The App-X Blog

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The App-X Blog has moved

Unfortunately, the days of the App-X blog on tumblr are done.

Fortunately, the App-X blog has a new home where you can find all the latest expert advice on cloud-based tools for Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Alternative Asset fund managers.  Find our new blog at www.app-x.com/blog

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Case Study: IMC Uses AIM to Streamline Evaluations and Share Data among Team Members

Investors Management Corporation (IMC) implemented AIM to gain visibility into their universe of potential investments and to streamline their evaluation process. AIM by Application Experts centralizes institutional knowledge related to investment due diligence and portfolio management and provides detailed reporting to improve operational efficiencies for Private Equity fund managers.

Read the full case study here.

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Salesforce "Connector for Office" Workaround

We've had good luck with this workaround that gets the current "Connect for Office" (ver. 1.8.1.2) to work with Office 2010.  The current installation of "Connect for Office" installs with no error for Office 2010, but the corresponding ribbons are missing in both Excel and Word. If you have an Office 2007 installation with "Connect for Office" installed on another machine, you can copy the following files Word 2007 to Word 2010 sforce.dot sforce12.dotm from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\STARTUP (on your machine that runs Office 2007) to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\STARTUP (on your machine that runs Office 2010) Excel 2007 to Excel 2010 SFDC.xla SFDC12.xlam from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\XLSTART (on your machine that runs Office 2007) to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\XLSTART (on your machine that runs Office 2010)

Enjoy!

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App-X Tips and Tricks

As part of our 500th user celebration, App-X is rolling out a new feature on our website.  Tips & Tricks is a library of videos put together by App-X consultants explaining how to get the most out of AIM, PULSE, and Salesforce.

Adding a connection type, editing and creating a list view, merging accounts, and moving a contact to a new employer are just a few of the topics we've covered.

Keep an eye out for new videos in the coming weeks and months.  And if you have a suggestion for a video you'd like to see, let us know.

You can find the App-X Tips and Tricks library app-x.com/tips-and-tricks.

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Reflections on an internship in Salesforce Metadata API

By Tommy Gaidus

This summer, I spent time with Application Experts testing what kinds of changes can be done to an org programmatically with certain tools like the Salesforce Metadata API and which kinds of changes must be done manually. Through my work, I spent enough time with the Metadata API to really be able to call myself a veritable “expert” in that area. It is very unique for someone of my age and experience level to be given the opportunity to become so familiar with the increasingly important Salesforce Platform and explore its intricacies. More broadly, this summer gave me a great introduction to the role cloud computing can play in business, specifically in Alternative Asset Management fields such as Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Impact Investing. As cloud computing becomes more and more prevalent in the future, I will be grateful for the experience I gained at Application Experts. Perhaps most importantly however, the adventure I had working with such a great group of people this summer is not one I will soon forget.

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Dreamforce: The Cloud Computing/Heavy Metal Event of the Year

By Jeff V.

It looks like App-X will be sending a small contingent to Salesforce's annual users’ conference Dreamforce in San Francisco this year.  As always, it looks like Dreamforce will be the place to be to get caught up on the latest news and to just hone one's Salesforce skills.

I’ll be attending my 1st Dreamforce this September.  From all that I've heard, the sheer magnitude of this event will surely impress, not to mention the fact that Metallica will be playing live.  I'm picturing 20,000 people in business casual dress and nametags on lanyards around their necks lightly tapping their toes to a 5-minute guitar solo.  How the members of Metallica won't feel like complete sellouts, I don't know.  Or maybe I'm wrong--maybe there will be 20,000 people in a business casual mosh pit.

That said, as users and peddlers of the Salesforce platform, we're in a unique position to become better users of the system, but also better providers of a platform that continues to gain momentum each year.  As a marketer, I'm interested to see what amount of focus is put on social media, especially with Salesforce's recent acquisition of Radian6.

We'll be live tweeting from the event (twitter handle: app_x) if you're interested in following along or tweeting along with us.

And if you're headed to Dreamforce in September as well, we look forward to seeing you there.  I'll be in the mosh pit.

