Appirio Product Blog

Professional Services Enterprise Winter '10 Release Notes

2009-12-28T08:53:00.001-08:00

By Todd Bursey

Appirio launches the Winter '10 release of its Professional Services Enterprise (PS Enterprise) product. We have added a wide range of exciting new features and enhancements based on feedback from customer implementations of the Fall '09 release. Timecards, expenses, projects, resourcing and billing have been enhanced. And, a major feature called Vendor Management has been added to integrate vendor invoicing into PS Enterprise.

New Vendor Management Features

PS Enterprise has new functionality that allows a customer's vendors to proactively manage their own invoices and budgets on projects. This provides a level of transparency to allow vendors to add value in the process, not just throw an invoice over the wall. This will help reduce budget overruns on projects, increase efficiency in the process and provide checks and balances between operations and vendors. Also, this will reduce the work needed on the customer end to review submitted items and reconcile vendor invoices, and help prevent duplicate invoicing.

Vendors can create invoices directly through the Partner Portal. After creating an invoice, vendor users can search for un-invoiced items by account, and PS Enterprise automatically adds them as line items to the invoice. PS Enterprise customer operations personnel can manually approve invoices for payment, or set up Salesforce approval processes as desired.

Vendors can access reports and views to help manage the services management process:

All items submitted and the links to the invoices
Status of invoices submitted
Un-invoiced business records
Invoiced business records
Report on all budgets assigned and the remaining amounts

Vendors can also attach a file with the vendor’s own previously created invoice instead of searching for and adding line items. Customer operations personnel would need to manually reconcile items in this case.

Other notes on Vendor invoices:

Once an item is chosen to be on an invoice, it cannot be added to another invoice, preventing duplicate invoices.
The status of an invoice can be updated, and communicated to the vendor, as desired.
Vendors can submit a single invoice for a many projects, or a single project per invoice.
Vendors can submit a single invoice for line items that span budgets.

Timecard Enhancements

These enhancements have been added to Timecard functionality:

An option to move specific fields from the “Notes” section of the Timecard to the main screen (Phase, Methodology and Milestone Fields)
The ability to specify which Timecards will appear on the Missing Timecard Report, based on Timecard status
An option to set which Timecards are used for the Estimates Vs. Actuals reporting, based on Timecard status
More assignments displayed on the Timecard screen drop down menu, configurable

Expense Reporting Enhancements

These enhancements have been added to Expense Reporting functionality:

The ability to enter Expenses in multiple currencies, using either the Salesforce or PSE Advanced Multi Currency function for dated exchange rates
The ability to enter expenses directly against project Milestones

Projects

These enhancements have been added to Project functionality:

The ability to choose Milestones when creating a Project from a template
The ability to automatically create Project budgets from product line Items on an Opportunity
Advanced searching and filtering of Resources by role in the Project Planner

Resource Assignments and Staffing

These enhancements have been added to Resource Assignments and Staffing functionality:

The ability to create multiple assignments instead of one at a time: Resources to Projects, and Projects to Resources
Resource Planner enhancements: open a Resource or Assignment from the Resource Planner; perform advanced searches on Resources
Staffer enhancements: expanded search, view and grouping capabilities; True/False value usage improvements

Forecasts

These enhancements have been added to Forecasts functionality:

Forecast worksheet separates actuals for internal and external resources
Forecast against planned revenue or billings
Forecasting for Projects
Forecast audit history for unscheduled backlog and Milestones
Forecast numbers displayed in user's currency
Forecast revenue and open time report, exportable to Excel

Billing

These enhancements have been added to Billing functionality:

Pre-billed amounts tracked at Project level
Billing events optionally generated for past time periods
Ability to: manually stop specific billable items from billing event generation; filter billing events by transaction categories; manage billing events before processing; and remove billing event batches and specific events

Thanks! We look forward to everyone's feedback as we roll out these new features and enhancements.

- Todd and the entire Appirio team

Cloud Ecosystem Map - Release Notes

2009-11-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

By Troy Angrignon

Today, Appirio launched an interactive cloud ecosystem map on appirio.com/ecosystem, using the map I produced in March as a base, and building on it based on Appirio's experience helping move thousands of companies to the cloud. This post is intended to explain this new release of the cloud ecosystem map and how to use it.

What's on the map:
It sometimes seems as though EVERYTHING is being described as "cloud": SaaS apps, hosted apps, hosting companies... even on-premise virtualization platforms - all are described as "cloud" by some vendors. No wonder there's market confusion. We wanted to sort through the hundreds of offerings being described as "cloud" and put them into some sort of taxonomy so that customers could make sense of this rapidly expanding marketplace.

We've done 2 types of sorting:

The first sorting is vertically, by layer of the technology stack. There seems to be emerging consensus around the 3 major layers of the cloud: applications, application platforms, and infrastructure. Within each of these layers, however, are dozens of different types of solutions. Most are not true "layers" of technology, but we made a rough attempt to sort them by their level of abstraction in order to make clear what's running on what.

The second sorting is horizontally, by type of solution. The underlying architecture of a solution matters, because it drives the economics available to the customer. Our first column is reserved for solutions that are multi-tenant, single instance-- what we'll call true public cloud. The second column is reserved for vendor hosted solutions that are either single-tenant or multi-instance-- a different architecture than what's behind the public cloud. The third column is reserved for what's being called the "private cloud"-- any technology that brings some of the benefits of the private cloud into your on-premise data center.

