Emails - they’re pretty important. In 2020, the world collectively sent over 300 billion per day.

Our world - public and private, commercial and personal - still relies heavily on this tried-and-true modus operandi for communicating online. You can love them or hate them, but in today’s business world, you need to be good at them.

We’re not just talking snappy subject lines or overdone tips you can find with a quick Google search.

Sending great emails also involves zooming out and looking at how email fits into your business workflows in Salesforce. Can your team easily send personalized emails from Salesforce? Are they following email content best practices? Is the process simple or confusing?

If you’re asking these questions, you’ve come to the right place. This article will explore:

1. How to send emails from Salesforce (and which Salesforce email tool is best for you)
2. Which Salesforce email template builder to use
3. Email best practices (for both copy and design)
4. Protecting your email reputation (to ensure your messages get delivered!)

After perusing this information, you’ll be well on your way to sending stronger emails from Salesforce (and hey, if it helps - consider emailing this article to a colleague in need!).

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How To Send Emails From Salesforce: 4 Options

The purpose of email is simple: to communicate. Getting from Point A (writing) to Point B (delivered & opened) is more complicated, which is why Salesforce provides several options for traversing the gap.

1. Send Emails from Salesforce Through Gmail or Office 365
2. Send Emails Through Salesforce
3. Use Salesforce Email Relay
4. Use An AppExchange App

Send Emails From Salesforce Through Gmail or Office 365

Using Lightning Experience? You can send emails from “Salesforce” that actually go through your Gmail or Office 365 account.

Source: Trailhead.com
They’ll look no different to your recipients than the ones you send from Gmail or Office 365, which can improve open rates and deliverability. However, you should consider:

• Emails are not logged in the Salesforce Activity History
• Bounce management is not supported
• You can’t send mass emails (list emails)

If your team relies heavily on their external email accounts and on Salesforce, this method eliminates perpetual tab switching. But if you require important features like bounce management, or wish to track email activity in Salesforce - this method may not be for you.

Learn how to set it up here.

Send Emails Through Salesforce

Whether you’re using Lightning or Classic, you can always send emails through Salesforce’s servers. It’s easy to set up, doesn’t require integrating with an external email service, and lets you track everything in the Salesforce Activity History.

Plus, you can send mass emails and take advantage of bounce management. The more features the better, right?

However, be aware - your emails may look “spoofed” (it looks like you’re not who you say you are). This may be a deal breaker for some businesses.

Learn how to set up sending emails through Salesforce here.

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Use Salesforce Email Relay

If your company owns an email domain (@companyname.com, or something similar), you can route your emails through your email server with Email Relay.

This one’s pretty cool, especially if you’re big on compliance. For one, you can store copies of your emails locally, and they’ll appear in your email client’s “Sent” folder. This is a must for industries bound by government regulations.

You can also apply content filters and antivirus scanning. Oh, and your emails won’t appear spoofed, meaning it’s much less likely that they’ll end up in your customer’s spam folder.

The downside is that it requires some technical expertise to get going - but if you follow this guide, you shouldn’t have many problems.

Use An AppExchange App

If none of the above options work for you, you can always turn to the AppExchange for an email distribution solution. AppExchange email tools can be useful if you’re looking to get around Salesforce’s daily email limits (which still apply even if you use Email Relay).

All in all, there are pros and cons to each method for Salesforce email distribution. To make things a bit easier, refer to this flowchart by Salesforce.
Source: Salesforce.com

Salesforce Email Template Tools: Which One To Choose?

After nailing down how to send emails from Salesforce, the next thing to figure out is how you’ll actually create the emails themselves.

Remember the statistic from the beginning of this article? We’re sending and receiving 300 billion+ emails daily. So unless you’re Barbara Blackburn - the fastest typist in the world - a team with high-volume communication requirements needs to use email templates to stay productive.

Email templates let you send preformatted emails populated with Salesforce data in just a few clicks - and they can be used in wider process automation to make things even easier. Here are your options.

1. Classic Email Templates
2. Lightning Email Templates
3. Email Template Builder
4. AppExchange Solutions

Salesforce Classic Email Templates

If you’re still using Salesforce Classic, and you don’t want to branch out to the AppExchange, you have to use Classic email templates. The four different types (text, HTML, HTML with Classic Letterhead, and Visualforce) let you include text, merge fields, and attachments.
Source: Salesforce.com
If you’re a Visualforce expert, you can get pretty creative with Salesforce Classic email templates - otherwise, these will satisfy only basic requirements.

Salesforce Lightning Email Templates

Lightning Email templates are the modernized version of Classic email templates. They allow you to do a bit more with content & design (like using Enhanced Letterhead). If your organization requires simple email responses with a bit of flair every once in a while, these should do the trick.
Source: Salesforce.com

Email Template Builder

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. Introduced in the Winter ‘21 release, the Salesforce Lightning Email Template Builder allows you to create emails with a drag-and-drop tool.
Source: Salesforce.com
This tool makes it easy to create emails that merge in more complex Salesforce data, and it lets you get pretty creative with the design, too. However, it’s still fairly new and has its limitations - for example, you can’t do much with conditional logic, and cross-object merge fields are not supported.

AppExchange Solutions

The AppExchange is the holy grail for Salesforce email tools - that exact search term brings up over 500 of them.

There are email tools built specifically for marketing, sales, service - you name it, you can probably find it.

Email apps for Salesforce generally allow you to do much more with your data than Salesforce email templates do, which is why we recommend using the AppExchange if you need to create complex, data-driven emails - both one-to-one and en masse.

Here’s a lesser-known tip that may help you cut through the noise: use Salesforce document generation apps for your Salesforce email needs.

Our reasoning?

While Salesforce document generation apps like S-Docs allow you to merge your Salesforce data into complex business documents, you can also leverage their powerful engines to design stunning emails and merge in data that’s just as complex.

Take this email we designed, for example:

As you can see, you won’t run into many problems merging in the data you need when you use a document generator. In fact, you can merge any queryable data from Salesforce into your emails - that is, if you use a 100% native (built on the platform) solution like S-Docs. We can’t make any promises about the other options available! Plus, you can dig into the HTML source to really customize your templates.

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All in all, Salesforce document generation apps are the best choice for building emails in Salesforce for a variety of use cases. They’re not a replacement for a marketing automation solution, but they’ll exceed your requirements in most situations that require email templates in Salesforce.

Email Design & Content Best Practices

After deciding how to send emails in Salesforce and what tool to use to build email templates in Salesforce, you’re probably ready to roll up your sleeves and build your templates.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to email template design, we have a few universal best practices you can use as a guiding star in many different situations.

1. Email Sender
2. Email Subject
3. Email Body Layout
4. Email Body Copy
5. Visual Content

Email Sender

The email sender (the name that appears in the From field) is likely the first thing your customer/prospect will check before deciding whether or not to open your email. Therefore, we recommend keeping this as personal as possible.

Generally, using someone’s name is the way to go - both for one-to-one and mass emails. Whenever possible, keep the sender to the logged in user!

Email Subject

After checking who sent the email, your recipient’s eyes jump directly to the subject line. You can approach this from a number of different angles, but keep in mind that your email subject should add value while being concise. Does it accurately describe the contents of your email, and why your recipient should care? Does it intrigue the recipient with relevant information?

