Appirio CloudFactor - October 2012 Release

Standard Apps

Salesforce Action dialogs support Task Type

Note: these changes apply to Case, Contact, and Sent Email contextual email apps that include the standard action buttons.

• SUMMARY: Record Email, Log a Call, and Create Task dialogs all show the Task Type field now.
• TO USE: The default value will be the picklist value specified as the default in Salesforce, or Email, Call, or Other if no default is specified.
• If Email, Call, or Other picklist values are disabled and no default value is specified then CloudFactor will use --None-- as the default value.
• The user is able to override the default value.

Salesforce Chatter Share Files and Links

Note: these changes apply to Case, Contact, and Reply to Chatter conextual email apps, and Chatter sidebar app.

• SUMMARY: CloudFactor Chatter feeds now allow the user to share files and links on new posts, and files on new comments.
• TO USE: Users can choose to share just text in a new Chatter post or comment, or when creating a new post can choose to share a file or link.  On new comments only a file can be shared.
• When sharing a file, the user selects a file from his/her computer, and can choose to provide a name for the file to appear in Chatter.
• Similarly when sharing a link, the user specifies a valid URL and can optionally provide a name for the link.
• In CloudFactor feeds, users can click to open any Chatter links, or click the Chatter file to open it in preview mode in Salesforce.

Salesforce Chatter Show All Comments

Note: these changes apply to Case and Contact contextual email apps, and Chatter sidebar app.

• SUMMARY: CloudFactor Chatter feeds will show the latest 3 comments on any post by default.  If there are more than 3 comments on a given post, there is now an option to expand to see all comments.
• TO USE: Users expand the comments on any Chatter post by clicking the "XX Comments" link below the text of the Chatter post, and then click the "Show all XX comments" link to reveal all comments related to the post.

Upload to Box (new application)

• SUMMARY: A new CloudFactor application is now generally available that allows users to save email attachments to their Box.com account.
• TO CONFIGURE:
• New tenants have the Upload to Box app configured by default.
• Existing CloudFactor tenants will have the Box connector enabled following this update.  It will allow users to create Box connections (read more in the TO USE section).
• To reveal the Upload to Box application in the CloudFactor UI the administrator can add it to the list of Selected Fixed Apps configured as part of the Groups that are in use.
• Navigate to the CloudFactor admin console as a CloudFactor administrator.
• Select the Administration tab.
• For each Group that should have access to the Upload to Box application, in the Groups page click the green gear icon next to the Group record.
• Select the Fixed Applications page.
• Move the Upload to Box application from the Available list to the Selected list.
• Save the changes.
• Another option is to configure a custom button on the Case, Contact, or Sent Email applications that allows a user to invoke the Upload to Box application.
• See the configuration guide for details on how to configure a custom CloudFactor button.

• NOTE: for any CloudFactor tenant that previously tested the pre-release version of the Upload to Box app by creating a custom CloudFactor app using code provided by Appirio, you should remove that application and use the new application instead.
• TECHNICAL DEPENDENCY: CloudFactor email attachment functionality used by the Upload to Box app requires that IMAP is enabled in the Google domain and is available for the current user.

• TO USE:
• Create a Box connection: Similar to the CloudFactor apps for Salesforce, users must first create a valid Box connection to use the Upload to Box app.
• This is done by opening the CloudFactor console.
• In the Box section click the Add Connection button.
• Proceed through the authorization flow to allow CloudFactor to connect to Box.

• At runtime: Once a user has configured a Box connection s/he can use the Upload to Box app on any email that has attachments.
• Select the Box folder: Use the "All Files (change)" control to select the Box folder to save the email attachments to.
• Save files to Box: Drag one or more files from the Gmail list of files on the left, to the Box list of files on the right side of the UI.
• Preview files saved to Box: Once the Gmail file is moved to the list of Box files and upload is complete the file name appears as a hyperlink.  Clicking the hyperlink will show the file in preview mode in Box.

