Putting Data Into the Field: What Mobile Sales Analytics Looks Like on Salesforce One

Over the last few years we've seen a huge shift in mobile analytical apps. Mobile analytics is transitioning from limited, standalone apps to analytics that work tightly with other systems.

In this video we take a look at how salespeople would use mobile analytics in the field to be more productive. The solution combines SalesforceOne, the mobile app for Salesforce, together with Salesforce Canvas and embedded dashboards from Tableau. We use Heroku Connect to enable real-time updates from Salesforce to the embedded dashboards.

There are several advantages of using visual, interactive data in the field:

Consider our friends at Plow King, with whom we've had 103 opportunities over the years (all data is fictionalized, by the way). The standard Salesforce view of opportunities is on the left. It's very hard to wade through. A visualization of the same data is on the right-- trends like the recent rise in lost opportunities relative to won opportunities jumps out right away. In the field I could look at this to get a few key trends before walking into a meeting.

One of the primary jobs of any mobile app is to help people do the job that they are in the field to do. For salespeople, knowing how to prioritize their time is critical. Getting them fast answers-- which accounts are active? Which opportunities should I focus on today?-- can mean more closed deals. You don't have to wait for a daily or hourly ETL process. Information can be real-time.

Your visualizations should be just as secure as your data because, well, they are your data. When you use Salesforce Canvas you can make sure people can only see the data they have permissions to, whether in the native Salesforce application or in the embedded visualization. And Canvas lets you pass parameters between Salesforce and Tableau. This is what lets you embed a dashboard on an opportunity card that is specific to that opportunity, or filter a sales dashboard to the logged-in salesperson.

We love hearing from people who are getting value from mobile analytics today. If you've got a story to share, leave a comment. This is a fast-changing area and there's plenty of interesting developments out there.