In this era of cut-throat competition, organizations should ensure a smooth and better customer experience to sustain positive business growth. In fact, retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones depends largely on the way a company interacts with its customers. Yet, only 1% of the customers are capable of measuring their customer engagement.
One of the primary reasons why a company fails to connect with its customers completely is its inability to accumulate and utilize crucial data, which they can leverage to gain insights for creating operational customer strategies. This calls the need for an intelligent solution that can enable organizations to explore new ways to connect with their customers, and Salesforce Lightning is one such platform.
Built on the Salesforce UI framework, Salesforce Lightning involves a collection of tools and technologies that can be utilized to draw insights about customer engagement. This app development platform not just helps in driving business growth but also boosts user experience. Today, organizations especially those leveraging Salesforce have realized the potential of the Lightning platform and consider it to be a superior choice to any other options available in the market. It makes sense to seek support from one of the best Salesforce partners to know more about the Lightning platform.
Endowed with enhanced features, the Lightning platform allows users to develop strong customer relationships while finding new ways of interacting with customers. Listed below are some significant benefits of Salesforce Lightning that help you to better connect with your customers:
Quick Building of Apps: The components available in Salesforce Lightning kick start the building of apps that too without the need for any coding. The components available act as building blocks that combine to create new apps. This saves the time and effort of building apps from scratch besides the trouble of optimizing your apps as the components can do so for different devices. Apart from this, additional components from App Exchange can be used to develop the foundation of your app, which you can customize as per the specific needs of your company.
Availability of Quality Resources: Besides the provision of building robust apps with the help of tools and methods, the Lightning ecosystem offers components that can be leveraged to add new functionalities that otherwise seemed impossible without the help of a developer. Moreover, the quality of applications isn’t compromised as the components used to build them are derived from reliable resources. Since, reviews of these apps are gathered from experienced users, customer engagement increases.
Drives Innovation: Developing mobile apps has become significant for enhancing customer business as it helps to personalize communication. The drag and drop functionality of the Lightning platform encourages innovation as it is packed with customizable components.
Syndicates User Experience: To remain competitive, organizations need to set their products/ services apart from the competitors. By providing experience with a live-in experience, organizations can get an edge over their competitors. The Lightning Design System equips organizations with a ‘How-To guide’ that provides organizations the power to build user-friendly components. Thus, it becomes easy to develop custom apps that sync with the main capabilities of Salesforce without the requirement for reverse engineering.
Provide Engaging Experience: Although Lightning was developed with mobile devices in mind, it also included the desktop within the design and experience and was ultimately employed across app design, service, sales, and communities, which provides an engaging face to your company.
Final Words:
To provide customers with an engaging and enriching experience, organizations should encourage customer-centricity. The Salesforce Lightning platform helps in driving engagement by providing a sturdy environment along with robust features for creating a great user experience. So, if you are looking to migrate to the Salesforce Lightning platform, you must consider getting in touch with a reputed Salesforce Lighting company.
As one of the most powerful and widely adopted cloud-based CRM, Salesforce continues to reign the CRM space. The CRM owes its popularity to the wide array of useful features offered by it, its ability to get easily customized and integrate with other systems. Today, given the constant need to migrate data from one system to the other or from one database to the Salesforce org, there arises the need for a system, which not just allows organizations to have access to external databases but also ensures the integrity of the database.
Salesforce Lightning Connect allows users to connect to external databases so that they can view the information in real-time. In fact, this integration app has turned out to be a game-changer for the IT department, and the organization at large as they no longer have to manage different databases in their Salesforce org and can view data by just connecting to the external databases.
What is Salesforce Lightning Connect?
It is an integration tool that helps organizations/users to access, use and display data from external sources along with their Salesforce data. With this tool, they can extract data from legacy systems like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, etc. in real-time. In fact, everything is configured easily via a powerful point and click interface. The integration tool uses a feature that is similar to ‘custom objects’ in Salesforce and is called ‘external’ objects except for the fact that the data resides in another system. However, to access external objects, Salesforce Connect makes use of some authentication settings, which includes three types of adapters including the following:
Cross-org: This adapter provides access to data that lies in another Salesforce org by leveraging the Salesforce API. With this adapter, the integration tool uses the Lightning Platform REST API to extract data from other Salesforce org, allowing users to associate data with point-and-click tools.
OData: The OData connects with any system that backs the 2.0 and 4.0 OData protocols, which is a REST API for data exchange to get valuable insights from external data sources. The robust tool via the external objects interacts with external data changing into queries that include parameters to filter results.
Apex custom adapter: This is basically a code written in the Apex language using the Apex Connector Framework to extract data from various data sources. Salesforce Connect uses the code when specific functions such as running a report are executed so that users can get business insights by connecting to data sources.
When to Consider Salesforce Lightning Connect?
When the need is just to carry relevant data without carrying unnecessary data in your Salesforce Organization.
