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How to succeed with a Salesforce ISV partner

As a Salesforce ISV partner since 2009, we’ve seen every kind of org, customer and implementation. Of course, each ISV partner in the ecosystem operates slightly differently but here we’ve compiled our cheat sheet of how to succeed with a Salesforce ISV and make your next purchase the most successful yet!

So, let’s jump into the questions you need to ask and the tips you need to action to succeed with a Salesforce ISV partner. 

1. Do your prep internally first! 

Once you recognise that there’s a need at your organisation for purchasing a solution from an ISV, it’s all too tempting to jump straight onto the AppExchange or start filling your calendar with product demo calls. 

Don’t fall into the trap of looking at specific solutions too early! It’s vital to do your internal research and stakeholder consultations first. You need to understand the longer-term plans of your organisation to make sure any solution you choose can scale and meet the needs of changing processes. Not to mention you need to understand who will be involved in purchasing approval. 

What kind of questions should you ask? 

  • How urgent is this need? 
  • Is there a budget? 
  • Are there non-negotiables? 
  • What other integrations do I need to consider with this tool? E.g., marketing platforms, fundraising platforms, events platforms 
  • Who will need to “see” this tool, either in demo or poc, before sign off? 
  • How do we anticipate this process to look in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years?

💡 Top tip: There are free templates online like this one for helping you evaluate software and making sure you cover the non-negotiables

2. Communicate with the ISV

Once you’ve done your internal research, it’s on to the fun bit… shopping around for solutions! During your prep, you’ll have established the right stakeholders who need to be involved with demos, testing and procurement from your organisation. It’s time to put that knowledge into practice.

Effective meetings 

Make sure the ISV is aware of which roles, responsibilities and seniorities you are bringing to calls so that they can mirror this. There’s no point bringing your CRM Architect to a call being run solely by an ISV’s Account Executive. Make sure your attendees and agenda are known in advance to make the most out of the time you’re spending on calls with ISVs. 

Set expectations clearly

We also recommend setting expectations early with the ISV on the project duration and urgency. Examples of this could look like: 

“I’m the only person actively involved right now so I’ll check back in after a month when I have more time to dedicate to this.”  

“This is not an urgent priority for us. I’m just having a look around for now.”  

“This is extremely urgent and our go live is the end of next month. Can you dedicate resource to us to help us reach that deadline?” 

Price transparency 

Pricing opacity is far too common in the software industry. We’ve all been on introductory calls where we’ve wasted 25 minutes of our time only to find out that a solution is way out of our budget. It’s a good idea to ask directly about pricing upfront to save yourself time evaluating solutions you have no intention of buying. 

“I see that there is a license cost of x per user. Are there any additional or hidden costs on top of this price?” 

💡 Top tip: We have the benefit of being part of a super friendly and accessible ecosystem. Ask around the Salesforce Community to see if anyone uses the solution you’re evaluation. Most people are happy to jump on a quick call to share their experiences, good or bad, of their purchase. 

3. Test the solution 

You’ve done your internal research and you’ve started to identify specific solutions that you want to evaluate. There is no better way of evaluating a solution than getting hands on with it. 

Get a test drive or free trial of your solution and start playing around with it. This is also a great time to ask more about the product and the team behind it. ISVs vary in how much support they offer and at what price point. Salesforce encourage all ISVs to offer at least some level of free support but it’s worth understanding exactly what you can expect – a dedicated mailbox or maybe even a dedicated point of contact. 

What kinds of questions should you ask? 

  • How much does support cost (if anything?) 
  • Is there “premium” support available, and if so, what does that include? 
  • Are there any other features in the product that can be beneficial? 
  • Is there much of a product roadmap?

💡 Top tip: Sandboxes provide perpetual site licenses in Salesforce so it’s a great idea to install trials in a sandbox. 

4. Clarify post-purchase support 

It’s easy to think that the moment you purchase a solution, you’ve completed your project. However, the nature of Salesforce ISV partner solutions and SaaS software means that this will be an ongoing relationship! Testing a solution is very different to pushing it into production and onboarding your users. It’s worth making sure you understand what happens if you do decide to purchase. 

What kinds of questions should you ask? 