Additionally, is your subject personalized? Adding your recipient's name, company name, or other creative, personal details can have a dramatic effect on your open rates. Use merge fields (placeholders for dynamic data) in your email subject lines to give them a personal touch.

Finally, try free tools like this Headline Analyzer to give your subject lines an extra boost!

Email Body Layout

If you’ve piqued your recipient’s interest enough for them to open your email, congratulations - but the work has just begun! The meat of your email lives in the body, and before your recipient can consume your content, they’re going to notice the layout.

Your email layout is how the content of your email is organized. It should be logical, easy to read, and guide your recipient to the action you want them to take. For example, the Inverted Pyramid layout is great for pushing recipients toward a CTA. Check out this email we designed with S-Docs.

Alternatively, the single-column layout is great for one-to-one emails, or emails where the copy is the main focus.

There are many different layouts you can choose from, but remember - clear, concise, and focused! Don’t be afraid to use white space liberally.

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Email Body Copy

Depending on the purpose of your email template, your copy will vary widely. However, you should be sure to follow these best practices.

Be Concise: If you have a choice between saying it in 10 words or saying it in 5, say it in 5. Show your recipient you value their time.

Stay On-Brand: Use a tone that complements your brand.

Personalize: In most cases, you don’t want your recipient to feel like they’re receiving an email template. Add more than just a first name - incorporate as much data as you can, and consider using conditional logic to dynamically change the email content or formatting depending on who it’s being sent to (this is where using a Salesforce document generation app can really help you out).

Visual Content

Images and other visual content can really spice up your emails - but be sure to include them with a purpose. In addition, try not to make images the main message of your email, since it’s not guaranteed that all email clients will display them. If your email doesn’t make sense without an image, that’s not a good sign.

If you follow these tips for designing emails in Salesforce, you’ll be well on your way to upping your open and reply rates - all while making your users’ lives easier at the same time.

Protect Your Email Reputation

None of the tips in this article matter if your emails get funneled straight into spam, so protecting the reputation of your domain and IP is just as important as designing great emails themselves.

Build A Good Reputation: Email reputations are built over time. You can build a better reputation by:

• Avoid sending emails to invalid email addresses
• Avoid “spammy” keywords
• Send content that your recipients want. Your email reputation increases when your emails are opened and read

Luckily, Salesforce also monitors more than 50 international blocklists, and if any of their IPs are blocked, they work with the blocklist owner to resolve the issue.

Get Permission From Recipients: In other words, don’t spam. Send emails to individuals that have opted to receive communications from you, and quickly honor opt-out requests.

Include A Familiar Name In The Subject Line: Recipients are more likely to report an email as spam if they don’t recognize the sender. Make sure they’re familiar with you - or add your company name in the subject line of the email.

Monitor Bounced Emails: Sending emails to invalid addresses damages your reputation. You should regularly remove invalid addresses and, if available, take advantage of Salesforce’s bounce management feature.

Check out this Salesforce Help article for more information about protecting your email reputation in Salesforce.

Send Better Emails From Salesforce With S-Docs

Now that you’re equipped with a throng of Salesforce email tips and best practices, why not take the next step toward building data-driven, dynamic emails in Salesforce? S-Docs is the only 100% native document generation and e-signature solution for Salesforce. It lets you design sophisticated, stunning business documents and emails with one easy solution.

Merge any data from Salesforce, include conditional logic, and use your email templates in large process automation with ease.

Interested in learning more? Contact our team today at sales@sdocs.com, or request a custom demo here. Now let’s get those open rates up!

Maximizing the value of your CRM is an important factor in increasing productivity and profit for your business.

Whether your company is new to Salesforce or has been using it for years, ROI (Return on Investment) should always be at the top of your mind. However, with all that Salesforce can offer it can be confusing to figure out how to get the most out of your org.

Do not fear! We have curated some best practices that we think are essential to increasing your Salesforce ROI.

How to Maximize your Salesforce ROI

Train Your Workforce

One of the beauties of Salesforce is that it brings all of your business’s custom information together in one easy-to-read place - making things a lot simpler for every one of your employees! However, having untrained or undertrained employees can throw the benefits of Salesforce right out the window.

It is imperative to have a properly trained workforce that is ready to get the most out of Salesforce. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t this a little obvious? Of course my employees will be properly trained,” but don’t think we are crazy for suggesting this tip just yet! Being properly trained for their position and being properly trained in Salesforce are two vastly different things. In a study performed by Cloudingo, data showed that nearly 40% of Salesforce users found the ease of use of their org unsatisfactory.

That is an extremely large number of people that are struggling with their Salesforce org right now!

In order to increase your Salesforce ROI, it is important to ensure that your employees are always aware of the broader goals of your business and are confident on how to use Salesforce to achieve these goals. Training is an extremely important part of any employee's journey with salesforce; take a look at these tips from Salesforce themselves on how people have found success training their new users in the past. By taking advantage of an in-depth and multifaceted training process, you are sure to get the very most out of your workforce and Salesforce ROI.

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Maximize the Value of Your Data

Another main benefit of Salesforce is that it stores all of your customer data on one simple and accessible platform. Unfortunately, the majority of data that is available to businesses goes unused and unanalyzed.

One way to help maximize the value of the data that you collect is with the “Custom Fields” feature within Salesforce. If there’s a specific piece of data that isn’t represented in your object’s standard fields, you can create your own custom field to start keeping track of the specific data you want.

Along with “Custom Fields,” Salesforce also comes with a built-in “Reports” feature that will allow you to process the data you have collected in a neat and simple manner. With Reports, you can examine your Salesforce data in almost infinite combinations, display it in easy-to-understand formats, and share the resulting insights with others quickly and easily. Reports are definitely a tool that all should be familiar with.

The Salesforce AppExchange also can also play an important role in leveraging your data. With the AppExchange, you are able to utilize your data within thousands of apps. One prime example of this comes with S-Docs! With S-Docs you are able to incorporate your Salesforce data into professional-caliber invoices, reports, summaries, letters, and so much more. By being able to use your Salesforce data to create so many different types of documents, S-Docs gives you the ability to share and manipulate your metrics like never before.

Finally, before everything else, it is important to establish the importance of data and metrics with the entirety of your workforce. Building a data-centric work environment and placing great importance on the numbers you collect will not only help everyone stay on the same page but will greatly improve the ease and efficiency of your data collection. Everyone being able to look at and learn from the data will create an environment of successful workers striving to outperform last quarter’s numbers. All in all, becoming a data-first company can greatly improve your Salesforce ROI.

Leverage Automation

Automation is one of the best things that Salesforce brings to the table. With various add-ons and built-in features, you are able to automate

much of the sales process with the help of Salesforce. Your sales team can focus on turning leads into customers instead of housekeeping and time-consuming tasks. Let's dive into how you can leverage automation with Salesforce!

Process Builder

Process Builder Is the Salesforce hub for automation. Without having to know any code, you can create “if, then” statements to automate all sorts of different processes within your salesforce org.

With just a couple of clicks you can automate your Salesforce org to create records, schedule calls, post to chatter and do a variety of other important yet time-consuming tasks. Here are a couple more examples of what Process Builder can do:

• Create a record
• Launch a Flow
• Post to Chatter
• Call Apex code
• Update related records
• Invoke many other processes

Being able to automate a variety of processes without any add-ons is one of Salesforce’s greatest benefits - however, sometimes you need some more help. That is when you turn to the AppExchange!

