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Dreamforce 2022: 4 Top Takeaways for Salesforce and Certinia Users

Author:  Jeremy Telycenas and Matt McCallum

Dreamforce 2022 4 Top Takeaways for Salesforce and FinancialForce Users

As we mentioned in our last blog, Dreamforce 2022 was the first live version of the event in three years, as well as Dreamforce’s 20th anniversary. Our own Diabsolut team was able to attend, and we will be sharing our top takeaways for Salesforce and Certinia users below. If you weren’t able to attend the event, you can read our review of the keynote highlights here, and watch some of what you missed online at Salesforce+.

Our Dreamforce Top 4 Takeaways

To give our top takeaways some context, we spent most of the event talking to partners and clients to get product feedback, discuss and answer client questions, and get a feel for both what’s to come and what’s most important to the industries and clients we serve. This is what stood out for us at Dreamforce 2022:

  • Industry Clouds and Industry Focus + Platform Extensions
    • We mentioned it in our last blog, but we were really struck by Salesforce’s focus on industries this year.
    • Energy and Utilities Cloud, Manufacturing Cloud, and Communications Cloud — all had a big presence, so it’s clear Salesforce is looking to invest in industry-specific platform extensions and benefits.
    • The Salesforce Genie announcement is in line with this, extending the value and improving the way extensions interact with the Salesforce platform.
      • While Salesforce technology has always been designed to work well with platform extensions, this is obviously something they’re not going to shy away from in the future.
  • Salesforce Field Service
    • Salesforce Field Service is being impacted by this industry focus in a big way, and we can see Salesforce is doubling down on its investment in field service.
      • ClickSoftware 8.3’s end-of-life is partly responsible for this.
      • Salesforce owns ClickSoftware, they know what an industry staple it’s been, and how big an investment solution migration is for users.
      • So far, their intent has been to not just give Salesforce Field Service users a like-for-like replica, but to improve Click 8.3’s operational functionality and reliability, while reducing risks and costs.
    • We know there’s some frustration about the unknowns with the Salesforce Field Service roadmap.
      • Based on what we saw at Dreamforce this year, their focus and investment into the industry, the features and functionality they’ve put out up to this point, and innovations created in direct response to user feedback — their interest in further developing and improving Salesforce Field Service is here to stay.
      • This is an opinion we’re hearing from our partners as well; if you take a look at field service relevant apps on the AppExchange, it’s clearly a safe investment for partners and 3rd-party technology organizations.
  • Certinia and Certinia PSA
    • The takeaway here is that we know Certinia is concentrating on innovating, investing, and providing value for users, with PSA being a major focus.
      • They’ve also shown interest in what they can do for specific industries — as seen by their involvement in our asset-centric service solution, The Rolling Warehouse™.
    • We heard feedback about Certinia products from a variety of Salesforce and Certinia users, and Certinia Professional Services Automation (PSA) in particular, was valuable.
      • For example, for our PSA clients, we heard organizationally specific areas of value; and were able to learn about additional project uses for Youreka’s complex form application, to use in conjunction with PSA.
  • Giving Employees the Customer Experience
    • Treating your employees as your customers is a major trend, and we saw it represented this year at Dreamforce.
      • This goes beyond employee quality of life.
      • Employee retention and happiness are important, but the easier an employee’s job is, the more they can concentrate on the customer experience.
    • The theme here is making things seamless, stress-free, and user-friendly, by providing the right tools, requiring fewer clicks, and making data and information easy to find and interpret.

General Dreamforce Recap

It felt wonderful meeting with our clients and partners again at an event like this. Our home base was on the Certinia campus, and the team members and leadership we interacted with were exceptional.

There’s really something to be said for having the ability to form personal connections, as well as work with our partners as a team to create meaningful customer relationships and success.

We did want to offer another massive thank you to Salesforce, Certinia, and Youreka — as well as our clients and each and every person that took the time to come talk to us. We know how much there is going on at events like this, and how much effort is needed to plan, coordinate, and operate them. So, the fact that people took some of their valuable time to attend our sessions, say hello, or work with us means a lot.

If we missed you at Dreamforce, or you’d like to speak with us about Salesforce, Certinia, and your organization, contact us.

Looking for more information on ClickSoftware and Salesforce Field Service, or industry-specific Salesforce platform extensions?