How to use the map:

Macro view:When you start at the front page, you will see a 3 x 3 box, defined by the dimensions above. From this view, you can see the overall landscape of apps, platforms, and infrastructure of all three types: public, hosted, and private. You can also see the major players here and glance at their lines to see where they play overall. For example, you'll note that Salesforce provides things at all three layers but that some of that functionality is directly accessible to the user (black lines) and some is not (denoted with grey lines). Depending on whether you are focusing on higher levels of abstraction and business value and less on hands-on IT, you will consider that a benefit or a curse.

Zoomed View: To dig deeper, click any of the 9 sub-boxes in order to enter that box.

Once inside a given box, there are two pages (left and right) that will give you the full view of all data. The first page contains the largest or most vertically integrated players in the category. The second page contains either the smaller or the more point-solution focused providers. That's a guideline, not a rule-- appearance in the right hand page does not denote lack of power or size!
You will also find a miniature nine-box navigation icon in the upper left corner. You can use that to jump directly from any section to any other section by clicking on the appropriate square in that navigation icon. Should you wish to go to the main page, simply click on our logo or on "Home."
For some of the data you will find clickable links. This data has been mostly added to the vertically integrated major players in Column 1: Public Cloud / Multi-tenant. We'll be adding more of these links over time.
You will also see green dots throughout the document. Those are connection points horizontally across the landscape. It means that there is a partnership connection or that that offering connects within a column or between major columns. A great example is the Finance row where Salesforce.com has deep integrations with external partners. There are many of those cross-column, cross-cloud, and public/private bridging mechanisms. We believe there will be a lot of innovation in this area and we sometimes refer to them as "bridging" technologies.

How to contribute:
Please note that this is very much a work-in-progress. It is not and was not intended to be 100% comprehensive. It is intended to be a "very good sketch", not a super high resolution photo of the landscape. Our goal is really to note the 20% that covers 80% of the cases, particularly in the platform and infrastructure layers. The Saas marketplace has been covered very well already by the likes of Jeff Kaplan's SaaS Showplace. Having said that, feel free to send us submissions for consideration in future updates as it is intended to be a dynamic, living, breathing work.

Please explore the document and give us your feedback, thoughts, ideas, and company suggestions by clicking on the "feedback" link on the map or emailing us at cloud@appirio.com.

We'd like to give a nod to those who have already contributed their valuable time and energy to this project: This map began a year ago and at the time it was heavily built upon the work of the following amazing people: Peter Laird, Kent Dixon, Christofer Hoff, Opencrowd.com, Michael Sheehan, Sam Charrington, Robert W. Anderson, Matias Wiloski, John M. Willis, James Urquhart, David Berlind, Randy Bias, and Jean-Lou Dupont. I then expanded it through the involvement and sponsorship of Dealmaker Media and the Under the Radar Clarity in the Cloud program and it was published kindly by Sandhill.com. Recently I have been lucky enough to work with some of the top thinkers in cloud today - my colleagues here at Appirio - many of whom I got to research, white-board, argue, debate, and create with. During this time we pushed ourselves to re-evaluate the nine-box approach and the overall taxonomic structure to make sure it stood up to review. I'm convinced that because of this work, this version of the map is the best yet. Now we are sharing it out, in the hopes that you will come and help make it even better. We hope that this piece of work will contribute in some small way as a tool to help people understand the complexities of public cloud, hosted services, and private clouds and the interplay between them all.

Thanks!
Troy and the entire Appirio team.

Using Facebook And Salesforce For Viral Marketing - Webinar FAQ

2009-05-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

We've just finished compiling and answering the questions received during the Facebook Webinar a few weeks ago.

If you wish to discuss any of the topics in more detail, or wish to dive into how to use Facebook specifically for your business, please contact us at products@appirio.com!