Utilize the AppExchange

Although Salesforce allows you to automate a variety of processes within the platform, there are a countless number of third-party applications that can further your business automation, too. From staying on top of tasks with the help of a calendar to drafting beautiful professional electronic documents, there is an app for almost everything in the AppExchange - one of them being S-Docs.

Although we are a little biased, we believe that document generation and e-signature are two of the most important aspects of your business that need automating. For example, your sales team shouldn’t have to be bogged down by creating contract after contract; they should be focused on turning leads into customers! Your customer service team shouldn’t waste valuable time drafting personalized communications; they should be problem-solving and building relationships.

With S-Docs, you get the only 100% native document generation solution for Salesforce. This means that automating your documents has never been faster or more secure than it is with S-Docs.

Automation can save your business a lot of time and money; with the help of Process Builder and the countless apps in the AppExchange, you can leverage automation to its full potential and help increase your Salesforce ROI.

Always Keep Learning

Now that we have gone through some of the more nitty-gritty tips in order to increase Salesforce ROI, we finish off with a general best practice that you and your team should always follow: Keep learning! Salesforce is an ever-changing platform that consistently adds new features and functions that can help streamline your business processes. Keeping up to date with the newest updates and continuous improvements of the platform will help your business stay on top of all things Salesforce, allowing you to maximize the benefits of the CRM.

Holding regular retraining and testing sessions to keep your employees' knowledge up to date and encouraging continuous use of Trailhead is a great way to maintain a workforce of consistent learners. But it is not just your workforce that needs to consistently be learning, it's everyone! Everyone in the company should be up to date with Salesforce to make meetings, briefings, reports, and everything in between a smooth and easy process. If you have a business full of Salesforce masters, you are sure to get the most out of your organization and see a huge increase in your ROI.

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Increase Your ROI with S-Docs!

S-Docs takes document generation and e-signature automation to the next level!

We are the only 100% native document generation solution for Salesforce; this means the document automation process will be faster and more secure than any third-party system on the market. Your sales team will be able to focus on turning leads into customers instead of waiting and worrying about the creation of their contracts, invoices, etc.

Over the past ten years we’ve acquired a deep network of trusted partners and helped countless businesses solve their document generation and e-signature needs, and we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon!

For more information about how we can help your organization request a demo today or reach out to sales@sdocs.com

When Salesforce renamed Community Cloud to Experience Cloud last year, we applauded the change. Though the business world has seen its fair share of questionable rebrands in the past, this one makes a lot of sense.

Salesforce Communities (now Salesforce Experience Cloud sites) are windows into your Salesforce org for customers, partners, or employees. Call them portals, forums, support sites, HR hubs - whatever you name them, they’re essentially branded websites that make select data/features of your internal Salesforce instance available to external users.

Source: Salesforce.com

The term “Communities” made sense for a while - they were central places for communities of customers, partners, or employees to come together and interact (submit cases, log partner leads, find answers to questions, etc.). But at S-Docs, we’ve always thought they had the potential to facilitate more holistic digital experiences.

Experience Cloud is the perfect name for what your Salesforce Communities can be: platforms for more than just actions on a website. Your sites have the potential to complete entire business processes for you and your customers, if you choose the right integrations. All in all, Experience Cloud sites are an opportunity to create end-to-end experiences that wow your customers, help your partners and employees do their best work, and position your brand as a digital-first, customer-first leader.

Pro Tip: If you’re new to Salesforce Experience Cloud sites, check out this Trailhead trail to start learning the basics!

How To Get More Value Out Of Salesforce Experience Cloud Sites

Salesforce Experience Cloud sites allow you to do great things out of the box. They’re much more economical than building websites from scratch because you’re able to choose from prebuilt templates…

...and create your site with drag-and-drop tools. No developer needed!

Plus, you don’t need to work with confusing integrations to get your website to update Salesforce, and vice versa. You can have a fully functioning site working in just a few hours - we’ve even done it in just a few minutes!

Maximizing the value of your Salesforce Community is a matter of building off of its rudimentary features and transforming it into an experience - customizing it into a place where your customers/partners/employees can accomplish even more than they set out to.

The best path toward this goal is through integrations from the AppExchange.

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Use Bolt Solutions

Lightning Bolt Solutions are templates for Experience Cloud sites that you can use to enhance your site (such as implementing a digital storefront or partner hub) without the need for a developer.

Bolt solutions are great because they’re built by Salesforce partners that are experts in their respective industries, meaning you can be confident that you’ll be creating experiences that resonate with your site’s audience.

Check out the AppExchange and select Bolt Solutions under the Solutions By Type tab to browse bolt solutions available today.

Integrate Document Generation & E-Signature

Documents and agreements are the backbone of any business, so if your site can’t provide a way for users to create or sign them, it isn’t doing its full job as an end-to-end experience.

That’s where S-Docs comes in: we’re a 100% native app for generating, e-signing, and distributing documents in Salesforce - and we work great with Experience Cloud sites.

How so? Here are a few ways customers in different industries are leveraging document generation and e-signature in their Experience Cloud sites today.

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Customer Communities

Government: A city planning & zoning department maintains an Experience Cloud site for building permit applications. Contractors click a button to open an S-Docs application document that they fill out, sign with S-Sign, and submit - triggering S-Docs to write their form inputs back to Salesforce and alert an official of an application for review, all in the background.

When the official approves or denies the application in Salesforce, S-Docs automatically emails the contractor with all of the information they need. The entire process is convenient and easy for both parties - one streamlined experience!

Healthcare & Life Sciences: A pharmaceutical company hosts an Experience Cloud site where members can apply for participation in clinical trials. After members enter their information into a flow form and click submit, S-Docs generates a consent doc for the user to sign. Once they sign and submit the document, S-Docs generates and emails a packet of documents to the member with information about the trial. Members appreciate a quick process and easy access to the information they need.

Partner Communities

Technology: A technology company provides a partner hub for its many channel partners to connect, log leads, and get the most up-to-date information about the latest partner offerings. At any time, partners can log in and generate a summary document that lists all the deals they’ve worked on with the tech company over the past year, making their reporting process a breeze.

Software: A software company uses a similar partner hub, with one added feature: renewing partnership agreements. Each month, a trigger identifies organizations due for renewal. S-Docs emails each contact with a notice that the partner has new documents to sign, along with a login link to the partner hub - where S-Docs has their renewal agreements waiting to be viewed and signed.

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Employee Communities

Consumer Goods: A cosmetics manufacturer provides an Experience Cloud site to its employees for onboarding, training, and company news. Employees can log on to sign onboarding paperwork, download performance reviews, and fill & sign any other HR documents required of them, all in one place.

Document Generation & E-Signature for Experience Cloud Sites: Main Benefits

S-Docs can help take your Experience Cloud sites to the next level no matter the industry, department, or community type. Since it fills in a major gap in many site workflows, it benefits both your own organization - and your customers, partners, or employees.

Convenience

Nobody wants to navigate to a site to complete a process, only to be told they need to take things offline to accomplish their goal (downloading, signing, and emailing a document, for example). S-Docs allows entire document & e-signature workflows to occur in the same place, making it as easy as possible for users to derive value from your site.

