7 Ways Salesforce Powers Dreamforce
By Scott Owens, Product Management Director, Events Application
The technology that runs Dreamforce is built on Salesforce. Let’s look at 7 different examples that show the power of the Salesforce Platform to drive customer success for all Salesforce events and for custom solution you may have in mind:
1. Salesforce as an Ecommerce Platform
Yes! Salesforce can be a transactional ecommerce system!
The road to Dreamforce begins with registration. The Dreamforce app handles over 150,000 registrations, many of which include hotel or dreamboat reservations, training and certification products, and payments. Every reservation record, reservation and product purchase is processed within the core platform. This CRM integration allows us to help guide our customers to a more successful onsite experience at Dreamforce.
2. Salesforce as a Custom Web Application
Click here and check out this page.
This looks nothing like your typical Salesforce interface! Dreamforce is a custom implementation of Salesforce as the back end system with a modern web application on top. We’ve built the entire Dreamforce experience as a platform-powered, responsive web application. We get the best of both worlds: a customer-connected back end along with a presentation that allows us to inject the Dreamforce brand and personality into the web experience.
3. Salesforce as an API Hub
The Dreamforce app is built in an org with over 30 custom objects!
We’ve built out custom objects to help us handle all of the use cases we face at Dreamforce. Ultimately the data housed in these objects needs to be made available to other applications — namely our mobile apps and onsite applications (badging, session check-in, etc). We’ve leveraged the native platform APIs in some cases and have built custom REST APIs in others. The result is an extensible, flexible platform that allows us to inject our connected customer data into any solution we need to build.
4. Salesforce as a Mobile Platform
Check out the apps for Dreamforce this year: App Store | Google Play
How did we create apps that look nothing like the typical Salesforce experience, built on the platform? Three ways: the APIs mentioned above, Mobile SDK, and Chatter API. Using these three tools we’ve been able to build a mobile experience that has all the speed and responsiveness of a native application but powered by the cloud and the world’s leading customer success platform.
5. Salesforce as a Collaboration Platform
What’s at the foundation of all of this? Community Cloud!
Dreamforce is powered by the Community Cloud. Our application is built on the org that is also home to the Salesforce Success Community. Community Cloud, including Chatter, are infused in every possible way within the Dreamforce app: Feed, People, Groups, Chatter in every session, and Chatter for every Sponsor. We’re using Community features to help connect attendees to each other and to help give them their best Dreamforce experience ever.
6. Salesforce as a Service Platform
Need help at Dreamforce? Check out our Customer Engagement Center!
Every year at Dreamforce you can see a real life implementation of Service Cloud, put on by our Service Cloud teammates. Using an integration between the Dreamforce app and the core Service Cloud offering, we’ve created a help desk that enables real time support for our 150,000+ registrants. Our integration together means that when you need help, the Service Cloud team knows who you are and what your event registration profile is. This is another powerful example of the Salesforce platform power at work to connect customers in a whole new way.
7. Salesforce as a Marketing Platform
Did you get an email about Dreamforce or your registration? Yes! And it’s all powered by Marketing Cloud.
We’ve integrated to Marketing Cloud in a number of ways but the top 3 are email, push notifications, and SMS. It’s been a huge advantage to be able to easily connect to attendee data in our org and send them the right message for them, at the right time, on the right device, in the right modality. Marketing Cloud literally connects us to every attendee and helps us spread the word about the great experience that awaits all of you who will be at Dreamforce this year.
Dreamforce really is one of the best implementations of a large scale customization of the Salesforce platform. We’re eager to continue to build out our events technology solution to help everyone see the power of Salesforce and, most importantly, have the most enjoyable, enriching experience at Salesforce events around the world. See you at Dreamforce!
Want to learn more? Attend a session from the team that builds the Dreamforce events experience:
Dreamforce on Salesforce: Learn How Salesforce Runs Events on the Platform
Dreamforce on Salesforce: A Technical Deep Dive on How Salesforce Runs Events
Still not registered for Dreamforce? Sign up today at the button below.