Category	FAQ	Answer
1. General	Can businesses have pages on Facebook?	Businesses can now create pages (which are now very similar to profiles), groups, and applications. Each has a role in engaging with a community
1. General	How can a big company start to use Facebook ?	Facebook can be a very effective component of an overall marketing strategy for companies of all sizes, but big companies often get their first experience with Facebook through unofficial, "bottom up" experimentation that works.
1. General	For very small companies who are just starting and don't have salesforce.com how can Facebook be best utilized?	Get started by creating your company's Facebook page-- see here for some tips on how to get started: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/12/09/inside-facebook-marketing-bible-24-ways-to-market-your-brand-company-product-or-service-in-facebook/
1. General	Could you suggest a major company that is really taking advantage of social networking for marketing ?	Coke, Pringles, Adidas, Apple, and Starbucks are the top brands on Facebook... check out http://www.facebook.com/marketing for examples of how these brands and others are using Facebook to drive business results
1. General	Are people really making money on Facebook?	Even though Facebook itself is still refining its business model, there are lots of copmanies who have run successful social marketing campaigns on Facebook (Coke and Nutella each over 3M fans on Facebook)
1. General	Is Facebook better suited for B2B or B2C marketing?	We have seen Social Marketing work in both B2B and B2C contexts. Cisco and Intuit have used social marketing very effectively to market to businesses. Thinking specifically about word-of-mouth, it's equally applicable in B2B or B2C. As an example from our own industry, the majority of technology buyers rely on their peer network when making big buying decisions and reference calls are often what closes the deal. What Appirio's Referral Management solution provides is a way for businesses to encourage, manage and measure word-of-mouth referrals, which is equally applicable to all types of businesses.
1. General	Do you have any examples of B2B companies using Facebook?	There are lots of examples of B2B companies on Facebook. Two interesting examples are Hubspot and Salesforce. Hubspot, is an inbound marketing company that helps companies build online marketing campaigns. They use Facebook and Twitter in very creative ways to drive their business. Salesforce is experimenting with persona-based marketing on their Facebook page. Most of the big companies, Cisco, IBM, etc, are on Facebook. The problem right now is turning presence into something more, which we hope solutions like ours will help to accelerate.
1. General	I'm a Sales Manager. How can I use facebook professionally to keep in contact with customers while keeping information private?	If you do use Facebook to connect with your customers, the information they share with you using Facebook mail will only be visible to you. If they write on your wall or interact in other more public ways, it'll be visible to you and your friends but not to the public. Facebook is platform for sharing information with trusted groups of friends, so only the information you or your customers choose to expose will be public. For more tips on using Facebook at Work, check our blog (http://productblog.appirio.com/2008/12/appirio-product-tip-how-to-use-facebook.html).
1. General	How should companies engage with their community on Facebook? Is there a risk of employees taking relationships with them when they leave?	Facebook allows businesses to maintain Pages that can have fans and many of the same properties as individuals on FB. You're right that each person owns their own network, but that's no different than what happens in the offline world. The difference is that using Facebook pages, companies can start build 1-1 relationships with their customers and maintain and nurture those relationships over time.
1. General	How are people using Facebook vs. LinkedIn?	Facebook is a great platform for engaging with professional contacts, many of whom become your friends over time. LinkedIn is a great service but it's thusfar not been as immersive or engaging as Facebook. In Facebook, you can maintain some separation of personas by following these tips (http://productblog.appirio.com/2008/12/appirio-product-tip-how-to-use-facebook.html)
1. General	Are there apps that connect Salesforce to LinkedIn or Twitter?	Salesforce's Service Cloud integrates Twitter and Salesforce. LinkedIn does not have a generally available API, so no similar applications are available at this time
1. General	Do you have any insights into what the next step AFTER Facebook will be?	I wish we had a good answer for this question! Facebook has proven that its an agile platform able adapt very quickly to new trends-- our expectation is that it will remain a powerful platform for engaging with a community for a long time to come.
1. General	What age groups are impacted by Facebook?	Many are surprised by the growing age diversity among Facebook users-- the fastest growing demographic is women over 55. Read more here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/? fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=102973
1. General	Are people ready to purchase when they are on Facebook?	Not always-- that's why traditional advertising may not be the most effective way to engage with people in Facebook. People are on Facebook to share with their friends-- that's why we think the most effective way for a brand to market itself on Facebook is by encouraging word of mouth referrals.
1. General	Aren't you one click away from all your competitors in Facebook?	That's true everywhere on the internet! You need to build a community in Facebook precisely because all your competitors are there.
1. General	Is Facebook allowing external parties to access all private data?	Facebook does not allow external parties to access private data. The only data that is available outside Facebook is that which the user chooses to make public.
1. General	Is it possible to bring Facebook data into Salesforce leads?	Facebook data cannot be stored outside of Facebook-- we only bring into Salesforce information that a user chooses to share when they express interest in what your brand has to offer.
1. General	My company primarily sells to companies with very strict rules about what can be viewed on the web. Can I use Facebook?	Since key employees of your prospective customers are still most likely using Facebook outside work, and making recommendations to their friends, there may still be an opportunity to use Facebook.
1. General	Do people other than college students have time for all this?	~50% of Facebook users are over 25 and 35+ is the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook (http://www.istrategylabs.com/2009-facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-276-growth-in-35-54-year-old-users/), so it's most definitely not just for college students.
1. General	How much time does the average Facebook User spend on the site?	We don't have exact usage statistics but Facebook is a highly engaging service with over 50% of users returning every day.
1. General	What are your thoughts on setting up a separate page for business and keeping the personal profile a little more private/selective?	It is completely up to each user and business. Every business should set up a Facebook page and start engaging directly with their community. In terms of personal profiles, we absolutely believe that these should be as private as the user wants it to be. This control is what differentiates Facebook and gives applications like ours their power. The fact that something was recommended to me by a friend is what makes me take action where a mass email does not.
1. General	What do you say to those who are questioning how Facebook will monetize its HUGE audience? Is this a concern?	Facebook's monetization strategy is a concern only in so far as it affects their viability as a business. Given the strength of their management team, their investors and their user base, we have no doubts about their future.
1. General	What percent of people use Facebook for business versus personal?	If your customers are on Facebook, you and your company need to be on Facebook, regardless of where you choose do your professional networking. People are pretty early in their adoption of Facebook and other social networks and these types of behavioral norms are evolving rapidly. However, given that the boundaries of business and personal life are quite blurred, we're not sure it's even possible to calculate such a %.
1. General	Will using Facebook for marketting purposes backfire and force users to abanden it?	Facebook users have a lot of control over how they are marketed to within the social network. If a company or brand abuses the trust of their fans, they will quickly lose their fan base. That's why its so important to use Facebook carefully for viral marketing.
1. General	What apps are needed to do what was demonstrated?	If you already have Salesforce, you will need Faceconnector if you want to view Facebook profiles within Salesforce and Appirio's Referral Management Solution if you'd like to run word-of-mouth marketing campaigns on Facebook
1. General	Where can I find the products shown in the webinar?	Appirio's Referal Management system can be found at www.appirio.com/facebook. Faceconnector can be found at http://salesbookapp.com/faceconnector/
1. General	Can I view these slides again?	The entire webinar can be viewed again at http://www.appirio.com/landing/fb_webinar.php
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Can you summarize the steps of Appirio's Referal Management Solution?	Fans add the application, brands publish information to their fans, the application suggests friends of your fans who might be interested, those friends take action on the content, and all this activity is measured in Salesforce.com
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What's the difference between using Facebook for branding vs. Facebook for lead generation?	Branding is typically about driving impressions. Our approach of driving word-of-mouth, is by it's very nature not about impressions but about driving relevant action. For example, if I think an Appirio webinar on cloud strategy is relevant to my friend Sarah, who runs app dev for a large company, I'll recommend it to her using our application. Since she trusts me, she'll most likely register for the webinar and thus become a lead for us. So, our WOM campaign may only generate 1/10 the number of impressions as a display ad, but we're generating concrete results because of the highly personalized and targeted nature of the referrals
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	How do you distinguish your Facebook applications from the thousands of other, sometimes lower quality, applications available?	Our Facebook application helps businesses drive leads by connecting more closely with their customers and encouraging word-of-mouth referrals. We distinguish ourselves by providing our customers with the ability to measure the effectiveness of their word-of-mouth campaigns. By linking Salesforce with Facebook, our customers can see which campaigns perform best, e.g., a tradeshow or a word-of-mouth campaign, and make their own decisiosn
