DupeCatcher for clean Salesforce data without duplication

Clean data is one of the most important aspects to have your Salesforce CRM working perfectly, this is included data quality and no duplication. For data quality, you can set required field, mandatory field in page layout, validation rule until apex trigger code. However, to prevent duplication, it will be troublesome to build your own code/configuration.

There are many tools available in AppExchange to prevent data duplication in Salesforce, whether created by Salesforce lab or external party, some of them are free or paid.

In this blog, I would like to introduce DupeCatcher. DupeCatcher is a real time duplicate lead, contact and account blocker. It can provide duplicate warning records and associate tasks with them. It is a product by Symphonic Source, which is also creator of a popular data deduplication tool called Cloudingo.

 A few items I would like to note for DupeCatcher:

• It is FREE!!!
• It is Native (runs on the Salesforce platform, ensuring availability, performance, and data security)
• It is a No Limit app (do not count against the limits of your Salesforce organization)
• It is simple, you just need a few clicks to setup
• It works for Lead, Account and Contact
• It works for real time data entry, but does NOT deduplicate on mass import and deduplicate records already in Salesforce
• It is NOT case-sensitive. 

Once you have install DupeCatcher from AppExchange, you will find a new app in your Salesforce.

Step-by-Step to configure this app:

1. Click DupeCatcher app as in screenshot above
2. Click DupeCatcher Filters tab
3. Click New button
4. Enter Filter Name; select an object; select if action only insert, or update or both; enter error message; and few more options.
5. You can hover your mouse over yellow question mark icon for help text
6. Click Save button
7. Scroll down to DupeCatcher Filter Rules filter to create matching rules, you can have up to 12 rules. If you have more than 1 rule, the relation between each rules are always AND. If you need to have OR relation, you need create new DupeCather Filter for each scenarios.

When you choose Action = Do Not Insert or Do Not Update, this option will block user not able to save data when duplicate data detected based on active Filters.

If you select Action = Report Duplicate, this option will not block user when user enter duplicate data, but it will create alerts. You can notice in  Filter Metrics section, how many duplicate records (see Potential Duplicate Count) in how many set of data (see Duplicate Alert Count, data will be shown in DupeCatcher Duplicate Alerts related list).

You can click Alert record to see Potential Duplicate data:

For more information, go to DupeCatcher website, see this FAQ and watch this video in Youtube.

Reference: DupeCatcher, Real Time Deduplication

Salesforce: Create HTML email template

Using Salesforce.com, you can define your own email template. There are a few type of email template in Salesforce: Text, HTML (using Letterhead), Custom (without using Letterhead) and Visualforce.

HTML (using Letterhead) provide easy way to create email template, where you need to build a letterhead prior. You can edit background colour, logo, header colour, body colour, footer and etc. But, you have limited flexibility to modify email template using this option.

Custom (without using Letterhead) give you more flexibility to design your own email template, but you need to have technical knowledge with HTML. You can use HTML editor such as: CoffeeCup or online HTML editor, such as: quackit to help.

But, if you have Ms Word and familiar with Ms Word, you can utilize it. Type and beautify your content in Ms Word with font style and etc.
- Save it as Web Page, Filtered (*.htm;*.html)
- Open the html file save using any text editor, example: Notepad
- Copy the whole HTML and paste it to HTML Body in Salesforce email template
- Done.

If you have images for email template, you can reference upload the images to any site as long as reachable from internet, or upload them into Salesforce Document, make sure to set the images as Externally Available, then copy and paste image URL for your email template.

In summary:
1. Upload images to Document and set as Externally Available, right click the image, if you are using Google Chrome, click "Open image in new tab"

2. Create Email Template
Go to Setup - Administer - Communication Templates - Email Templates, 
select Custom (without using Letterhead)
Copy and paste HTML prepared, example:
<table>
<tr>
<td colspan=3>
<img src="https://c.na3.content.force.com/servlet/servlet.ImageServer?id=015300000000tX5&oid=00D300000000SHq" alt="Logo" height="42" width="82"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Name </td>
<td>{!Contact.FirstName}</td>
<td><b>{!Contact.LastName}</b></td>
</tr>
</table>

If you notice in markup above, it refer to image stored in Salesforce document in line 4, while merge field in line 8 and 9 for Contact First Name and Last Name.

Once saved, you can preview in HTML Preview panel and test send email from Send Test and Verify Merge Fields button.

How to implement SSO in Salesforce1 mobile app?

For organization has implement SSO to login to Salesforce from web browser, organization can implement the same for Salesforce1 mobile app. There are two option for this:

1. Log in to a custom domain 
From log in screen, tap Log in to a custom domain

Enter your company 'My Domain' used for SSO.

App will prompt you to enter your company network (e.g. Active Directory) username and password.

You will be asked to allow permission access to Salesforce1 for iOS or Android

2. Add new Connection

From log in screen, tap gear icon at top right

Tap + icon on top right corner

Enter your SSO URL (e.g. mycompany.my.salesforce.com) into Host and your company name (preferred) into Label, then app will ask your company network username & password, in the next screen permission to allow login using Salesforce1, this is the same with option 1 above.

The difference between "Log in to a custom domain" with "Add Connection", with add connection, you just need to add once and and keep using it, while login with custom domain, need you to type "my domain" every time you login. It is your choice since both works, but prefer to add connection once and you do not need to enter my domain every time you log out from the app.

Reference: Single Sign-On for Desktop and Mobile Applications using SAML and OAuth

Why Salesforce assignment rule is not working?

