Ready? Enablement

• This feature can only be enabled once your package has been fully enrolled in the AppExchange Partner Program and passed security review.
• Log a case in the Partner Portal, provide your packaging (Developer Edition) org ID, and ask to enable the Push Major feature. If you already have Push Patch enabled, you still need to request the Major add-on in order to access this added functionality.
• Carefully read through best practices and tutorial #4 in the ISVForce Guide. Pushing a major upgrade entails a higher degree of risk as it can break existing functionality in a subscriber’s organization. You are responsible for ensuring that your customers’ orgs are not adversely affected by your new version. Please keep in mind that you could impact customer data, not just metadata, by pushing an upgrade with bugs.

Set. Prepare and communicate

• Test, test, then test some more. Push the upgrade to your own organizations so you can identity and fix any bugs before upgrading subscribers. Remember, the Push Upgrade feature used incorrectly could result in significant customer satisfaction issues.
• Stagger the Push. Start by upgrading a small number of customer organizations. Don’t push changes to all customers at once. You need to ensure that you have bandwidth to handle support cases if there are issues. Also, you will want to discover any additional issues before your entire customer base is affected. Once you gain confidence, you can upgrade customers in larger batches.
• Schedule push upgrades during your customer’s off-peak hours. Have you considered time zone issues for customers outside USA? Did you know Salesforce also uses this functionality to push releases 3x per year? Be sure to avoid scheduling upgrades during these planned maintenance windows and always stay updated with our most recent release information.

Push! Scheduling an Upgrade

1. Log in to your packaging organization.
2. Under Your Name | Setup | Create | Packages, click the name of the managed package whose upgrade you want to push. On the package detail page, click the Versions tab, and then click Push Upgrades.
3. Click Schedule Push Upgrades.
4. Select a package version to push from the Patch Version drop-down list.
5. Enter a Scheduled Start Date, indicating when a push upgrade should begin.
6. In the Select Target Organizations section, select the organizations to receive your push upgrade.
7. Click Schedule.
8. Deprecate the previous version of your package in your main development organization. Update the version your AppExchange listing, and update your Trialforce setup.

Entrepreneurs work tirelessly to help private sector companies streamline all aspects of their business from operations to customer engagement. Their goal and motto is to challenge the status quo and maximize customer satisfaction. Until recently, that mantra wasn’t exactly echoing through the hallways of most government agencies.

In the past few years, a revolutionary wave has gained momentum in Public Sector reaching a tipping point in the way governments are approaching providing solutions and services. We’re seeing private sector innovation applied in exciting new ways allowing governments to transform themselves and fundamentally disrupt the web of bureaucracy flowing from Washington.

Public Sector transformation is being driven by increased data transparency and the formation of government-segmented ecosystems. In a January WSJ, CIO Journal article titled Vivek Kundra: Release Data, Even If It’s Imperfect, Vivek explains this concept and its role in creating efficiencies within government. Vivek says, “the release of government data is helping the private sector create a new wave of innovative apps, like applications that will help patients choose better hospitals. Those apps are built atop anonymized Medicare information.”

Some areas of government are even going so far as to create shared services. When you look at how governments are structured many processes are repeated, and in the past solutions were created or purchased for each unique instance. Various agencies have even gone so far as to create apps themselves and share these solutions without the benefit of leveraging best practices or creating scalable frameworks. Without subject-matter expertise government is falling behind in the business of building and maintaining world class applications.

Thankfully, there are a growing number of ISVs focused heavily on this rapidly expanding opportunity. Some of these companies have been operating in public sector for many years with various on-premise systems. As a result of increased opportunity around cloud computing, these legacy solution providers have gotten “cloudy” by augmenting various functions of their existing solution or by overhauling and re-platforming critical business applications. In addition, there’s an explosion of companies traditionally focused on the business app community who have recognized this fast-growing opportunity in government. ISVs are crossing over from their traditional vertical focus such as financial management and healthcare.