Platform

Box Connector

• SUMMARY: The Box connector is now activated for all CloudFactor tenants by default.
• TO CONFIGURE: n/a this is enabled by default for each tenant.

Performance Improvements

• SUMMARY: CloudFactor internal tuning should allow faster application loading and response times.
• TO CONFIGURE: n/a, this is an internal CloudFactor infrastructure improvement.

Appirio Cloud Sync - July 2012 Release Notes

Summary:

Appirio Cloud Sync is a multi-tenant cloud-based application that synchronizes Salesforce and Google Calendars and Contacts helping to improve the value derived from both applications by allowing users to see a consistent set of information in both.  Appirio periodically delivers new features and fixes via updates to the application which, when released to production, are automatically available to all Cloud Sync tenants.  Note that some features require admin or user action to enable, and the details are covered below.

In this release there is a major platform improvement, a new Contact Sync feature, and a couple fixes.

Details:

• Platform improvements
• SUMMARY: Cloud Sync now supports OAuth authentication protocol with Google and Salesforce.  Users will authorize (and revoke access) without Cloud Sync storing password credentials.  This will support the following behaviors:
• Users can authorize connections to Google domains other than the primary one used by their Salesforce organization.  This can include sub-domains, standard gmail.com domain, etc.
• After a user configures OAuth, Cloud Sync will no longer store their Google or Salesforce passwords and will no longer fail to sync when a Google or Salesforce password changes.
• USAGE - Salesforce: Users will see a difference in the My Setup page versus the previous behavior.  Instead of needing to provide their Salesforce username and password, users will click the Authorize link (or Reauthorize link in the case that they previously provided username and password) and complete the dialogs to allow Cloud Sync to connect to their account.

New user will see:

User that previously authenticated (including with username and password parameters in Cloud Sync) will see:

• Note - when multiple Salesforce sessions are open this process will typically recognize the last one so users should confirm the user being authenticated is the expected one.
• Users that want to revoke Salesforce access later can do that via the Cloud Sync My Setup page, and/or can do that from within Salesforce by going to Setup > My Personal Information > Personal Information and Revoke the Cloud Sync application in the Remote Access list.
• USAGE - Google: Similarly, a user will authorize Cloud Sync to connect to his/her Google account.  Note that Cloud Sync will default to the open Gmail session or if multiple Gmail sessions are open it will prompt the user to confirm which one to use.  Make sure to login to the Gmail account you plan to use with Cloud Sync prior to starting the Authorization process.
• Users that want to revoke Google access later can do that via the same page, and/or can do that from within Google by going to Account > Security > Authorizing applications and sites.  Find the CloudSync entry and click the Revoke button.

• Contact Sync improvements
• SUMMARY: Users can now configure Cloud Sync to synchronize contact records from Google to Salesforce even if they don't have an email address.  This use case is prevalent when creating emails on a mobile device.
• This feature only applies in the Google to Salesforce direction.  Salesforce contacts currently must have an email address to sync to Google.
• To successfully sync to Salesforce, the Google contact must have a Name and a Work Phone specified.  Contacts with a Name and Mobile or Name and Home Phone will not sync successfully with Salesforce.
• USAGE: Users can enable this feature by using the Google to Salesforce Custom option and deselect the Exclude Contacts without email addresses option.

• I-27530: Changing the visibility filter no longer allows Google contacts that should otherwise be filtered to sync to Salesforce.

• Calendar Sync improvements
• I-26829: Recurring All Day meetings now sync to Salesforce from Google with the correct number of days.

CloudFactor Release Notes - July 2012

Standard Apps

SFDC Contact App

• SUMMARY: When receiving an email from a sender that doesn't match an existing Contact or Lead in Salesforce, in addition to the Create a Contact and Create a Lead buttons, the user will see all the other standard action buttons e.g. Record Email, Log a Call, and Create Task.
• TO CONFIGURE: n/a, the buttons now appear by default.
• TO USE: click to activate buttons as in other CloudFactor contexts.

