Flex in SalesForce.com helps increase user productivity

The application:

A document management screen giving the user the following abilities:

1. Move documents to different folders
2. Copy documents to a different folder
3. Assign different properties to the documents

Issue at hand:

For every action described above, the user had to undergo many clicks. For example, to move a document to a different folder, the user had to first select the particular document using a check box. Next, select the particular folder from a drop down where the user wanted to place the document. And finally click on the Move button to kick it off. Of course, this followed by a screen refresh to confirm the action. This structure was built in traditional VisualForce screen.

New approach:

We developed an Adobe Flex Screen to run in the Salesforce.com environment. As you can see below, this new Flex screen was a remarkable improvement over the original screen. Not only was it aesthetically better, it was far superior in terms of usability. Moving of documents across folders was now just a matter of drag and drop. Assigning or changing different properties to the documents was also faster now. Additionally, we gave the users preview functionality at the bottom of the screen where the user could preview the pdf before taking any action on it.

Positive Result:

Of course, it comes as a great pleasure to the developer when everything works fine. But even better is getting first hand feedback from the actual users on how happy they are with the new system. And on top of it, the manager’s quarter-ending report indicating productivity gains because of the time saved was an icing on the cake.

 The original VF screen

The New Flex Screen

Capturing agent transactions within Salesforce.com

A customer recently asked "how can we track complete agent transaction with Salesforce.com, not just case handling times ?".  - An age old problem several of us have often heard,struggled with, have been burnt by, or have tried to avoid while implementing call center solutions.

The software this time was none other than the call center application built on the Force.com platform (A cloud computing platform provided by Salesforce.com).

The capabilities provided out of the box in Salesforce.com (SFDC)  for tracking end to end agent transaction times leaves us wanting for more in almost every implementation, and this is invariably the key metric to the success within any call center. The upside is that Salesforce.com is the most powerful cloud computing platform in the world today and this functionality is easily achieved with a few point and clicks, a little visual force/apex magic and a whole lot of input from a functional call center expert.

Frustrated call center managers and executive management looking to evolve their call center agent performance and productivity in the cloud will invariably need to modify their implementation in order to optimizing call handing and agent transaction times while interacting with the salesforce.com application, increasing or decreasing the time based on call types - Yes! Some times longer calls are better for business.

Sometimes complex problems have very simple yet effective solutions, when thought of clearly. The solution to this issue within our customer's Salesforce.com implementation was a fusion of some visual force, apex and page layout modification that were placed in the side bar and within the agent console. This solution was also linked to a CTI adapter of choice optionally to start agent transaction, and some time to stop them. So...Now!! Upon acceptance of an incoming call, a new agent transaction begins , this holds true for inbound email and chat transactions or incoming fax transactions too. The start time is recorded and the agent continues with his usual activity, looking up contact details, logging cases, perhaps even transferring the call to another agent....

The agent can now maneuver between different informational records within the CRM - contacts, accounts, cases, notes, work orders as well as edit and create new ones. Ready for this!! The transaction gets related to all these records.

 Ending a transaction can be manual or automatic, the agent gets to fill out the call disposition, really, and he does for very call!! He does get to fill out the call disposition and also log notes that are easily search able.

The solution provided would be of no use without reports. We provided using Salesforce.com reporting features and encapsulated statistics around call disposition, call type, call start and end times, call transfers and a few others, however the one report that stood out among others centered around the call handling time vs. the agent transaction time that helped our now ecstatic customer realize their goals of  of improving the agent productivity for different call types and classifying their agents by performance and call types.

What shape is your cloud ?

...