Not Just a Glorified Rolodex

I have heard the statement describing this post countless times ("I do not want my CRM system to be a glorified rolodex.") throughout my years of implementing CRM systems. The concern is legitimate but with foresight and planning can be mitigated. One of the most effective strategies that can be adopted to help ensure that the implementation does not result in a high-tech rolodex is to provide end users relevant customer data in a timely fashion within the CRM system (note this post speaks to Salesforce.com). Providing such data can:

1. Enable accurate / efficient customer strategies through providing a more holistic view of a customer


2. Ensuring system adoption by driving users to the application

Concerns abound (read: data security / sensitivity, bandwidth, data volume) about ease of integration between in-house legacy systems to a SaaS CRM application that sits in the 'cloud'. Take heart, coupling your foresight and planning with access to the CRM application's API can enable the concerns to be overcome allowing system integration to be done (and done rather quickly which translates into being cost effective).

As with any integration, requirements and planning need to take place before the actual integration can be designed. Some questions that need to be addressed in this phase are:

1. How will the legacy data be compiled and delivered for integration?


2. How will the legacy data be displayed in the CRM system?


3. How often will the integration occur?

Once requirements are gathered and validated the integration framework can be implemented. Below I have included a link to a general template that we have followed when integrating legacy systems with Salesforce.com:

Integration Workflow Template

Note that the element entitled 'Integration Engine' is comprised of the following primary components:

1. Database engine


2. Salesforce.com API and database engine interface layer


3. Scheduler


4. Notifier (SMTP, web service, SNMP, etc.)

Once the integration is providing data between the systems the attention now turns to presenting the integrated data in a meaningful manner to the end user. The mode in which to present the data usually depends on the scope of data to be displayed. Data presentation options can consist of:

1. Embedding integrated data within the related record (usually done with smaller data sets)


2. Rendering integrated data within a separate dialog box initiated via a user action - via a click of a button for example (usually done with larger data sets)


3. Presenting integrated data via a mash-up

Either of the above listed can be accomplished using 'native' Salesforce.com technologies. Below I have included a link to an example of displaying integrated data embedded within an object - in this case a contact. The data displayed details unit volume sold per contact per product per week in a rolling week fashion:

Integration Display Example

I am fairly confident that rolodex cannot do that.