Workplace Efficiency by MK Partners

Start your future now

Matt Kaufman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:13:47 +0000

Are you looking to make a change in your life in 2012? MK Partners is actively recruiting for multiple open positions. If you’re passionate about technology, innovative and want to work with others who are the same, then it’s time to apply for a position at MK Partners.

Integrating your website with Salesforce

Matt Kaufman — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 03:37:56 +0000

We’re often asked about the possibility of website integration with Salesforce and the Force.com Platform. As often is the case, our answer involves asking multiple questions back.

Do you currently have a website?
What functionality does your website currently have?
Are you looking to display Salesforce data on your website or looking to send data from your website to Salesforce or both?
What’s the nature of the functionality you want integrated?
How often will the data points for this integration change?
How do you currently handle this transfer of data?

The list can go on, but you get the point. In fact, we find it easier to just integrate your website with Salesforce than answer the question!

The simplest form of integration is to just use the Web-to-Case and Web-to-Lead functionality provided in Salesforce. All you have to do is copy some html out of Salesforce and paste it onto your Website. A few clicks and you’re done.

Our preferred method is to leverage Force.com Sites. This can either be used to replace whole pages of your website or parts of pages via iFrames. Either way, it works with all website technologies, requires minimal work from your webmaster, and doesn’t require any 3rd party add-ons.

The final method of integration is more of a true integration, and thus a more complex one. This option involves using 3rd party tools or custom code to facilitate communication between Salesforce and the database (typically SQL) powering your website. This option allows you to use each system for what it’s best at and just have them talk to each other to get/supply data as needed.

So, back to the original question, yes of course it’s possible to integrate your website with Salesforce, but which method is right for you depends on a lot of factors and the correlating complexity and costs will vary too.

Thoughts on Apple’s new campus

Matt Kaufman — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:01:11 +0000

Apple (aka Steve Jobs) announced that they will be building a new campus in Cupertino, CA. The plans and design are extraordinary to say the least. I suspect that Cupertino will approve the project, as my guess is Jobs will build this campus elsewhere if they don’t. What I found to be most surprising was that the new campus will be powered by natural gas, not solar panels. Maybe it’s just a square footage issue, the design is a single doughnut shaped building. The hole in the middle is a lot of lost space that would be needed for solar panels. Or maybe it’s a technical issue that even with ample square footage, all the electronics in the building would require too much electricity for solar panels to handle. Either way, it was what was most shocking to me. Here are some other interesting items in the plan:

1. The campus will be a single doughnut shaped building covered exclusively with curved glass.
2. The surrounding areas will be covered with 6,000 trees (not just good for the earth, but a great way to ensure privacy with all that glass)
3. The campus will hold 12,000 employees (2500 more than Apple has today, that’s a lot of new jobs for Cupertino)
4. The campus will be completed in 2015 (this was a close runner up for most shocking part of the plan, that’s rapid construction)

What are you thoughts? What will all these new employees be doing at apple?

Apple’s New Campus via [TechCrunch]

World IPv6 Day is tomorrow (June 8th)

Matt Kaufman — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:03:07 +0000

Confused yet? The internet (Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Microsoft) is running a pilot test tomorrow of IPv6 technology for web based services. Still confused? Basically, some of the companies that we interact with on a daily basis are going to be testing out a new version of an existing standard for how computers connect to one another. Most likely, the day will pass without anyone noticing. But, there’s an ever so slight chance your entire day will be ruined by the inability to use the above named sites. And of course the first thing you’ll do is google the error… oh wait.

To be safe, Google has setup a page you can visit today to test your computer and devices:
http://ipv6test.google.com/

Hope to talk to you tomorrow!

Workspace is now Library

Matt Kaufman — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:00:54 +0000

Huh? What’s that, you don’t know what we’re talking about, let me explain. Salesforce used to have a tab called “Workspace” it’s been relabeled to “Library”. If you’re asking why, the reason is probably because you’re not currently using Salesforce’s Content feature. Content is like the documents tab on steroids (no offense baseball fans). Not only can you store extremely large files, but MS Office files can be previewed in the browser without even having MS Office installed! Add versioning, subscriptions, tags, the ability to link to data records and more, and you understand why the tab is being relabeled. Every customer should be using this feature. It greatly improves your organization’s efficiency and increases the ROI on your Salesforce licenses. Don’t forget that by storing your files in Salesforce, you’re eliminating the need for file servers at your office, which eliminates the need to pay for hefty OS and Software licensing and IT headaches.
I’ve been told I tend to not stop when making my point, so I’ll stop now.