  • What is your customer onboarding process like? 
  • Do you have a dedicated customer success team? 
  • How long from purchase to implementation? 
  • Do you use your own product? 
  • Will you notify us of upgrades to your App?  
  • How many releases do you do a year? Do we need to do anything to upgrade?  
  • Do you stop supporting older versions?

💡 Top tip: Make sure you have another point of contact at minimum that isn’t sales. Aim to have at least 3 contacts from different departments. 

It’s time to succeed with a Salesforce ISV partner 

There you have it – our introduction into the world of working with ISV partners. This is by no means a complete list of questions and considerations when purchasing an ISV solution, but this is a great place to start. Like with most things, clear communication and expectation is at the heart of how to succeed with a Salesforce ISV partner. 

So, with this in mind, we wish you the best as you make your next ISV purchase armed with our questions and top tips. 

You’ve got this!

About ProvenWorks

We mean it when we say we’re Salesforce experts. We work exclusively in the Salesforce ecosystem and our products are built 100% for Salesforce.

Find out what Salesforce Ben has to say about SimpleImport

Salesforce Ben has published their review of SimpleImport, our data import solution for Salesforce! 🚀

Andreea Doroftei, writer for Salesforce Ben, talks through the key features of SimpleImport as well as ideal use cases, setup effort, and how this importer could be a great addition to your Salesforce org.

“SimpleImport is a powerful time-saving tool for anyone – power users, end users and partner users. Whether it’s importing order forms on opportunities, handling deal registrations in a partner portal, or something completely custom, SimpleImport opens the door to a new approach for importing data.”

Lucy Mazalon, Salesforce Ben

Check out this in-depth review of SimpleImport by Salesforce Ben.

Interested in seeing it for yourself?

If you’re interested in finding out more about SimpleImport, use the scheduler below to book a demo with our team.

Can you import data in a Salesforce digital experience?

It is not possible, with standard Salesforce functionality, to allow digital experience users to import data to Salesforce.

SimpleImport is the only managed package in the Salesforce ecosystem that solves this common problem. Setup is quick and easy so continue reading to find out how!

We’ll look at both:

  • the business value (👋 hello C suite, ops managers, other people who have been sent this link to review)

Why is it useful to allow partner users to import data into Salesforce?

Salesforce Digital Experiences (Communities) built on Experience Cloud have been growing in popularity. It’s easy to see why they’re so popular, since digital experiences can be used in so many contexts: partner portals, e-commerce sites, help centres and even franchisee hubs.

With so many different digital experience audiences come lots of reasons why external users need to import data into Salesforce CRM:

  • Partners submitting deal registrations 
  • Franchisees uploading quarterly / annual sales information 
  • Retailers importing point-of-sale data 
  • Offices and field units reporting stock management

Organisations need a simple, fast and secure way to enable external users to import data in a Salesforce digital experience.

How to provide import functionality to a Salesforce digital experience

This is where SimpleImport comes in! SimpleImport is our exclusive-to-Salesforce spreadsheet data import solution.

SimpleImport is available on the AppExchange. Start your 14 day free trial and empower digital experience users to import data to Salesforce CRM.

Once you have installed SimpleImport, the steps are simple:

1. Configure an import ‘mapping’ for the partner data and save it.
  1. We‘ve got a handy User Guide to help you configure your import. 

💡 Top tip: To make things easy for the partner, provide a downloadable template spreadsheet file that matches this import mapping.

2. Copy the import mapping ID.

The saved mapping results in an import mapping ID. You just need to copy the ID.

3. Paste the mapping ID in SimpleImport’s Lightning Component.

Place SimpleImport’s Lightning Component on your digital experience and paste the mapping ID to configure the component.

The results 

When it’s time to import, the partner users simply need to drag and drop their completed templated spreadsheet onto the component… 

and that’s it… the import is done! 

What are your other options? 

Let’s take a closer look at one example. An organisation can use a digital experience for enabling partners to register multiple deals. 

With standard Salesforce, the organisation has three options: 

  1. Register these deals one at a time using the Deal Registration Global Action 
  2. Add multiple deals to a spreadsheet and send them to an internal user to import 
  3. Develop a custom solution 

Empower partner users to import data in a Salesforce digital experience 

SimpleImport is the only managed package in the Salesforce ecosystem that solves the problem of external users importing data in a Salesforce digital experience. 