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Could you talk about the benefits of groups vs. pages vs. apps?	While groups of individuals can form and manage a group, pages and apps require a sponsor. Every brand should have a page to showcase what they have to say, and our perspective is that creating an app is a high engagement complement to your page. 95% of Facebook users have installed an application.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Do we need to rely on passive word of mouth in order to get our product name out there?	Passive WOM is a great thing but what we're trying to do with our app is encourage active WOM. By making relevant suggestions to people about what might appeal to their friends, we're encouraging them to make the shift from being passive to being active and making recommendations
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Aren't you asking people to push your brand for you?	You're right that any word-of-mouth approach relies on the user feeling strongly enough about a product or service to recommend it to their friends.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Does the application only have access to your network?	By installing the app, each user gives the app permission to "look through" their network and make recommendations to them based on the keywords in their friends profile. Maintaining the trust of the network is critical so we're very careful that we only use information that the user grants us access to, and, we encourage the user to take action, the app never sends out email or other messages directly.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Facebook allows you to track and monitor fans of your page-- how does it help to connect to Salesforce?	Connecting Facebook to Salesforce gives you a lot more flexibility in how you manage your community. You can see who refers whom, measure a referral through your lead pipeline, and integrate Facebook with your other marketing efforts.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What about B2B marketing? [Lots of questions on this topic]	Even B2B companies sell to individuals at the end of the day... individuals who are oftentimes actively exploring their interests in Facebook. Facebook can be a powerful way to make a more powerful, personal connections with the people you work with at your important accounts....and Facebook gives you a good set of tools to help you keep your work life seperate from your personal life! Marketing on Facebook is not a replacement for personal connections on professional networking sites like LinkedIn. But your customers are also very likely to be among the 200 M users of Facebook-- few brands can afford not to be part of this rich community.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	I am the national marketing coordinator for a franchised company. Is there a way via facebook, to connect with all the networks of all my franchises?	Only through their friends-- that's why its important to engage a community in Facebook, and provide content that people are eager to pass along to the people they work with.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Do we have to subscribe to salesforce to use Appirio's application?	Yes: Salesforce is the backend to Appirio's application. But you don't need to be an existing SFA customer-- some customers just purchase 1 seat for the marketing analyst who will be managing their Facebook campaigns.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Does Appirio require the Campaigns feature in Salesforce to aggregate information?	Appirio's Referal Management System is based on campaigns by default, but can also be configured to work with custom objects. Unfortuntaley, at this time the application does not work with Salesforce Professional Edition
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Is this application available for organizations using the Non-profit version of Salesforce?	Yes, and we are excited to offer a 50% discount on our products to non-profits
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What about security?	Salesforce and Facebook can be used together in a highly secure way. Communication between the 2 is handled via the standard Salesforce API, and all login information is encrypted both at rest and over the wire. No Facebook data is stored outside of our Facebook application without permission, reducing the risk of compromised personal security.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What about integration with marketing automation solutions like Marketo and Eloqua?	Integration is in the works with marketing solutions powered by Salesforce.com-- please stay tuned for more details. Contact sales@appirio.com if you have a particular solution you'd like to connect with.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What about audio and video?	Facebook makes it easy to share multi-media through a newsfeed-- we're working on supporting this feature within our Referral Management System.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Is your application available in other languages?	At this time, our application only supports English language Facebook applications
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	You showed pulling up a Facebook profile for an existing contact within Salesforce... can I also find new leads based on Facebook profiles?	Faceconnector and Appirio's Referal Management solution complement each other in exactly this way. Faceconnector shows you information from Facebook for your existing contacts-- Appirio helps you find new leads in Facebook by encouraging word of mouth referrals.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Do you have LinkedIn connectivity or comments about opportunities with LinkedIn as well?	LinkedIn is also a powerful social network, especially for job hunters. But it is not yet as powerful a platform for building custom applications for your business, or for engaging with a community who is not in job-hunting mode.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Do you find that the trust is stronger with one network more than another?	At the end of the day, people trust their friends. That's why we're so excited about Facebook-- the level of friend-to-friend communication is so high. Participating in that dialog in an authentic way is very powerful for any brand... that's what we're trying to enable with our applications.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What about Twitter?	Unlike Facebook, Twitter is very public medium that is used to engage in conversations with large groups of people. Our approach of encouraging trusted, word-of-mouth referrals is much better suited to Facebook which is what people use to engage with their friends rather than Twitter which people typically use to engage with strangers.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	I know a lot of people don't accept Facebook intro's if they are not really friends. How can I use Facebook as a prospecting tool?	Reaching out to someone you don't know on Facebook is poor form-- that's why the key to effective marketing on Facebook is to reach people through the people that they are already friends with. That's what we aim to do with our Referral Management system-- encourage, manage, and measure word of mouth referrals.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Are there issues with ownership of the information stored in facebook?	There has been a lot of press on Facebook's terms of service-- our view is that you should not post confidential company information on Facebook. That's why it is so powerful to hook Facebook up to Salesforce.com-- you can manage your confidential information in Salesforce and publish what's meant to be public on Facebook.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	How do you find your target market (title, size of comany, etc...) on Facebook?	There are two ways to find your target market. With Facebook advertising, it's possible to segment your audience based on very detailed profiling variables. If you're using a word-of-mouth approach we demonstrated, your community is doing the targeting based on what they know about their friends, which is clearly a lot more targeted than even the best segmentation!
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	Which messages go to news feeds vs. notifications vs. invites?	The application sends notifications directly to users. Users send private invitations to their friends, and post public invitations on their profile.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	How is having this different than just creating a pages account on facebook?	A pages account helps you distribute information out to your community but does not encourage them take the next step of actively promoting your company's offerings. Our referral management solution enables companies to go beyond mere information distribution and passive word of mouth to active, measurable promotion.
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	You mentioned valuing influencers and investing in their loyalty, do you have any suggetions on ways to provide them with reciprocal value?	There are many different ways to provide value to your influencers. This can range from giving them financial incentives to giving them privileged access to information or offers. It completely depends on the type of company and how creative they want to get!
2. Appirio's Referal Management Solution	What is the business relationship between Appirio and Salesforce.com?	Appirio is Salesforce's fastest growing partner. We've completed professional service engagements at over 150 enterprises including some of Salesforce's largest customers. We help enterprises customize and deploy Salesforce, as well as build custom applications on the Salesforce platform. We've also built a portfolio of products on the Salesforce platform, including the Referral Management Application you saw in the webinar and many more including 3 top 10 apps on the App Exchange.
3. The Facebook Era / Faceconnector	How does Faceconnector make matches with Salesforce?	Since email addresses are protected in Facebook, Faceconnector makes matches based on first and last name
3. The Facebook Era / Faceconnector	Does advertising through Faceconnector leave traces in the Contacts etc related lists, e.g. Activities?	There is no advertising in Faceconnector, and Faceconnector activity is not tracked as an activity
3. The Facebook Era / Faceconnector	How do Faceconnector and Appirio's apps interface?	Faceconnector and Appirio's Referral Management System are both built and connect using Salesforce.com's lead and contact objects
3. The Facebook Era / Faceconnector	Is there a book on Facebook and utilizing social networking to promote your business?	The leading book on the subject is The Facebook Era, co-presentor on this webinar! You can get her book at: http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Era-Networks-Products-Audiences
3. The Facebook Era / Faceconnector	I just purchased Clara's book on Amazon for my Kindle. Is the promotion still afforded to me?	Contact jaemi@thefacebookera.com for questions about the promotion

