Project management that is intelligent and precise is necessary for complex client engagements. During marketing and pre-sales, during the actual sale, and after the consumer has made their purchase, project management assists in achieving the consistent brand messaging that is the hallmark of exceptional customer experiences.
Using Salesforce Management for project management is one method to ensure consistency across the customer experience. By integrating project management into your Salesforce instance, you can bring together customer-facing teams, no matter how far apart they are geographically. Your clients will receive exactly what they require when they require it if you approach customer onboarding or customer service as a project.
A standalone salesforce for a project management system is certainly an option. However, a project management tool not affiliated with Salesforce won't be able to connect to Salesforce objects. Therefore, you will need to interface the project management system with Salesforce if you want to obtain data automatically (to, for example, change a project status in the project management system).
Salesforce's project management features promote cross-departmental alignment and help specific departments. For instance, marketers may collaborate on intricate client interaction initiatives using Salesforce project management by a salesforce project manager. Project teams at a B2B company may track project time and costs using project management tools included in Salesforce.
What is Salesforce?
Project management in salesforce is a top supplier of business apps available in the cloud across various platforms. Platforms like Salesforce CRM, customer 360, digital 360, and other technologies are available on it. Additionally, Salesforce for Project Management can be a lightweight substitute for whole solutions.
In-depth project management is typically needed for customer interactions. You can accomplish the constant communications companies want with the aid of Salesforce for Project Management, which is recognized as a sign of a great customer experience. Communication occurs in marketing and pre-sales, during the sale, and after the transaction.
When employing customer relationship management software for project management, consistency may be attained by using Salesforce. Integrating project management into your Salesforce instance allows you to bring together customer-facing teams, no matter how far apart they are geographic.
Salesforce is a platform for cloud-based businesses. It offers user-friendly business apps that may produce pertinent client experiences. With the aid of Salesforce, users may keep in touch with Customers, Prospects, Partners, Sales, and Market Services worldwide.
Offering SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS technologies is Salesforce. Additionally, it offers cloud computing services for software operations. The data is automatically scaled, improved, and secured. Salesforce Cloud is renowned for being extremely durable and outperforming competitors with adaptable and multitenancy features. There is a CRM platform as well. Salesforce CRM is used to manage a business's interaction with potential customers.
Sales, service, finance, marketing, business development, recruiting, human resources, supply chain management, and other business areas that handle both internal and external interactions utilize Salesforce cloud CRM software and applications. It enables the storage of data on both current and potential customers on a single platform, creating a chart for a personalized customer approach. With useful and analytical data available, it also enables the planning and monitoring of sales and marketing campaigns as well as the management of services. More than 150,000 businesses use it to improve data management.
Why Use Salesforce for Project Management?
Having gained an understanding of Salesforce, let's discuss how it relates to project management.
Salesforce can carry out many more activities than merely maintaining contacts. More of your project management tasks might be added to the program you use the most with its help. You have these 3 choices in Salesforce for project management:
- Obtainable but constrained Features of Salesforce
- Popular project management tools
- Native project management applications for Salesforce
Let's talk about every aspect that Salesforce for Project Management provides:
1. Automating client onboarding using Journey Builder
Journey Builder is a Salesforce product meant to manage customer journeys, but it can also be used to handle onboarding. The software works by sending messages that persuade potential consumers to buy your goods using behavior-based triggers. You can utilize Journey Builder to direct your new clients through onboarding by employing the same strategy.
2. Switch on task notifications
Salesforce provides basic to-do lists, much like the majority of CRM programs. These are useful for remembering what has to be done, but they shouldn't be used in place of the project management software's standard task management tools.
3. Chatter is Salesforce's business social networking software
Use it to collaborate. Chatter, however, differs from other social networking sites in that it aims to increase productivity. Teams may use these to coordinate projects and can utilize chatter to make new posts. Users can leave comments on postings to share pertinent files, pose queries, and offer status updates. The post itself specifies the job or project.
4. Find project management applications on the Salesforce AppExchange
The AppExchange is home to many project management apps created by outside developers. Nearly 400 apps are shown when you just search for "project management," among them the Salesforce AppExchange's Mavenlink, Asana, and Clarizen.
5. Effective Team Management
Salesforce for Project Management provides Account Teams and Opportunity Teams, two essential tools for managing your team.
6. The Sales Team Uses Task Notifications
Salesforce recently debuted Task Notifications as one of its new features. This feature lists the specific tasks that each member of your team is responsible for completing, along with all the necessary information. This feature would also regularly inform the team members of the tasks that needed to be finished, eventually resulting in seamless project execution.
