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