Recording - Using Facebook and Salesforce for Viral Marketing

2009-04-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

In case you missed our recent Webinar on using Facebook and Salesforce for Viral Marketing, please note that our recording is now available here.

For more direct information, please find our landing page here.

If you wish to discuss any of the topics in more detail, or wish to dive into how to use Facebook specifically for your business, please contact us at products@appirio.com!

Appirio Sync - Proxy Resolved

2009-04-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

In regards to our earlier message this morning, our production server is back online as of today at 11:02am PST.

All pending syncs will be processed and all contacts and events created during the downtime will be synchronized. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any additional questions, please contact us at support@appirio.com.

Appirio Sync - Proxy Error

2009-04-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Our production server is currently being manually reset to address a global issue. The reset will take a few hours to complete. You may notice this error in the meantime:

----
Proxy Error

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET /sync/premium/index.jsp.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

Apache/2.2.4 (Fedora) Server at www.appirio.net Port 443
----

Please note that once the server is back online, all pending syncs will be processed and all contacts and events created during the downtime will be synchronized. We will post again to confirm once the server is online. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you have any additional questions, please contact us at support@appirio.com.

Appirio Referral Management - New Facebook App Release

2009-04-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

Appirio Referral Management Solution Connects Social Networks with Business Applications to Encourage, Manage and Measure Word-of-Mouth Referrals.

--

We've gone live with a new version of our Referral Management Application for Facebook, with new added features and a cleaner integration.

Here's a quick tour of the new functionality, and how to get started with this free extension to our Referral Management solution:

1. How to install - If you haven't already, click here to add the application to your Facebook profile (be sure to click the buttons pictured below to add a bookmark, give the application offline access, and add to your profile home page):

2. Notifications - The notification feature is now enabled to notify you when there are new items in your feed to share with your community:

3. Newsfeed - Along with making individual recommendations, you can now post directly to your newsfeed for your entire network to see. Click this button and tell all your friends about an event you think they'll be interested in, a new job your company is recruiting for, or a sales opportunity. When you refer a friend, you'll also now see that on your newsfeed:

4. Custom Event Pages - Now we don't need to take your friends outside of Facebook for them to sign up for an event. We've created customized, social event pages, right within Facebook:

Example here:

If you have any questions about this new release, or our Referral Management Solution, please contact us.

Appirio Sync - Important Update

2009-04-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

Due to the immense popularity of our Sync products for Salesforce and Google, we are going to update our infrastructure to help confirm that continued usage of our products remains seamless. Part of our installation process requires that our customer either (1) Whitelist our IP address, or (2) Login with the Salesforce Security Token, to activate the product. Salesforce security measures require this activation. A few of our longstanding accounts may be currently activated via whitelisting a legacy server IP address that we will be taking offline. To ensure continued success with Appirio's sync products, please note our following user solution: Appirio Sync - Granting Access. This guide will detail how to grant access to Appirio's products by whitelisting the correct IP address, or using your Salesforce Security Token.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We've Updated to the New Blogger...