The point is all levels of governments, from Federal, State and Local, are really involved in a bit of everything and are increasingly in need of specialized applications. ISV’s can leverage their private sector expertise and apply that to any number of functions and achieve dramatic results. Many of those partners are focused specifically on leveraging the Salesforce.com Platform.

One great example of an ISV leading that charge is BasicGov. BasicGov’s mission is to help state and local governments provide better services to its citizens. They accomplish this by offering a suite of modules that streamlines and automates processes in community development to achieve smart growth and sustainability goals. My personal favorite is the Citizen Portal where one can “view status of applications, complaints, communications online”.

Sound interesting? Want to learn more and ride the waves emanating from D.C.?

Then grab your board and join Salesforce.com’s Public Sector team on May 22nd as the Salesforce Customer Company Tour stops in Washington, DC. Vivek Kundra will be at the helm as keynote speaker and joined by government leaders and industry experts. The breakout sessions include one track on the AppExchange for Government. AppExchange for Government is an online storefront offering apps specifically geared for federal, state & local governments. Another breakout track, ISVs for Government, will discuss how cloud adoption is accelerating as a result of government furloughs and sequestration. Then focus more on where Salesforce.com is seeing opportunities for ISVs in government and how to get from idea to market as quickly as possible.

Could we be heading into an endless summer? Surf’s up.

We’ll all rise faster, and lead longer, if we help one another build, sell, market, service, and succeed.

When it comes to marketing, events are an essential success factor for salesforce.com — evidenced by the hundreds of global events we host each year…not to mention the best event in business (can you believe Dreamforce is less than 30 weeks away?). Most of the partners who truly thrive with us also dedicate a lot of time and resources to events. Nearly 500 of you sponsored salesforce.com events in 2012 alone, and as a group we hosted and sponsored thousands of events throughout the year.

It’s no secret that event marketing is high-profile, high-stakes, and — if done right — highly rewarding. That’s why we’re building a Success Series focused on Event Marketing and Sponsorships. Throughout the year, we’ll be spotlighting strategies and success stories with partners who are doing exceptional event marketing, achieving great results, and appreciate the value of sharing knowledge.

This effort is all about YOU! So we encourage you to take advantage of the great insights from your peers,raise your hand to help, and tell us what you think we can improve.

Event Success Resources:

• Upcoming Webinar: Campaign Planning is Key, June 5, 2013, 8:30 am-9:00 am PDT, Register here
• 5 Musts for Measuring Success with Xactly Webinar Recording
• 4 Requirements for Being Memorable with Silverpop Webinar Recording
• Selectica’s Dreamforce Sponsor Success Story
• The TAS Group’s Sponsor Success Story

Help Us…
… help you help others, and help others help you (new line for Jerry McGuire 2.0, surely that’s coming soon). Please reach out to us at partnersuccess@salesforce.com or comment here:

• If you have an event marketing success story you’d like to share – within salesforce.com events or beyond.
• Tell us, what do you want to learn about event marketing? Which partners have really impressed you with cool event engagements? Who do you want to hear from? What do you think of these first success resources? What would you change?

1. Signal your ISV Account Executive. Speak to your AE as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary delays. Each individual application must have a signed contract before we can initiate your Security Review. Enrolling in the AppExchange Checkout program is a sufficient alternative, but your AE will direct you to whichever program is best suited for each of your offerings.
2. Utilize your Resources. The security team has created a robust and easy to navigate wiki full of useful information. This page outlines everything we’re looking for; master it and you’ll be able to go to market in no time. But don’t stop there–you can also access free Security Review training via the APP Academy!  (Partner Portal login required)
3. Assess danger early and often. Internal testing and fixing issues early is key. After an app fails, it will reenter the same first-come-first-serve queue… in other words, retesting puts you at the end of the line. The upfront work WILL pay off so test, fix, and repeat before submitting.
4. Grab a life vest. We’re here to help! Log a case in the partner portal with any process related questions. We are trying to work with you rather than “assessing” you so register for a time to speak with a technical contact in the security team via their office hours.
5. Watch out for savages! If your BURP or Checkmarx scan results contain anything listed in this requirements checklist or doesn’t meet best practices like those described by OWASP, it will get rejected and you will stay stranded. Are the locals friendly? Great! Just attach a detailed explanation when prompted during the submission wizard.
6. Enjoy the weather. Trust is everything at salesforce.com and ensuring the security of applications on our platform does take time. You can expect 4 to 6 weeks to receive results. Please make sure the credentials to your test environment do not expire within this time frame. Feel free to check the status of your review here in the partner portal at any time.