Business Actions Sidebar App

• SUMMARY: Business Actions sidebar now includes a Go button to activate the choice in the picklist.  This change is being made to support the use case where a user selects a Business Action, returns to his/her Inbox and then wants to activate the same Business Action again.
• TO CONFIGURE: n/a, the Go button now appears by default.
• TO USE: to activate a Business Action, click the Go button.

Platform

Add CloudFactor apps as custom buttons on Case and Contact app header bars

• SUMMARY: to make it easier to surface CloudFactor apps such as Create Account or Create Contact, it is now possible for administrators to configure buttons that call CloudFactor apps.
• TO CONFIGURE: in the CloudFactor admin console, the Administrator can add custom bottons to the Case, Contact, and Contact (No Contact Found), and Sent Email.  To do this:
• Navigate to the Applications tab and select the App Buttons page on the left navigation bar.
• Select an application to configure buttons for.

• Select an application to expose as a button.  Note: this must be an application that requires no email context e.g. Create XXX applications or custom apps that do not require any email context are candidates for this feature.
• Optionally, override the default Button Label which is the same as the application name.
• Save the changes.

Note: there are a few configuration limitations to be aware of:

• You cannot disable standard action buttons currently.
• You should not choose any application that requires email context to function correctly e.g. Case, Contact, and Reply to Chatter for instance, all require the email sender email address or some element in the email subject or body to work correctly.
• Applications copied from standard CloudFactor apps will inherit the buttons on the original app.
• CloudFactor will automatically add buttons until the width of the app is filled and then add a row below the action buttons and include more buttons as needed until all buttons are added.  Recommended approach is to add no more buttons than will fill one row.

• TO USE: users will see and be able to interact with the buttons as other buttons.  This provides a good alternative to having the application configured under the Fixed Applications list in the CloudFactor more options menu.

Dependent Picklists

• SUMMARY: CloudFactor page layouts may now include dependent picklist fields.
• TO CONFIGURE: in the CloudFactor admin console, the Administrator can add picklist fields to the application page layouts.  To do this:
• Navigate to the Applications tab and select the Applications page.
• Click the green gear on any standard app to configure the page layout for the application e.g. click the green gear on the Case application.
• Select the controlling picklist field and the dependent picklist field and add both to the page layout.  Important - the controlling field must be placed above the dependent field in the page layout.
• Save the changes.

• TO USE: users will be able to use these picklists like any other field in CloudFactor apps when creating or editing records.  The controlling field will determine what is selectable in the dependent field.

Appirio CloudFactor Release Notes - June 2012

Performance Improvements

• SUMMARY: the CloudFactor platform has been enhanced to improve performance especially related to the load time for the SFDC Contact application. 
• TO CONFIGURE: not applicable, this feature is available by default.
• TO USE: the time it takes to show Salesforce.com Sales information such as Contact, Account, and Opportunity details in the SFDC Contact app should be reduced noticeably.

Record Type Support added for Create XXX Apps

• SUMMARY: CloudFactor now allows administrators to add Record Type fields to Create XXX apps so users can select the record type that a new record will be created as.
• TO CONFIGURE: in the CloudFactor console the Administrator user is able to configure Application page layouts for Create Account, Create Case, Create Contact, Create Lead, and Create Opportunity apps and include the Record Type field.  To do that:
•  Click the Applications tab.
•  In the list of applications click the green gear next to one of the Create XXX apps e.g. Create Account, Create Case, Create Contact, Create Lead, and Create Opportunity apps to open the app layout configuration page.
• Find the Record Type field in the Available Fields list and move it to the Selected Fields list.
• Save the changes.

• TO USE: when creating records via CloudFactor Create XXX apps where the administrator has included the Record Type field, the users will be able to use a picklist to select the appropriate record type to create the record as.
• KNOWN ISSUES: changing the record type value will not change the Create XXX app layout, and will not change the values in picklist fields.