And if you need more convincing: 

  • Partner users can import their spreadsheet data themselves – no more relying on admins which can result in bottlenecked tasks! 
  • There is no onboarding time – partner users just need the spreadsheet and a drag and drop. There’s no more fiddling with CSVs. Users won’t even realise they’re using an import solution.
  • You’re not compromising minimum-access security – don’t compromise the permissions you have in place. Limit object and field mapping access by user or profile. 
  • Imports take less than 20 seconds on average* (varies on the file size). 

How much does SimpleImport cost? 

We price our SimpleImport digital experience implementations on a case-by-case basis depending on: 

  1. Number of digital experience users who will be importing 
  2. Number of admins who will be managing the back end of the solution 
  3. How frequently you’ll be importing 
  4. Average size of file you’ll be uploading 

That’s why we’d recommend scheduling a demo call with us to discuss your requirements and create an accurate quote.

Book a demo of SimpleImport 

Do you need to empower external users to import on a Salesforce digital experience? 

Check out SimpleImport for yourself on a live demo with one of our team.

Import donations into the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)

Giving back to the community is a big part of our culture here at ProvenWorks. We are a proud member of Pledge 1% and offer nonprofit discounts on our solutions!

Each year we find ourselves working with nonprofit organisations looking to expand their Salesforce implementations. This case study is one of the most common use cases we see when working in this sector with our tool, SimpleImport.

It’s no surprise that donations are at the heart of many nonprofits. It is not uncommon that they might be managed in another database, accounting system, or with spreadsheets. For these organisations who use Salesforce CRM, it’s vital to try and get as much of this data into your org so you can cultivate a single source of truth.

The Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) leverages the Salesforce-standard Opportunity object to track and manage donations. These Opportunity records are related to donors which are maintained in the Account and Contact objects.

How can SimpleImport simplify importing to the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack?

SimpleImport is the perfect companion for importing donation data, providing a drag-and-drop experience to import the donation spreadsheet file. It can be set up in just a few minutes to create a reusable, scalable, and secure import process meaning your teams don’t need to be tech experts to get donation data into Salesforce.

Do you need to load records with a master-detail relationship? No problem we have you covered. The ability to load child records at the same time and save the mapping is perfect for handling donors and recurring donations. This can be set up for non-admins too since the ManagedImport component can be placed on a Lightning App page. Provide your Salesforce users with everything they need for importing the data – they then only need the file!

Immediate benefits of using SimpleImport

  • Centralise your donation data into one platform instead of storing it across multiple external websites/systems. Cultivate a single source of truth about your supporters.
  • Remove time-consuming, complex repeat activities by leveraging saved mappings in the SimpleImport application.
  • Reduce time spent onboarding new staff on your donor administration process – they only need to learn how to drag and drop!
  • Streamline the whole process of maintaining and creating the donations into a single task by using the upsert operation.

What’s next?

Learn more, book a demo and get a trial of SimpleImport by ProvenWorks.

B. Braun Medical stays compliant whilst reaching out to healthcare organisations thanks to PhoneTools

B. Braun Medical stays compliant whilst reaching out to healthcare organisations thanks to PhoneTools

With PhoneTools, we found that around 20% of doctors surgeries and health centres are registered on the CTPS, meaning they have opted out of live marketing calls.

Matthew Metcalfe, Business Technology Manager, B. Braun Medical Ltd

Finding a new process for connecting with healthcare organisations

B. Braun develops effective solutions and guiding standards for the healthcare system in a constructive dialog with their customers and partners. B. Braun Medical Ltd. is a subsidiary of the B. Braun Group and is one of the leading providers of international Healthcare products in the UK. 

As part of a changing healthcare landscape since COVID-19, B. Braun needed to establish a new business process to reach out to healthcare organisations safely whilst staying compliant with UK privacy laws. 

B. Braun needed to call healthcare organisations

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, B. Braun, like many medical technology companies, would connect with healthcare organisations by having reps visit locations in person. Since COVID-19, the preferred approach for connecting healthcare product providers and healthcare organisations has shifted away from in-person.

