Reporting on Salesforce.com Data with SQL Server

By | For Developers, IT and Engineering, Tips

A Simple Equation

In a dynamic business environment, it’s often unclear what type of marketing activities achieve results or what new experiments to try. In times when the stock market changes by double digits in a month, common wisdom doesn’t always apply.

Innovative companies experiment with new approaches, but need to be able to measure the results of small micro-campaigns or use historic trends to justify investment.ย We ran into a situation where we wanted to better understand how periodic follow up affected revenue.ย While this data was already in Saleforce.com, there was no way to rank and sort leads based on the number of tasks.ย The goal was to create a score to focus on the ones that had gotten the least attention.

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Using Parameters for Enhanced Usability, Not Questionable Security

By | For Developers, Tips

Traditional Environments: DBAs Rule and Users Drool

If you want data or an update, the only option is to put in a request to your DBA.ย  Worse yet, it may be a committee of DBAs. The DBA would run the report and send it to you.ย If your company is a bit more enlightened, you may have online reports you can access (but not modify.)ย  While this is progress, knowledge workers really need access to data immediately and through a self-service interface that makes it easy to run routine reports with minimal steps and customize them when necessary. Read More

Izenda Reports 6.4: User Defined Constraints with Wildcards

By | Izenda Reports, Tips

(This is part of a series of posts on the new Izenda Reports 6.4, presently at theย Release Candidate stage.)

New virtual constraints are easy to add in Izenda Reports. Complicated schemas no longer require extensive user education or the changing of database schemas. Virtual constraints allow Izenda Reports to know about any connections between tables. For example, users can even run reports on Sales Force databases without reshaping the schema. These may be required to use smart join. Read More

Izenda Reports 6.4: Save Controls Added to the Report Viewer

By | Izenda Reports, Tips

(This is part of a series of posts on the new Izenda Reports 6.4, presently at theย Release Candidate stage.)

Enhanced Report Viewer

In version 6.4 we’re adding save controls to the Report Viewer so that modified reports can be saved or turned into new reports directly from the Report Viewer. No more going to the Report Designer just to save report filter selections. Read More