On-Brand Experiences:

It’s easy to brand your Experience Cloud site and make it feel like an extension of your company. S-Docs allows you to continue delivering on-brand content with fully customizable documents and emails, keeping your users connected with your business.

Data Security:

Experience Cloud sites always bring some risk with them, since you’re opening up your CRM data to external users. That’s why you’re able to create specific community user profiles to restrict what data can be accessed. While adding 3rd party integrations may seem counterintuitive for data security, S-Docs is 100% native to Salesforce, which means data never leaves the Salesforce cloud - and it respects the permissions and sharing rules that you define. No community users will be able to generate documents that pull data they don’t have access to.

Data Cleanliness

When users fill out S-Docs & S-Sign forms, their input can be written directly back to Salesforce fields - meaning as your customers get value from your site, they’re keeping your database up to date, too.

The Native Difference

S-Docs is a 100% native Salesforce app, meaning that it’s built entirely on the Lightning Platform. Because of this, adding S-Docs to your Experience Cloud site is a breeze and doesn’t require complex integrations.

Being native also means that S-Docs brings unmatched data security to the table. All documents are generated and signed within your Salesforce instance - meaning your data stays there, too.

Because of their superior ease of use and data security, native apps are the best choice when looking for integrations to boost your Salesforce Experience Cloud sites.

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Closing Gaps & Unifying Processes

Salesforce Experience Cloud sites provide an exceptional starting point for building better digital experiences for your customers. Enhancing their value is a matter of identifying the gaps (where do users have difficulty finding what they need? At what point are they required to leave the site to accomplish a task?) and filling them in - and there’s no better place for filling the gaps than the AppExchange.

So take some time to browse around - you never know what ideas might be just a listing away.

About S-Docs

S-Docs is a 100% native document generation and e-signature solution for Salesforce. As a trusted partner to global companies across industries, S-Docs has been helping enhance digital experiences with better document workflows for over ten years.

Interested in learning more about how S-Docs can benefit your Experience Cloud sites? Request a demo today or contact sales@sdocs.com.

The Salesforce AppExchange has been an enterprise gamechanger for over 15 years. Chock-full of business apps for Salesforce (3,000+!), it can enhance your org’s functionality by several orders of magnitude.

When you consider installing a third-party application into your CRM, however, there should be one major question on your mind: how will this app affect my org’s security?

While there are a number of security considerations you can (and should) take into account when seeking a best-fit Salesforce app for your business, we have one that we don’t think should ever be overlooked: is the app 100% native to Salesforce? If it is, you may be able to save your team weeks of security vetting.

What Are 100% Native Salesforce Apps?

Salesforce apps are considered 100% native if they are built entirely on the Lightning Platform (formerly the force.com platform). That’s the same platform that products like Sales, Service, and Experience Cloud are built on - they all share Salesforce’s core technology stack.

When we discuss native app security, we’re actually discussing the data security practices of Salesforce itself (which we’re assuming your organization has vetted and approved, since you’ve already invested in the platform). See what we’re getting at here?

100% native Salesforce apps leverage the data security of the Salesforce platform, meaning your team can approve and use them faster - without worrying about your data being processed anywhere other than your Salesforce org.

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Native Salesforce App Data Security Benefits

There’s a reason Salesforce is preferred by leading organizations in security-conscious industries like healthcare, government, and financial services - it invests in unmatched data security. That investment carries through to cover native applications.

Salesforce Security Architecture

Salesforce prides itself on its network security. In most cases, your data is stored in Salesforce-owned data centers in the region you’re located in. If your company is based in the United States, so is your Salesforce data, and so on.

When you access data in Salesforce, it’s encrypted in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS) with at least 2048-bit RSA server certificates and 128-bit symmetric encryption keys. Traffic passes through stateful packet filtering firewalls and edge routers that protect your org’s perimeter.

Their servers are constantly monitored by intrusion detection systems and any incidents that occur are reported in real time at trust.salesforce.com. Salesforce also conducts regular penetration testing and vulnerability scans.

Native apps are covered by these same security measures. When you use a native application, your data never leaves the protections of the Salesforce platform.

Data Processing Control

Salesforce processes customer data only as customers instruct. Where data must be processed by one of Salesforce’s sub-processors, Salesforce has entered into written privacy and data security agreements with those sub-processors - and these agreements are enforced by regular audits.

Native Salesforce apps automatically comply with Salesforce’s data processing policies. They never process data in any way that you haven’t already agreed upon with Salesforce.

Certifications

Salesforce boasts dozens of data security certifications globally. These include (but are not limited to):

• Department of Defense IL-2 & IL-4
• GDPR
• HIPAA & HITRUST
• ISO 27001/27017/27018
• Payment Card Industry (PCI)
• Cloud Computing Compliance Controls Catalogue (C5)

Native apps are covered by most application security controls that these certifications require.

Reliability and Disaster Recovery

Salesforce works hard to ensure data stored within the platform is never lost or corrupted. Their networking components, network accelerators, load balancers, web servers, and application servers are configured redundantly - which means that if any one piece fails, there are multiple backups available to keep things running.

Your Salesforce data is stored on redundant, carrier-class disc storage with multiple data paths, and is automatically replicated in real time and backed up to localized data stores.

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In the event of a disaster, Salesforce has procedures in place designed to restore services within 12 hours. These procedures are tested annually.

Native Salesforce applications don’t process your data outside of Salesforce, meaning your data is always protected by Salesforce’s reliability and disaster recovery policies.

Customer-Driven Security

While the Salesforce platform architecture is incredibly secure, Salesforce data security also depends upon how you use the platform. The best network security in the world can’t protect against insider threats or negligent access policies.

Luckily, Salesforce provides its customers with configurable security controls that allow them to ensure their org is protected from the inside out. From simple controls like secure password policies to more complex permission sets and data sharing models, your internal compliance policies can always be enforced within Salesforce.

Native applications respect all customer-configured security controls, ensuring no data is leaked or accessed by the wrong individuals.

Physical Security

Salesforce’s rigorous network security policies are backed up by equally strong physical security. Its data centers are only accessible by authorized personnel - buildings are unmarked and surveilled by around-the-clock guards that enforce 2-factor access screening. They’re also built to withstand adverse weather conditions and use systems that monitor temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors. Alternate power systems are also in place to prevent electrical failures.

These data centers also host native Salesforce apps, meaning you can always be sure that your data is protected - from the digital to the brick-and-mortar level.

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Data Return or Deletion

At the end of the day, Salesforce isn’t for everyone. If your company decides to move away from the platform, you can request a return of all data within 30 days - and it will be permanently deleted after at least 120 days of contract termination.

If you leverage native apps, you’ll never have to worry about your data floating around external servers if you decide to stop using Salesforce. It never leaves the platform.

Native Salesforce Apps: Partners In Secure Business Innovation

Native Salesforce apps extend Salesforce’s functionality while leveraging its world-class application architecture for superior security and speed. They’re built to help your business achieve its goals digitally, without the complexity of external security evaluations.

While native apps are not a universal solution, you should look to them first as you work to streamline and enhance your Salesforce workflows. Your team will thank you!

S-Docs: 100% Native Document Generation & E-Signature For Salesforce

Speaking of native apps: S-Docs is the only 100% native document generation & e-signature solution for Salesforce. We help businesses automate and e-sign their digital paperwork faster, more easily, and more securely.