With phonecalls becoming the first point of contact, B. Braun needed a new process in place.

Staying compliant with UK privacy laws

Since the arrival of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) which sit alongside the Data Protection Act and GDPR, it is illegal for UK entities to cold call people and businesses who have opted out of unsolicited live sales and marketing calls. This opt out register is called the the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).

B. Braun needed to be able to quickly screen healthcare organisation phone numbers against the Telephone Preference Service to check if their reps could call them for marketing purposes.

Keeping users on the Salesforce platform

Well-embedded on the Salesforce platform with a multi-cloud implementation, finding a solution that enabled B. Braun to build their marketing call process on Salesforce was a big win. They looked at directly licensing the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) themselves as well as searching on the AppExchange, which is when they found PhoneTools by ProvenWorks.

Implementing and onboarding staff quickly

“It took almost no time at all to train our users; the concept takes longer to explain than the app.”

Matthew Metcalfe, Business Technology Manager

Built for the Salesforce platform, PhoneTools has a user-friendly component that can be placed on any object to screen the record’s phone numbers. After either a manual or automated screening job, PhoneTools shows the status of each phone number using a simple traffic light system. 

With PhoneTools in place, B. Braun reps can clearly see at a glance, without leaving the Salesforce platform, whether the healthcare organisation is registered on the Corporate Telephone Preference Service database or if it is safe to call.

Making marketing calls with a seamless compliance process

“PhoneTools provides us with an easy, simple and incredibly clear method of showing the preference of healthcare organisations to receive marketing calls.” 
Matthew Metcalfe, Business Technology Manager

Since using PhoneTools to screen healthcare organisation phone numbers, B. Braun has found that: 

  • Around 20% of doctors surgeries and health centres are registered on the CTPS, meaning they have opted out of live marketing calls. 
  • 141 UK hospitals are registered on the CTPS, including large teaching hospitals and major chains.
  • They have avoided facing fines of up to £500,000 in place for breaches of PECR regulations.

Thanks to PhoneTools, B. Braun has empowered their reps to confidently reach out to healthcare organisations compliantly without adding additional friction and effort to the marketing call process.

Why B. Braun Medical Ltd recommends ProvenWorks

Business Technology Manager, Matthew Metcalfe says:

“PhoneTools is simple to install and get running, it provides a clear, cost effective method of navigating C/TPS screening.” 

And when it comes to working with the ProvenWorks Support team:

“The support team were helpful and incredibly responsive, questions were answered quickly and effectively.”

Get compliant with PhoneTools

Whether you’re a healthcare product provider reaching out to healthcare organisations, or you work in any industry and plan on making live marketing calls to prospects, it’s vital to screen your phone numbers against the Telephone Preference Service.

Get in contact with us to discuss how PhoneTools could be your in-Salesforce solution for staying compliant. It’s that simple.


PhoneTools

Are you cold calling UK phone numbers? Screen against UK TPS and CTPS lists to stay compliant with UK privacy laws. Learn more and book a demo.

Increase Salesforce Vaccine Cloud Adoption

Coronavirus has been one of the most challenging times in recent years for many different reasons. Clinics around the world were forced to adapt quickly, and when vaccines became available, they need to ensure they had systems in place to support a successful roll out.

Healthcare providers needed to go digital, and quick. Many businesses turned to using tools that were taught through school, one of these being Excel. As the usage expanded, bottlenecks began to show. We all know how using a tool like Excel could lead to almost 16,000 unreported cases of covid, or at least England knows.

Salesforce was quick to deploy Vaccine Cloud which focuses on securely managing vaccine administration, COVID vaccination statuses, and test results. Businesses then needed a tool to transform the data they were collecting in Excel and push it into Salesforce.

How can SimpleImport extend the potential of Salesforce Vaccine Cloud?

SimpleImport has potential to be used in several different ways, but its primary benefit to clinics is its ability to be rolled out to non-administrative users in the Salesforce organisation. It isn’t possible to rely on existing importing tools due to their locked down nature I.e. being restricted to admins or certain objects. Clinics needed a tool they could hand to their staff to complete repeat import tasks but whilst staying within the set confinements of their permissions.