Lookup Dialogs can be Filtered

• SUMMARY: lookup controls can now be filtered by fields on the same object e.g. the Account lookup could be filtered to show only records where the Type = Customer.
• TO CONFIGURE: in the CloudFactor console the Administrator user is able to configure filters for lookup controls.  To do that:
• Click the Applications tab.
• Select the Lookup Dialogs page on the left-hand navigation and click the object for which you want to configure the lookup control.
• In the Filter By fields select the field name, operator, and enter the value to use in the filter.

• TO USE: lookup functionality for end-users remains the same, the only difference is that only some values may be accessible in the lookup e.g. only those records matching the Filter By criteria.

Bug Fixes:
   

Issue Number	Component	Issue Name
I-20500	SFDC/GMail Chatter Sidebar Gadget	CloudFactor Chatter Email Gadget - name reverts to plain text
I-23106	General	CloudFactor contact dialog has insecure content on Chrome
I-23812	Developer	Can't edit custom app and save successfully without changing app name
I-23813	Developer	Developer email app picklist isn't sorted correctly - new app always appears at botto
I-23882	General	Error on CloudFactor Lookup Dialog save button
I-23888	Developer	Unable to save matcher function error
I-23924	SFDC/GMail Chatter Gadget	Unable to go back to the beginning of a sentence to tag someone.
I-24353	Standard Apps	Google Chrome : linkedIn app is not being loaded

       

Appirio Cloud Sync June 2012 Release

Summary:

Appirio Cloud Sync is a multi-tenant cloud-based application that synchronizes Salesforce and Google Calendars and Contacts helping to improve the value derived from both applications by allowing users to see a consistent set of information in both.  Appirio periodically delivers new features and fixes via updates to the application which, when released to production, are automatically available to all Cloud Sync tenants.  Note that some features require admin or user action to enable, and the details are covered below.

In this release there are fixes for both calendar and contact sync, a couple new contact sync features, and platform diagnostic improvements.

Details:

• Calendar Sync improvements:
• Fix for I-22983: Recurring all day appointments are now able to be synchronized without error.
• Fix for I-24549: Recurring monthly appointments that repeat on specific days of specific weeks can now synchronize without error.

• Contact Sync improvements:
• It is now possible to select any target group in Google to sync Salesforce Contacts to, not just My Contacts or Other Contacts.  Access the Sync Salesforce to Google group setting in the Advanced Options section.
• Note: changing this setting if contacts were previously synced to another group will not move the contact records in Google, they must be moved manually by the user if desired.

• Contact filters now supports the Contains operator.

• Fix for I-13595 and I-16082: Contact email handling now adjusts for cases where Google contact records don't have the primary email address set.  This condition happens when using certain applications like Copy2Contact and Mac Address Book to create contacts in Google.
• Fix for I-20375: Removing the contact phone number in Salesforce now removes the phone number when syncing to Google.

• Platform improvements:
• Diagnostic logging has been added this release.

For more information about Appirio Cloud Sync please visit the Appirio Cloud Sync Page. 

For technical support please visit the Appirio Support Portal and Knowledge Base or contact Appirio support via email at: support@appirio.com

Appirio Cloud Sync April 2012 Release

Summary:
In this release, there are several fixes to Calendar Sync, improvements to Contact Sync, and a platform enhancement.

Details:

• Calendar Sync improvements:
• Cloud Sync now successfully syncs recurring meetings when there is a bulk trigger on the Salesforce Event object.
• This is a workaround for the Salesforce issue described here: http://boards.developerforce.com/t5/Apex-Code-Development/Bulk-triggers-in-recurring-event/td-p/83781
• Fix for I-6102/I-16559: Recurring meetings that end by a certain date are no longer duplicated if the calendar sync configuration is deleted and recreated.
• Fix for I-8898: Events where the duration is longer than one day and marked as All Day Events are now synchronized with the correct duration.
• Fix for I-14590: Recurring events that start more than 1 month in the past but that have occurrences within the sync window will now be synchronized.