Have other tips to share? Please leave a comment!

Could my wife and I spontaneously join these fun activities?  Would the weather hold up for us?  Who would take care of our son that evening?

Five apps later, I had determined the weather report down to specific neighborhoods (SF Climates), secured our favorite babysitter (UrbanSitter), purchased baseball game tickets (MLB), made dinner reservations (OpenTable) and found concert tickets (StubHub).  All before my coffee was ready, and without typing one stroke on a keyboard.

This app revolution is happening everywhere and every day in our personal lives.

But we want this convenience in our business lives also.  That’s great news, because it means there is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to build a new generation of addictive enterprise apps.

So how do you build addictive apps for business users?

An excellent starting point is to think about collaboration.  Ask yourself:  Does your app bring people together in new ways?

Here’s a quick checklist of key criteria for a collaborative app. 

Is your app . . .

Meaningful?  An addictive app inspires deep interactions across the enterprise.  It should yield business value, and not be frivolous or trivial.

Frictionless?  Addictive apps are natural and easy to use.

Universal?  An app should provide many ways to collaborate.  Users should be able to notify, ask, post, listen, approve, reject, curate, recommend, like, follow . . . You get the picture.

Multiple type?  Great apps build interactive connections between people, products, processes, documents, places, applications, data, equipment and more.

Cross-constituency?  Finally, the most addictive apps are inclusive of everyone across the enterprise – employees, customers, partners, vendors and prospects.

An excellent example of a collaborative business app is Salesforce Do – a social productivity app that allows teams to share tasks, projects and notes in a fun, familiar way.

However, collaboration is only one of six elements that we have identified as key for building addictive apps.

Discover the complete list in our new eBook, ‘The Six Key Elements of Addictive Apps’.

This eBook supports salesforce.com’s vision, which has always been to make business software easy to use.  We want partners who share our vision, and we can help them build new enterprise apps that exceed customer expectations.

So let me know what you think about our eBook.  And here’s to your apps making business life ‘easy like Saturday morning’.

Here at the AppExchange Partner Program, we understand this. That’s why we have designed a program to help you be successful, not just with the technical bits and bytes, but with enablement best practices in operations, marketing, sales, and support to help you build your cloud business. Dreaming about success is great (hey, we invented “Dreamforce”, remember?) but with the AppExchange Partner Program we like to get real. And getting real means giving you straight talk and the straight answers that you need to succeed.

Once you join our program, you are introduced to important concepts and tools like Technical Review, Force.com IDE, Apex Code, REST API’s, Security Review, managed packages, AppExchange Publishing Console, Trialforce Management Org, License Management Application, ISV Business Org, SEO/SEM, marketing automation, lead queues, pipeline management, Subscriber Console, and more. Whew! But who is there to help you make sense of it all? And how can you shorten your learning curve to bypass the usual gotchas and get straight to the success part? I mean, wouldn’t it be great if someone offered expert-led training in how to understand and apply all of these concepts to help you execute on your business vision? And wouldn’t it be #awesome if this training was free and available 24/7? We agree!

That’s where the APP Academy comes in. The APP Academy (where ‘APP’ = AppExchange Partner Program) was designed to help ISV & channel partners understand the full app lifecycle across 5 distinct phases: plan, build, distribute, sell (& market), and support. Participants include C-level leaders and executives, as well as managers in sales, business development, product management, operations, marketing, and support – basically anyone who has an active role in the success of your commercial app.

The two most frequent comments that we receive from our APP Academy attendees:
“I wish I had gone through this sooner.”
“Everyone in my company should take this.”