S-Docs is leveraged by leading government, healthcare, and financial institutions due to its secure native architecture that never sends data off-platform. From invoices to sensitive medical documentation, S-Docs is the trusted partner for secure document generation and e-signature collection for Salesforce.

Interested in digging a little deeper? Contact our sales team at sales@sdocs.com, or request a demo today.

We’ve all been there. Sitting in front of our computer, staring at our Salesforce home page, and not being completely confident on how to best use/navigate the interface.

With the vast amount of functions and information that a Salesforce org can offer, we sometimes still get lost on the platform. But, after doing some research and calling on our employees' personal experiences, we have discovered some simple tips that can help make Salesforce just a little bit easier to use.

Let's dive into 10 simple tips on how to make Salesforce easier for you!

Overall Advice For Salesforce Users

1. Be Patient
2. Join the Trailblazer Community with Trailhead
3. Familiarize Yourself with the Salesforce Help Experience
4. Install the Correct Apps for Your Org

Be Patient

Before getting into the nitty-gritty details of how to improve your Salesforce user experience, it is important to address how to properly approach your Salesforce journey.

Whether you’re just beginning your job or have been using Salesforce for many years, there is bound to be something that will stump you. As the platform is constantly evolving, it is nearly impossible to understand every little function that it offers. That is why the very first tip is to stay calm and be patient.

Salesforce, while extremely useful, can definitely be tricky at times, so approaching the platform with the right mindset will greatly help improve your Salesforce experience. Being patient and having an open mind that is ready to learn will take you a long way when using Salesforce! Now that we have the right mindset, we can move on to some other helpful tricks!

Join the Trailblazer Community with Trailhead

One of the most helpful resources that Salesforce offers is Trailhead. With millions of users worldwide, Salesforce offers this all-in-one site where you can connect with other Tailblazers and learn the functionality of the platform. Trailhead offers a countless number of “trails” where you can learn any and all things Salesforce.

Along with these courses, Trailhead is the spot where you can join a group of other Salesforce users, read about the hot topics in the Salesforce world, and see any upcoming events that may be happening. Fully immersing yourself in the Salesforce universe is one of the great ways to make Salesforce easier for you!

Familiarize Yourself with the Salesforce Help Experience

While Trailhead and the courses that it offers are a great resource for learning the Salesforce platform and its functions, some problems require a bit more in-depth assistance. This is where the Salesforce help experience comes in!

By giving you the ability to search for exactly what you are having trouble with and providing in-depth documentation on common problems, the Salesforce help experience is a great place to solve your problems and learn how to use the platform. We all need help sometimes; familiarizing yourself with the Salesforce help experience will surely make Salesforce easier for you!

Install the Correct Apps for Your Org 

One of the best aspects of Salesforce is the AppExchange! The AppExchange provides thousands of apps that can help you improve your Salesforce experience greatly. From apps as simple as calendars to ones such as S-Docs, which can create professional and electronic documents seamlessly, there is an app for everything on the AppExchange.

We suggest taking a few minutes to browse around and find which apps will help make your Salesforce experience that much easier. Now that we have gone over some basic advice on how to make Salesforce easier for you, let’s get down to business with six tips that are sure to help improve your user experience.

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Nitty Gritty Tips to Make your Salesforce User Experience Easier

1. Set Your Record Default to Details
2. Make the Switch to the Correct Pinned List View
3. Customize the App Launcher
4. Add Related List Quick Links
5. Utilize Notes
6. Utilize Favorites

Set Your Record Default Tab to Details

One of the most helpful things you can do to improve Salesforce is changing the default record tab from “Activity” to “Details.” While the Activity tab can be helpful, most of the information that you will want to access, no matter what line of work you are in, is in the Details tab. For example, if you are using the Account object, the account number, contacts, account status, and much more are located within this tab, so having it be the first thing you see when you open an account can save a lot of time and make your Salesforce experience that much easier.

To do this, first, click on the Setup cog in the upper right corner and then click on “Edit Page.”

Next, click on any of the tabs (Activity, Details, Chatter) and then set the “Default Tab” on the right-hand side of the screen to “Details.” Then click the save button at the top right.

You’re all set! Now when you open any account, the page will automatically open with the Details tab giving you access to the data you want faster and easier than before!

Make the Switch to the Correct Pinned List View 

One of the most tedious aspects of Salesforce is the “Recently Viewed” list being pinned by default for all objects. While this may be helpful for some, being able to see all records at once is much more convenient. This allows you to search for any record you want to access even if you haven't viewed it recently. This is an easy switch that can save you time and make navigating Salesforce a lot easier. Here’s how to do it!

First, click on any of the objects at the top, (We chose Opportunity in this example), and then click just to the right of “Recently Viewed” in order to access the dropdown menu.

After clicking here, the dropdown menu will appear. Select “All Opportunities.”

After clicking this, you will be brought to the All Opportunities page. Select the pin directly to the right of where it says “All Opportunities.”

And that is it! You will now be able to see all of your opportunities displayed in front of you whenever you click on the Opportunity tab. Unfortunately, you will have to repeat this process for every object that you want this change to be made for, but nonetheless, this tip will help you save time and make navigating Salesforce a lot easier!

Customize the App Launcher 

The App Launcher is one of the handiest tools in your Salesforce org. It can help you quickly navigate between the different pages that are most important to you. The App Launcher, however, can often be rather messy and cluttered; moving the apps that are most important to you to the front of the launcher will help save you time and make navigating the Salesforce interface a lot easier.

The App Launcher is the dotted icon located in the top left corner of the page.

After you click on the App Launcher, a dropdown menu will appear. Unfortunately, the apps we most frequently use are not at the top. In order to fix that, simply click on the “View All” button at the bottom of the dropdown.

After you click on the App Launcher, a dropdown menu will appear. Unfortunately, the apps we most frequently use are not at the top. In order to fix that, simply click on the “View All” button at the bottom of the dropdown.

It's as easy as that! Now in the dropdown menu of the App Launcher, you will see the apps that are most important to you, making your life a lot simpler and Salesforce easier to navigate!

Add Related List Quick Links 

The Salesforce interface can often get cluttered and confusing. This next tip will help condense your pages greatly. Getting rid of the Related tab and simply adding the Related List Quick Links tab will make your pages look a lot cleaner while still giving you access to related records.

When you are on a specific record page, navigate to the setup cog and then click “Edit Page” at the bottom of the dropdown menu.

Once you are in the page editor, delete the Related Lists Tab located on the right of the screen. To delete there is a trash can symbol at the top right of the tab.

After this is deleted there will be a blank box left in its place. Click on it, then navigate to the left-hand side of the screen and type “related” into the search bar.  Click the option that reads “Related List Quick Links.” Then click Save in the top right.

You are now good to go! As you can see below, the previous Related List has now been replaced with a much cleaner and easier-to-navigate quick links tab.

You can also add single related lists if you would still like to view some of the options in full. Overall, this feature will help condense your page and make Salesforce easier to navigate!

Utilize Notes 

We all know that when dealing with customers and clients things can get complicated, and you can often forget certain aspects of a conversation or account. That is where the notes function comes in handy for accounts and opportunities!

In the top right-hand corner of any account or opportunity page, there is a “New Note” button. This allows you to record a note that will be saved directly under the “Notes & Attachments” related list for that specific account/opportunity. It’s as easy as that!