• Contact Sync improvements:
• Number of records supported per contact sync configuration is increased to 5,000 from 1,000.
• Note: due to Google throttling, synchronization of data sets above 3,000 can result in longer initial sync times .  This can in turn cause the synchronization admin page to become unresponsive while it's waiting for the sync to complete.
• Contact sync duplication prevention now checks all Salesforce contact records for matching email addresses before allowing insert/update of new contacts from Google.
• This will reduce the chance of creating duplicate records previously caused when the contact sync configuration only considered a subset of Salesforce data based on visibility settings, field-level filters, or the number of records exceeding the 1000 record cap.
• Contact sync now allows users to configure which Google group to synchronize to.

• Previously, sync automatically put Salesforce Contacts into the Other Contacts group when synchronizing them to Google and if users wanted to have the data sync onward to their mobile device, they needed to manually move the contact to the My Contacts group after the data synchronized.
• Now, new Contact sync configurations support an Advanced Setting called "Sync Salesforce to Google group" that controls what group the contacts will be added to.  This defaults to My Contacts to make it easier for users that want the contacts from Salesforce to be available on their mobile devices.
• Existing configurations continue to use the Other Contacts group until edited.
• Note: data sync'd previously will not be moved from Other Contacts to the My Contacts group with this new setting, users will need to move the existing data manually, but when using a sync configuration with the new setting, any new contact records synchronized to Google will be associated with the My Contacts group. 
• Contact sync supports a new visibility filter which is the default setting on new contact sync configurations e.g. "Contacts owned by me or related to Accounts owned by me".  As the name suggests, the setting will synchronize contacts owned by the user, as well as contacts related to accounts owned by the user

• All new contact sync configurations will use this setting as the default visibility filter.
• Existing configurations continue to use their current visibility filter until edited.

• Platform improvements:
• Cloud Sync will retry after getting a login failure or license expired failure up to 10 times, each time sending an email notification to the user.  On the 10th consecutive failure, Cloud Sync will inactivate all of the user's sync configurations.
• To recover, the user will need to correct the login failure or extend the subscription, click Start and then Sync Now on the appropriate Inactive sync configuration.

For more information about Appirio Cloud Sync please visit http://www.appirio.com/technology/CloudSync.php.  For technical support please visit the Appirio Support portal and knowledge base or contact Appirio support via email at: support@appirio.com

Appirio Cloud Sync November 2011 Release

By Wes Barkwill, Appirio Product Management

Appirio is pleased to announce the most recent update to its Google-Salesforce Calendar and Contact synchronization products - consolidating and rebranding previous products as Appirio Cloud Sync, and delivering technical enhancements to improve the speed and reliability of synchronization. A few highlights about this release and related changes:

• Cloud Sync is a public cloud-based, multi-tenant application so users of previous incarnations of Cloud Sync - free sync editions Appirio Calendar and Contact Sync, and paid edition Premium Sync automatically have access to the new features without any upgrade effort.
• With the consolidation of the Appirio sync apps into a single Cloud Sync application, previous editions Appirio Calendar Sync, Appirio Contact Sync, and Appirio Premium Sync are no longer available to install from the Salesforce.com AppExchange. Customers on free sync editions will continue to have access and be supported by Appirio without cost.
• Improving reliability was a core tenet of the release so enhancements were made to upgrade support for current Google Data APIs, improve handling for larger sets of contacts data, and change options for sync frequency and the window of calendar sync to optimize the availability of the service.
• Please review the release notes for more details on the changes delivered.

More about Appirio Cloud Sync:

Appirio Cloud Sync allows organizations that use Google Apps and Salesforce.com to easily keep their calendars and contact lists in sync. The application is available for download from the Salesforce.com AppExchange, can be used on a trial basis free for 30 days, and afterward is $4/user/month. The November 2011 Cloud Sync release builds on Appirio's 4 years of experience delivering Google and Salesforce.com Calendar and Contact synchronization technology to over 20,000 users across thousands of organizations.

To learn more about Cloud Sync please visit http://www.appirio.com/technology/CloudSync.php or contact us via support@appirio.com.