We have had a few SMEs approach us, enquiring about enterprise apps and how their systems could harness the iPhone capabilities in a business environment. To illustrate a common scenario, we use the example of Salesforce.com who have designed and developed an app for sales automation, which extends the current Salesforce.com system and brings it onto the iPhone.
If you are Saleforce.com customer, you can leverage the Salesforce Mobile app to access your contacts, accounts, leads, opportunities, tasks, and events on your mobile phone. The company has also developed apps for other mobile devices like Blackberry & Windows Mobile, but they are out of this blog’s scope.
Salesforce.com iPhone app
Setting up Salesforce Mobile on your iPhone is a very simple process. Typically, users will follow the process outlined below:
Search for “Saleforce Mobile” in the app store and click “Install” - make sure to check the licensing agreement before using it. Mobile Lite is free but for the full version, you will need to signup
After installing the app, you have to provide your Salesforce.com username & password, and hit the “Activate” button. This will enable the iPhone to contact the Salesforce servers to download your data onto the phone.
In addition to this, you need to set a passcode to unlock the application.
Once everything is set up, navigation through the application and through your leads, accounts, contacts is a breeze
If you are used to the iPhone navigation system, the Salesforce Mobile app will seem like second nature.
A caveat for data synchronisation though - it is nicely hidden away in the inappropriately titled App Info section. The sync option synchronises your phone with the server data, and vice versa. It generally happens in the background when the app is idle, but you can also manually sync it through this option.
Companies who use Salesforce as their CRM system will find the mobile app a great addition to their tool kit. It enables on the move data access and lead capture, thereby reducing the “office-based” work load, and thus increasing productivity.
This is a fantastic example of how the iPhone is penetrating the business market, and providing greater productivity gains.