Register now! Dreamforce 11 discount ending soon

Matt Kaufman — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:15:16 +0000

Salesforce.com has Dreamforce full conference passes on sales for $699 through June 7th. That’s only a few days away, so hurry up before the price goes up to $899 or even higher! If you want an additional $100 off, you can use MK Partners’ promo code ECMMKPRTNR driving the price down to $599.

The lower your cost, the easier it is to justify to your boss why you need to attend Dreamforce 11, and trust me, you need to attend. It’s the one time a year you can be inspired, learn, network, and have fun while learning how to do your job better.

Why do you want to go to DF11? Let us know in the comments.

Single sign-on made easy

Matt Kaufman — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:31:13 +0000

Salesforce, Google Apps, Facebook… the list goes on and on of applications we use daily that support single sign-on. But how many of you have actually implemented single sign-on? It saves time every day for all your users, reduces IT administration costs, increases your security (when used with proper password policies) and is just really cool.

Odds are, you have not implemented single sign-on, because the instructions always say something like, “take this information and give it to your developer who has done this before”. Well, if you still want to benefit from single sign-on and don’t want to implement it yourself, your best option would be Okta. It’s a hosted service, so you can sign up in seconds. It’s preconfigured for a long list of apps, so you can be up and running in minutes. It’s free for 30 days, so you can try it out and make sure it’s right for you.

Don’t take our word for it, try it out yourself and let us know what you think in the comments.

www.okta.com

US Government has decided to operate efficiently

Matt Kaufman — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:36:03 +0000

I know, it sounds too shocking to be true, but a Press Release today confirms that the US Government has not only sanctioned the Force.com platform as a trusted solution but that more than half of the US Cabinet has already deployed the platform in some capacity.

Technology tends to be adopted more slowly in the public sector than the private sector, but given the state of the global economy, it only makes sense that Government should try to take advantage of the same tools that have helped businesses (and nonprofits) operate more efficiently for over a decade.

MK Partners has been leading the push to make Government entities operate more efficiently for over 3 years. We have worked with many state and local agencies and hold a GSA IT Schedule 70 contract for salesforce.com and the Force.com platform services.

Government Embraces Salesforce.com’s Trusted Cloud Computing Model [PR Newswire]

It’s time to stop calling it “Cloud Computing”

Matt Kaufman — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:30:04 +0000

If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably seen someone wearing a watch before or maybe even wore one yourself. Did the watch have hands or an LCD display? If you saw a watch with an LCD display right now, would you call it a “watch” or would you specifically call it a digital watch? Which would you think is the more accurate and reliable watch, the digital watch or the analog watch? How about cell phones? Would you prefer to use an analog cell phone (if you can remember those) or the only type of cell phone you can purchase today, a digital cell phone? I’d move on to tablets, but I think you get my point.

It’s time to stop using the term “Cloud Computing” and instead use a retronym for the old type of computing. (A retronym is a new way of describing something that has been around for a while due to new versions of it becoming more common.) So, from now on, let’s stop making it sound like “Cloud Computing” is special or different, it’s the global standard. Every major company uses it, small businesses use it, nonprofits use it, governments uses it, everyone with a personal email address uses it! I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of something that is commonly used.

So from this day forth, I declare that we refer to “Cloud Computing” as just “Computing”. Here are some suggestions for retronyms for the older type of computing. Feel free to post your own in the comments.

Closet Computing : Keeping your server in a server closet down the hall
Under Computing : Keeping your server under your desk
Sub Computing : Keeping your server in the basement
SH!T Computing : Letting your Systems/Helpdesk/IT Dept setup a server locally

Jigsaw helps businesses improve bottom line

mlackner@mkpartners.com — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:35:11 +0000

Nucleus Research has found Jigsaw to be up to 40 percent more accurate than competitors. The report found businesses benefited with increased productivity, improved marketing response rates, and greater sales with reduced costs. Additionally, integration is simple and easy. Jigsaw is a powerful tool for businesses to consider.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nucleus-research-finds-jigsaw-up-to-40-percent-more-accurate-than-traditional-business-data-sources-119756714.html