Desk.Com- Service Cloud for SMBs

On Jan 31st Salesforce unveiled its customer service application for small & medium business enterprises.
It is called Desk.com & is based on Salesforce's acquisition of Assistly.
Desk.com is a cloud based offering for SMBs to support their customers.

Key Features -

• Build with keeping the Salesforce Social theme in the core, Desk.com allows the companies to support their customers over the major social channels like Facebook & twitter.


• Integration with Facebook & Twitter is the standard feature of the product and it takes few clicks to link organization's FB & Twitter accounts with Desk.com.


• Any or all the Tweets & FB posts on the linked accounts can be created & tracked as cases in Desk.com.


• Desk.com also supports all the traditional customer support channels like Phone, Chat & Email.


• Organizations can create a knowledge bank which can be made available to customers via their websites. This knowledge bank can act as the 1st step for the customers to resolve their issues.

Salesforce has also launched Desk.com for Mobile platforms. Desk.com for mobile is a HTML5 based application which supports all the major mobile platforms. Agents can respond to the customer while on move. All the major case management functionalities like sending responses, changing case priority, escalating the case etc. are available via Desk.com Mobile.

Pricing - 1st user license is completely free, create your account & start using it. After that it's US$ 49 per agent per month for unlimited usage. For part time support agents there is a flexible pricing option available which is US$ 1 per hour per user.

In this fast changing digital world where people spend a huge chunk of their time on internet nobody can ignore or deny the power of Social media.
But if Salesforce is targeting SMB's for this product then I am not sure how much the social part can be utilized by these organizations. Social interactions require a dedicated team to respond to Social media and if the responses are not handled by the experts then it can boomerang on the company and can have lasting negative impacts.

SMBs generally have very small customer service teams and they would like to respond to the actual customers/prospects rather than people posting random thoughts and queries on social media websites.
So I believe initially Desk.com will primarily be used for its traditional channel support & when the company grows in size and has enough support staff then they can start using the Social part of Desk.com.


Reference -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFEbcDojo1A&feature=related

eScript–Nested ‘with’ has problems in 8.1.1.5

Recently we had the friendly guys from Oracle come over and review our current project. Over the years, we have had review comments coming from such reviews and now know what to expect. But this time, there was a new entry in the document.

Siebel eScript developers and basically anyone who has worked on ECMA style languages must have used the ‘with’ statement. The with statement assigns a default object to a statement block, so you need to use the object name with its properties and methods. Its makes coding easier when you need to do multiple actions on the same object. But nesting with statements , it seems, is not a good idea if you are planning to upgrade to version 8.1.1.5 which came out last year.

The With statement structure indicates that all methods within its block will be based primarily on the indicated object. When With blocks are nested, it is not immediately obvious which object’s method will be invoked. The code execution may not do what the developer intended.

with(firstbc)

{

ClearToQuery()

ExecuteQuery();

with(secondbc)

{

ClearToQuery()

ExecuteQuery();

}

}

If the script remains unchanged prior to upgrading to 8.1.1.5, there is a known defect where runtime errors will occur. Although this is currently considered a defect and intended to be corrected, nested With blocks are not a recommended scripting practice. All of the methods invoked in the second With block would also work on the object in the first With block. In this script, the developer was actually done using the firstbc object prior to starting the nested With, but simply chose not to close the block.
Now oracle says that :It is not recommended to nest With blocks. The first With block should be close prior to initiating a new With block or the object variables should always be used.
Now we have used countless nested with statements it handle complex business logic, and have never faced an issue. But we are now rewriting the code eliminating nested withs and using the complete object names. This is because we do have plans to upgrade some time in future, and its best to steer clear of rework then.

with(firstbc)

{

ClearToQuery()

ExecuteQuery();

secondbc.ClearToQuery()

secondbc.ExecuteQuery();

}

Update: Oracle SRs are here and here