Top Salesforce News to Know the Week of Dreamforce

It’s officially Dreamforce week, and that means hundreds of thousands of Salesforce customers, partners and enthusiasts are descending upon San

4 min. read

It’s officially Dreamforce week, and that means hundreds of thousands of Salesforce customers, partners and enthusiasts are descending upon San Francisco as I type this. It’s the world’s largest technology conference, and the most important time of year for the company whose customer success platform continues to grow. That means the buzz about what’s new and notable in the world of Salesforce is loud right now. So loud, in fact, it can be hard to hear it all.

That’s why we’ve sifted through the dozens of stories that have been accumulating over the past weeks, looking for the news that would be most relevant and exciting for our audiences.

Heading into Dreamforce, these are the top Salesforce news stories we think you should know.

#1: Salesforce is partnering with Apple

Nearly a year after announcing a global partnership with Google, Salesforce has teamed up with another Silicon Valley titan — this time, Apple. The partnership will yield a redesigned Salesforce mobile app that provides iOS users exclusive features (Siri Shortcuts, Face ID and Business Chat have been mentioned so far) and a Swift-optimized Salesforce Mobile SDK (that is, a software developer’s kit) that will empower programmers to create iPhone/iPad apps on Salesforce’s Lightning platform. The first-ever Trailhead Mobile App is also coming to iOS, as well a number of other “powerful iOS apps for industries and small business.”

Practically speaking, this means users will benefit from new (and newly revamped) apps, businesses will be able to deploy apps through Apple’s App Store, and developers will be able to get in on the ground floor of what’s sure to become a flourishing “Salesforce for Mac” programming ecosystem.

#2: Einstein is coming to Pardot

Pardot is Salesforce’s powerful but approachable B2B marketing automation platform. Einstein is the company’s artificial intelligence solution. Now, the two are coming together. Based on currently available information, this means two big things for Pardot users going forward. The first is real-time data analysis via campaign insights, which will eliminate the need for marketers to manually sort through data to understand their successes and failures. Instead, Einstein will provide that information automatically — things like “which personas or geographical regions are most engaged.”

The second big change Einstein will bring to Pardot is automatic behavior scoring. Previously, marketers would need to write new rules to increase potential prospects’ scores based on the actions they take. Now, when a prospect interacts with one of your campaigns, Einstein will update their score for you. You’ll be able to spend less time acquiring the information you need and more time acting on it.

More to come on Einstein after the Pardot Product Keynote at Dreamforce. We’ll be watching and reporting on what we learn!

#3: Einstein Voice is on the way

If you’re a big fan/user of voice technologies, consider this one a treat: Einstein Voice is coming to Salesforce. With Einstein Voice Assistant, you’ll be able to update records, tag team members and create tasks — all with a simple command. You’ll also be able to use your voice to drill down into dashboards and ask for personalized daily briefings about whatever metrics matter most to you.

Einstein Voice isn’t only about making your life easier, though — it’s also about creating convenience for your customers via easy-to-build voice bots. Check out this example use case from Salesforce that illustrates the power of their new technology:

“[A] rental car company could deploy an Einstein Voice Bot to enable their customers to update a reservation with a simple voice command to the smart speaker of their choice. The Einstein Voice Bot would then source responses from knowledge articles in Service Cloud and share verbal answers to help quickly resolve the customer’s case.”

Pretty exciting stuff, right?

#4: Salesforce Winter ‘19 release is here

Three times a year, Salesforce customers are treated to a hefty batch of Salesforce updates — and the latest of those releases is here. The contents include everything from fulfilled user requests (like list view sharing in Lightning) to major new features (like utilization management in Health Cloud). The full Winter ‘19 release notes exceed 500 pages, though, so you’d better get reading.

Kidding. We don’t actually expect you to wade through the whole document. That’s why we picked seven of the most important updates that we believe users of all kinds should know about. We plan to do the same for all subsequent releases, so consider subscribing to our blog so you don’t miss a post.

And if you’re one of the lucky ones attending Dreamforce this week, let us know. We’ve got meeting space reserved a few blocks from the Moscone Center, and would love to talk all things Salesforce — questions, concerns, future projects, you name it. Just fill out the form here to request a meeting, and we’ll be sure to reach out.

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Danielle Sutton