There are also two other ways to record notes within each account/opportunity page. One is under the Activities tab with the “Log a Call” feature and the other is under the Chatter tab where you can post your notes and updates for all of your colleagues to easily access.

Taking notes is a great way to remember specific information about each account and can make your Salesforce experience a lot easier!

Utilize Favorites 

Last but not least is one final quick tip that can help save you some time while navigating your Salesforce org. The Favorites feature allows you to pin any aspect of your org for easier access. Whether it's a specific account, lead, quote, etc. that you find yourself going back to often, or even simply the All Opportunities tab, you can click the star at the top right of the screen to save that page in the favorites dropdown bar for easier access later on!

Although it’s only a small tip, it can help you navigate Salesforce that much faster and easier!

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Make Salesforce Easier with S-Docs!

Your Salesforce documentation becomes much easier with S-Docs! Here at S-Docs we know how important document generation and e-signature are for today’s businesses.

Developed by former Salesforce Technical Architects, we are the only 100% native document generation solutions for Salesforce.  Because of the added security and speed provided, we have hundreds of trusted partners spanning a variety of different industries.

Over the past ten years we have helped a countless number of businesses solve their document generation and e-signature needs, and we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon!

For more information about how we can help your organization request a demo today or reach out to sales@sdocs.com

In recent years, the financial services industry has been undergoing a transformation. Today’s hyper-informed world has shifted power to the consumer - and the consumer is using it.

Expectations of personalized service and the demand for digital everything are at an all-time high. At the same time, industry regulations are continuously tightening. The unique challenge of keeping up with competitors and remaining compliant is greater than ever before.

Salesforce is helping financial service firms overcome the digital age disruption. It provides a connected interface through which they can intelligently manage their sales, customer engagement, and business processes - while complying with strict industry regulations.

But how exactly do financial service firms like banks, insurance companies, and investment firms get value out of Salesforce? Let’s dive into real customer stories to see how companies are using Salesforce for financial services - and how you could be, too.

It Starts With Salesforce Financial Services Cloud

While customer relationship management is relevant to any industry, Salesforce offers a specialized version of its CRM for financial services companies - Financial Services Cloud.

It offers the core features of Sales Cloud plus custom fields and objects for tracking financial accounts, assets, liabilities, and client goals.
Source: salesforce.com
This specialized financial services CRM helps financial institutions grow their books of business, track and maintain great client relationships, and stay compliant with industry regulations at the same time.

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How Financial Services Organizations Are Using Salesforce In 2021

Now for the fun part. Who is using Salesforce for financial services today, and how?

1. Salesforce for Banks
2. Salesforce for Insurance
3. Salesforce for Investment & Wealth Management

How Banks Use Salesforce

Banks are tasked with increasing customer and employee engagement, keeping productivity high, and protecting operational resiliency as they digitize their processes. Luckily, Salesforce has been instrumental in helping banks overcome these challenges.

Ulster Bank Crushes The Customer Experience With AI

Service excellence is a must for banks, and Ulster Bank knows this better than anyone. As a member of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, they serve over 1.9 million customers. Creating great experiences for such a large client base required a scalable solution that could provide its employees with the right data when they needed it.

Ulster Bank uses Salesforce Customer 360 and Einstein to gain a deeper understanding of every customer. Service reps review customer records before meetings that show what products or services the customer has used in the past, as well as predictions for future requirements. Einstein helps improve the customer experience by calculating whether the customer is using best-fit products, and suggests alternatives.

Ulster Bank also leverages another big Salesforce advantage: the Salesforce AppExchange, which provides financial service apps for Salesforce that can enhance its functionality further. They implemented S-Docs to automate the loan application process - customers can log into a Salesforce Communities portal, answer a few questions, and then receive an auto-generated loan document immediately. And since S-Docs is native to Salesforce, it brings the same data security and compliance protections with it.

With the help of Salesforce and apps like S-Docs, Ulster Bank is able to create experiences that keep customers coming back.

Mascoma Bank Streamlines Economic Recovery

While the pandemic brought most of the world to a halt, Mascoma Bank stepped up to the plate to help small businesses keep their workforces employed. As the US government rolled out the Paycheck Protection Program, which enabled businesses to secure loans during the turbulent time, Mascoma Bank used the power of Salesforce to get a year's worth of loan applications processed - in just 13 days.

Mascoma Bank was able to automate banking processes with Salesforce like application form submission and document requests to skyrocket efficiency. They also leveraged Salesforce Communities to allow businesses to digitally access their applications - and with the help of Mulesoft, they were able to connect their core banking platform to Financial Services Cloud for a seamless end-to-end loan application process.

Salesforce enables Mascoma Bank to be always-on for their customers.

How Insurance Companies Use Salesforce

Insurance companies are doing business with consumers that are more informed about their services than ever before. Attracting and keeping customers today requires using data intelligently to provide personalized experiences - and stay compliant with ever-growing regulations. Salesforce is here to help.

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Pacific Life Uses Data To Delight

Pacific Life has always been customer-centric: you can’t do business for 150+ years without focusing on the customer experience. But as the definition of “customer-first” has evolved in the digital age, they implemented Salesforce Financial Services cloud to ensure they use data to their - and their customers’ - advantage.

While employees have access to a 360 degree view of every customer, enabling them to tailor interactions and prioritize conversations, Tableau CRM works in the background to analyze that data further and recommend next-best-actions.

MuleSoft AnyPoint Platform allows them to connect multiple systems across their internal, partner, and vendor networks - allowing them to seamlessly distribute their insurance products through a range of digital platforms.

Amica Integrates Salesforce and Guidewire For Better Service

Data is a powerful tool for customer service - but to access that power, silos need to be broken down. Amica Mutual Insurance Company is accomplishing this by unifying Salesforce Financial Services Cloud and Guidewire InsuranceSuite.

By integrating Guidewire ServiceRepEngage and Guidewire ProducerEngage with Financial Services Cloud, Amica is able to achieve higher first-call resolution rates and better customer satisfaction as a result of reps having access to all the data they need, all the time. The integrated platform also keeps service reps happy and productive, which translates into better customer interactions.

How Investment & Wealth Management Firms Use Salesforce

Investment and Wealth Management firms need to make the best possible decisions for their clients to ensure they meet their financial goals. Salesforce allows them to do this through one unified platform.

Morgan Stanley Makes Intelligent Decisions With Tableau

Analytics are part of any financial service firm’s DNA, which means that for Morgan Stanley, Salesforce is too.

Tableau helps Morgan Stanley visualize and make intelligent use of the abundant data available to them to personalize client experiences and make better decisions on their behalf. It also helps them grow their business by showing what services customers are responding to, and what they’re not.

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Since their representatives have relevant data visualized in front of them for every client meeting, better decisions are made across the board that benefit all parties involved.

Sequoia Financial Group Markets Smarter With Pardot

Salesforce can help financial service firms increase brand awareness and drive new business with more intelligent marketing. Sequoia Financial Group leverages Pardot, Salesforce’s marketing automation platform, to market smarter with personalization.

While their past marketing strategy revolved around impersonal email blasts, Pardot enables Sequoia Financial Group to plan specialized content around different client needs. Their diverse customer base includes everyone from young professionals to retirees, meaning the ability to personalize their marketing efforts is key to obtaining a positive ROI.