2009-03-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

We've just moved this blog to the latest and greatest version of Blogger to take advantage of some of the additional capabilities that it offers. The look will remain largely the same, but over time we will be adding features/functionality that will enhance the experience for our readers. No action needed on your part - we've made sure that the RSS feeds and redirects are taken care of.

So please continue to leave comments, pass on stuff you find interesting, and be part of the dialogue.

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 1.1.4

2009-02-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

Appirio PS Essentials leverages Salesforce.com's On-Demand Platform to offer core PSA functionality at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.

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Appirio Professional Service Essentials - Version 1.1.4

Added Functionality

Updated the Resource Skills Matrix:

Notes entry and viewing now available per Skill Entry
Improved security: new "Skills Entry Privilege" setting on Resource: (Option to "Enter for Self", "Everyone", or "No One")
Improved the expand/collapse capability for skills hierarchy

Known Issues Addressed

Created Project Planner notification regarding Assignments without a specified Resource
Fixed Utilization Report issue related to date range selection anomaly

Update to the Appirio Product Portfolio

2009-02-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

Appirio saw enormous success in 2008 with our "connecting the cloud" products-- we have 2,500 organizations using our applications, and have created 3 of the top 10 apps on AppExchange. We continue to be excited about the value of connecting the cloud, and continue to expand on that portfolio (e..g, our connectors to Facebook).

In 2009, you'll see us build on that success with a focused set of applications for use by enterprises looking for solutions to specific business problems. Appirio is now offering a portfolio of 3 enteprise solutions that extend the core capabilities of leading on-demand leading platforms to high-value, outward-facing business processes like marketing, sales, profesisonal services, support, and recruiting.

1. Services Management Services teams in every industry struggle to put the right people on the right projects for successful delivery to internal and external customers. Appirio has created a professional service automation (PSA) Solution to more effectively manage what's core to every services business: your people, your customers, your projects, and your transactions. This application is built 100% on Force.com to provide key integration to your CRM, and seamless communication between Sales, Services, and Finance, all at a lower TCO than traditional solutions.

Our executive team has managed large services teams at companies like Borland, WebMethods, and NetSuite. We know that traditional PSA applications are monolithic point solutions that are difficult to integrate with the rest of your business. They are hard-coded, difficult to personalize, and not built to work in today's boundary-less enterprise.

That's why we used a different approach at Appirio. We built a set of core PSA functionality on Force.com to support the growth of our own services business-- that application has supported a four-fold increase in employees over the last 18 months. We now offer that application on the AppExchange, available today as PS Essentials.

2. Referral Management - Connecting to Facebook's 150 million users in a way that impacts the bottom line requires that your organization actively engage with the community. But while some organizations have established a basic presence on Facebook, all lack adequate tools to build and maintain these relationships. Appirio brings together Facebook and Salesforce to encourage referrals from employees, customers, and partners for viral marketing and recruiting:

Referral Management for Viral Marketing. Encourage your community to refer your offerings to friends in Facebook, manage and measure the effectiveness of word of mouth referrals in Salesforce.
Referral Management for Viral Recruiting connects Facebook and Salesforce so you can suggest job referrals to your employees that wouldn't otherwise have been made. Encourage employees to refer their friends using Facebook, manage and monitor employee referrals in Salesforce.

3. Collaborative Sales & Support - Combine Salesforce and Google to allow your users to share data, documents, and events across your company and your ecosystem. Our solution uses Google dashboards, calendars, and collaborative pages to share business data with non-Salesforce users and enable ad-hoc collaboration between heavy Salesforce users.

To find out more, feel free to contact us at products@appirio.com, or (707) 215-4132.

Release Notes: Appirio Sync Products - 02/10/2009

2009-02-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

Appirio Cloud Connectors - This release was automatically rolled out to all Appirio users of the relevant products below.

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Added Functionality:

Support for Multiday Events - Salesforce recently added support for calendar events of up to 14 days in duration. Users of Salesforce with Multiday Events enabled (Setup > Customize > Activities) can now sync Salesforce with their multiday calendar events from Google (note that the duration of recurring event instances is limited to 24 hours). (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Calendar Sync)

Allow Marketing User Access to All Campaign Timelines - The Marketing User can now see all the Campaign Timelines configured for the organization. This includes their own Campaign Timelines as well as those created by other users. (Products: Campaign Timelines)

Sort Filter and Display Fields in Alphanumeric Order by Label - (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Contact Sync, Campaign Timelines)

Known Issues Addressed:

Fix for Contacts with Empty Email Address - Contacts without email addresses cannot be synced. However, after a contact that previously had no email address was updated to include an email address, it was not synced. (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Contact Sync)

Fix for Conditions reset after Preview - After a preview, filters set to "not equal to" were changed to "equal to". (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Contact Sync)

Fix to Allow Change in Sync Direction, Calendar - Sync was not properly responding to changes in sync direction or calendar unless it was deleted and recreated. (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Calendar Sync)

Fix for Deleted Google Contact Group - After contact sync was configured to filter by Google contact group, the user was unable to revert to syncing all groups. (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Contact Sync)

Fix to Allow Change in Sync Direction, Calendar - Sync was not properly responding to changes in sync direction or calendar unless it was deleted and recreated. (Products: Personal Sync, Premium Sync, Calendar Sync)

