Salesforce Integration

[swguy]

The integration I did for Salesforce (which was actually featured at Dreamforce 18) has been posted to the Zen Cart plugins area.

https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2217

The most up to date version of this code is on Github:
https://github.com/scottcwilson/zencart_to_salesforce

[chibipaw]

Im sure every one heard about Salesforce is a big thing nowadays, but Im not that familiar with the day-to-day usage of it.
What exactly can one do this? I understand we can import our user and product information to the service.
Is it mostly for report generation, and perhaps mass emailing?

[swguy]

Salesforce is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) too - it helps you keep track of your customers.

[chibipaw]

Salesforce is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) too - it helps you keep track of your customers.

That much I kinda know after reading the salesforce site, and the wikipedia page. But what else would it provide other than what zencart does out of the box: "Here are the top 10 customers, and these what what they bought and when they bought it"? Im still scratching my head feeling a bit dense trying to figure out what an average retailer like most zenners do with it. Most of what I've been reading seems very vague.

[swguy]

CRM may not be a pain point for you, so it wouldn't make sense to invest in this area.

Here are some examples of what Salesforce does that Zen Cart does not: on a per customer basis, I can
- log calls
- store documents (Word files, Excel spreadsheets, etc.)
- write up notes
- mark customer records in various ways to allow me to slice & dice my data
etc.

If your business is transactional and customer-initiated, this probably wouldn't be a need for you.

[chibipaw]

That actually paints a much clearer picture what one would with it.
In fact, it gave me some idea with what I can experiment on.

Thanks.

[swguy]

If you decide to buy Salesforce, PM me for a discount code.

[swguy]

You can also do things like print mailing labels so you can send cards to some of your customers. I wrote up instructions here:
https://www.thatsoftwareguy.com/blog...om-salesforce/

[chibipaw]

You can also do things like print mailing labels so you can send cards to some of your customers. I wrote up instructions here:
https://www.thatsoftwareguy.com/blog...om-salesforce/

Thanks! Im going to explore it see what I can do with this.
Would Saleforce play a role with replacing MailChimp too? I know I've read somewhere about mailing but also there are some integration for those who uses mail chimp. Especially favorable for those who aren't the coding types.

[swguy]

You can certainly use Salesforce to send email to your customers.