After a year of leveraging Pardot for financial services marketing, Sequoia Financial Group saw over $335,000 in savings and 361% ROI.

Salesforce For Financial Services: A Perfect Match

Since its humble beginnings in 1999, Salesforce has grown into a solution to business success in any industry. Because of its robust feature suite, focus on analytics, integration options, and world-class data security, it’s now used by thousands of financial institutions globally to manage sales, client relations, and business processes.

S-Docs: Secure Document Workflows for Financial Services

When it comes to financial document generation for Salesforce, S-Docs is here to help. As a 100% native document generation and e-signature solution, S-Docs is the trusted partner to thousands of financial service organizations including Ameriprise, AllState, and United Healthcare.

Our customers use S-Docs to automatically generate and distribute financial service documents like loan applications, insurance forms, reports, client agreements, and much more. Since S-Docs is native to Salesforce, our customers can rest assured that their data is in good hands: it never leaves the Salesforce cloud.

For more information on how S-Docs can help streamline your financial service document and e-signature needs, request a demo today or contact sales@sdocs.com.

It's always important to ensure that you are getting the most out of yourself, your team, and your Salesforce org!

Optimizing productivity is essential in creating the best results for your company. While Salesforce in itself is a great platform for the productive worker, combining Salesforce with applications found on the AppExchange can improve your org tenfold.

After researching and reviewing a multitude of Salesforce AppExchange applications specifically designed to increase productivity, we have found that on the merits of features, functionality, and customer reviews, these are five of the best Salesforce productivity apps that every business should have.

Table of Contents

1. RingLead Field Trip - Data Management and Organization
2. S-Docs - Document Generation and E-Signature
3. anyGoal - Performance and Productivity Tracking
4. Calendar Anything - Project Management and Organization
5. Cirrus Insight - Email Integration and Management

1. RingLead Field Trip

We all know that in order to have a productive business you need to have an organized one. With the amount of data that you can input into Salesforce, it can often become confusing to read and manage. That is where Field Trip comes into play!

Field Trip will help you analyze the fields of any object in your Salesforce org, allowing you to see what percentage of your records (or a subset) have that specific field populated. Clustered or unused fields create havoc within your Salesforce org; with the help of Field Trip you will be able to achieve that cluster-free page layout we all dream of.

Top Features

• Run reports on the overall health of your Salesforce data to see which fields can be removed and/or improved
• Receive a RingLead Data Quality Score that is composed of the fill rate and weight of your object's fields
• Analyze the fields of any and all objects within your Salesforce Org

Price: Free

What Users Think:

“Easy, intuitive app - a very useful tool for both simple and complex data cleanup projects.”
- Alecia S., Data & Business Systems Analyst at Marketron Broadcast Solutions

2. S-Docs

With the world turning digital after this past year's pandemic, electronic documentation and electronic signature solutions have never been more important to running a successful, productive business. That is why we think you should check out S-Docs!

With S-Docs, you will get a 100% native document generation and e-signature solution that will allow you to seamlessly and safely automate your document workflows in Salesforce. You will be able to generate and e-sign quotes, invoices, proposals, and many other documents in just one click- all right in your Salesforce org.

Top Features:

• S-Docs is the only 100% native document generation solution for Salesforce on the market. No third party sites. No add ons. No extra downloads. Your data stays completely within the Salesforce Cloud.
• Create emails, reports, claim forms, welcome letters, form letters, and many more documents in one click, with data merged from anywhere in Salesforce.
• An easy-to-use template editor that is created for non-programmers to help you design your own beautiful and professional documents.

Price: Free

What Users Think:

“The fact that it is built native on the Salesforce platform is one huge benefit. The features are very robust (Flow, customizable button URLs, related lists in templates, live document edits) and continue to expand as new updates are released.”
-David H. Salesforce Administrator at Semler Scientific

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3. anyGoal

Productivity relies heavily on having people within your business set and achieve their goals. Without having a clear end result defined and desired, employees can become complacent and important tasks can fall by the wayside. An easy solution to this problem is anyGoal!

By giving you the ability to create individual goal targets for any data point or source, anyGoal will allow you to track and measure the performance on anything in your organization. anyGoal also allows you to provide real-time performance results via leaderboards, stack rankings, and contests to help drive productivity to the max!

Top Features:

• Align your entire organization around key performance indicators.
• Publish real-time goal performance leaderboards to create friendly competition and boost productivity.
• Use anyGoal Lightning components to help engage and motivate your team in seconds.

Price: $12 USD per user per month

What Users Think:

“We installed anyGoal about 1 1/2 months ago and it has been the perfect solution for assigning and tracking goals. This app offers flexibility on many levels and the support has been awesome at guiding us through complex and unique situations.”
- Robin T. Sales Operations Manager at Symphony MediaAI

4. CalendarAnything

One of every company's biggest assets is the business calendar. Planning down to the minute when deadlines are due and meetings are taking place helps people stay on top of their tasks and improves productivity! Now introducing the number one calendar application for Salesforce: CalendarAnything!

CalendarAnything is more than just an ordinary calendar as it allows you to schedule and manage various aspects of your business; the most common of which being marketing campaigns, resource allocation, project management, and event management. On top of all that, you can move the data and records from your Salesforce org right into the calendar to properly share and schedule with the correct people.

Top Features:

• A color coding and drag and drop system to organize and enhance project, task, and resource management.
• The ability to share internally or externally by embedding dynamic Salesforce calendars on records or websites,
• Create, edit, and move records in Salesforce right from the calendar in Day, Week, Month, Gantt, Agenda, Swimlane or Custom views.

Price: $12.50 USD per user per month

What Users Think:

"We use Calendar Anything as a resource capacity planning tool, as well as production and fleet delivery scheduling. This gives our entire company visibility in order to allocate resources (labor and assets) accordingly. We have used Calendar Anything for over 6 years and have continued to develop new ways to use it.” - Shannon J. CFO at MM Solutions

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5. Cirrus Insight

According to 80 percent of professionals, email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention. It is obvious that emailing is a HUGE aspect of every business in today’s world, so it is no surprise that we include an email integration app on this list. Having a seamless and clean Salesforce email integration can save you a ton of time and drive productivity like no other. That is where Cirrus Insight comes in!

Cirrus Insight perfectly integrates Gmail, Outlook, Office 365, iOS, and Android with Salesforce making your life easier both at home and on the go. With this capability, you will be able to modify the data and access all of your custom fields in Salesforce directly from your inbox.

Top Features:

• Sync emails and calendar events to Salesforce and be able to track the customer intelligence gained from them.
• Create/update leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities, cases, and custom records on any standard or custom Salesforce object from inside your inbox.
• With the My Lists feature see your reminder tasks, opportunities, cases, contacts, leads, and campaigns.

Price: $27 USD per user per month

What Users Think:

“Using Cirrus and Salesforce has been very productive and helpful at work. Now all my emails and communications are stored and documented in one place not needing to do extra manual work.”- Jorge P. Digital Strategist at White Shark Media

Increase Productivity Today With S-Docs

Looking to increase your business’ productivity? S-Docs is the trusted partner to so many incredible companies that span a variety of industries.

Developed by former Salesforce Technical Architects, we have been experts in helping businesses solve their document generation and e-signature problems for over ten years with no sign of slowing down soon!