After involve and active in Salesforce Success Answers Community for many years, I see many users confused and question why my assignment rule is not working?

In my previous blog, I discuss the case or lead assignment using the active assignment rule and how to set it to default in page layout.

Here a few steps to troubleshoot:

1. Check the assignment rule is Active
Only one assignment rule can be active at one time in both Case and Lead.

2. Try to create the record manually in the Salesforce web user interface
Check if the record is assigned to the correct user/queue and make sure checkbox Assign using active assignment rule is selected.

To support step 2, things you can do:
- Enable Field History Tracking on Case Owner
- Add object History in page layout (Case History or Lead History)

If the assignment rule is working, you should see in history related list:

And compare with if the Lead owner is changed manually:

Can you spot the difference?

3. Assignment Rules work only for a specific scenario

• Lead Assignment Rules — Specify how leads are assigned to users or queues as they are created manually, captured from the web, or imported via the lead import wizards.
• Case Assignment Rules — Determine how cases are assigned to users or put into queues as they are created manually, using Web-to-Case, Email-to-Case, On-Demand Email-to-Case, the Self-Service portal, the Customer Portal, Outlook, or Lotus Notes.

Using the Import Wizard
Select assignment rule in Step 1, even the assignment rule is not active, you can select it and it will work.

Using Data Loader
In the Settings menu, enter the Assignment Rule Id into the Assignment rule check box, remember not Assignment Rule Name. You can retrieve the Id from Salesforce URL when you open the assignment rule, for example, https://na3.salesforce.com/setup/own/entityruledetail.jsp?id=01Q50000000Iiz4&setupid=LeadRules

If you use other API tools that not provide Assignment Rule setting,  Lead / Case created simply will not have assignment rule kick-in.

If you are using API or APEX code, you can retrieve the Assignment Rule Id and use it when creating Lead or Case, here a simple snippet:

//Fetching the assignment rules on Case
AssignmentRule AR = new AssignmentRule();
AR = [SELECT Id FROM AssignmentRule WHERE SobjectType = 'Case' AND Active = True LIMIT 1];

//Creating the DMLOptions for "Assign using active assignment rules" checkbox
Database.DMLOptions dmlOpts = new Database.DMLOptions();
dmlOpts.assignmentRuleHeader.assignmentRuleId= AR.id;

Case newCase = new Case(Status = 'New') ;
//Setting the DMLOption on Case instance
newCase.setOptions(dmlOpts);
insert newCase ;


TIPS: Salesforce processes rules in the following order:

1. Validation rules
2. Assignment rules
3. Auto-response rules
4. Workflow rules (with immediate actions)
5. Escalation rules

Reference:

• Case Assignment Rules not working
• Managing Assignment Rules
• Setting Up Assignment Rules
• Trigger Assignment Rules with Data Loader
• Assign using active assignment rule

Push Notifications in Salesforce1 Mobile App

If you aware in Spring '14, admins can now provide more detail within the notifications including the text of a post or comment in Chatter, a Chatter group’s name, or a task description. Salesforce1 notifications let users know when certain events occur in Salesforce, such as when they receive approval requests or are mentioned.

Two types of notifications can appear to Salesforce1 users:

1. Push notifications are alerts that appear on your mobile device when you're not using the Salesforce1 downloadable app. Push notifications are not supported in the Salesforce1 mobile browser app. These alerts can consist of text, icons, and sounds, depending on your device type. You can choose whether to receive push notifications; however, you can't enable push notifications if they were disabled by your administrator.

2. In-app notifications keep users aware of relevant activity while they’re using Salesforce1. Users can access their 20 most recent notifications by tapping the Notification icon.

Any time that you @mention somebody in the Chatter feed they will receive both a push notification and notification within Salesforce1 app.

All you need to do to start using these notification is navigate from Setup, click Setup > Mobile Administration > Notifications > Settings, and then select both Enable in-app notifications and Enable push notification. And that’s it!

Some notifications include text that your users enter in Salesforce. To ensure that sensitive information isn’t distributed through a third-party service, by default, push notifications to iOS devices include the user’s name only.
For example, an in-app notification might be “Allison Wheeler mentioned you: @John Smith, can you update the Acme account with their new shipping address?” The equivalent push notification for iOS devices would be “Allison Wheeler mentioned you.”

To control this, go to Setup > Mobile Administration > Notifications > Settings and Include full content in push notifications.
Screenshot below show when "Include full content in push notifications" is disable and in phone setup fo Notification Centre is set to Alert.

If you enable Include full content in push notifications,it will show some of the message in push notification. Screenshot below taken when phone is locked and "Show on Lock Screen" enabled.

Reference:

• Salesforce1 Notifications
• Controlling New Push Notifications in Spring '14 on Salesforce1

Salesforce: Enabling Chatter Annoucement

In Spring '14 release, Salesforce introduce Announcement for Chatter Group.

If you do not see Announcement action in Chatter Group, check following items:

1. Enable Publisher Actions 
Setup | Customize | Chatter | Settings, make sure Enable Publisher Actions is enabled.

2. Add Announcement in Group Layouts
Setup | Customize | Chatter | Groups | Group Layouts
Click override the global publisher layout link, you should see Announcement there and you can move it to the left if needed. You can revert to the global publisher layout by click arrow icon at far right in Publisher Actions.

In this setup menu, you can create new Group Page Layout and assign it to different user profiles.

Only following users can post and delete group announcements:

• Group owners, or
• Group managers, or
• Users with the “Modify All Data” permission

Reference:
Post Announcements in Chatter Groups