In September 2018, the cloud-based sales software company, Salesforce announced a partnership with the multinational technology company, Apple Inc. The aim of this partnership was to “bring together the number one customer relationship management platform and iOS.” With Apple earning 15.8% of the market share and global iPhone sales hitting 64.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2018, this collaboration means that both Salesforce and Apple can revolutionise the way in which Salesforce users work. Salesforce Consultants and Certified Salesforce Partners, Purus look at what has changed since the partnership.
What’s changed with the Salesforce and Apple Partnership?
Salesforce iOS App – Version 18
While there’s been a Salesforce app for iOS since 2017, the biggest change from this collaboration was the redesign and update to the native Salesforce app. Rolled out in February 2019, version 18.0 of the app featured a plethora of new features:
- Users can now switch devices with ease, transferring their active pages to other devices seamlessly.
- Users can now navigate directly to a page in the Salesforce app using Siri Shortcuts.
- List views are all available on mobile devices.
- Teams access can be managed directly from Accounts and Opportunities.
- Users have more control of Chatter in terms of muting, editing and viewing.
The new update to the app has a lot of focus on Apple’s voice assistant, Siri, and there are plans to implement features such as Business Chat and Face ID. This move not only sets Salesforce apart from their competitors, but it also means that Salesforce is “going to be able to provide the sales reps instant access to things using your voice instead of clicks and going through different apps. We’re changing the way people work, and that’s always been at the heart of what Apple is about — changing things for the better.”
Salesforce Mobile SDK
Alongside the Salesforce app redesign, the collaboration also saw the launch of the Salesforce Mobile SDK. This means that users could make the most of the Salesforce Lightning Platform within stand-alone apps. Optimised for Apple’s Swift coding language, developers are not able to build iOS apps that utilise Salesforce Lightning Platform as a cloud backend. In September 2018, around 5 million developers are using the Lightning Platform.
Trailhead going mobile
This year’s Salesforce Summer Release notes revealed the roll-out of myTrailhead – a free learning tool that gives companies the ability to create a learning culture at work. myTrailhead is available on iOS, and this partnership also saw myTrailhead’s parent, Trailhead, come to iOS, along with courses on how to build iOS app using Swift language.
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