7th Feb 2018 | Consultancy, General Information, Salesforce
Everything goes wrong.
It’s obvious but many of us work as if our IT equipment is faultless. That it will never go wrong. We act shocked when all the information that our business requires to operate disappears with the failure of a hard disk or a USB stick or a theft. This normally means the end of the business, too.
So it is refreshing to know that some IT suppliers take a sensible approach.
For instance, here is a recent email from Salesforce.
What is a site switch and what action is required to prepare?
Each Salesforce instance is built and maintained in two geographically separate locations. An instance is actively served from one location (the active site) with transactions replicating in near real-time to the other completely redundant location (the ready site). During a site switch, we swap the locations of your ready and active sites; the ready site becomes the new active site and vice versa.
So if one of their data centres fails you continue working based of another data centre.
None of your data is stored on your computer, so a theft does not matter.
If only everything in life was as reliable as Salesforce. (And when it fails it still keeps on working!)
As I say to our customers: if two data centres fail, you probably have even more important things on your mind than your data.
26th Oct 2017 | Consultancy, GDPR, Salesforce, Security and Safety
GDPR Masterclass
Led by Chris Roberts of the GDPR Alliance.
Is your business ready for the new data protection regulations?
On May 25th 2018, less than a year away, the European Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) comes into force. This represents the most significant change to data privacy regulations for more than 20 years. With significant non-compliance penalties including financial ones of up to 4% of global revenue or €20m, it is essential that business owners understand what is coming, the potential impact it will have, and what actions are needed to ensure compliance.
Is your organisation going to be affected by GDPR?
The vast majority of businesses will hold what the regulation describes as “personal data” on an EU citizen so will need to be compliant with the regulations.
What is personal data?
Phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, bank details, demographics, health information, sexual orientation, in fact anything that could identify a specific person.
What’s covered during the workshop?
- Why this legislation has come in to being
- The key points of the new legislation
- Likely causes of non-compliance
- Risks and penalties: what changes will you need to make?
- What actions should you consider to reduce risk
- What are implications of non-compliance?
Workshop leader
Chris Roberts a Director at Highend Software and a Co-founder of the GDPR Alliance leads these workshops. Chris regularly presents on business efficiency and productivity improvements and GDPR. Recent presentations include those for the Federation for Small Business (FSB), Superfast Business Wales, Wales Fraud Forum, BNI and numerous private clients.
Venue
The class will start at 9:00am for a 9:30am start in the Conference Room at the prestigious Beacon Centre for Enterprise in Dafen, Llanelli, SA14 8LQ.
Tickets are on sale through our ticketing portal https://bit.ly/GDPR-MC. Book early for deep discounts.
16th Oct 2017 | Consultancy, Salesforce, Security and Safety
On 5th October, I was giving a talk to a Novus Networking in Cardiff. The topic was the GDPR. Not the most exciting topic for a group of under 35s, but there you go.
At its heart the GDPR is about protecting our privacy. As the prominent privacy campaigner, Julian Assuange said, to those who doubt our need for privacy: “There is no killer answer yet. Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) has a clever response, asking people who say this to then hand him their phone unlocked and pull down their pants.”
Of course we know of cases where governments want backdoors into our phone security and airports have x-ray systems that reveal our unclothed bodies.
There are many great materials out there. In the next month, Cloud Genius is hoping to be running some courses on the GPRS in Llanelli. As a starter, there is an introduction (for free) on trailhead.salesforce.com
The provisional date of our masterclass will be Wednesday 22 November. It promises to be full of useful information that will help you remain compliant.
(The fines for non-compliance are up to €20M or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is greater.)
23rd Jun 2016 | Consultancy, e-Commerce, General Information, Salesforce
Do you delight customers? Do they feel better for working with you?
Learn to know your customers and anticipate their needs with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
At a glance, you can see your potential sales, customer entitlements, emails you have sent… all filed against the right customers.
