CRM On Demand: How to highlight records in a list ?.

Many of us use lists in Oracle CRM On Demand. It makes our life simple. Records are displayed in the list based on predefined criteria and we can scroll through the list of records and work on them as required. When we hover on the list, the rows are automatically highlighted.

What if we have more records come up on a list ? Without a visual indicator one would not know what records were previewed. It will be nice to have the row highlighted, once the record is previewed, isn't it ? I came across this interesting problem some time back and thought it would be useful to share the solution I designed.

Below is a screen shot of a sample list, if you click on individual rows, the row should be highlighted till the screen is refreshed (this is the requirement)

Below is a screen shot of  how a list would look like after couple of records were previewed and clicked.

Wondering how to do it ? :) I did have to break my head a bit to get the JavaScript working, but now that its working, one can make use of this and accomplish this requirement. Below are few simple steps that explains how to do it..

1) Create a new web applet by navigating to Admin > Application Customization > Global web applet.
Set the parameters as shown in the below screen shot.

2) Paste the below JavaScript in the Web Applet HTML text box.

<script>
ListDecorMgr.attachTREvt=function(tr){
   tr.onmouseover = null;
   tr.onmouseout = null;
   tr.onclick = ListDecorMgr.hiLiteTR;
}


ListDecorMgr.doHilite = function(tr){
   if (tr!=null && !isUndefined(tr) && (isUndefined(tr._savedBGColor) || tr._savedBGColor == null)){
   
      // Set color code here
      tr._savedBGColor = "#B3EDFF";
      tr.style.backgroundColor = "#B3EDFF";


      ListDecorMgr.hlTR.push(tr);
   }
   ListDecorMgr.clearTimer();
}


ListDecorMgr.hiLiteTR = function(evt){
var tr=this;
ListDecorMgr.doHilite(tr);
}
</script>

3) Add the new web applet to your action bar layout by navigating to My Setup > Personal Layout > Action Bar Layout.

4) Access a sample list by navigating to Accounts Tab > My Accounts List, or any of your favorite lists in the application and click on individual rows. You will see that the rows will be highlighted and will stay till the screen is refreshed :)

Note: Do test this on your staging environment ! before you put it on your live instance !

Hope you liked it ! Do share your thought and comments.

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Mass Email from CRM On Demand at no Cost

This particular article is useful for people who are sending mass emails as newsletters or equivalent, and have been using their outlook to send them. You might have all the Contacts in your CRM, present in your outlook also, but the challenge would be creating a segmented email list. You dont want to send a newsletter on Golf accessories to a contact who would be primarily be interested in fishing accessories :). You will be using your outlook itself to send the emails but what you are doing is leveraging tools that CRM On Demand provides you along with leveraging the CRM data.

You would using Mail Merge document, which is available to download for no cost at all. Below are the steps that will help you attain your mass emails.

Step 1:Design your email template in the Mail Merge Document. The ones highlighted in grey are the wildcards that would be replaced by the actual data from your CRM, depending on the specific Contact record's details.

Step 2: Choose your segmentation criteria

Step 3: Have a quick preview and choose Send Email option in step5 of the mail merge

Click "OK" and thats it, your emails will be sent :)

Note: You will have to use your own discretion on the number of emails that you would send out at one shot as you will be using your outlook to send emails :) you dont wanna jam that up... :)

Do leave your feedback/doubts :)

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Contact Details with Picture

I was just thinking that wouldn't it be good if we can actually see the contact with whom we are doing business?
Having all his info alongside his pic. Giving more of a social website feel to your CRM Application. Moreover its always great to know what the person, that we are talking to, looks like :)

Imagine we have Contacts page which looks like the below Screen shot

Sleek and gives some interesting feel to the entire CRM Application.

Now the question comes is how to attain that? Very simple. You would use Reports to do that. Yes it can be done using the Narrative in the reports. All you would need is some simple HTML code to be inserted in the Narrative section, and you can design it to your liking and your requirements.

There are a lot of possibilities that you can do, maybe you can turn the entire CRM Application which would look exactly like Facebook !

So leave your comments/ feedback/questions.



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Generate Leads from Facebook

In the Last Post we showed you how you can leverage Twitter to generate leads, in this post it will be Facebook. The concept here is that you will be doing a search on the status of the Facebook users trying to find if anyone is looking to buy a product that you might be offering.

How we do it is really simple. We will be using reports to get this done!

In the following example, the scenario is that you want to do a search for leads for Cameras which is one of your product lines.

