Being a Salesforce administrator has become even more complex and stressful during the pandemic. With most employees and customers working from home, access to clean and up to date information has become essential. If you take a step back and look at the big picture, the data inside Salesforce – is a lot more valuable than the fees you are paying to use the application. There is a direct correlation between revenues and productivity of your sales, marketing, and support teams, and the use of Salesforce. Consequently, if the system is unreliable or lacks quality data, revenues and productivity will go down. Bottom line is that system administrators need to play an active role in maintaining systems and supporting users which includes using the best tools and apps available.
To help Salesforce administrators, we assembled a list of the top 10 Salesforce apps that admins can’t live without. All these apps will help you get the most from your Salesforce investment and make your employees more productive and your customers more satisfied. First let’s take a brief definition of what a Salesforce app is.
What is a Salesforce App?
A Salesforce app is a set of items that work together to make it easier for users to access a set of features in Salesforce. There are two types of Salesforce apps: Classic and Lightning. The Classic apps will include standard and custom tabs such as Home, Groups, People etc. Lightning apps are a collection of items that includes everything that a Classic app has plus Lightning page tabs, and utilities like the Lightning Dialer. Now that we had a brief introduction on Salesforce apps, let’s move on to the list of the best Salesforce apps for administrators.
1. Salesforce Adoption Dashboards
If you have recently made the transition to Salesforce or customized some aspects of your implementation, the Salesforce’ Adoption Dashboard is a great tool to gain insights and track how well Salesforce or the new changes are being received. For example, you can monitor what percentage of employees are logging in and using the system. A low interaction rate is a sign that some sort of adjustment may be necessary. The great benefit of this app is that you can configure it to monitor specific features and determine if and how they are being used. This is also a free app that would be particularly useful for organizations that recently started using Salesforce. The dashboards can be shared amongst all the stakeholders inside the company. This is the most popular and oldest Salesforce apps on the AppExchange with a 4.7 overall rating. Read more here.
Salesforce Adoption Dashboards pricing: Free
2. Ebsta: Sync Gmail and Google Calendar to Any Salesforce Record
If your employees love using Gmail and Google Calendar, they will love Ebsta – this app can seamlessly integrate these services with Salesforce. It is a big time-saver with all calendar events and messages automatically synced to Salesforce. Any customer interaction is tracked in real-time. Companies that use Gmail services should take a close look at this app since it could potentially save a lot of time and manual work. Read more here.
Ebsta pricing: Ebsta offers several tiered pricing packages ranging from $30-$70 with a free trial period for each one
3. Conga Composer: Customize, Streamline and Scale Document Generation and Reporting
The Conga Composer is a very useful tool that auto-populates richly formulated templates with data from either a standard object or a custom one. This allows sales professionals to quickly create all kinds of sophisticated documents, presentations, and reports while eliminating the manual work that would otherwise be required. You do have to be careful when selecting the source object from which data is being extracted. When there are duplicate records or incomplete information users will need to manually find, replace, or insert these values. This makes the process much more laborious and defeats the purpose of using the app. Read more here.
Conga Composer pricing: The Conga Composer is available on the AppExchange starting at $20 per month for 10 users with discounts available for non-profits.
4. DataGroomr: Leverage Machine Learning to Dedupe Salesforce
DataGroomr is one of the easiest tools for detecting and eliminating duplicate records in Salesforce. Duplicates cause all kinds of problems and cast doubt over the quality of data you have in Salesforce. Almost every organization has a story where an eager salesperson contacts a new lead only to find that they are already an existing customer, simply because no one noticed that this individual had both a lead and a contact record.
The really nice thing about DataGroomr is how easy it is to get started. The app uses machine learning technology to identify duplicates without the need configure complex filters or normalize the existing data. Duplicates are collected into matching groups and assigned a match confidence score on a scale of 1-100. Users can review, manipulate, and merge records in a convenient interface. All this is way beyond the duplicate detection functionality offered by Salesforce. Read more here.
DataGroomr pricing: You can get DataGrgroomr from the AppExchange starting at $99 per year for an entire organization.
