What Salesforce1 Means for Your Nonprofit Organization

Keeping the fundamental thought that every customer is unique and that it's necessary to have unique technology to support those needs, Salesforce has developed a new platform called Salesforce1. The Salesforce1 platform is a new mobile experience for users and is much more than a next generation Salesforce Touch mobile app (which is no longer available for download). The platform allows users to access all Salesforce apps, any customizations, customer developed apps, Appexchange apps, and chatter feed including all notifications from any mobile device. The platform is built on top of Force.com, therefore it has the ability to support open API integrations; allowing other systems to interact with Salesforce.

So what does all this mean for your nonprofit organization?

This means your organization can develop and deploy CRM and external applications to employees, partners, clients, board members and volunteers via any mobile device. Real time data from an integrated external system can be used with your organizations' Salesforce CRM. For nonprofits, this can mean your organizations' case workers have the ability to access and update client data from their mobile device while still in the field. Even intake forms can be filled out and processed in real time. If your nonprofit organization tracks and manages volunteer signups online, Salesforce1 can allow volunteers to sign up, check in, log hours, and even provide feedback via their mobile device. The Salesforce1 platform also provides reporting and dashboard functionality, so a board member can login from any device and see the organizations' trends, habits, or financial data in real time.

So how do I get Salesforce1?

Salesforce1 is enabled for all organizations by default (except Salesforce Touch and Communities users) unless your organization has the auto-enabled turned off. Here are the steps for accessing Salesforce1:

1. Download the Salesforce1 app

2. Sign in using your developer credentials

3. Enable notifications (only if it's turned off)

4. Create the Salesforce1 navigation menu by dragging and dropping the relevant items

The basic configuration is done! If you are a more advanced administrator or a super user you can customize how data appears in Salesforce1, create unique publisher actions, or begin to extend the functionality by developing unique user interfaces, designing VisualForce pages, integrating web applications, and so much more which can be found here.

If you become overwhelmed with the capabilities and development possibilities- don't forget- you can always find out more information from other users and professional through the Salesforce Developer Community, Salesforce discussion forums, Salesforce1 development resource documents, and even Salesforce Implementation Partners.