7. Utilizing field history to follow changes
It's crucial to keep track of each and every action your team members take in relation to a certain project. It can be difficult to manage this since several straightforward and complex tasks are being carried out at once. Field History in Salesforce offers a solution to this issue.
8. Being In Sync With Project Timelines
By synchronizing the timelines utilizing the Salesforce Reports, all activities of the various projects are carried out efficiently and on schedule. You would notably benefit from using this tool to manage projects that run the danger of being delivered late. The program assists you in producing reports that address available opportunities during a crisis and filtering those reports using the relevant temporal filters. You can try online Project Management courses to become one.
Main Benefits of Salesforce for Project Management
1. Integration
Native Salesforce for Project Management apps offers definite advantages over external tools. Since they were created with Salesforce technology, there is no need for further integration to allow them to function perfectly with both standard and customized items in Salesforce. Additionally, it implies that any modifications to your project management program will work with the most recent Salesforce updates and new features.
2. Flexibility
Applications from Salesforce for project management provide limitless versatility. You may simply alter them to precisely suit your requirements, for instance, by adding unique objects and fields, workflow rules, and other features. The functionality may be further increased by integrating a Salesforce for Project Management app with any of the thousands of other AppExchange apps.
3. A complete view of a Customer
You may link your projects to other Salesforce objects, including Accounts, Opportunities, Cases, and more, using tools for project management built on the Salesforce platform, such as Inspire Planner. This allows your team to run numerous reports on your Accounts, Opportunities, etc. and offers them visibility into what is happening with each of your clients in real time.
4. Security
Salesforce for Project Management applications come equipped with the same technological foundation and security guidelines as Salesforce itself. Only Salesforce securely hosts your data, and even there, it abides by your existing security preferences and sharing guidelines.
5. Real-time Reporting
Additionally, you can rest certain that your data is synchronized in real-time, which is crucial for reporting and analytics. Your Salesforce for project management software will provide you with the required information on important trends and bottlenecks by employing Salesforce Reports and Dashboards.
6. Automation
You benefit from strong automation by utilizing Process Builder with Salesforce for Project Management applications. For instance, based on a predetermined template and with pre-attached documents, set predecessors, and more, you may automatically initiate a project when an opportunity is closed or won. You may even predefine roles for carrying out the activities, and all jobs will then be assigned automatically based on these roles. This automation can also become much more advanced according to your unique demands.
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How to Use Salesforce for Project Management
You immediately think of Kleenex when someone says "tissue." Before you consider "bandage," you ask for a Band-Aid if your knee is scraped. The first brand that likely springs to mind while searching for a CRM is Salesforce. You can try PMP classes to become a project manager.
However, Salesforce is capable of much more than just tracking contacts; you can also integrate more of your project management activities into the program you use the most.
1. Using Journey Builder to automate customer onboarding
Salesforce has an app called Journey Builder that may be used to manage customer onboarding as well as customer journeys. The program sends messages to potential consumers that encourage them to purchase your goods using behavior-based triggers. You may utilize Journey Builder to assist in onboarding new clients by employing the same strategy.
2. Enable task notifications
Project salesforce has support for basic to-do lists, like the majority of CRM programs. These are useful for keeping track of your to-do list, but they aren't necessarily intended to take the place of the task management tools found in project management software.
The ability to add reminders and activate notifications for your to-do list items is only available if you have Salesforce Lightning. This helps Salesforce work more like a project management tool and keeps your team on schedule. Ask your team members to verify that Universal Notification Service (UNS) is turned on in order to guarantee that they get notifications about impending tasks. If you plan to use Salesforce for more task management responsibilities, UNS should be activated by default, but it's not a bad idea to check.
3. Use Chatter to collaborate in real-time and share files
Salesforce's business social networking app is called Chatter. But unlike other social networking sites, Chatter is intended to increase productivity, not hinder it.
Teams may use these posts to coordinate projects, and anybody who uses Chatter can publish a new post. Think of chatter postings as being more like cards in Asana or Trello than like Facebook posts. Users can leave comments on postings to share pertinent files, pose queries, and offer status updates. The post itself specifies the job or project.
To prevent the whole organization from seeing only interesting posts to a small number of people, you may create groups in Chatter. Add subjects to posts from there to arrange them by role, campaign, or region. If used properly, chatter may be a terrific tool for integrating more of your project management activities into Salesforce.
