Employee Community

Posted By AJ on May 18, 2016 | 0 comments

Introduction To Community:

Salesforce Community is a great platform  for sharing information and collaborating with the people who can help the company enhance their business.By using Salesforce Community,All those people who are essential for completing the business goals that are set by the organization can collaborate with each other.

More http://www.salesforce.com/in/communities/overview/

 Benefits of using Salesforce Community:

Improves Service:

Salesforce Community will help the organization in connecting with the customers.Therefore It would be easier to understand the customer requirement which will result in providing better services to customer.

Enhance Sales:

Because by using Salesforce community it would get easier for the Employees,distributors and resellers to communicate with each other therefore it will drive more sales which will eventually result in more profit for the organization.

Types of Communities in Salesforce:

There are basically two types of Communities in Salesforce which are as following:

 1.)Internal Community

 2.)External Community

Before we go into the details of Employee Community it will be great if we have basic knowledge of partner community and also the major differences between employee community and partner community.

Internal Community:

The Internal community is used for the members who are directly part of the organization i.e. Employees.

External Community:

External Community is created for the users who are not directly part of the organization.

External Community

Types of External Community:

Partner Community:

As we all know the partners are not directly part of the organization but still they are very important for enhancing the business of organization.Therefore Salesforce has  provided this platform of Partner Community where you can interact with your partner and also provide limited access of your org according to your requirement.

Customer Community:

Just like the partners Salesforce has provided a platform for customers as well.Using this platform an organization can interact with their customers.

• This helps them in solving the customer’s problem.
• It also helps them in understanding Customer’s requirement.

So all and all it will help the organization in enhancing their business.

Communities User Licenses:

Every Organization needs to have valid Licenses for creating communities.The type of community that an organization can create depends on the type of License that they possess.It also defines the number of communities that an organization can create.

Types of Community User Licenses:

Salesforce has divided Community User Licenses basically into two parts which are as following:

Internal User License :  

Employee Community is an internal user license which has access to 10 custom objects and tabs.It also has access to Accounts and Contacts.   

External User License:

There are 3 types of External User licenses Which are as following:

Customer Community:

This community is best suited for the organization which has large number of external users. Customer community can hold up to 7 millions users. 

Customer Community Plus:

This community is best suited when there are unlimited number of logins for managing Customer Support.

Note: Both the Customer Community and Customer Community Plus are good for B2C Community i.e.Business to Customer Community.

Partner Community:

Partner Community is best suited for B2B Communities.The users of Partner  Community can Read,Create, and Edit the Salesforce standard objects such as accounts,contacts and assets.Partner Community users also have access to Send Email And workflow Approvals.

Limitation on the number of users:

There is a limit on the number of users that a Community must not exceed.If it does then the organization will have to pay extra charge for it.

                        Type of Community                                                   Number of Users

                          Partner or Customer Community                               300,000

                          Plus                                                      

                          Customer Community                                                   10 Million

Note:If The Number of Users are exceeds this limit then not only it will result in extra charges but, It will also degrade the Salesforce Performance.Therefore it is recommended that users Limit  should not be exceeded.

Creating Salesforce Community:

For creating communities in salesforce you need to follow the following steps:

  1)Go to set up

  2)Enter communities in Quick Find box

  3)Enter all Communities

  4)Click on New Community

  5)Choose a Template

  6)Give a name to your community

  7)Provide a unique URL for your community

  8)Click on create community

Once You are done with the above you will see the following message on your screen.

Now click on the Go to Community Management button which you can also see in the screen.Once you click on this button it will take you to the Salesforce Community preview page.From this page you can manage all the functionality and the design of your Community.This page is known as Community management page.From this page you can add topics to your Community.You can also add members who you think should have acces to your Community.

Note :If you want to change the template that you have added in the beginning then you can do that as well.

Adding Articles To Your Community:

By Adding Topics to your Community All the users who are part of this community can have discussion related to specific topic.Which will help the employees in quickly solving the problem.

Following are the steps that you need to follow for adding topics to your community:

1)Click on the Topic management tab under topics

2)Click on new button

3)Provide a name to your topic

4)Provide some description for your topic

5)Click on Create

Your topic will get created.But still you would not be able to view the topic in your Community.

Note: To make your topic visible in the community you will have to add them into the featured list of topics.

To add topics in the featured list follow the following steps:

1)Click on the featured topics

2)Select a topic

3)Click on add

4)Click on save button

Once it gets saved preview your community and now you will notice that your topic has been added in your community and it will look something like this:

Add a Topic

Now once the topic has been added to your community you can add an thumbnail to your topic which will make it more pleasant to view.So to add thumbnail to your topic follow the following steps:

1).Click on featured topics

2).Now click on  pencil(Change properties) next to your topic

3).Click on upload thumbnail

4).Select the thumbnail

5)Click on save

Adding Members To the Community:

In Salesforce users Community an organization can add the List of members or users to the Community according to their needs.The organization can also provide them certain level  of access to the Salesforce org.The level of access will depend on the profile or the permission set to which the user belongs.So following is the process of adding users or members to the Salesforce User Community:

 1)Go to Community Management

 2)Click on Administration

Add Member

 3 Click on Members

 4)Select the desired Profile or Permission set

Profile or Permission set

 5)Click on Add

 6)Click Save

Once the settings have been saved successfully then the users of the respective profile or permission set that you have added in the community will automatically get the access to your Salesforce user Community.As specfied above the level of acces of these users will depend on the Profile and Permission set to which they belong.

