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The Partner Experience Weekly: Building a Partnership App in Salesforce CRM

This was going to be an article highlighting several quick Salesforce wins for new PartnerOps professionals. A nice segue between heavier use cases while I keep mapping out a content strategy and look at some new tools I hope to share in the coming weeks.

Then I started writing.

I’m not sure if it’s a by-product of ADHD or just a natural occurrence for writers (as I’m relatively new to the discipline of consistently producing content), but as I work through ideas more tend to spill out and fill up the page. The challenge shifts to determining where to draw the line.

So this week we go from a few quick wins to a more in-depth look at how to leverage Salesforce App building for an improved Partner Experience for your internal teams.

I’m a nice guy, though, so here’s a list of quick wins we’ll get into over the next few weeks.

Quick wins for partner ops in Salesforce

1. Schedule time with your team to ask what’s working, what’s not, and where they need immediate relief. Ask about key data and what matters most. You’ll need all of this for the rest.

2. Build out a dedicated space in the CRM - in Salesforce this would be a Partnerships App. Focus on the data, reports, and actions from #1.

3. Take on ownership for reporting or become central to the management process - figure out how you can make it easier and actionable. Drive what you can in Salesforce.

4. Build list-views driven around process for Lead, Opportunity, and Account management.

5. Teach your team about App navigation and the use of ’Favorites’ to improve use and adoption - many teams never get even basic introductions to using CRM. Be the expert and offer support. 

Building space for partnerships in Salesforce

You’ll hear me consistently discuss the lack of native Partnership architecture in CRMs. The day one of these platforms provides it will likely be the day I sign up for a CRM affiliate program (unless of course, there’s a sponsor out there looking for a niche voice to support in this arena - I do like what my friend Brandon calls ’Magic Money Day’ as much as the rest of us).

To that end, check for a ’Partnerships’ App as soon as you land. If there is one, you’ve got some groundwork for your initial discovery conversation and will likely hear about it from the team. If there’s not, you’ve got a great opportunity to enhance the internal user experience and make an impact and demonstrate the value of dedicated ops.

Why this matters

It’s still common for Partnership teams to have an uphill struggle getting buy-in, support, and funding to expand. For a variety of reasons, it’s easy for Partnership (and/or Channel) teams to feel isolated and cut off. One of those reasons is specifically tied to a lack of dedicated support in their day-to-day experience. This invariably includes the CRM.

It’s just like the song says - sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Creating a Partnership App is a low-effort, high-impact way to give your team that space. It tells them they matter, they are seen, and that you’ve got their back.

Ready to get started?

First principles

One of my new friends, James Haefele, recently asked me about ’First Principles’ about what I really care about from a Partner Ops perspective. The idea is a useful framework for design principles when it comes to setting up a successful experience. I try to keep the following in mind when designing systems.

• Design the systems as though they are a single platform experience.
• Remember that stakeholders want less clicks to the goal.
• Drive stakeholders toward action instead of information.
• Strive toward user-proof experiences (as a goal, not a reality).

Getting started with discovery

Going 1-1, by teams, or with the group as a whole, open the door for understanding by asking what sucks about the current CRM. Odds are it’s quite a lot and they will have lots of great ideas to help you prioritize work and look like a superstar. This effort alone will potentially be a significant win for you and the team, more so if you’re the first or currently the only member of the Partner Ops team. It’s also critical for building a foundation for your efforts.

Use this list of grievances to build out your quick-win roadmap for the App experience. Some key questions to consider:

1. What data does the team work with most?
2. Those are key objects to include that will likely center around Accounts, Contacts, Lead, Opportunities, Campaigns, Reporting, and Dashboards.
3. Which reports, if any, drive activity in the CRM?
4. These are key for home-page updates and helping drive the team towards action in the CRM.
5. What activities or workflows drive their use of the CRM?
6. This is great content for in-system guidance and rich-text areas within object page layouts.
7. What would you like them to be able to do in the CRM?
8. Encourage boldness and a focus on the ideal state over limitations. This is where you get your roadmap for improvement and internal conversations going forward.

Building the partnership app

An ’app’ in Salesforce is basically just a collection of specific objects. You have control over who sees this app and thus can manage the user experience specifically for that group, including a custom home page, utilizing the console experience, and controlling tab order and customization.

This section is straightforward you can find a lot of guidance online through search and Salesforce help articles if you need more help. Here’s the basic step-by-step process for building out the ’app’ in Salesforce.

1. Go to ’Setup’ and search on ’App’
2. Open the ’App Manager’