There are valid fears from technical teams about granting ‘non-technical’ staff an importing solution for Salesforce. The concern is that it’s too easy for staff to make a mistake. SimpleImport eases that pressure by providing a locked down experience so that users can only import to pre-defined mappings and objects, ensures that Salesforce’s CRUD and FLS permissions are adhered to, and lastly provides an undo button that rolls back an import.

In a time of fast adoption of technology, it’s expected that mistakes could happen, so finding ways to mitigate and undo them with SimpleImport provide extreme reassurance and operational value.

Immediate benefits of using SimpleImport

  • Teams adopt Salesforce quicker by having their data from Excel regularly imported.
  • Provide licenses to standard users and empower wider teams to help with the data tasks.
  • Save repeat tasks so that users can save significant time during their import process. 
  • Provide an undo button to roll back an import.

What’s next?

Learn more, book a demo and get a trial of SimpleImport by ProvenWorks.

Import reviews into Salesforce

As a managed package provider on the Salesforce AppExchange, we understand the value of receiving reviews and tracking them in a centralised location. Salesforce is a great platform for centralising data and managing actionable outcomes, but quite often reviews can be received via several different platforms, especially in the Travel, Tourism & Hospitality verticals.

We love talking about this use case because it covers a common (and often manual!) problem of trying to unify multiple sources of data. The “review” element gives it some context that we can all resonate with.

We’ve seen some exciting implementations specifically linked with review data in Salesforce. One particular case uses Einstein Sentiment – “The Einstein Sentiment API classifies text into positive, negative, and neutral classes to understand what the words people use can tell us about how they’re feeling”. The output of the Sentiment API’s classification would generate follow up activities in Salesforce specific to their case. This truly highlights the importance of getting the data in a central location.

Import review data into Salesforce using SimpleImport

So, we’ve identified why centralising review data in Salesforce is useful, but how can SimpleImport help?

Most review systems allow users to export data in a spreadsheet file. Each system will have its own variation of the spreadsheet format (I.e., column headers) so having a single mapping won’t be sufficient. However, using a saved mapping per review engine will get us closer to a seamless experience.

So, we have multiple mappings, one for each review system. How can we make it easy for our importing users to import these files? With the power of Salesforce Flows! Why is this helpful? Because the ManagedImport component can be embedded within a Salesforce Flow Screen. This means you can present a selection on a first screen for your user to choose the relevant review platform and a decision logic can load the correct import mapping ready for your user to import. Simple!

Immediate benefits of using SimpleImport

  • Reviews are in one centralised platform instead of being stored across multiple external websites/systems.
  • Handle the hurdle of different platforms using different export spreadsheet formats by utilising Salesforce Flows with the ManagedImport component.
  • Open endless possibilities with that data in Salesforce like using Einstein Sentiment API.
  • Once configured, it’s easy to use, simple to expand, and difficult to make a mistake.

What’s next?

Learn more, book a demo and get a trial of SimpleImport by ProvenWorks.

Import price book and promotion data

It’s no secret that managing price books in Salesforce isn’t the easiest of operations. Whether it’s updating existing prices, or creating new ones for seasonal promotions, it can be a thankless task that ends up consuming hours of admin time. It’s why many teams favour handling this operation in a shared spreadsheet document which can then be imported into Salesforce.

Import price book information into Salesforce

SimpleImport is the perfect tool for importing the price book information with just a drop of the file. Since SimpleImport supports workbooks with multiple sheets, complex spreadsheet formulas, and isn’t just limited to CSV files, the solution really empowers those who wish to leverage the benefits of a spreadsheet document and get that data into Salesforce seamlessly.

The structure of pricing and promotion data rarely change. This means that teams can rely on SimpleImport’s saved mapping feature to store how the data should be imported. This means you can focus on what is important – managing pricing information.

In the event of needing to insert and update data in a single operation, you can configure the tool to execute an upsert, therefore saving the process of splitting out the import into two jobs. Furthermore, if the mapping of objects and field metadata rarely changes, leveraging the ManagedImport component in a dedicated App page can provide your Salesforce users with a “one-stop-shop” for importing the data.