We offer instructor-led sessions periodically (we have upcoming programs in Tel Aviv, London, and San Francisco). We also host monthly Virtual Classrooms and an APP Academy (Online) that is available on the partner portal anytime, from anywhere. We have programs for partners that are just Getting Started, in addition to deep dives in Sales and Marketing for experienced partners (Technical Deep Dive coming this summer).

Maybe you think you don’t need the APP Academy. If so, ask yourself these questions:

• How do you sign up for ISV roadmap webinars, to learn about our future plans?
• How do you access hundreds of hours of free, recorded training from salesforce.com experts?
• Where is the online documentation for ISVforce technologies and processes? (hint: it’s not on Developer Force)
• How do you spin up your own developer and test orgs for free? (hint: it’s not on Developer Force)
• How long does it typically take to pass security review?
• Which comes first, associating your managed package with your LMO, or your TMO? (hint: the order matters!)
• Where do you log in to manage your AppExchange listing?
• What are the physical specs of your AppExchange banners, tiles, and icons (height and width; JPEG or PNG)?
• How can you get two free Enterprise Edition licenses of our Sales Cloud (CRM) to help you manage your business?
• What is the Subscriber Console and why do you need it?

Want the answers? Then, we look forward to seeing you in one of our APP Academy sessions very soon! You can learn more about the APP Academy on the partner portal at http://p.force.com/appacademy.  Remember, you must be a member of our AppExchange Partner Program to access the free training.

Model Metrics built its business around delivering consulting services and custom cloud development. Today, the company has more than 500 customers, including some of the world’s most well-known brands, and is a leader in enterprise deployments, custom mobile solutions, Service Cloud implementations, and social media integration. Dave Dahlberg is the CMO.

How has your business evolved with the growth of cloud computing?

Our business was initially focused on small sales force automation and CRM implementations using the Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. We could see early on, though, that the cloud would soon expand to all aspects of enterprise computing. Today we offer a full range of services, including cloud strategy and custom application development, data migration, training, and more. We’re also helping customers transition to the social enterprise.

What’s the best thing about partnering with salesforce.com?

One of the best things about partnering with salesforce.com is getting insight into the technology vision that Marc and the rest of the company promotes. Salesforce.com essentially created the cloud for business, and it continues to push the envelope every day. Our partnership is the core of our business, and makes the value we provide to our clients immeasurable.

How does Force.com help you deliver what customers want?

Force.com gives us the best of both worlds. We can leverage the robust infrastructure built by salesforce.com while leveraging the platform’s flexibility to build solutions exactly to our customers’ requirements. It’s also an extremely open platform, which has enabled us to build anything customers want.

We developed our 2GO application, for example, using Adobe Flex, AIR, and Force.com to address customer demand for enterprise-class mobile cloud solutions that are scalable, highly customizable, and easy to implement. One of our large customers—Zimmer—has taken advantage of 2GO to roll out a mobile strategy for its field reps to improve sales effectiveness. Whether employees are using iPads, iPhones, or Android smart phones, they can easily access the information they need on any mobile device, while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.

What are some of the other mobile apps you’ve built?

Customer demand for mobile apps is exploding. In fact, we just announced that the number of mobile projects we completed this year grew by 600 percent. We built an app called Wealth Manager with Force.com to give financial advisors an elegant view of their customer portfolio on an iPad. It also provides detailed investment, personal, and contact information about each customer. Digital Sales Aid, which we built and deployed for multiple customers, provides field sales agents with a platform for quickly presenting sales information (videos, datasheets, presentations, etc.) to prospects on Android-based tablets or iPads. It takes just a few clicks to navigate to the right sales tool, and looks fantastic. You can now find a new version of Digital Sales Aid that can be configured by anyone on the AppExchange.

How has the vision of the social enterprise changed your conversations with clients?

Like salesforce.com, we discuss the social enterprise in every initial meeting we have with customers. It’s been amazing, just in the last 6 months, to see the increase in interest in what social can bring to the table. It will be exciting to see what the next 6 months will bring.

Interested in being a salesforce.com partner? Join our partner program today at www.salesforce.com/partners