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 1.1

2009-01-29T16:02:00.000-08:00

Now available - Project-Centric Planner for Assignments, showing Projects on the left-side pane that can be drilled into (this is the inverse of the Resource Planner, which is Resource-Centric)
Resources can now be assigned to a Project in the drill-down
The Resource layout now contains an embedded "Assignments Control"
The Project layout now contains an embedded "Assignments Control"
Added global PS Config wrapper Apex methods
Added more configuration functionality to Assignments for Timecards via PSE Config values
Added a configurable trigger to prevent duplicate Resources being created for the same Salesforce user (currently Timecard and Expense UIs rely on there being no more than one Resource per User)
Added a "Allow Timecards without Assignments" checkbox to the Project object (checking the checkbox enables Timecards to be entered for these Projects as "Global Projects")

Known Issues Addressed:

Addressed a Resource Planner Flex issue that was causing left (Resource) panel to come up blank on certain actions

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.9.2

2009-01-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

Resource Planner Additions:

The "Drag-and-drop" assignment of Open Assignments to Resources on the Resource drill-down screen
Open Assignment sorting on the main Resource Planner page
A Refresh Button
Configurable Tooltips
Configurable Resource sorting via new sort field on Resource (to keep open assignments on the top of the page)

Known Issues Addressed:

Fixed Apex Test "Governor issues" related to the installation by streamlining Apex triggers

These issues arose after v0.8.6 when we introduced apex config lookups in each trigger
'CloseAssignmentsWhenProjectCompletes' (after Project update): list of assignments is only updated via DML if list size is greater than zero
'UpdateHoursOnAssignment' (after Timecard insert/update): assignments whose hours change are added to the update list and DML update only executes if list size is greater than zero

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.9.1

2009-01-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

Added the 'Project Manager' lookup field to the Assignment object on the Resource record and Resource page layout
Removed the existing 'Project Manager' lookup to the Contact object from the Resource page layout
Added an Apex wrapper class with internal utility methods
Added an Apex test method for PSe Config utility methods
Added PSe Config values to control 6 of 7 PS Essentials Apex triggers, and updated those triggers to check config values to determine whether to run

Known Issues Addressed:

Removed 'Request Deletion' button from other page layouts (Assignment, Project)

Appirio Product Tip: How to use Facebook at Work

2008-12-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

As the enterprise begins to take note of social media like Facebook, and look for ways to get involved, you may find your work life encroaching on sensitive personal information.

To address this, we've created this quick guide to keeping your Facebook personal and Facebook work life separate. Enjoy!

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How can you use Facebook at work while still maintaining privacy over your personal life? For example:

Do you want to control who sees photos of you, even when they are tagged with your name?
Do you want to keep your colleagues from seeing your frequent and personal status updates?

Believe it or not, you can do all these things in Facebook. There are two steps. First, sort your Facebook friends between work friends and personal friends. Then, determine which parts of your Facebook profile will be visible to which set of friends.

Here's how:

Login to Facebook, click on "Friends," and "make a new list" of friends. You'll be prompted to type in the names of friends you'd like to add to this list. You want to create a list for every group of friends from which you want to hide some part of what you do on Facebook.

In the upper right of your screen, click settings / privacy settings, and configure each element of your Facebook Profile. Click "Profile." Then, select "customize" under each element of your profile, and select to "exclude" your work friends list from the portions of your profile you'd like to keep private.

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That's it! Now you can maximize the benefits of leveraging your expansive and fun-to-use social network for work use, with defined barriers between the two.

To find out more about our work connecting Facebook and the enterprise, check out our current projects below, and follow us on Twitter for our future releases.

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.8.6

2008-12-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

Appirio PS Essentials leverages Salesforce.com's On-Demand Platform to offer core PSA functionality at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.

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Appirio Professional Service Essentials - Version 0.8.6

Added Functionality:

Updated the following Project field label: "Travel Amount" is now "Expense Amount"
Updated the following Project field label: "Travel Notes" is now "Expense Notes"
Removed an automated notification email and added comments to the underlying code to indicate it's function: sample code illustrating how to send a notification from a button
Updated the Skills Matrix to prevent users from saving skills without first selecting the associated Resource

Known Issues Addressed:

Realigned the tab order for the Timecard user interface
Addressed known issue for non-admin users within the Resource Planner user interface
Removed the 'Request Deletion' button from the Timecard page layout

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.8.3

2008-12-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

Created a new configuration for the Timecard ("default.billable") which controls the default value of the Timecard billable checkbox
Added "Resource Planner" as the page title
Added "Include in Project Financials" checkbox to the Timecard and changed all Project Timecard roll-ups to filter based on this checkbox - it will ultimately be up to the customer during implementation to set Workflows based on the Timecard Status or other criteria to set or unset this checkbox as necessary

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.8.1

2008-12-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

Created the Team field on the Resource record (to be used instead of the Team field on the Contact record)
Re-wrote the Utilization Report to use the Resource Team field in grouping functionality
Replaced references to 'Consultant' in the Utilization Report with 'Resource'
Added a date picker field to the Timecard entry UI

Known Issues Addressed:

Fixed the Javascript API *namespace* bug that was causing a failure in the "Mark as Invoiced" list button for Timecards
Fixed the alignment problem in the Resource planner when fields are added to the assignment details section
Fixed a known issue which occurs when saving a null value in a number field in the assignment details section

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.8

2008-11-30T09:25:00.000-08:00

Fixed a SOQL error for the Resource Resumes control (when no resources are present in system, provided error)
Removed unnecessary references from the help text of some Resource fields
Replaced references to 'consultant' with 'resource' in Resource and Project fields
Removed unnecessary string literals from the Enter Skills S-Control

Release Notes: Appirio Professional Service Essentials - V 0.7.7

2008-11-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

Added time-based filtering of available projects in the Timecard UI (based on the start and end dates of the associated Assignments)
Added next and previous week buttons to the Timecard object
Created a "pop-up" in the Utilization Report for the link: "How does PS Essentials calculate utilization?"
Added functionality to allow the Resource Planner to show the assignments in correct order after an edit

Known Issues Addressed:

Fixed a known Timecard issue regarding an intermittent dialog box appearance
Fixed the handling of assignments with invalid date ranges in the Resource Planner
Fixed the column mis-alignment in the rendered Utilization Report results
Removed unnecessary references in rendered string literals and field help

Launching Appirio Professional Service Essentials

2008-11-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

Appirio PS Essentials leverages Salesforce.com's On-Demand Platform to offer core PSA functionality at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.