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Attending the ANDE Metrics Conference

By Beth Busenhart

As a Project Manager here at App-X I have the pleasure of working with clients in the Impact Investing Space to implement AIM and PULSE. On June 20 and 21st, I had the added bonus of attending the ANDE Metrics Conference in Washington, DC. For two action packed days I was exposed to some of the most innovative thinking in the industry around tracking and measuring social impact. Those new to the space might be asking “What is Social Impact?” The answer is, “That is a good question!” and one that was explored in great detail at the conference. At a very high level, Social Impact is the result of the mission driven work that Foundations, NGOs, and non-profit organizations are doing in the world. Our partners at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) are dedicated to providing more concrete answers to this question through the development and propagation of the IRIS Taxonomy. A more important question is “How do we measure and benchmark Social Impact?” This was the underlying theme of the conference. It was striking to participate with such a diverse group of people in getting excited about metrics and measurement. We were talking about data for two days straight and engagement remained high. One of the highlights of the conference was the release of the Global Impact Investing Network’s (GIIN) first IRIS Report. I can now imagine how excited the accounting profession must have been when GAAP was introduced. Now there’s a sentiment I never expected to express! Eyes lit up as the potential of sharing data and benchmarking the progress of an investment against a concrete set of indicators was unveiled. I am thrilled with the potential in this space and very excited to be working with this bright and motivated community. As a service provider working with Alternative Asset Investors, I am a firm believer in the role that accessible technology plays in the development of Impact Investments as a distinct asset class. Imagine the possibilities in providing concrete evidence that social benefit and financial gain are not mutually exclusive returns on capital. The value proposition is high. As an industry that believes in collaboration and transparency, we are working together to lower the barriers to entry for others to join the movement.

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Outlook Integration with Salesforce.com

By Ben Hendershot and Jason Viado

    Integration between Salesforce and Outlook is a common request from our clients.  Syncing emails, contacts, and other information between the two databases can be an important part of getting valuable information into and out of your Salesforce org.  Unfortunately, the Salesforce Outlook connector has some shortcomings, making integration quite a bit more complicated than it would seem.

Much of the trouble between Salesforce and Outlook is due to the fact that there are two widely used versions of Outlook--the pre-2007 version and the post-2007 version--and the Salesforce connector behaves differently for each.  Since many offices often have the pre-2007 version running on some machines while the post-2007 version runs on others, some users will have access to functionality that is not available to other users.  For example, the pre-2007 version syncs attachments and the post-2007 version does not.

Additionally, since the Salesforce connector is a piece of desktop software it often runs into trouble with security restrictions like firewalls and administrative permissions depending on the organization's IT setup.

Other problems with the connector include:

Outlook must be open and running in order to sync with Salesforce; it does not sync to the exchange server.

Bi-direction syncing between Outlook to Salesforce and Salesforce to Outlook can be problematic--multiple users are likely to produce conflicting data. 

There also appears to be a bug that causes the connector to occasionally disable itself without warning or explanation.

Users cannot sync a shared calendar from Salesforce to everyone's Outlook, which is a very common request.

The connector will only sync 5,000 contacts so users who rely on syncing with Outlook to get their Salesforce contacts on their mobile device don't get all of the contacts in their Salesforce org if they have more than 5,000 contacts

Commonly used Outlook functionality (Categories) does not sync.

Fortunately, there are some ways to make the Outlook connector more effective.  We recommend clients only sync from Salesforce to Outlook and not the other way.  This seems to be more stable and prevents user's personal contacts within Outlook (like friends and family) from getting entered in Salesforce.  We have also developed proprietary software we call E2SF (email to Salesforce), which allows users to send emails into their Salesforce database and provide instructions for which objects the email will be related to.  This way, an email can be associated with a contact, an account, or an opportunity.

There are also a number of third party providers that address the issue of integrating with Outlook.  When evaluating these providers, we recommend looking for products that support various platforms, products that can be used with mobile devices, and products that are cloud-based and do not require any local software.

