5 Extensions to Optimize Google Chrome for Salesforce Admins and Developers

5 EXTENSIONS TO OPTIMIZE GOOGLE CHROME FOR SALESFORCE ADMINS AND DEVELOPERS

BACKUPIFY – JUNE 2012


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INTRODUCTION

Salesforce.com offers the indisputably most popular Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) product on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market, but that

doesn't mean using Salesforce is always straightforward. Salesforce is capable of so

many tasks it's easy to get lost in the quirks of its feature set. These five Chrome

extensions make the life of a Salesforce user appreciably simpler and more

productive.

Salesforce.com ID Clipper

Every record in Salesforce has a unique 15- or 18-digit alphanumeric ID; copy that

ID number into a search box within Salesforce and you'll be taken to the

associated customer record. Sounds simple, right? Not usually, as the record ID is

often buried in a complicated URL with lots of additional, extraneous parameters.

You can't always copy the full URL of a customer record and share it, as the extra

data in URL could produce some strange or broken results when you navigate to it

later, so you must selectively copy the ID out of the URL. (Also, the 15-digit ID is

case-sensitive, whereas the 18-digit ID is not.) That's where Salesforce ID Clipper

comes in, as this Chrome extension will copy just the customer ID (15- or 18-digit),

or just the cleaned-up customer record URL, to your clipboard for pasting into

spreadsheets, emails or chats. It sounds rather basic, but it's a real timesaver.

Salesforce.com Quick Login As

Salesforce allows admins (and in some cases developers) the option to log in as

another user, both for sales and technical support tasks. The trick to making this

functionality work is remembering which user you're logged in as at any given

time (a task that gets doubly confusing if you're using Chrome Incognito tabs to

log into multiple Salesforce sessions at once). The Salesforce Quick Login

As extension simplifies this task by keeping a running tally of every Salesforce user

that has granted you delegated login permissions — and it lets you log into any

individual Salesforce page as any of those users. Just pull up a menu of your

eligible user IDs and instantly view a Salesforce page as that user. You can toggle

between user views quickly and keep support overhead to a minimum.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions

https://chrome.google.com/extensions

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hfiffenhnefppjhloglpebefjlbhoeai

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dccccilgophpadpomgajjlkkioipoojh


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Salesforce Sandbox Favicon Extension

It sounds simple, but for anyone running a Salesforce Sandbox (a non-production

test copy of your Salesforce application, where you can play with custom code) in

one tab and the real Salesforce in another, it's easy to forget which is the real

Salesforce and which is the fake. The Salesforce Sandbox Favicon extension

changes the icon of any Sandbox instance to include a handy little S-imprinted

version of Salesforce logo, so you always know if you're playing with test data, or

the real production environment. Embarrassingly useful.

Salesforce.com Enhanced Formula Editor

Salesforce formulas are like spreadsheet formulas — only more complicated,

because they can execute actions that change customer records or cause the

Salesforce platform to advance workflows in one direction or another. In other

words, getting formulas right is serious business; too bad the Salesforce formula

editor is ultra-minimalist in its formatting and features. Thankfully the Enhanced

Formula Editor extension adds such vital features as color-coding formula

functions, data fields and mathematical operators; matches sets of parentheses;

adds a find-replace function, and enables fullscreen editing. If you build Salesforce

formulas on a regular basis — or are ready to dip your toe into Salesforce

formulas by adding formula fields to a couple of Salesforce objects — you need

this Chrome extension.

Force.com Utility Belt

Force.com is where developers go to build custom Salesforce applications; it's both

the platform that runs advanced custom Salesforce apps and the knowledgebase

that developers use to guide their Salesforce coding efforts. Unfortunately,

Force.com documentation and the Force.com dev environment are very separate,

even though you often need access to one while you're working in the other.

There is no simple way to access Force.com's reference materials while in the

development environment, nor can you easily grab code samples from within the

editor. The Force.com Utility Belt extension breaks down that wall by adding links

to Quick Reference Topics at the top of any Force.com page, and by adding a

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nkfllgjejgfgcddfccnijhndhdmjkamf

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cnlnnpnjccjcmecojdhgpknalcahkhio

http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Formulas

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bchgkjmjnmekbampjoenadmoekocpbhp


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search box to scour the full set of Force.com reference materials to help you while

you code. And, just for a little extra help, the Utility Belt comes with a converter

that translates 15-digit Salesforce record IDs into 18-digit case-safe IDs — because

the need comes up more often than you'd expect.

ABOUT BACKUPIFY

Backupify is the leading provider of backup and restore solutions for SaaS

applications including Google Apps, Salesforce, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Backupify was founded in 2008 and is based in Cambridge, MA. Backupify has over

200,000 users trusting us with more than 500 million documents, two billion email

messages and 350 terabytes of data.

WHY BACKUP CLOUD DATA?

Your data is one of the most critical assets of your business. Like any important

asset, it should be insured. While most SaaS providers, including Google and

Salesforce, offer state-of-the-art disaster recovery capabilities that protect you

from some forms of data loss, you are still at risk for data loss due to user error,

hacked accounts and third-party application bugs. To fully replicate your on-

premise backup capabilities in the cloud, you need the ability to perform granular

restores, and to retain the control that comes from having your own secure

second copy of the data in your SaaS applications.

FIND OUT MORE

If you're interested in the peace of mind you get from an automated Google Apps

or Salesforce backup solution, feel free to contact us directly at

[email protected].

Web http://www.backupify.com

Phone 1.800.571.4984

Twitter http://twitter.com/backupify

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.backupify.com/?utm_source=content&utm_medium=whitepaper&utm_campaign=chrome%2Bsalesforce%2Boptimize

http://twitter.com/backupify


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© 2012 Backupify, Inc. Item: GAT-WP-EN-200110608

Technology

5 Extensions to Optimize Google Chrome for Salesforce Admins and Developers