Aundria Richard Technology

Executive Summary

An effective plan for entering, cleaning and updating the data for your salesforce.com (SFDC) system is critical for achieving success with SFDC. According to industry experts poor planning for managing the data entry/data quality issue has historically been one of the largest reasons for failure with CRM systems.

The data entry/data quality challenges faced by a SFDC customer, and the corresponding solutions and best practices to be considered will vary depending on the company sales process and size. However applying data management best practices can be instrumental for creating revenue growth and a competitive advantage with your SFDC investment.

Why Does Data Quality Matter for Salesforce.com Customers?
This whitepaper concentrates on the data impact and benefits to sales and marketing users selling to other businesses. Although SFDC is used by a variety of other company functions, such as service and support, this analysis focuses on the best practice recommendations for sales and marketing.

There are two main reasons why current stakeholders in a SFDC project should have a strategy for addressing the quality of data in their SFDC system.

1) Historical Lessons Learned from Prior CRM Project Failures:

There is a growing body of research from industry analysts that “data entry/data quality” is one the top, if not the top factor determining the success or failure for a CRM project.

CSO Insights, a research firm that specializes in benchmarking sales & marketing excellence, published its annual study of sales organizations worldwide on January 12, 2004. The 2004 Sales Excellence Report, which includes responses from over 1,300 sales executives, cited the number one challenge for CRM initiatives was populating systems with accurate data and then maintaining the accuracy of that information. Another research study from the company called, “Increasing Sales Effectiveness Through Optimized Sales Knowledge Management”, highlighted three key process improvements desired by the study participants tied to using technology for higher sales effectiveness.

• Dynamic Process. “Over half the organizations surveyed stated that their top improvement objective was to develop ways to manage sales knowledge delivery in a much more instantaneous, as-the-world-is-changing manner. Annual, quarterly, even monthly postings of information are not frequent enough to meet the needs of the rate of change in the marketplace.”

• Easier Access. “As noted in past studies, access to information still needs to be improved…In a perfect world there would be one place to go for knowledge, and while it might pull information from several sources, the linking would be transparent to the sales team member…”

Let’s say that you have a software project that’s under severe time pressure. Let’s say that this deadline is so tight that you already know it will involve many late nights of black coffee and frenetic programming. What can you do to make this process go faster?

I honestly don’t know, since the correct answer will depend on one’s individual circumstances. However, I can tell you how many programmers do respond under such circumstances. They decide to save time by skipping over the software planning and design phase, and immediately start coding away.

To an inexperienced or otherwise undisciplined programmer, this seems to make sense. After all, the finished product is what truly matters, right? The customer doesn’t care about flowcharts, class diagrams or software architectures. All they want is something that works.

It seems to make sense, but it’s a foolhardy approach. That way lies madness. We’ve all heard that an ounce of planning is worth a pound of cure, but in the world of software development, this adage is often forgotten.

If a real estate developer needs to get a house built quickly, does he save time by skipping over the architectural design phase? Does he decide to dispense with blueprints, and just start laying down concrete? Of course not. He knows that the results would be chaotic, and that work will progress more slowly without careful forethought and a concrete plan.

The stakes are high when considering security, privacy, and savings, and the old adage, “look before you leap” might be a more judicial approach when searching for a computer phone provider, aka VoIP (voice over internet protocol).

FACTS

o PC phones (VoIP) can save individuals and businesses up to 80% on current phone bills, regardless of whether calls are made from PC to landlines or mobile phones.

o Secure lines that include patented technology are protected against terminal viruses, worms, Trojan horses, unscrupulous hackers, and uninvited guests listening in on private conversations.

o Unsecure lines cripple users by creating dangerous vulnerability to security and privacy due to operating on open platforms or shared services.

o Over 90% of all VoIP provider services are on unsecure lines.

o Greater than 90% of VoIP solutions providers DO NOT HAVE their own patented technology.

o Costly computer crash repairs have resulted from using unsecure lines.

o Sound travels faster over the internet versus traditional phone lines.

o VoIP requires an inexpensive microphone when not built into the computer.

o There is usually an activation fee.

o Numerous VoIP providers host hidden costs.

o Most VoIP providers charge for de-activation.

o Some VoIP provider require a contract.

FALLACIES

o Broadband or high speed internet connections are the base requirements for VoIP connections. (There are a few VoIP solutions providers with integrity, security, and patented technology that offer service for dial-up connections, as well as DSL, satellite, cable, and broadband connections).

o All well known phone services now offering VoIP have their own patented technology (over 95% do not).

o All well known phone services now offering VoIP incorporate secure lines (over 90% do not).

o Using an open platform is safe.

o Peer-to-Peer services are on secure lines.

Microsoft Business Solutions main middle market ERP application – Microsoft Great Plains has multiple integration options: MS SQL Scripting (stored procedures and views), ADO.Net programming, Microsoft SQL Server DTS packages. You certainly can deploy such SDK tools as eConnect. However here we would like to show you how to program the simplest user friendly tool: Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager.
Multiple times in our consulting practice we saw the need to integrate General Ledger transactions from one text file and here we give you this and even more complex case, when credit and debit amounts are present on the same line with their own account numbers. Let’s assume that we have tab delimited text file, GLSOURCE.txt. Here is how the line looks:

“11242004″ (date) “11020016000″ (debit account) 212446.68 (debit amount) “15260005400″ (credit account) 212446.68 (credit amount)

Pretty challenging, isn’t it?

Let’s begin

First of all and this is probably easy – you need ODBC DSN, use Microsoft Text Driver, change default directory, select the file and switch to tab delimited type.

Next, open Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager and create two new queries – one will be for the Header and the second for distribution lines in GL transaction. In both cases use Advanced ODBC type of text queries.