When users need small amounts of data at a given point of time.
When users are looking for real-time access to data.
When users want to avoid the accumulation of irrelevant data.
Benefits of Salesforce Lightning Connect?
There is so much that Salesforce Connect can help users achieve with external sources and through data integration. Businesses must consider getting in touch with an experienced and certified Salesforce Consultant to know more about this powerful integration tool.
Read/write from anywhere:Salesforce Connect lets users to produce, read, update or delete records from external sources in real-time.
Custom Adapters for any web API:With this tool, developers can link Salesforce to any web API.
Connectors: Multiple Salesforce org can be connected across the company.
How Does Lightning Connect Work?
Lightning Connect allows data access from various external sources that too in real-time. Let’s understand the step-by-step process of seeking external permission for creating ‘customized application’
Users need to first open Setupand then find and select External Data Sources in the Quick Find
The next step is to either click on New External Data Source or on Edit if users wish to modify a pre-existing source of external data.
All the necessary details should be filled up.
Choose the most suitable authentication protocol
Click on ‘Save’.
Finally, to complete the connection, click on ‘Validate and Sync’
To Sum-up:
As a robust Salesforce integration tool, Salesforce Lightning Connect helps business analysts and Salesforce admins to access data from external sources in real-time. Since, no duplication or sync delays occur, the integration time is dramatically reduced, which helps in unlocking and updating back-office systems such as Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, and more. To know more about this outstanding integration tool, it’s in your best interest to get in touch with a reputed Salesforce Lightning company.
Salesforce is the most trusted name in the world of CRM software. Salesforce has taken customizability to the next level by allowing its customers to choose between two different user interfaces: Salesforce Lightning, and Salesforce Classic.
Salesforce Classic as the name suggests is the original and older version whereas Salesforce Lightning is the new version that carries several new features that aren’t available with ‘Classic’. What’s new in Salesforce Lightning? Salesforce Lightning is the latest version of the salesforce org’s interface. The intuitive and intelligent design will empower users to navigate the platform seamlessly and work with greater efficiency. This will influence better decisions and help teams to close more deals From Campaign, Leads, Contacts, and Accounts to Opportunity, Pricebook, and Products, etc everything has been re-organized to provide a modern visual appeal. The intent behind redesigning the interface while migrating from Salesforce Classic to Lightning was to make the tool, as well as the data, more accessible to Sales Reps so that they can close more deals—faster. Let’s take a quick look at the Opportunity display screens shown below to draw a clear comparison between the two versions, i.e., Salesforce Classic and Salesforce Lightning.
Salesforce Lightning Screen
Salesforce Classic Screen
Listed below are some features which have been introduced in SalesforceLightning:
Customizable Home Page: Users can now customize their home page. Now they can show the information they need the most on the Homepage.
Enhanced Reporting Lightning has the Lightning Report Builder which helps in creating improved reports. It also provides improved and efficient visual reporting which saves time involved in creating and reading reports.
Columns on Dashboard In Lightning, Dashboards are not confined to 3 columns anymore.
Activity Timeline With this Sales Reps can now easily keep a track of their planned and accomplished activities for a specific lead, account or opportunity.
Lighting Experience Lightning Experience comes with no extra cost.
In the below image you can see list of new features introduced in Salesforce Lightning.
Key Benefits of Salesforce Lightning:
Integration with Einstein AnalyticsEinstein Integration is available in both the Classic and Lightning Version of Salesforce for creating reports and dashboards, but the Lightning version has more integration with Einstein as compared to the Classic.Einstein is a game-changer in itself as it carries its own database that fetches the data from salesforce instance and updates reports and dashboards each hour automatically. It even comes with features like:
Export Dashboard as a picture.
Ability to edit widget on dashboard.
Ability to do advance formula calculation.
Improved Security Salesforce Lightning comes with enhanced security features like ‘Locker Service’. Locker Service helps in safeguarding the platform from malicious data by preventing Lightning components to interact with each other. Besides this ‘Locker’ uses the Content Security Policy to prevent cross-site scripting, which helps in avoiding code injecting attacks.
Opportunities Kanban View It is a visualization tool for opportunities. In the Kanban view, Opportunities are displayed as cards. The lanes/columns in Kanban view represent the different stages of the Opportunity.
Sales Reps can now change the Opportunity stage by simply dragging them from one column to another. Sales Reps can even customize, and personalize alerts on key deals.
New Design One of the major differences between the old and the new version of the salesforce is the User Interface. The Salesforce Lightning offers a better UI experience to its users as it includes features like news about key accounts and deals and performance charts, which were unavailable in the Classic version.
No Extra Cost Salesforce Lightning doesn’t cost an extra penny more than theSalesforce Classic and remains pretty much the same. Long-time users of the Salesforce Classic can move to Salesforce Lightning without paying anything extra for a new license.