Once you choose the Camera, a search is done on status of FB Users, where they are looking for a camera. Now all you need to do is get in touch with them and see if that could be the lead that you wanted.

Feel free to ask any questions/doubts that you would have :)



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Generate Leads from Twitter

Effective sales is possible when one has a good sales pipeline. And to have a good pipeline one needs to capture the right leads. Social network is very helpful when it comes to capturing leads. Lot of people interact on the social network and talk about buying products, or evaluating products, do product comparisons, discuss about best product price etc. Twitter being one of the prominent social networks, can be effectively used to search for potential leads.

For example if your company is selling car insurance, you may want to find out people who are interested in buying car insurance. Why not get leads from twitter ? How about having live feed going on any of the homepages, where people might be looking for something that might turn out to be one of your offering.

You can set the lead search query in the mash up and every time you login into the application you will have possible leads already listed in the Twitter mash up. Below is a screen shot of the same.

Below is how you can do it a few simple steps.

1) You will need the below twitter search widget JavaScript. All you have to do is change the query based on the kind of leads you want to search for. In the below example I have set the query to 'need car insurance'. One can set the query based on the specific need.

<script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js"></script>
<script>
new TWTR.Widget({
  version: 2,
  type: 'search',
  search: 'need car insurance', 
  interval: 6000,
  title: '',
  subject: 'Car Insurance Leads',
  width: 'auto',
  height: 300,
  theme: {
    shell: {
      background: '#ffe27a',
      color: '#000000'
    },
    tweets: {
      background: '#ebfaff',
      color: '#000000',
      links: '#2c4db0'
    }
  },
  features: {
    scrollbar: true,
    loop: false,
    live: true,
    hashtags: true,
    timestamp: true,
    avatars: true,
    toptweets: true,
    behavior: 'all'
  }
}).render().start();
</script>

2) Create a new lead web applet in CRM On Demand by navigating to Admin > Application Customization > Lead > Lead Web Applet > Select type = HTML. Paste the above JavaScript in the Web Applet HTML section. Then expose it on the lead home page.

3) To know more about how to customize the twitter search widget, refer to my previous article here below.

http://www.crmondemandtricks.com/2011/02/get-contacts-twitter-feed.html

That’s it! Now when you navigate to your lead home page you will see the possible leads listed in the Twitter lead mash up.

Once you have found a potential lead, you can create it in CRM on Demand Application and drive the sales process further.

Hope you found it useful, do feel free to share your thoughts and comments!

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Generate Quotes/Invoices using Reports

Wanted to generate a Quote/Invoice from within CRM On Demand, without having to do a custom implementation? If yes then you can actually do it leveraging reports.

Note:This trick that I am going to showcase would enable you to only create a quote in a pdf/html, and not a full blown quote management functionality. This would be useful for those business whose aim is to just generate invoices and send it over, and maybe save it as an attachment manually to keep records.

Below is what you see how it would look like. You would have a related section on your Opportunity Detail page (Bill in the below Screen shot). And all the details regarding the Contact, Product lines etc would be pulled from the Opportunity record automatically.

Now you can click on the printer friendly option and then take a print out and send it over or email it

Now how you can create this kind of a report? It can be done using the Narrative Section while creating reports.

 You put your HTML in the Narrative section to get the desired template for your invoices

Once you have created your Report for Invoice, you can create a Custom Web Applet in Opportunity which would show the quotes for the respective Opportunity.

Below is a sample final output of the report:-

This trick can be modified in variety of ways to attain your specific requirements!

Hope this helps, do leave your comments/feedback or any questions.


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Tweet your Campaigns Automatically from CRM On Demand

Running a new promotional Campaign... How about tweeting it on your company's Twitter account automatically? Why wait till someone would tweet, when it can be done automatically and instantly?

How we can do this very simple, all you need is to create a workflow that will trigger an email.

You will require a tweetymail,  you can get one from http://tweetymail.com/, that will be linked to your twitter account.

Below are the steps you need to follow:-
1) Create a workflow with the following details:
     Record Type: Campaign
     Trigger Event: When new record saved
     *Workflow condition: You can define some rules or criteria based on which the tweets should happen. For e.g Only when your Campaign Type is "Promotion", twitter should be updated.

2) For Actions, Send Email. The 'To' adress should be the tweetymail address.The Subject and Body would be content can be pulled from the campaign details itself.

