Monthly Archives

November 2014

Nov 24
0

Upgrading to NPSP 3.0

By | CRM & Salesforce

To upgrade your Salesforce to NPSP 3.0:

1)  Create a new trial and choose “Pre-Configured for Donor Management.” (Note: you will need to create a different login than the current Salesforce, but it does not need to be a real email address.)
2) Call or email your Salesforce representative to request your grant be pointed to the new Salesforce instance. (If you don’t have contact info for your rep, you can email crmdonation@salesforce.com) They will ask you for the Organization ID of both the old instance and the new one. You can find them by going to Setup –> Company Profile –> Company Information –> Salesforce.com Organization ID (see below).
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If they ask you to upgrade your old instance to NPSP 3.0, 501Partners can do that after we create the customizations without messing up your data.
Nov 24
0

501Partners is Thankful For…

By | 501Partners News

A simple list of the things we’re truly thankful for as Turkey Day approaches:

  1. The NPSP Data Importer. We recently were introduced to this impressive tool by the Salesforce Foundation’s Marc Baizman. Currently, our consultant, Paul, is checking into all of the great features included in this data importer. Expect more information soon!
  2. Funny cat videos. Sometimes you just need to laugh. We are big fans of turning to YouTube for our fixes, and our go-to search is ‘funny cat videos.’ Here’s a sample of our favorites.
  3. Chocolate. The 501Partners office is partially fueled by chocolate. In what we call ‘The Fun Room,’ we have several varieties. Just like with Salesforce solutions, one size does not fit all, and expecting only Hershey’s to cut it for the diverse chocolate needs of our staff would just be wrong. (Note: This is also a stellar reason to become a Salesforce Academy participant.)
  4. Coffee. In addition to chocolate, coffee is THE fuel for all of 501Partners’ needs. We can always be counted on to have fresh coffee brewing. Whether it’s first thing in the morning, 2pm or late at night, it is essential that a pot of coffee is ready and waiting to be devoured by our lovely band of caffeine-aholics.
  5. Our Bootcampers & Academy participants. Salesforce Bootcamp and Salesforce Training Academy are two of our favorite things that we do here at 501Partners. Between the amazing people that we get to meet at each training and the wonderful amount of learning that goes on as a result, we are truly grateful to be able to run these programs.
  6. Salesforce. Of course we’re thankful for Salesforce, the platform upon which we base everything we do. Salesforce is such an efficient and powerful tool, and it makes life so much easier for us and for our clients…We can’t not be extremely grateful for it!
  7. Clients. Time to get serious: We LOVE our clients. Each and every one. The whole reason that we do what we do is to help the nonprofit sector make the world a better place for everyone. The fantastic group of nonprofit organizations that make up our client list are truly real-life superheroes. Without them, the Greater Boston area, the nation, and the world would all be lacking something amazing. Whether they are rounding up food for those in need, making sure that all children – no matter their background – have access to superior education, or something in between, our clients leave us in awe each and every day.
  8. Each other. Finally, we are grateful for each other. Here at 501Partners, everyone has a great deal of love and respect for one another, and we are able to combine our skill sets in ways that benefit our clients. All of us have the same philosophy of putting the client first and customizing all of our Salesforce solutions for the exact organization we are working with. And, possibly most important of all, we all know that a day without coffee is hardly a day at all.

Well, that’s our list. What are you thankful for? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook!

Nov 21
0
giving tuesday

10 Ways to Participate in #GivingTuesday

By | Client Spotlight

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard a ton about #GivingTuesday. If not, here’s a brief synopsis: Since we have Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, those behind the #GivingTuesday idea decided, Why not have a global day of giving back?  Tuesday, December 2 has been selected as that day. This new holiday will feature plenty of events, to be sure…But the real point of #GivingTuesday is to do what you can to give back to those you love, your neighbors, your community, and the world. Your efforts don’t have to be anything crazy, but it’s up to you. If you’re not sure what to do when December 2 rolls around, here are ten ideas:

  1. Offer to help a neighbor clean up leaves (or shovel, you really never know this time of year).
  2. Make a donation to one of these great organizations.
  3. Become a Haymakers for Hope athlete to KO Cancer.
  4. Give some time to an organization of your choice. Most nonprofits have ‘Volunteer’ sections on their websites which will tell you how.
  5. Raise awareness through social media – you never know what the next Ice Bucket Challenge will be.
  6. Help stuff and deliver Holiday Baskets with Community Servings.
  7. Livestream the #GivingTuesday event and encourage friends and family to do so, as well.
  8. Consider adopting a pet from the Helen Woodward Animal Center.
  9. Donate to the Boston Marathon team of your choice – or to the One Fund.
  10. Say thank you to your friends and family, an armed services member, a veteran, a civil servant, and whomever else deserves your thanks this #GivingTuesday.
Nov 21
0

The Free Puppy Problem (AKA – Why Custom Consulting Works)

By | Our Services

Is better data management on your list of New Year’s resolutions? Does your organization get overwhelmed when it’s time to crunch numbers and deliver annual reports? 501Partners has you covered. With the help of Salesforce and our custom consulting solutions, data collection and reporting can be a breeze. There are 22,000 nonprofits already using Salesforce for these reasons, and why shouldn’t you join them? Salesforce offers ten free licenses to NPOs and comes with the Nonprofit Starter Pack 3.0, a powerful set of tools for data management.