Immediate benefits of using SimpleImport

  • Allow team members to leverage tools that are more native to the audience.
  • Encourage and promote cross team collaboration using shared spreadsheets before committing the changes to Salesforce.
  • Streamline the process to a single task by using the upsert operation. 
  • Remove repeat activities by leveraging saved mappings in the SimpleImport application.

Supporting workbooks and complex formulas gives you the control you need to be productive in your day without fears of tech incompatibilities. This enables you and your teams to continue at the pace you want by using SimpleImport in your Salesforce organisation.

What’s next?

Learn more, book a demo and get a trial of SimpleImport by ProvenWorks.

Streamline the Opportunity Line Items (Opportunity Products) Importing Process

If we had a slice of cake each time a prospect reached out to us asking for help to streamline their importing process for the Opportunity Line Item object, the ProvenWorks team would be living off cake. It is no exaggeration that this object is the one we hear about the most.

How does SimpleImport help with importing opportunity line items?

That answer can be different per use case due to the quirks associated with the object. Nevertheless, what all these use cases have in common is our ManagedImport component. With its “pass current record ID” functionality, the component takes a huge load of admin out of the import process when working with Opportunities.

This functionality allows users to import products directly on the Opportunity record, without the need to fetch a record ID or some unique identifier for the excel file. This is ideal for orgs who receive orders in a spreadsheet document that need loading into Salesforce.

Import related records quickly

Let’s break that down further. I have a list of products in a spreadsheet file that an existing account wants to purchase. I open the opportunity for the account, use the ManagedImport component, and I simply drop the file with the products in into the modal.

Those line items will now be inserted to the Opportunity Line Item object and automatically are related to the opportunity record that I am looking at. This will allow us to create a list of products to be purchased by the customer in a few seconds. No more faffing about getting record IDs or a unique piece of data from Opportunity. Let the tool do the work!

Immediate benefits of using SimpleImport

  • Quickly load opportunity products to existing opportunities and require little training to do so.
  • Pass current record ID functionality in ManagedImport removes the requirement to edit the file prior to import and mitigates potential mistakes.
  • Support for workbooks with multiple sheets allows you to distribute and share complex workbooks with your customers that can be loaded directly into Salesforce without having to export a CSV.

What’s next?

We’ve written a step-by-step guide explaining how to use SimpleImport for importing opportunity products.

Learn more, book a demo and get a trial of SimpleImport by ProvenWorks.

Import data via a Digital Experience with Experience Cloud

Use of Digital Experiences (previously known as Communities) have been growing in popularity since their launch, with even more adoption since the repositioning of Salesforce Experience Cloud.

Salesforce Experience Cloud implementations have been expanding with use cases growing where external users need to interact with an internal CRM. Some of these use cases even include importing data – this is where we come in!

A digital experience can be used in so many contexts: partner portals, e-commerce sites, or even franchisee hubs. With lots of different audiences come lots of reasons why users need to import data.

Empower external users to import

One of our favourite use cases to date has involved importing annual employment diversity data of over 40,000 registered businesses based within an allocated region. Each entity was already using a spreadsheet to collect all the required data, but it was previously left to a single admin to manually import all the data that was received via email across a one-month period.

With the aim to cut out the middleperson, they worked with Salesforce and ProvenWorks to roll out a new Digital Experience which had SimpleImport’s ManagedImport component as a way of importing all the data into Salesforce.

With the component in place on the Digital Experience and the import mapping configured, the business entities could drag and drop their spreadsheets onto the component, importing the data themselves.

Immediate benefits of using SimpleImport

  • Emails are no longer being sent to the incorrect email address which potentially resulted in leaked data.
  • Internal teams can run reports in Salesforce to see which businesses were yet to import their data. Additionally, automated processes can then send notifications to the correct contacts.
  • Mistakes are highlighted to the businesses at point-of-entry, so they are able to correct any missing data.
  • The admin previously in charge of the process no longer has to download all email attachments and import their data.

SimpleImport acknowledges the user’s permissions, so the digital experience users only need write permissions to their custom object. There is no concern that they would be able to use SimpleImport to access data that they should not have access to.

What’s next?

Learn more, book a demo and get a trial of SimpleImport by ProvenWorks.