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Migrating Documents to Content in Salesforce.com

Here are the basic instructions to move SF Attachments to SF Content in a Salesforce Org that has legacy documents stored as Attachments and wishes to move them to Content.  It assumes the user has comfort with using the Data Loader and data in general.  This document focuses on Attachments, but a similar process can be used to move Documents to Content within Salesforce.

Note: there is a 5,000 file per day limit on Content submissions.

Convert the Org to Use Content

At a minimum, Enable Content and add all users as Content users

Replace Attachments related lists throughout system and add related lists for Content (done by adding lookup to the objects as custom fields on Content Type layouts)

Now, nobody should be able to add new attachments during the migration (might have to do this after-hours to limit disruption)

Exports You will Need 

Attachments & Document Files :  Start by doing a full Export including all files from within SF.  This will get you all the attachments, documents, etc. named by their record ID in SF.

Setup->Data Management->Data Export->Export Now

Be sure to check “Include in Export” at top and “Include all Data” at bottom

Note:  If an export has been done in the last 48 hours, you will not have the option to “Export Now”.  You will have to wait.

The Export will complete in 5 minutes to 2 hours depending on its size and SF system availability and an email will be sent to the app-xprod email address.  Alternatively, you can periodically refresh the page

One or more .zip files should be on the Data Export screen after it has completed

Download all of them…they will only be available for 48 hours

Place the .zip files somewhere on your local machine

Extract all of them within a folder:

Will result in a bunch of .csv files of the data.  These can be deleted or filed elsewhere

Will result in Attachments folder with all attachments.  You will need these.  Make sure they are all in the same folder

Will result in Documents folder with all documents.   If migrating these, you will also need these

Attachments Data.csv:  Export all current attachments in Data Loader.  Exclude the column “Body” from the export.

Keep the original Attachments export .csv in a safe place.  You’ll probably need to refer to it.

Verify the number of Attachments in this export matches the number you have in the Attachments folder from the Export. Ditto if you are also migrating Documents.

ContentVersion.csv:  Export the current CONTENT (Content Version) table in Data Loader. Exclude the column “VERSIONDATA” from the Export.

Keep original file as you’ll probably need it later.

Build Your Import File 

Build your Content Version .csv by first exporting a test record from the Content Version table in data loader.  Exclude the “VERSIONDATA” column from the export.  Include the following columns or delete the rest after export.

ID:  Unique ID of Current version of Document that is displayed when you click on a document; Will be blank in import file

CONTENTDOCUMENTID:  Unique ID of a Content Document.  Different than above; Will be blank in import file

TITLE: This is what the document will be called; Title of the document from the Attachments table or other source

VERSIONDATA:  Full file path to the document being inserted without file type extension (i.e. C:\Clients\Attachments\00PA000002gpI3Mai).  See Helpful Hints below; Must be populated and without file extension

PATHONCLIENT:  Full file path to the document being inserted with file type extension (i.e. C:\Clients\Attachments\00PA000002gpI3Mai.pdf).  This tells Content what the file type is so that the document can be previewed in SF. If extension not assigned correctly, the import is pretty much worthless.  See Helpful Hints below; Must be populated and with file extension

OWNERID:  In the case of attachments related to other records, this is the owner id (18 char) of the other record, not the attachment (depending on how attachments were loaded, you may be able to simply take the owner of the attachment).  This is because some attachments have the owner as the Admin if they were loaded via an API call.  You want the actual Owner as any security in the org is driven off of that (Requires additional vLookup to export of the related records tables); must be populated

FIRSTPUBLISHLOCATIONID:  This is the workspace ID (18 char) that you are inserting each document into; Must be populated

RECORDTYPEID:  This is the ContentType ID (18 char) of the Content type you want to assign to this document; Must be populated if more than one Content Type defined in the org.  Otherwise, it defaults to General and you don’t need the column

ALL APPROPRIATE LOOKUPS to other objects (i.e. Contact__C, Account__C); Optional

ALL APPROPRIATE FILTERS (i.e. Document_Type__C, Year__C.  Needs to be populated manually if you want filter information; Optional

