So I made it back from Bulgaria via Indianapolis (see photo above), as one does, just in time for the sell-out inaugural YeurDreamin, with 350 Trailblazers coming to Amsterdam. I’m on the organising committee so I’m keenly looking forward to how the year’s worth of preparation pays off!

In the meantime, I’ve still had time to do a little bit of work, and my colleagues even more, so:

• What’s the most exciting Salesforce news I’ve recently heard
• What’s going on in the Dutch Salesforce Community
• What’s the projects that I, and my colleagues, are working on at Cloud Integrate, which we can share with the world

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

Salesforce News

As I was putting together this newsletter, I thought to myself “Has a whole month gone without a Salesforce publicly acquiring another company”. I was nearly right. Yesterday came the announcement that Tableau has been bought, a snip at $15.7bn.

Lots of news came out San Francisco last month at Salesforce’s annual TrailheaDX conference (attendance 12,000). This complements Dreamforce (attendance 181,000). For my money I now describe TrailheaDX as the “how”, targeted at developers and advance administrators, and Dreamforce as the “why”.

There were many golden nuggets announced but the biggest one was that Blockchain is coming to Salesforce. Blockchain might appear hyperbole, but at least the language of the discussion is getting there – I’m finally understanding what my more learned friends have been so excited about. In one word: trust. If you view a third party’s database, that information can still be changed. With Blockchain it can’t and it can massively reduces certain transaction costs. For more I highly recommend SalesforceBen’s article.

Another one was Marketing Cloud. Previously you had to sign up for the Marketing Cloud, including all the licensing costs. There was no preview or developer edition. Well, it’s not quite there yet, but demo parts are definitely on their way, and you can start with building an email.

Community News

Salesforce sponsor Amsterdam Pride; they know that they pay more than most companies to do this, but equally they recognise that by doing so they support the nonprofits that can’t afford they own boats. How do I know? Because last year I had the pleasure of being in the heart of the boat parade. Want to have that opportunity this year? Come along to the Amsterdam User Group on 2nd July to stand a chance of winning a ticket! We’ll over be gaining more insights from TrailheaDX and learning about the free Salesforce Labs products on the AppExchange too.

By the time you read this, you might be kicking yourself for missing YeurDreamin. How about a long weekend in Prague in mid-August instead, as part of a great summer escape? I’m excited to be speaking about how to unlock reporting secrets at at Czech Dreamin, and there’s 21 other sessions to choose from. Tickets are a crazy €58.

Cloud Integrate

We’re currently onboarding a new client. ABB are one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies and one of the things they do is create charging stations for electric vehicles, so we’re proud to be looking after the Dutch Salesforce instance.

As part of our onboarding, we send them specific questionnaires in advance to make our meetings as effective as possible. We also believe in working with client’s existing tools to help with adoption (such as Trello for lightweight project management, if they are already using it), enabling us to hit the ground running. There’s always a balance between maintaining status quo and unlocking potential however. ABB are currently using a Microsoft-based product for their process diagramming but upgrading Elements.Cloud for process mapping and documentation is firmly on our radar as the integration with Salesforce metadata is in a different league.

Last week Ana, Dre and Gauhar went to the Funding Startup Event in Rotterdam. We think it’s important to keep abreast of companies pushing the boundaries of technology, to hear from senior executives (including Transavia, Yes!Delft and Microsoft) as well as going for networking opportunities.

The evening ended with pitches from selected startups competing a prize that includes support from various organisations. Otflow, one of the contestants, realised that perishable food is wasted in transatlantic trips because of the heat in the containers (e.g.tropical fruits coming from South America). They developed and patented a special container floor that improves air circulation and reduces heat, therefore the waste.

Another, Meds2Go have created a cooler for transportation of temperature-sensitive medication, keeping temperatures between 2°C and 8°C for 24 hours. This container will transform the lives of many people who depend on such medication, enabling them to travel, and giving them much more freedom.

The winner will be announced on the 14th of June. Good luck to all!

More next month – tot ziens!