Features Unavailable in Salesforce Lightning Listed below are some of the features that are unavailable in the new version:
Custom JavaScript Buttons: Custom buttons that have JavaScript running in the backend in the Classic version will no longer be supported in Lightning. In the Lightning you will be able to replace JavaScript content by using tools like Process Builder, Visual Workflow, etc.
Apps from AppExchange: Many apps that were working in theSalesforce Classic will not be supported in Salesforce Lightning unless they are made Lightning Ready. If any app is not supported in Salesforce Lightning, even then you can continue to use them in Salesforce Classic.
Search: Salesforcehas completely revamped the way search used to work in Salesforce Lightning by removing the Sidebar Search and the Search All button.
Which one should we Opt for? As the saying goes, “Old is Gold, but New is Diamond.” In the same way, Salesforce Classic was a huge milestone in the early 2000s; however, with its revamped UI, enhanced analytics, better security, and support for modern day business automation, Salesforce Lightning has become the preferred choice. . Though the new version i.e Salesforce Lightning offers several new features over its classic counterpart, it’s important to measure the pros and cons of both the system before making a shift.
About Girikon –
As a Salesforce consulting partner, Girikon is an excellent Salesforce Implementation Partneras it helps businesses in the effective implementation of the Salesforce CRM.
In the early 90s and 2000s, customer service was about face to face communication, emails, and telephone contact. After the arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT), the face of customer service changed for good.
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty detail to know what Internet of Things (IoT) is. Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, and other software items which are connected to the internet and enables these devices to connect, collect and behave as per the surrounding environments using embedded sensors, processors and communication hardware.
With the evolution of CRM, smartphones and cloud-based application Internet of Things is growing and becoming stronger day by day.
Haven’t we all imagined a smart home where lights are turned on automatically as you enter home. At morning when you get up, your favorite music starts and an automatic kitchen where the coffee pot starts brewing when you come out of the washroom.
The above things seemed like a science fantasy movie a few years back but thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), now these all are possible. All the home appliances, smart devices are connected and communicate with each other which makes this wonder happen.
If the Internet of Things (IoT) add magic into your day to day life then just imagine the benefits it will bring into the customer service sector. According to a report of Gartner, 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020.
IoT also makes machine smart. Smart products can identify faults, communicate with the technical support and initiate actions to resolve them. All this happens before your customer is even aware of the issue.
With the help of Salesforce IoT, your support team can easily track the actual usage and new opportunities emerge from that data. Before that, you have to find out useful IoT data for your business. Now with the help of Salesforce IoT, you can actually create program based on your own idea with minimal coding in the Lightning Platform.
After implementing IoT for your business, it is really important to organize and manage volumes of data. A small volume of data can be managed easily but if you have a large volume of data we have another solution called Einstein.
Einstein will assist you with data on how to manage it and based on the activities and trends. For example, it will assign data to the team to solve an issue, flag them as per the requirement.
That’s all folks for today. That’s all for this article, in case you require Salesforce Implementation Partners or Salesforce IoT expert, then please feel free to reach out to us at sales@girikon.com
Here, I am displaying
Salesforce Lightning
modal with a progress indicator in footer using Lightning component.
In this article, you will be able to open a modal on button click, close the modal, and add a progress indicator in the footer.
Let’s start the process step by step:
Step 1: Create Lightning component ProgressIndicator.cmp
<aura:component >
<aura:attribute name="showpage1" type="boolean" default="true"/>
<aura:attribute name="showpage2" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<aura:attribute name="showpage3" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<aura:attribute name="openModal" type="boolean" default="false"/>
<aura:attribute name="currentstep" type="String" default="step1"/>
<lightning:button variant="brand" label="Open" onclick="{!c.openModal}" />
<aura:if isTrue="{!v.openModal}">
<section role="dialog" class="slds-modal slds-fade-in-open">
<div class="slds-modal__container">
...
</div>
</section>
<div class="slds-backdrop slds-backdrop_open"></div>
</aura:if>
</aura:component>
Step 2: Create Lightning controller ProgressIndicatorController.js
({
openModal : function(component) {
component.set("v.openModal", true);
},
page1 : function(component) {
component.set("v.showpage1", true);
component.set("v.showpage2", false);
component.set("v.showpage3", false);
component.set("v.currentstep", "step1");
},
page2 : function(component) {
component.set("v.showpage2", true);
component.set("v.showpage1", false);
component.set("v.showpage3", false);
component.set("v.currentstep", "step2");
},
page3 : function(component) {
component.set("v.showpage3", true);
component.set("v.showpage1", false);
component.set("v.showpage2", false);
component.set("v.currentstep", "step3");
},
hideModal : function(component) {
component.set("v.openModal", false);
}
})
Step 3: Create Lightning app to preview the component
<aura:application extends="force:slds">
<c:ProgressIndicator/>
</aura:application>