But the ten free licenses are kind of like ten free puppies.

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Nov 19
0

Real Life Heroes: Community Servings

By | Client Spotlight

community servings hunger relief nonprofitsLast week, as part of the lead up to Thanksgiving, we published a blog post about Food for Free, a nonprofit working to rescue wasted food and distribute it to the Emergency Food System. This week, we’re still in the same spirit, and we’ve decided to highlight another hunger relief organization, Community Servings. Community Servings works to bring food to those who are living with critical and chronic illnesses, as well as their dependents and caregivers. Not only are the volunteers and staff at Community Servings concerned with feeding their constituents, they are also concerned with making sure that each meal is nutritious and culturally appropriate.

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Nov 17
0

Conquering Campaign Monitor

By | CRM & Salesforce

CampaignMonitor-Round-LogoHere at 501Partners, we receive a lot of questions about which mass marketing tools are best based on how they integrate with Salesforce. We’ve decided to take a quick look at the options, starting with Campaign Monitor, to give some insight on how we answer this question. All in all, it depends on which organization is asking the question, as everything we recommend is based on needs, wants, existing processes, users, and much more – all of which are unique to individual organizations. This post will simply be a brief overview to Campaign Monitor, but more information can be found here.

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Nov 17
0

Looking Ahead to Spring ’15: Salesforce Maps Feature & How To Opt Out

By | CRM & Salesforce

Even though Salesforce’s Winter ’15 update has barely begun its roll-out, we’ll be turning our attention to February’s Spring ’15 offering for the purposes of this blog. Yesterday, Salesforce notified administrators that the Spring ’15 version will include a Maps feature. Included in the email were directions for opting out of this service, which might be the preferred way of dealing with this change for some organizations. Here, we will describe the nature of the change and provide you with instructions for turning off the Maps feature:

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Nov 13
0
501Partners-Hunger-Relief-Client-food-for-free

Real Life Heroes: Food For Free

By | Client Spotlight

a7692356-0321-4450-aba6-5c9595ca5c54In light of the fact that Thanksgiving is two weeks from today, we’ve decided to spotlight one of our clients who are doing amazing things with food. That client is Food for Free, an organization that rescues fresh food that, without being rescued, might have gone to waste, and delivers it to the local emergency food system. Pretty amazing, right?

Food for Free’s director, Sasha Purpura, explains Food for Free’s mission as this: “We take this problem that is food waste, and we turn it into a solution.” 501Partners worked with Food for Free to implement an in-vehicle Food Tracker, which is an app that integrates with Salesforce and allows the organization to keep track of the food they are receiving and distributing all on tablets in their trucks.

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Nov 11
0

Salesforce Update: Disabling SSL 3.0 Encryption

By | CRM & Salesforce

Recently, Salesforce announced that it would be disabling SSL (Secure Socket Layer) 3.0 due to a security vulnerability published by Google’s researchers. This is likely not something that will affect your Salesforce instance significantly, but we wanted to keep everyone up to date on the changes. Before we go any further, here is the statement from Salesforce about why this disabling is occurring:

“At Salesforce, trust is our #1 value, and we take the protection of our customers’ data very seriously. On October 15, Google researchers published details on a security vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566) that affects the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) 3.0 encryption protocol, also known as “POODLE,” which may allow a man-in-the-middle attack to extract data from secure HTTP connections. Although the vulnerability is somewhat difficult to exploit, to further protect customers, we will be disabling SSL 3.0 to fully address this issue.”

Here’s what this change means: Once Salesforce disables SSL 3.0 encryption, all channels which connect to Salesforce will need to use TLS 1.0 Encryption (or higher). There are three channels that connect to Salesforce via encryption:

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Nov 07
0
salesforce support

Why Salesforce Support Subscription?

By | Our Services

This week, we wanted to feature one of our lesser known services, the Salesforce Support Subscription. Just as it sounds, this subscription is offered to any nonprofit that is interested simply in on-demand Salesforce help. We developed the Salesforce Support Subscription because, while many consultants will implement a project and move on, 501Partners recognizes that organizations often need an ongoing relationship with their consultancy in order to continue Salesforce success beyond the initial project. When your organization enrolls in the Support Subscription, you are ensuring that there is always access to a dedicated, on-demand Salesforce solution.

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