That's it. Once this is setup, whenever you create a New Campaign, it will get updated on your twitter :)

The twitter can be updated for a variety of scenarios, Campaigns was just one of them :)

Hope this is helpful, do leave your comments/feedback.

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User Adoption: Track how well your CRM is Used

For success of any CRM implementation, user adoption is a crucial factor.What good is any CRM system, if the users are not using it ? As an employee I would always say that I am using the CRM System on a regular basis, but how can the management track the same? So from a management stand point it becomes very important to know some key usage metrics.

For example: 

Some of the key questions that concerns the management, after making an investment in a CRM system are,
1) Are my Sales Reps/Service Reps/Other Users using the CRM system on a regular basis ?
2) What is the system utilization ? What is the average login usage of every user ?
3) Who is not using the system regularly ? If they are not how can the management help?
4) What is the record usage ? How many records were created, modified and deleted by each user ?
So on and so forth ...

Looking into these metrics the management can then optimize the processes or educate the users better, in order to increase their CRM system usage.

Below are two useful reports that I have designed using the "Usage Tracking Analysis" subject area ! You can quickly create these reports by navigating to Reports > Design Analysis and select "Usage Tracking Analysis" subject area under the Analytics section in Oracle CRM On Demand.

There you are ! You can now have a better understanding of how the system is being used by your users ! isn't it cool and simple ? Apart from these stand alone reports, you can also create historical trending reports which show comparison of User Adoption over a period of time.

Hope you liked it ! Feel free to post your comments and suggestions.

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GPS Navigation to Customer's Location

Imagine a situation, you are on the road and you get a call from one of your contacts that he wants to meet up and discuss an ongoing deal. Wow thats good news!! But you have never met this customer and dont know where he is located. You can ask him where is he located, but... doesnt create an impact on your new customer.You have the info on your CRM On Demand Application, but no time open up your laptop and get it.

Ever face a similar situation? Thats where MSA (Mobile Sales Assistant) comes handy. MSA is supported on Blackberry and iPhones. Now the question is how do you get a GPS Navigation.

Find you contact on your MSA and click on his address, A search would be done and his exact location would be shown. Now start your Navigation using the GPS, and you will reach both on time and correctly!

Hope this was Helpful!! Do leave your comments.

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Gmail Integration with Oracle CRM On Demand using Microsoft Outlook

Using CRMOD? Using Gmail for your emails? Want to have your mails captured inside CRMOD?
The Answer is Yes, But that custom implementation has a cost!!!!
How about getting it for free :) with few simple steps...

*****I know a lot of you know the most obvious solution, But this is for the benefit of others who are still looking for an answer.********

The workaorund will work if you make use of Microsoft Outlook, as the front end client for your Gmails.

1) First you will have to enable POP3/IMAP settings in your Gmail account.

2) Then configure Microsoft Outlook to fetch emails from your Gmail account via POP3/IMAP.

Below link has all the steps required to complete this setup.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77689

Once you are done move along to the next step.

3) Download and Install "Oracle Outlook Email Integration On Demand" plugin. This is available
with no additional cost and can be dowloaded from your CRM On Demand Portal.

To download the install file,
Navigate to My Setup > Data & Integration Tools > Now Click on "Oracle Outlook Email Integration On
Demand" link. Save the install file on your Destop. Once saved, install it.

You can now open an email in your Microsoft Outlook, you will see the "Add to CRM" button.

Not only Gmail, but any webmail which supports POP3/IMAP can be configured in Microsoft Outlook.
So if you are using Yahoo, Hotmail etc then you can easily configure it in the same way.

Found this useful ? Feel free to post your comments !

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Weather: Why ask the customer when you can know it before the Call?

Talking about the weather is the best way of breaking the ice... "How is the weather today in XYZ?" 
Now imagine if you get a call from someone, and he/she says "Seems like there is a heavy snowfall in XYZ today" or "You must be enjoying the bright Sunny Day", what would be the impact? a few of them:-
1) The Customer would get a good feeling
2) One can predict what would be the mood of the person being called, and drive the tone of the call.
3) The person receiving the call doesn't have to encounter the boring question, saving the caller time too :)

We leveraged Linkedin, Twitter, Google apps... Then why not have the classical weather info too?