5. Dataloader.io: Import, Export and Delete Data in Salesforce
Dataloader.io is one of the most popular tools for importing, exporting and deleting data in Salesforce. If you are just starting out with Salesforce, you can use this app to quickly import all your contacts and any other information related to leads and prospects. Exporting data is also included in the toolset. Just select the fields you want to export and press a button. Dataloader.io is powered by Mulesoft’s Anypoint Platform which is widely used to integrate Salesforce with many ERP and marketing management systems providing access to many external data sources. The best part is that the application is absolutely free on the Salesforce AppExchange. Read more here.
Dataloader pricing: Free
6. DocuSign: Sign Documents Anywhere and On Virtually Any Device
DocuSign has become an essential tool in a Salesforce toolbox. The application allows customers to review, mark-up and ultimately sign contracts, purchase orders, and other documents digitally. Organizations can create and send agreements directly from Salesforce to customers and track the entire process from a dashboard. The best part is that DocuSign completely eliminates the need for sending and receiving paper contracts, resulting in a faster and more efficient sales cycle. Customers can sign a document from their computer or any mobile device. In fact, DocuSign is so useful that Salesforce uses DocuSign internally across sales, HR, and other departments. Read more here.
Docusign pricing: DocuSign is available on the AppExchange starting at $30 per user per month.
7. Geopointe: Gain Spatial Insights Through Maps
Geopointe is a great tool to analyze and view your Salesforce data from geographical point of view. The app includes integration with Google Maps and can be used to create heat maps, travel routes, and various other geo-focused reports. Many organizations use Geopoint to plan and coordinate service offerings around customer locations. Other reports, such as sales results by geographies, are very useful for sales professionals, operational teams and executives to identify trends and for strategic planning. Read more here.
Geopointe pricing: Geopointe is available on the AppExchange starting at $45 per user per month.
8. Calendaranything: Create customizable Salesforce Calendars
The purpose of Calendaranything app is to eliminate the need for external calendars which tend to create siloed workflows and can easily sow confusion. Calendaranything creates customizable calendars inside Salesforce that can be shared with anyone within your organization. Once created, calendars can be used to manage a range of marketing and sales campaigns. The app also provides additional visibility and actionable tasks for managers and senior executives. Read more here.
Calendaranything pricing: Calendaranything is available on the AppExchange starting at $150 per user per year.
9. Slack: Integrate One of the Most Popular Communication Apps With Salesforce
Slack is a tool that has revolutionized team collaboration with its ability to integrate all aspects of communication into a single interface. If your organization uses Slack, connecting it to Salesforce will allow your team to further enhance that experience. The Slack app offers pretty good management features for Salesforce and will provide your team visibility to the data inside Slack. Team members can receive updates to key Salesforce information as notifications in Slack. You can also search and preview Salesforce records. Having all that data in a consolidated location will further improve communication which leads to faster responses and higher customer satisfaction. Read more here.
Salesforce for Slack pricing:Free
10. PhoneBurner: Increase the Effectiveness of Your Sales Teams
PhoneBurner is an app designed to streamline the processes around outbound sales teams. It allows users to power dial their leads, log calls, drop 1-click voicemails, send emails with a single click, and many other productivity boosters. PhoneBurner claims over a 4x productivity improvement for sales professionals using the application. Although it is hard to confirm these numbers, the streamlining of repetitive tasks and reduction in call reluctance will certainly lead to more efficiency. The app is an especially good fit for large call centers or telemarketers who need to reach specific hourly call quotas. Read more here.
PhoneBurner Pricing: PhoneBurner is available on the AppExchange starting at $149 per user per month.
The Options are Endless
Salesforce’s AppExchange contains a robust ecosystem of apps and tools that both enhance the environment and address many user needs. With such a wide variety of apps, organizations need to understand their specific requirements prior to spending time trialing different apps. Otherwise the process can drag out and become frustrating. The best Salesforce apps we listed in this article have served our team very well. If you have other suggestions, please feel free to share.