More https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=networks_customize_members.htm&language=en_US

View All Options Under Administration Tab:

Sometimes what happens is by default you would not be able to see all the options of administration tab in Salesforce users Community.For example if you have noticed when you first go to administration tab you are not able to see the tab option under administration.

So the question is how can we see all the administration options.To view all options of administartion tab follow the following steps:

1)First Click on Administration

2)Then Click on Preferences

3)Check the show all settings in community management tab

4)In the last step click save

Now you will notice that you are able to see all the options that you were not able to see earlier.

Adding Header to the salesforce users community:

If you want to add a new header logo to your salesforce users community follow the following steps:

• Click on Login and Registration tab under administration
• Click on choose file
• Select the file with suitable dimensions
• Click on save

Now once all the changes have been saved and published to your community go and preview the community you will notice a different header logo on your community.  

Change Header

Changing the Login Page:

Just like the community header we can change the login page as well for our salesforce user community.To change the login page just follow the following steps:

• Click on login and registration under administration
• Select the type of page you want to see while you login to community under login section
• Click save

Once your changes have been saved you will be able to see the different login page for your community.

 Adding tabs in the community:

If you want to add tabs to your community for accessing the salesforce records then follow the following steps:

1)Go to your community

2)Click on the Builder Button

3)Now on the left hand side you have  following 4 options:

•  Branding
•  Page Editor
•  Page Manager
•  Settings

4)Click on the Page Editor Option

5)Now you will have the following two options

•  Lightning Components(Which is the default one)
•   Page Structure

6)Click on the Page Structure Option

7)Click on the Navigational Menu available under Template Header

8) Now on the right hand side you will see the option of Edit Navigation Menu

9)Click on it

10)Provide a name to it

11)Select the type as salesforce object

12)Select the object under object type which you want to show on you community

13)Select the Default List view

14)Tick the checkbox

15)Click on publish changes

16)A message will pop up

17)Just click ok on it

18)Now in the last step publish your changes

Demonstration through snapshots:

Now publish your changes and preview your community.

Changing the Header Color:

In Salesforce user community there is an option of branding under administration tab in community management from where we can change the color of community header.

For changing the header color just follow the following steps:

1)Go to Community Management

2)Click on Administration

3)Click on Branding

4)Select the header background checkbox

5)Select the color for header background

6)Click on save

Once the changes have been saved preview your community and see the changes.

Changing Page Background Color:

Just like the header background we can change the page background color as well.The process for changing the page background color is very similar to the process of changing header color. There is a very subtle difference between both the processes.So in order to change the page background color follow the following steps:

1)Go to community Management

2)Click on Administration

3)Click on Branding

4)Select the page background checkbox

 5)Select the color for page background

6)Click on Save

Adding Company Logo and Header image:

By using community builder We can also add the company logo and header image to our community.The process of adding company logo and header image is very similar.So Let’s First understand the process for adding company logo to the community.

1)Go to Community Builder

2)Click on Branding Editor

3)Click on upload an image under company logo section

4)Click on select an image

5)Select the image

6)upload the image

For adding image to the header follow the following steps:

1)Go to Community Builder

2)Click on Branding Editor

3)Click on upload an image under header image section

4)Click on select an image

5)Select the image

6)Upload the image

Now publish your changes and preview the community to see the changes.

View Global Header:

Salesforce has provided this feature of view global header using which we can switch to our community directly from our salesforce org.For using view global header in your org follow the following steps:

1)Go to SetUp

2)Type Profile in the Quick Find box

3)Click on Profiles

4)Go to System Administrator Profile

5)Click on Edit

6)Go to Administrative section

7)Check View Global Header Checkbox

View Global Header

8)Click on save

Demonstration of Global View Header through Snapshot

View Global Header

More https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=networks_enable_global_header.htm&language=en_US

Activating Salesforce Users Community:

Now even though we have added users to our community but still they would not be able to access it because we have not activated our community.So to make sure that all the users that  we have added in our community can view it we will have to first activate it.The process of activating the salesforce users community is very simple.Just follow the following to activate your community.

1)Go to Community Management

2)Click on Administration

3)Click on the Settings

4)Click on the Activate Community

Activate Community

5)Just click on ok when the message pops up
After completing the above steps your salesforce community will get activated and all the associated users will be able access the community now.