As a charity there are some really good deals out there from the major CRM companies, Allowing you to better achieve your charitable aims.
Time left to book your place
This half-day course will give you insight into what a CRM is, and how it might help you in your business or non-profit.
Bring a laptop, you will have opportunity to try it out for yourself!
The day will be run by John Dray, CEO of Cloud Genius, who has many years of experience with Salesforce and general IT. The course is sure to be both informative and enjoyable.
The course will run from 9am to 1pm on Monday 18th July 2016 at the Beacon Centre in Llanelli.
The Beacon Centre for Enterprise
Dafen
Llanelli
SA14 8LQ
Click here to be taken to the booking page: Book a place
Places are strictly limited to ensure that attendees get the most from the event.
If you book before 11 July, you will have an opportunity to submit questions that will influence the direction of the course!
We are running this event in conjunction with The Best Of Carmarthenshire, a great organisation that promotes trusted, local businesses. Thank you for your support! As a result, members of The Best Of get a reduction on ticket prices.
21st Jun 2016 | Consultancy, e-Commerce, General Information, Salesforce
Do you ever wonder if you should be doing more to keep your customers happy?
What if you had a way of keeping track of all your customers, suppliers and all your interactions with them?
One excellent tool is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
If you are a business, it’s a way of keeping track of all your customers and suppliers. You can see your potential sales, appointments, emails you have sent… all filed against the right companies.
If you are a charity or non-profit, it can be a way of keeping track of volunteers, appointments, donations, memberships
…. and so much more.
Time left to book your place
This half-day course will give you insight into what a CRM is, and how it might help you in your business or non-profit.
There will be active demonstrations on live databases. If you bring a laptop, you will have opportunity to try it out for yourself.
The day will be run by John Dray, CEO of Cloud Genius, who has many years of experience with Salesforce and general IT. The course is sure to be both informative and enjoyable.
The course will run from 9am to 1pm on Monday 18th July 2016 at the Beacon Centre in Llanelli.
The Beacon Centre for Enterprise
Dafen
Llanelli
SA14 8LQ
The running order is here: Running order
Click here to be taken to the booking page: Book a place
Places are strictly limited to ensure that attendees get the most from the event.
If you book before 11 July, you will have an opportunity to submit questions that will influence the direction of the course!
We are running this event in conjunction with The Best Of Carmarthenshire, a great organisation that promotes trusted, local businesses. Thank you for your support! As a result, members of The Best Of get a reduction on ticket prices.
27th Oct 2015 | Accounting, Consultancy, Finance, Salesforce
Salesforce has finally revealed its Lightning interface to the general population.
This is a massive upgrade to its usability. All the items that you need are on screen at the same time. It is a bit like moving from a complicated-looking remote control to a simpler-looking, but far more powerful smart phone.
The new interface still has a lot of limitations, in that it cannot deal with Custom Objects, but that is very close on the Salesforce road map. The Lightning interface presents a lot of information, very simply so that you can see the details of, for example, an opportunity and have a little road map to the right showing how it has progressed. Well done, Salesforce! (For those who like their change ‘gradual’, you can switch between the old and new interfaces and there are no plans to turn off the old interface.)
Salesforce is well-known for sticking to what it does well. Although it deals with Opportunities and Quotes and Products and Price books, it has not strayed into the accounting sector. It leaves that for experts like Xero and Quicken, so it is often frustrating not to have details to hand within Salesforce… Well, last year we let you know about Breadwinner’s amazing 2-way sync between Xero and Salesforce. Now we can let you know that they have performed the same magic for Salesforce and Quick Books Online. Look out for Quick Books Salesforce integration.
Whereas other products get your information from Salesforce into Xero, this flows against the tide and gets it from Xero to Salesforce. Awesome! And they also integrate QuickBooks Online with Salesforce too.
You heard it here first, or even if you didn’t, it is still worth checking out!