4. Browse Salesforce AppExchange to find project management apps
Salesforce hosts several project management apps from outside developers on its AppExchange in addition to providing a number of its own project management tools. Nearly 400 apps are found when you simply search for "project management," some of which you may be familiar with. For instance, the Salesforce AppExchange features apps from Mavenlink, Asana, and Clarizen.
There's no need to be concerned if you don't utilize a project management application; this is a terrific approach to combining the solutions you already use. Numerous developers create apps specifically for Salesforce, but they typically have a price tag attached.
5. Find a CRM with the features that are right for you
Despite being a complete and strong system, Salesforce isn't the only CRM available that includes project management functions. To get a free shortlist of the top CRM programs for your particular requirements, use our Product Selection Tool. Following a few inquiries to understand your needs better, we'll provide you links to five merchants we believe you'll enjoy. Starting is simple and takes no more than five minutes.
6. Top CRM Software Recommendations
- NetSuite CRM
- Freshsales CRM
- Zoho CRM
- HubSpot CRM
Salesforce Strengths and Weaknesses in Project Management
The Salesforce cloud platforms do not yet include a project management feature. Although practically every action listed above may be accomplished using a platform with a wide set of capabilities, the absence of a specific project entity suggests that the platform will need to be customized in order to be utilized for end-to-end project management.
Here is a list of the capabilities and features that come with and don't come with some of the more common Salesforce licenses.
- Salesforce tasks may be used to make tasks and assign them to a single user or a group of users. The tasks page lists the tasks that have been given to you and your coworkers, as well as file attachments. To inform users of changes to task statuses, the system sends email notifications and reminders. Assigning a job to a service agent when a related work is marked as complete by a sales representative is one example of a custom process that can be created using the Salesforce Process Builder for project management purposes.
- Salesforce doesn't allow managing task dependencies out of the box. As a result, when you update a task's due date for your marketing team, any associated tasks for sales representatives are unaffected. However, you may design unique procedures to close the gap using Salesforce Process Builder.
- You cannot group all tasks associated with a project together without altering Salesforce.
- Salesforce Chatter is a powerful tool for project collaboration. Chatter consists of activity and conversation feeds, feed tracking, polls for user input, and customizable alerts and notifications. To prevent the conversations of several projects from becoming muddled, you may use Chatter to segregate talks into topical groups. Chatter may notify the project team when a task change occurs in addition to delivering member messages.
- To facilitate collaboration, project teams may utilize built-in document management features to generate, share, and upload documents to Chatter streams.
- Salesforce offers customizable dashboards and a powerful drag-and-drop report builder. These technologies can provide managers of customer-centric projects with comprehensive perspectives on the tasks, issues, and project outcomes.
- Project team members may access the system whenever they want from any device thanks to the Salesforce mobile app.
- In summary, Salesforce's default features are sufficient to manage simple customer-focused initiatives. A business must either utilize a plugin from the Salesforce AppExchange or employ a Salesforce expert to configure the platform for large-scale project management.
Conclusion
For project management, Salesforce offers three major alternatives. First, built-in capabilities that may fulfill the most fundamental requirements of small teams. Second, Salesforce must relate to other project management tools. Third, a Salesforce project management software from AppExchange, like Inspire Planner, is the simplest and most effective choice. You can only get flexibility and true seamless connection from such native Salesforce apps. You can join KnowledgeHut’s online Project Management courses to get into this field.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can Salesforce be used for project management?
Although Salesforce is a complete and potent system, it isn't the only one available on the market that provides project management functions. Request a free shortlist of the top CRM applications for your unique needs with our Product Selection Tool.
2. What is SFDC in project management?
SalesForceDotCom is known as SFDC. Salesforce develops and maintains customer relationship management (CRM) software that aids in destroying departmental technology silos to provide businesses a comprehensive view of their customers anywhere they engage with your brand.
3. How do I create a project in Salesforce?
To display the command palette, press Command + Shift + P on a Mac or Ctrl + Shift + P on a Windows computer.
Make certain that the new prompt reads > Type SFDX: Select the default template by typing Create Project and pressing Enter.
Press Enter after entering the project name.
4. How do I create a Gantt chart in Salesforce?
The program will automatically plot the tasks over time if you only build a task list and enter the start and end dates. Once you've established task dependencies, your Salesforce Gantt chart will automatically update in real-time to reflect any changes you make to your tasks.
5. What are the 6 benefits of Salesforce?
- Reliable reporting.
- Dashboards that display data graphically.
- Automated messaging improvements.
- Proactive assistance
- Automation increases productivity.
- Streamlined cooperation