ALL APPROPRIATE LEGACY IDS:  I like to add the id of the document from where it came from (may be internal or external IDs); Optional, but highly suggested

Helpful Hints

Build your VERSION DATA:  Add the static path in one cell in your .csv (i.e. G2 has “C:\Clients\Attachments\” in it).  Add the appropriate attachment ID for this document (i.e. H2 has “00PA000002gpI3Mai” in it).  Build the file path by using concatenate function below; G2&H2; Should result in C:\Clients\Attachments\00PA000002gpI3Mai

Determine File Type:  Use formula below to extract the characters after the period at the end of the title of the document to grab the file extension.  A2 is the cell reference containing the Title of the document that has an extension (i.e. Sample.pdf); =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND("^^",SUBSTITUTE(A2,".","^^",LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,".","")))));  Result should be “pdf”; Eyeball all the results for sort by the results as many times you get “.pd” or “.xl”.  Fix the title of these documents so you get a legit file extension

Build your PATHONCLIENT:  Concatenate the contents of VERSIONDATA that you already built (C:\Clients\Attachments\00PA000002gpI3Mai) with the result of the file type you have determined (i.e. “.pdf”); Use concatenate function to give you the following result (i.e. =G2&”.”&H2...note the addition of period in quotes); C:\Clients\Attachments\00PA000002gpI3Mai.pdf

Data Loader 21.0 does not report on “File not Found” Errors.  It gives you no error or success file record for this situation.  Suggest using Data Loader 20.0 for loading of Content Version table

CSV’s are finicky. You cannot have more than 1 worksheet in a given .csv.  Well, you can, but when you save, it will delete all but the first

VLOOKUP: Excellent function.  You will need to use it.

FIXID:  If you happen to have 15 char ids, you can use Excel function =FIXID(A2) where A2 contains the 15 char id

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Crock Pot Wednesday--an App-X Tradition

Every Wednesday for the last few years, App-X employees gather around the crock pot to share in a group lunch.  The cook changes every week--each employee is asked to cook for the group every couple months--but the purpose is always the same: to enjoy the company of our friends and co-workers and reinforce the idea of family in our company.  And because at App-X, that's how its always been done. If you're ever in the area, you're welcome to drop in and enjoy some crock pot with us.  We'd love to have you.

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Acumen Fund Celebrates 10 Years

Congratulations to our PULSE project partner Acumen Fund for 10 years of philanthropy and positive change.

Some highlights:

More than 3 million people have access to safe, affordable, and efficient energy

7,000 people have jobs and hundreds of millions of insecticide treated bednets have been produced by A to Z

More than 330,000 farmers are changing their families’ lives with drip irrigation systems

Hundreds of thousands have access to quality sanitation in Kenya – and Ecotact has become a model for other countries

More than 150,000 farmers have access to quality, affordable hybrid seeds in Western Kenya

1298 is now answering more than 30.000 emergency calls every month in India (and has created more than 1250 jobs)

Kashf has reached more than 300,000 borrowers with micro-loans and emerged as one of Pakistan’s important civil society institution

The first commercial mortgages for the poor have been provided in Pakistan and Saiban has developed a working, sustainable model for low-income housing development

More than 350,000 individuals have access to safe drinking water (and this doesn’t include the copycat companies that have emerged as a result of WHI’s innovation in the Indian marketplace)

Aravind provides quality eyecare through telemedicine to millions across India and has served as a global model

Sekem is the largest exporter of organic goods from the Middle East to Europe (working with 4,000 farmers on reclaimed desert land)

App-X and PULSE are proud to be a part of your success.

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Welcome to the App-X Blog

Hello from Colorado, USA.  Here at App-X world headquarters, we're proud to announce the inception of our new blog.  Over the next few months and years, we'll be sharing some of what we've learned over the last few years providing cloud-based solutions for the alternative asset management space.

We hope you enjoy reading what we have to say and we welcome your feedback.

                              The App-X Conference Room