Salesforce.com Iterative Consulting Method

Our Consulting Methodology

One question I get frequently when discussing our services with a new client is how we will be proceeding with their implementation. Every Salesforce.com consultant that you might have the opportunity to work with will have to base their consulting approach on some basic methodology. Consultants in general develop their approach to Salesforce.com implementations based on their prior experience, i.e, what is their background?

Our Salesforce Consulting implementation approach uses what we call - "The Iterative Consulting Process". We feel it works best for the smaller client that wants quick gains at a low cost and doesn't have a heavy bureaucracy in place within their company that has to be dealt with to make improvements to their Salesforce.com system. 

The Salesforce.com Iterative Consulting Process

Our consulting method uses an iterative approach to customize Salesforce.com to your business model. While we start out with the general roadmap as defined during pre-project interviews the actual steps taken day to day will be based on meetings we have with you where the highest priority project tasks identified at that point are undertaken.  As our consultants understanding of your business model grows and as your understanding increases of what Salesforce.com can do and how it functions, the desired outcomes and list of requirements will become better defined.  We will continue to iterate through a 4 step process with you where we: 1) Discuss the roadmap, current state of the system, and highest priority requirements, 2) Identify the next customizations, 3) Build those customizations, and 4) Review and continue again with step 1. 

Changes to the system produce questions and insights that would not have been thought of at the beginning of the project. As those questions get answered, our understanding grows of your real needs. Our consultants find that the end result is much more suited to your business model than a process whereby an attempt is made to define the entire scope of the project in advance.

Immediate End User Value and Continuous Improvement

The main idea behind the Iterative Consulting Process is to provide immediate and continuous end user value. Out of the box, Salesforce.com functions as a highly capable CRM system. Almost no development needs to take place for users to begin using the standard functionality. Our goal is to strive for continuous improvement, building on inherent functionality with business-model-specific improvements. At no point during the process should your users find that they cannot use the system. As our development process moves forward, the system becomes increasingly automated, increasingly useful, and increasingly tailored to the exact set of tasks your users are engaging in and providing the exact information your leaders require.

It's Like “Home Improvement”

Since the users have continuous access to and value from the system, there is no requirement to rush improvement. Move forward as your budget and time constraints allow. The Iterative Consulting Process is much like home improvement in that regard. There is always something that will make your home more to your liking, more efficient, more comfortable, more desirable, but not all of these things are required immediately.  Pick the projects that are most pressing, and do those first.

The Estimating Process

At no point should a Snapptraffic Consulting invoice surprise you. When we first engage you, we will develop a roadmap together. This will serve as a guide to keep us moving in the right general direction, and our initial estimate is prepared from that. You will not; however, be billed for this amount. You are billed for whatever work is accomplished on your behalf during a given calendar month. 

During the Iterative Consulting Process, you are in control and well informed of the time being spent. Our consultants are continually estimating the time involved as each project step along the roadmap is undertaken.  During each call we note specific items that need to be done. When the call is over, an “Action Item” will be created and sent which details the work to be done and estimates the time required to do it. If you approve that Action Item, we begin. 

Where possible, and if desired, we will identify work that does not require our Salesforce.com expertise and which can be accomplished by your company internally to cut down on hours required. We are happy to train you to do anything that we might otherwise do for you.

The Project Lifecycle

We are not an implementation company in the typical sense. Our consulting is not geared towards simply designing, building, delivering, fee collection, and moving on to the next client. We intend to join you in the process of continually improving your salesforce.com system. We hope to be an on-going resource to you and a long-term member of your team. 

With that said, we recognize that the improvements will be front-loaded. In general, our initial setup, customizations, and improvements will take a month or two of frequent consultations and regular effort. Following that your users will settle into the new system and our focus shifts to training, adoption, and answering questions. Reporting tends to take on greater importance in the months that follow as users are adding increasingly useful data to the system. As time goes by, we meet occasionally to make refinements or add new functionality.
For the project phases that were postponed due to budget or time constraints, these get initiated when you are ready – for the typical client we’ll tackle one or two of these a year. Of course, we are always available to help with problems that come up occasionally.

Our Commitment and Guarantee

Our commitment to our clients is to provide the most value possible for the expense incurred.  Our underlying guarantee is to only charge clients for that which they agree adds value to their system.  If you are not satisfied with the work accomplished, you will not be billed.

Speak to Us

If you would like to discuss working with Snapptraffic Consulting on your implementation, please visit our website at www.snapptraffic.com. One of our consultants would be glad to discuss your project and the estimated time and expense that might be involved. It's cheaper than you think, go ahead and ask us, we think you'll be surprised. 

Salesforce.com Apex Visualforce for Developers

If you have had Salesforce.com for any length of time, you may have realized that it is limited in certain ways. There is no question that Salesforce is incredibly customizable with just a point and a click, but sometimes the system is just not designed to do exactly what you want.

Being the worldclass company that they are, Salesforce has anticipated the need of their clients to extend the functionality of the system beyond what can be configured with the setup menu (called Declarative Configuration). They extend this functionality with Visualforce which is built on a language called Apex.

Visualforce allows a developer to write custom functionality in Apex that executes on top of the Salesforce system. Meaning, it resides on the internet - or, "in the cloud" as everyone likes to say these days. The power of "cloud computing" is that from the user's perspective, only a browser is required to access your business applications. From the developers perspective, one you develop the Apex it can be uploaded to the Salesforce.com servers. They store it, the back it up, the serve it. For the company who needs it's functionality, this situation is ideal. You can cut IT expenses significantly with Visualforce and Apex development rather than traditional server based development.

The Apex Visualforce system provides the developer with all of the programming resources to query Salesforce.com, perform custom functionality on Salesforce data, save those results, and display them in a meaningful way. Custom interfaces are a powerful part of the visualforce system. Technically, Apex is the underlying code and Visualforce is the system that makes it possible to build a user interface. Triggers are also written in Apex. A Trigger is code that executes when a record is saved and takes some kind of custom action - another great way to extend Salesforce functionality!

We've done hundreds of apex visualforce development projects and triggers for our clients since the release of Visualforce a few years ago. We have really been able to experiment with its functionality and our developers have learned how to develop quickly and inexpensively. A key requirement placed on us by our clients is low cost. We typically deal with small to mid-sized companies where development costs are a critical issue. They need the functionality, but they can't afford traditional development costs. Visualforce and Apex development works so beautifully for these kinds of clients because we can produce exactly what they need with minimal expense.

On our website at: http://www.snapptraffic.com/VisualforceExamples.html you can see examples of many of the projects we have done. We highlight these on the website to show some of the possibilities. Most of these projects can be done by a developer in 10-20 hours, so at our rates that means that the typical custom apex development project can be completed for less than a few thousand dollars. Almost any company can afford that.

If you would like to discuss an idea that you have for a visualforce project for your salesforce.com system, give us a call (800-422-6490) or visit www.snapptraffic.com. We'd be more than happy to discuss the possibilities and the likely expense - there is no charge to talk your idea through, we'd actually be glad to hear about it. If you use us for development, great, if not, that's okay, we hope you enjoy the power of Visualforce and experience all the wonderful things it can do for your company.