Last Updated On April 21, 2023

Uncovering Essential Factors: Your Guide to Salesforce Managed Services

Uncovering Essential Factors: Your Guide to Salesforce Managed Services
By Team TIS

Of the wide range of CRM platforms used, Salesforce is one of the most preferred platforms being utilized by all sizes of organizations. It is a cloud based platform that offers a unique shared view of its customers for every client-facing department within the organization. To remain relevant to the needs of a business or organization, the platform requires regular support and upkeep that is taken care of by a certified professional. The support and maintenance is also important due to the evolving and ever changing nature of the business.

For the platform to work at its peak potential, regular maintenance is a crucial requirement that needs to be met. Therefore, Salesforce Managed Services are the need of the hour for companies and businesses that aim for exponential growth. Salesforce Managed Services help in developing a well-structured plan that consists of integrations, maintenance, customizations, support, etc.

It is common in small and medium sized organizations that only a part-time Salesforce expert or a team which includes experts, consultants, testers, engineers, developers, etc shall take care of the managed services. The size of the team can vary depending on the number of users, the intricacy of Salesforce instances, and system adoption throughout the organization. It is a personal preference whether to outsource the Salesforce instance to a certified Salesforce expert, to handle support internally or use a combination of both.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHILE MAINTAINING SALESFORCE INSTANCE:

1. Managing and Optimizing the Salesforce Instance:

The most basic requirement for any Salesforce instance is to generate an optimized report. Regular health checks are needed for the proper and smooth functioning of the instance. These functionalities keep a check on whether the salesforce instance requires attention at any given moment. Any outdated technologies or features need to be rectified so keeping yourself updated is a must. As the platform keeps evolving with time, some features may become outmoded. To stop that from happening, Salesforce notifies its users in advance if any changes in the platform take place. Therefore, it is important to keep up with the updates on the Salesforce instance, in a timely.

2. Security Audits:

The Salesforce Platform advanced security features to its users. These features consist of various settings for the configuration of the Salesforce instance. This helps the instance to remain in compliance with the industry’s best practices and any specific policies your organization may have. Salesforce Managed Services shall include regular checks and reviews of the security configurations to ensure compliance. To review user activity and to assess their permissions and access levels a process needs to be in place, so that too much data access to users is avoided. This is needed because if unchecked access to users is provided, problems like security breaches, changes in the system without any approval or unauthorized access to data may occur.

3. Salesforce Release Management:

These releases are made available by Salesforce in a year, which are:

  • Spring
  • Summer
  • Winter

Every managed Salesforce org needs to review each release and in order to do so, they need to have a process in place. To analyze the impact the update will have on the systems, the Salesforce org needs to create an impact plan. However, the release of a new update rarely has any negative impact or effect on the organization immediately after the release, in some cases certain changes in the update may affect the Salesforce org. 

Mostly, updates in which changes that have been made to any feature affect the functionality of the feature or in certain cases, they may even affect the security and performance of the system. There are some cases wherein new features and functionality are introduced into the products that are being used by the user and these new features bring substantial improvements in the productivity of these products but these features often need some work for implementation. If there is a custom code in an org that uses functions that might be discontinued for support in the future, it needs to be addressed on time to avoid any haste at the last moment.

4. Planning and Monitoring:

Regular Planning and monitoring are essential to ensure the proper functioning of IT systems in the organization. This is true in the case of Salesforce as well. The platform needs to be periodically monitored by experts and the degree of monitoring depends upon the extent of customization of your org. The type and level of monitoring range from Simple Log Monitoring to Complex System Monitoring. The technical experts and professionals at Salesforce are proficient in monitoring the platform to ensure proper and effective working at all times. They take proper care of incident-handling mechanisms with various elements and systems. For example, if your Salesforce org is combined with an outsourced third-party system in the cloud and on feeds, databases, APIs, premises, etc., you will require a strong monitoring plan to reduce the downtime of the connected system. This will ensure that the intended goals of data flow, visibility and compliance are being met on a regular basis. It is important that the monitoring plan includes daily, weekly, and monthly checklists and SOPs that address all the possible situations and scenarios. 

A comprehensive adoption plan is a must have that makes sure that the users can log in and use Salesforce effortlessly. It is not an easy task but it is extremely important to monitor user adoption and provide feedback when users are not using Salesforce. If adoption after implementation is not seamless, getting users to re-engage may become difficult. A dynamic improvement process is crucial for better adoption, this ensures the problems and grievances of the users are considered and user experience is enhanced based upon the feedback.

5. Management Goals:

When deciding to invest in Salesforce, the leadership team should set up some end goals. It is essential that the goals are documented properly and ROI metrics are established. Keeping a check on the condition of systems, internal processes, and the KPIs of numerous business processes before Salesforce is implemented and the expected condition of the said systems and processes after the implementation process is finished. It is also critical that every individual business define and understand what successful Salesforce implementation looks like and means to them. They should determine the quantifiable factors as well. One way to do this effectively is to create a report or a dashboard to fill in the important info metrics and measure them on the basis of that. The key metric that should be considered as most important is user adoption. After that, a feedback mechanism should be set up, which gathers information from users to improve their experience and to boost adoption and productivity. ROI reports or dashboards should be reviewed on a regular basis.

6. Professional Expertise:

A Salesforce expert should check and review the Salesforce org on a regular basis. This is especially important for businesses and organizations that want to make ongoing changes to their system for customization and integration with other systems to address the ever-growing needs of the business. Salesforce Managed Service providers deliver specialized expertise whenever needed even without any other affiliation with the organization. Salesforce experts will help with the Salesforce requirements once they are provided with a detailed description.

When faced with any complex or critical Salesforce issues, most businesses do not have a dedicated certified Salesforce expert on their staff to help out with it. It might also not be feasible financially for some to hire and retain these skilled professionals. In such situations, where there is a lack of Salesforce experts to handle the instance, hiring an expert Salesforce associate must be considered. This individual will be useful for the upkeep and maintenance of Salesforce Managed Services on the platform. This in turn will let the core team to focus on the main business needs and other much urgent issues of the organization. Meanwhile, the Salesforce professional will handle the maintenance of the Salesforce org.

Salesforce offers numerous products such as:

Connect with us to explore top-notch implementation services for the above-given products.

 

About the Author:

The author of this blog is Nandini Pathak with an area of expertise in technology. Uniquely blending her legal background to create engaging content. An avid dog lover, her warmth and empathy enrich her writing style. Nandini’s passion for learning and her SEO proficiency ensure her work stays relevant and visible, making her an impactful content creator who seamlessly integrates personal passions with professional expertise in the technology domain.

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