Tag Archives: documentation

A Writer’s Guide to Surviving Agile Software Development

By Gavin Austin | Published: February 26, 2013
agile_words

Many writers are trying to figure out how to meet deadlines, write quality documentation, and stay sane as their software companies switch from the traditional “waterfall” method of development to the increasingly popular Agile methodology. An industry of consultants caters to making developers and product managers successful with Agile, but there is limited—if any—information on how writers can cope in such an environment. How do we know? Because in 2006, salesforce.com switched to Agile. Our Documentation and User Assistance team found few resources to help us work with Agile, even though our executives, managers, and Agile coaches were determined to help us succeed. From our experience, we… Continue reading

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Open CTI—Say Goodbye to CTI Adapters

By Gavin Austin | Published: February 11, 2013
OpenCTI150x88

The latest  computer-telephony integration (CTI) offering from Salesforce is Open CTI.  It differs dramatically from previous Salesforce CTI offerings in that it doesn’t require users to install CTI adapter programs on their machines to use Salesforce with phone systems.  That’s right—no more client applications are necessary to use the features of a CTI system with Salesforce.

So how should you get started with Open CTI?  Look no further than the Open CTI Developer’s Guide (link opens Web page).  The guide explains that Open CTI is a browser-based JavaScript API, and it includes all the methods and code samples you… Continue reading

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Preview the Spring ’13 Developer Docs

By Jennifer Shipman | Published: December 21, 2012
Spring 13 release

Spring ’13 is on its way! Check out the Developer docs and release notes for the upcoming Spring ’13 release. Continue reading

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The Spring ’13 Preview Release Notes Are Out!

By Michelle Chapman-Thurber | Published: December 20, 2012
Spring is here!

The weather outside is frightful, but Spring is right around the corner. Spring ’13, that is.

Here are just a few things we’ll be delivering in this release.

User-Focused Help
We broke up the huge 4000+ page “How to be Successful with Salesforce” user guide into 14 new downloadable guides, divided by role, Salesforce product area, and experience level. Now  you can download only the guides that are relevant to you.  The new guides include “Salesforce Basics” for new users, “Set Up and Maintain Your Salesforce Organization” for administrators, “Collaborate with Everyone” for Chatter users, “Enhance Salesforce with… Continue reading

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The New Service Cloud Workbook: Build Help Desks for Support Agents

By Gavin Austin | Published: October 24, 2012
Service Cloud Workbook

The Service Cloud Workbook shows you how to set up multiple channels and integrate them with a help desk so that agents can respond to customers from any channel. First you’ll learn basic Service Cloud features. Then you’ll explore more challenging features that require code, such as Open CTI, Custom Console Components, and the Service Cloud Console Integration Toolkit. Continue reading

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Let’s Be Clear: Workflow Rule Evaluation Criteria

By Tess Napili | Published: September 13, 2012
Screenshot of the Evaluation Criteria area of the UI.

We know that workflow rule evaluation criteria can be confusing. So, in Winter ’13, we simplified the text and reordered the options to show the simplest one first, and the most complex one last.  NOTE: The default setting hasn’t changed, but it’s now the last option in the list.

However, based on customer feedback on those changes, we changed the text again in Winter ’13 to be more descriptive. We also added the “How do I choose?” link back in, but it now points to a more relevant help topic.

Old Text:

Interim Text:

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Platform Developer Help – No Login Required

By Dianne Siebold | Published: September 12, 2012

If you’re a Salesforce platform developer, you’ve probably seen our developer guides, tip sheets, cheat sheets and other doc available on Developerforce. But there’s also developer documentation available in the online help, that is, the help available from within the application. Previously, the only way you could access that online help was by logging in to the application.

But not any more! Now you can view the product online help from here–without logging in! If you’re looking for a particular topic or if you’re not a current customer and want to check out the online help, now you can… Continue reading

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Winter ’13 Preview Release Notes – Winter is coming!

By Michelle Chapman-Thurber | Published: August 24, 2012
Winter is Coming

You’ve been waiting all summer, so patiently. And now, the wait is over.

The preview release notes are here, and they are chock full of great new features.

Here’s a small sampling:

Polls in Chatter
Starting in Winter ‘13, you can create a poll in your feed. Polls are a great way to get people’s opinions or gather data by providing a list of choices.
This enhancement is from an idea on the IdeaExchange.

Forecasting Custom Report Types
Administrators can now create forecasting custom report types for their users with Analytics for Collaborative Forecasts.

Automatically

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New and Updated Developer Documentation for Summer ’12

By Dan Yu | Published: June 6, 2012

For your reading pleasure, we’ve updated the developer documentation on developer.salesforce.com and database.com. It reflects the new Summer ’12 Salesforce release (API version 25.0). In addition, there are some new docs you might want to check out.

  • The Open CTI Developer’s Guide is now available. This guide describes how to use Open CTI to build computer-telephony integration systems that integrate with Salesforce.
  • Customizing Case Feed with Visualforce is now available. This guide describes how to customize Case Feed with Visualforce components.
  • The REST Metadata API Developer Guide is now available. This guide describes the Metadata REST
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Subscribe to Platform Doc Blog in Outlook

By Dianne Siebold | Published: September 16, 2011

Many of you are probably social media mavens and navigate effortlessly from blogs to tweets to texts. For those of you like me, here’s a quick 1-2-3 on how to subscribe to the Platform Doc Team blog in Outlook.

The screenshots are from Outlook 2010, but the process is the same in Outlook 2007.

1.  In the Mail Folders navigation pane on the left, navigate to the RSS Feeds node.
2.  Right-click and select Add a New RSS Feed.
3.  In the New RSS Feed window, enter http://feeds.feedburner.com/developerforce/techpubs and click Add.

4.  Click Yes when… Continue reading

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