So how do we get that done... very simple:-


1) Go to the Admin Link >> Application Customization >> Contacts >> Contact Web Applet
2) Create a New Web Applet and give it some name (for eg Web 2.0 , weather or Linkedin, or Profiling Tools :) )
3) Fill in the values for the other parameters:-
     >Location : Detail Page
     > Type : HTML
     > In the Web Applet HTML section paste the following code

 If you need only the weather section:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="http://weatherreports.com/jscript.html?width=300&height=250&theme=white&location=%%%PERSONAL_LIST_ZIP%%%&units=f">
</script>
<div><a href="http://www.weatherreports.com/"><small>Free Weather Reports</small></a></div>

 If you need all 3 viz google maps, linkedin, weather (Like the screen shot above):


<table> <tr><td>
<iframe width="400" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q==%%%Personal_ADDR_Address1%%%,%%%Personal_ADDR_Address2%%%,%%%Personal_CITY_City%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_USSTATE%%%,%%%Personal_PROVINCE_Province%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_ZIP%%%,%%%Personal_COUNTRY_Country%%%&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear==%%%Personal_ADDR_Address1%%%,%%%Personal_CITY_City%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_USSTATE%%%,%%%Personal_PROVINCE_Province%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_ZIP%%%,%%%Personal_COUNTRY_Country%%%&amp;output=embed"></iframe>
</td><td>
<iframe frameborder="0" name="content" id="content" scrolling="auto" src=http://www.linkedin.com/search?search=&sik=1208482857531&keywords=%%%First_Name%%%+%%%Last_Name%%%+&sortCriteria=4 width="650"  height="350"></iframe></td>
<td>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="http://weatherreports.com/jscript.html?width=300&height=250&theme=white&location=%%%PERSONAL_LIST_ZIP%%%&units=f">
</script>
<div><a href="http://www.weatherreports.com/"><small>Free Weather Reports</small></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>


4> Click on Save

Now you have create a related section, a Web Applet that will automatically search for Contact's Zip code and show you the exact weather.

Now all you have to do is expose this related section in your Contacts detail page, by clicking on Edit Layout link on the same page, adding the newly created web applet.

Thats it... :) A simple strategy, but effective... and yea also simple to attain :)

Do leave you comments/doubts. Hope this Helps!!!
  

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Get Contact's Twitter Feed

Web 2.0 is a cool feature in Oracle CRM On Demand, One can easily plugin various portals into the application. Have you ever came across a requirement where you wanted a mash-up of the Twitter RSS Feed inside Oracle CRM On Demand ? Then you have come to the right page!

For example if you want to display the contact's twitter feed in the Contact Detail Page, you can do it very easily ! Below I have explained how one can do this, in a few simple steps.

1) Navigate to Admin > Application Customization > Record Type Setup > Contact > Contact Field Setup. Then add a new field in “Twitter Id” of type Text (short). Below is a screenshot.

2) Now navigate to Admin > Application Customization > Record Type Setup > Contact > Contact Page Layout > Expose this field on the page layout. Click on Finish button to save the layout. The twitter Id field should be now visible in the contact detail page.

3) Now you will need a Twitter RSS Feed Widget. There are a number of twitter widgets available on the internet. I tried this one http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets/widget_profile. Very simple to generate widget JavaScript code. And you can do it quickly !. Here is how you do it.

a) Enter a Twitter Id to generate the widget code.

b) You can set various preferences as shown below

c) Set the widget color preferences that suit your CRM On Demand Theme. You can quickly grab the theme colors from Admin > Application Customization> Themes > Your CRMOD Theme

d) Click on Test Settings button to preview your Twitter RSS widget

e) Set the widget width as necessary. I have selected auto width.

f) Click on the Finish & Grab Code button. Now you will be able to see the widget JavaScript code.

g) Copy and paste the code into a text file. And keep it aside. I have pasted the JavaScript code generated here below.

<script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js"></script>
<script>
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: 'profile',
rpp: 5,
interval: 6000,
width: 'auto',
height: 300,
theme: {
shell: {
background: '#ffe27a',
color: '#000000'
},
tweets: {
background: '#ebfaff',
color: '#000000',
links: '#2207eb'
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: false,
loop: false,
live: false,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: false,
behavior: 'all'
}
}).render().setUser('dharmasagar').start();
</script>

4) Now navigate to Admin > Application Customization > Record Type Setup > Contact > Contact Web Applet. Create a new contact web applet of type HTML, set the location to Detail Page, Set the contact field to “Twitter Id”. Cut paste the generated Twitter Id field and keep it aside.

5) Replace the below line in the widget JavaScript code as shown below.

render().setUser('dharmasagar').start();

to

render().setUser(' %%%stTwitter_Id%%%').start();

6) Paste the widget code generated above into the Web Applet HTML Section and save the web applet.