As a professional services organization here at Appirio, we've had to address our own needs for a PSA solution quickly and with the option to scale. Current options available on the market either didn't provide the value we'd expect, or weren't on-demand (as a serverless enterprise, it's not just a choice, but a mandatory requirement). Our natural progression led us to create the building blocks for what's becoming a full services management tool, using the Force.com platform.

We have been using early versions of PS Essentials to run our own business since we started. In just the last 12 months, our business has grown over 500 percent. We've significantly increased the size and reach of our delivery team and have added subcontractors to our resource pool. The PS Essentials package has helped us scale quickly, and manage a high volume of daily resourcing activity with minimal administrative staff. We've decided to package this powerful solution into a product to provide the same value we see everyday to our customers.

Our intent with PS Essentials is threefold:

To solve the core needs of professional services firms at a fraction of the cost of traditional offerings. Our solution builds on the Force.com platform, therefore it eliminates the need to purchase expensive IT infrastructure, lowering both up-front and ongoing costs.
Enable customers to get up and running quickly without getting locked into a solution that may not be right for them down the road.
To provide existing Salesforce CRM customers with the added value of using this solution to help unify their sales and services businesses, which can improve win rates, client satisfaction and overall utilization.

Information on Appirio PS Essentials is now available today on the Force.com AppExchange or by contacting us directly.

Pricing:

Starting at $20 per user per month, PS Essentials represents a signficant TCO reduction when compared to traditional solutions.
Available today. Click here to request a trial, or for a free evaluation from an Appirio Client Manager.

Launching Appirio Adoption Accelerator (AAA)

2008-10-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

Appirio Adoption Accelerator: A Personalized Help Tab for Salesforce.com

User adoption is a hurdle that any organization considering new technology must take into account. Anyone leveraging SaaS solutions will face these exact same challenges. Today we announced our launch of Appirio Adoption Accelerator (AAA) to help users engage more collaboratively and effectively, and go a step beyond generic product help or one-time training classes.

AAA consolidates and organizes a wide range of material; from useful web pages and presentations, to training manuals and video help files. AAA allows the user community to propose and rate material they find helpful, and makes it easy for Salesforce CRM administrators to add, categorize, and manage this material in a way that is most useful to their organization. AAA also comes with a one year subscription to a stream of content that is selected and edited by our in-house experts who have experience with hundreds of customer implementations.

From assistance with basic Salesforce.com usage, to screen-capture movies, to online presentations and training personalized to your organization, to user-promoted content, it's time to provide your users with the information they need to make the most of your Salesforce.com investment.

Features of Adoption Accelerator:

A single place for your users to search and find help, best practices, and training tailored specifically to how your organization uses Salesforce
User community can rate and propose material that they find helpful
Easy administration of all materials-- add new content, manage and categorize existing content.

Pricing:

$24 per user per year for our "Standard Edition." Contact us to ask about "Unlimited Edition" or Volume Discounts
Comes with 1 year free subscription to a weekly stream of pre-screened and edited content sent directly from Appirio
Enterprise-level support for customers with >10 users

Getting Started:

View the Demo
Read the Datasheet
Download today from the AppExchange
Drop by and see it in action at Dreamforce 2008 in San Francisco, in Appirio booth #487 and in the AppExchange booth #452A!

MyFriends@Work Goes Viral!

2008-10-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

In our mission to Accelerate the Adoption of On-Demand, and Connect the Cloud, we announced on 10/23/2008 our new Facebook application that allows businesspeople to use their social network to get their job done by connecting Salesforce to Facebook. Today we are inviting users and spreading the word using the viral nature of Facebook.

MyFriends@Work compares your list of Facebook friends to all the contacts, leads, and users in your company's Salesforce org. When there's a match, we'll let you know via notification or via email whenever your friends do business with your company. MyFriends@Work is a free application from Appirio available on Facebook.

Here's what you can do now to get started:

Watch a demo of the application, read the press release, and check out our product page
If you haven't already, sign up for a free Facebook account , and become a fan of Appirio!
Add MyFriends@Work to your profile
Enter your Salesforce creditials and check out your Salesforce "feed"
Send your friends at work "thank you's", "introductions", and "recommendations"!

Appirio wants to help companies use social networks in every area of their business to more effectively promote their brand, generate new business and even find new employees. Contact us to learn more.

Alert: Appirio Cloud Storage Notification - 10/28/08

2008-10-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Our AppExchange package updates to address the issue between the recent Shockwave Flash v10.0 r12 upgrade and Salesforce's Winter '09 API are now available here:

As with any new package, the upgrade is seamless-- you can update the package without having to redo any security settings, page layouts, custom object configurations, and without affecting any of your existing attachments. Please also note that this package update will work with any previous version of Flash, along with Flash 10 (unaffected users will not be adversely affected by this update).

The technical details on the issue are as follows: There is a problem with the Force.com toolkit when running in Flash 10 if the SWF file is not hosted on Salesforce. It's undetermined whether it's an Adobe issue or a Salesforce issue with the Force.com toolkit. To fix, we are now hosting the SWF file within Salesforce.

Please contact support@appirio.com if you have any questions.