was needed to get this to meet project specifications

Self-Registration Issues

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+Not unified: Internal Users have to switch from Public to Internal Chatter interface

+Each Community has its own set of Chatter Groups and Feeds +Staff posts to Groups in the Community do not show on Internal

feed +Posts on records shared with Customers can be shared with the

Post Visibility selection +Internal Users will see when a Community User posts on a record

Chatter Considerations

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+Salesforce Demos sets high expectations for customers +Documentation has not completely caught up to current release Google ‘Salesforce Communities’ and you still get a lot of ‘Portal’

+Conduct a Communities-only workshop/discovery session to get requirements

+Partner Communities with lower requirements have been much easier

Uncategorized Thoughts

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Thank You!

@danielhfowler @summa_tech