7) Now navigate to a contact record, and in the Contact Detail Page, add the twitter section, by clicking on the edit layout link.

8) Update the Twitter Id field in the Contact Detail Page, and refresh the screen. You should be able to see the twitter feeds in the Twitter RSS Feed section below. That’s it and you are done! Below is a screen shot of how it looks like :)

Hope you enjoyed reading through! And I hope you will found this article useful as well :)

Do share your comments below. Happy Coding :)!

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Gtalk on Action Bar

"It would be so nice if I could have a chat box within my CRMOD Application, and all the users could stay connected by IM."

Ever got this thought? If yes, you were driven away by the custom implementation? Well if the situation resonates, then here is what I have :)

Some few simple steps and you are done! You will have a Gtalk on your Action Bar!

All you need to do is create a section in the Action Bar.
1) Goto Admin > Application Customization > Global Web Applet
2) Create a new Web Applet & key in the following after giving it a name eg: Gtalk
     Location: Action Bar
     Type: URL
     URL: http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/popout
     Height: 400
3) Now Save it

You have created the Gtalk Section for the Action Bar, now is the time to expose it. To do that:-
Goto My Setup > Personal Layout > Action Bar Layout & select the Gtalk Section & Save

Thats it !! You now have Gtalk on your Action Bar in your CRMOD

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Linkedin, Google Maps, Twitter feeds all within CRMOD Contacts page

Imagine doing business without using Linkedin or Twitter, so difficult to get background and do your profiling, or even if you need to have some middle person who can either influence or introduce you to your Prospect. So why not leverage Linkedin, Twitter or any other popular networking website right within your CRM Application.

How is it possible? Well its due to the Web 2.0 features that allows mash ups, get data from external sources right into your CRMOD and vice versa.

How do you do? Well very simple, follow the simple steps mentioned below:-

1) Go to the Admin Link >> Application Customization >> Contacts >> Contact Web Applet

2) Create a New Web Applet and give it some name (for eg Web 2.0 , or Linkedin, or Profiling Tools :) )

3) Fill in the values for the other parameters:-

     >Location : Detail Page

     > Type : HTML

     > In the Web Applet HTML section paste the following code:

      

<table> <tr><td>

<iframe width="500" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q==%%%Personal_ADDR_Address1%%%,%%%Personal_ADDR_Address2%%%,%%%Personal_CITY_City%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_USSTATE%%%,%%%Personal_PROVINCE_Province%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_ZIP%%%,%%%Personal_COUNTRY_Country%%%&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear==%%%Personal_ADDR_Address1%%%,%%%Personal_CITY_City%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_USSTATE%%%,%%%Personal_PROVINCE_Province%%%,%%%PERSONAL_LIST_ZIP%%%,%%%Personal_COUNTRY_Country%%%&amp;output=embed"></iframe>

</td><td>

<iframe src=http://www.linkedin.com/search?search=&sik=1208482857531&keywords=%%%First_Name%%%+%%%Last_Name%%%+&sortCriteria=4 width="700"  height="350"></iframe></td></tr></table>

4> Click on Save

Now you have create a related section, a Web Applet that will automatically search for Contact's details on Linkedin using the First Name & Last Name, & for Google Maps it will search for the Contacts address and pin points you the exact location. 

Now all you have to do is expose this related section in your Contacts detail page, by clicking on Edit Layout link on the same page, adding the newly created web applet. 

Sweet ain't it?

The above example was for Linkedin & google maps. Same can be done for Twitter feeds. How to do that ... coming soon :)

Do leave your comments/doubts. Hope this helps!

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Oracle CRM On Demand Calendar sync with Google Calander

Using CRM On Demand, wondering how to get it synced with Google Calender? But don't want to pay for the custom integration ? Then you have come to the right page :)

Solution:

You would require Microsoft Outlook. CRMOD has a prebuilt Integration with MS Outlook. Now in order to sync your google calendar with CRMOD Calendar, you would have to use your outlook as your middle man. The process can be set up in 2 simple steps:-

1) Sync Google Calendar with MS Outlook. To do so you can use the free tool found here:-http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=98563

2) Use the PIM sync (provided by CRMOD) which will sync your Outlook & CRMOD Calendar.

Now create your appointment in your CRMOD or Google Calendar or Outlook, everything is in sync.

Do leave your comments / doubts. Hope this helps.

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