For more information about how we can help your organization cut down on manual processes and increase your productivity, request a demo today or reach out to sales@sdocs.com

You’ve probably heard about the security and compliance benefits of native Salesforce apps. Since they never send data off-platform, native apps can be trusted in the same way that Salesforce can be trusted.

Native Salesforce app performance, on the other hand, is a lesser known gem. The on-platform infrastructure of native apps allows them to function more harmoniously with the processes already occurring in your org. The result? Pretty big performance benefits - benefits that can enable you and your team to work more efficiently.

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Native Salesforce App Performance Benefits

Click a native app advantage to scroll down to it!

• No external server latency
• No API calls
• Balanced resource use
• Unmatched Uptime

1. Native Salesforce Apps Don’t Experience External Server Latency

Server latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from one destination to another. When you integrate two separate systems (for example, Salesforce and an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system), latency will occur as the two systems talk to each other.

Native Salesforce apps don’t experience this server latency because they don’t need to communicate with external systems to function. The resources that they use are directly inside your Salesforce org.

Native apps may offer integrations with external systems - for example, S-Docs allows you to generate documents in Salesforce and store them in external repositories like Google Drive or Box - but their core functionality only depends on Salesforce.

Because of this, native apps will typically respond much faster than non-native alternatives.

2. Native Salesforce Apps Don’t Use Up API Calls

An API call is a set of protocols and tools that allow interaction between two applications. Your Salesforce org is only able to make a limited number of API calls per day; running out can stall business processes.

Native apps do not count against your org’s daily API limits. Because they are built on the Lightning Platform, they don’t require interfacing with external applications. Even if you do run out of API calls, your native app will still function.

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On the other hand, non-native apps may require multiple API calls per invocation. When you add up calls being made by other processes in your org, you may approach your API limits faster than you think. Once reached, your non-native apps may not continue working until your API limits are reset, or you purchase more.

Depending on the function of your non-native app, this can range from annoying to business-breaking.

3. Native Salesforce Apps Have Balanced Resource Usage

Because they run on the Salesforce platform exclusively, native Salesforce apps must adhere to Salesforce governor limits. While this may sound intimidating, governor limits exist to ensure resources are allocated efficiently across Salesforce’s multi-tenant platform. They help prevent runaway processes from monopolizing resources, and prevent the use of unsupported processes.

These governors ensure that native apps follow best practices and operate within your org as efficiently as possible. Your native app resource usage will be smoothly balanced, translating to better performance and no peaks and valleys.

While non-native apps are not bound by these governor limits, there’s no guarantee that their performance will be consistent.

4. Native Salesforce Apps Have Unmatched Uptime

Nothing is more frustrating than opening an app you rely on, only to find that it’s temporarily down. App downtime can impede your business processes - and there’s really no way to see it coming.

That is, unless you use native apps. Since native Salesforce apps run on Salesforce’s servers, they’ll always be up when Salesforce is up. Essentially, this means that native apps are always working when you need them - if Salesforce is down, you won’t be able to use your apps in the first place, native or not.

The best part about the fact that native apps share Salesforce’s uptime is that Salesforce publishes their system status in real time. You can check the service availability for any of their products at your convenience.

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Native Salesforce Apps Are Partners To Salesforce Users

All in all, the ROI you obtain from Salesforce is derived not only from how you use the platform itself, but also from the solutions you choose to enhance or extend it. Leveraging native Salesforce apps is a step toward a more productive and cohesive org.

They make efficient use of your org’s resources to deliver better performance that raises the quality of work possible in Salesforce. In many cases, native Salesforce apps are the best choice for enterprise organizations looking for solutions that can handle their volume of work, and are poised to scale with them.

S-Docs: 100% Native Document Generation & E-Signature For Salesforce

S-Docs is the only 100% native document generation and e-signature solution for Salesforce. Create complex documents, send them for e-signature, and automate your workflows faster and more efficiently.

S-Docs is trusted by leading enterprise organizations because it helps them create the mission-critical documents they need at scale. Whether it’s ten documents a day or 1,000 at once, S-Docs is able to meet your document workflow requirements.

Interested in learning more? Request a demo today or contact sales@sdocs.com. We’d be happy to walk you through how we can help transform your Salesforce document workflows.

Native Salesforce applications are third-party tools built on the Lightning Platform (formerly known as force.com). Choosing native apps to enhance your Salesforce org can significantly reduce your company’s IT compliance burden. How so? Let’s take a closer look.

Compliance Is Up To You

Whether you have a Chief Compliance Officer or a single Salesforce Administrator, it’s your job to meet the digital security regulations that apply to your business.

This is a tall order - noncompliance can lead to stiff fines, damage to your company image, and even getting shut down. What’s more, ensuring IT infrastructure compliance is only getting harder, as regulations tighten and grow each year.

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...But You’re Already Paying For Compliance

The good news is that your Salesforce licenses have compliance baked into them. As the world’s #1 CRM by market share, Salesforce has the resources to develop a product that meets even the strictest cloud computing regulations.

As a business with hundreds of customers in heavily regulated industries such as government and healthcare, it also has the incentive to make sure its products are compliant.

The result is a CRM that puts IT compliance at the forefront of its priorities.

Check out this webpage for yourself here. Now - where do native apps come in?

Native Apps Inherit Compliance From Salesforce

100% native Salesforce apps have the same IT compliance benefits that are baked into Salesforce - plain and simple. The dollars that you put toward Salesforce pay for the same infrastructure that protects all native apps.

With non-native apps, your data is constantly changing hands.

Non-native Salesforce applications can be useful, but it’s up to them to design and maintain their own security and compliance infrastructure - meaning it’s up to you to judge whether or not it’s good enough for your organization. You’ve already done that for Salesforce, meaning you’ve already done that for native apps.

Because of this, evaluating, implementing, and maintaining a native app is a much smoother process for compliance teams.

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As regulations change and grow, Salesforce invests in keeping their platform up to date every year. Like we said before, they have the resources and incentive to do so. Native apps are better positioned to keep you compliant now - and as you scale and grow in the future.

Native Apps Are Great For Corporate Compliance, Too

Regulatory compliance is vital, but it’s also important to make sure your employees follow internal policies. Salesforce allows you to set up permission sets and sharing rules to protect internal data access.

Native apps respect these permissions out of the box. And since they’re built using the same tools as any of your own customizations (custom objects, Visualforce, and Apex), it’s much easier to control access to the custom components that come with them.

Salesforce Compliance Is A Breeze With Native Apps

One of the main native Salesforce app benefits is compliance. Salesforce was designed to put an end to disparate systems, aiming to become a single source of truth. Don’t fight against this model by adding apps that complicate compliance.

Choose native Salesforce apps to get the features you need to improve your business, purpose-built for the platform you rely on every day.

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S-Docs: The Only 100% Native Document Generation & E-Signature Solution For Salesforce

S-Docs is the only 100% native document generation and e-signature solution for Salesforce. Create complex documents, send them for e-signature, and automate your workflows without ever sending data outside of Salesforce.

S-Docs is trusted by leading government, healthcare, and financial service organizations because it helps them create the mission-critical documents they need while staying compliant with strict industry regulations.

Interested in learning more? Request a demo today or contact sales@sdocs.com. We’d be happy to walk you through how you can transform your Salesforce document workflows with top-notch data security.