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CalendarAnything Transforms a Manufacturer’s Dealer Network

By 06.02.23
Reading time: 4 minutes

CalendarAnything lets you view your business at a high level or get into the details — all on one screen. It’s completely customizable to exactly what your organization needs, whether you’re managing a team of ten or coordinating hundreds. 

CalendarAnything is the #1 Salesforce Calendar App because it makes Salesforce complexity easy with a calendar UI that houses it all, including Google, Outlook, Slack, and Zoom meetings. CalendarAnything helps to improve user adoption with customizable Salesforce calendars from any standard, custom, or external object with a date/time field. 

Let’s take a look at the latest enhancements to CalendarAnything and how a leading home storage manufacturer is leveraging CalendarAnything to bring flexibility to its dealer network.  

Simplifying Salesforce complexity with new CalendarAnything features

CalendarAnything has released many new features and functionalities over the past quarter, including:  

Version 1.67

  • Bi-directional integration between CalendarAnything and Slack lets users send Slack messages to colleagues or public Slack channels directly from CalendarAnything
  • Added support for Salesforce Notes allows easy collaboration on the fly by storing any notes related to a specific record within a central location
  • Ability to expand event details upon hovering over a record 

Version 1.69

  • Two way integration with Microsoft 365, Outlook, and extended Google integration allows users to create web calendars for any of the calendars they are currently subscribed to within Google or Outlook
  • Expanded Import/Export functionality means you do not have to rebuild everything you’ve built in a sandbox org within your production org
  • Specify additional fields to be viewed or only searched to make any field within the object that you’re working in searchable

Version 1.70

  • Create recurring records from any Custom or Standard object
  • A new mini month navigator saves users a few clicks
  • A custom map tab shows maps within the CalendarAnything detailed pop-up.  

Lacking a central tool for an extensive dealer network

A wholesale manufacturer of parts for the home storage industry distributes through three distribution channels: retail, direct-to-consumer, and dealers. It had different dealers using different tools with no central tool that allowed them to communicate across the network. This practice hindered the manufacturer’s ability to organize the leads generated collectively through its website and ultimately drive them to each dealer location. 

The manufacturer needed a solution that would work across multiple dealer locations and environments with project management and marketing automation capabilities. It also needed to integrate with the proprietary software tool used to design, quote, and sell projects to customers. And lastly, it was essential for them to have a fully integrated calendaring system for its CRM.

Discovering a solution but with limitations

The manufacturer explored a few different CRMs and landed on Salesforce Experience Cloud. Experience Cloud met all of their CRM needs except for its standard Salesforce calendar. Shortly after launching, the manufacturer realized it had an uphill battle with the standard Salesforce calendar. They had basic UI challenges and limited flexibility in the different views.

The manufacturer needed the ability to create and view different calendars for design and installation appointments and a better way to view calendars via the mobile app. The company also needed to be able to continue to work from the standard Salesforce event object since the manufacturer had already built marketing automations that were triggered from the object. 

The manufacturer began a search for a new calendar solution that they could customize to their needs. They looked at Salesforce Maps, which was robust for transportation mapping but needed more for calendaring. The manufacturer considered developing a custom-built scheduling app that would reside in Experience Cloud, but that would have required continuing to use the existing Experience Cloud calendar UI. 

Implementing CalendarAnything to great success

The manufacturer found CalendarAnything on the Salesforce AppExchange and began exploring it as a potential solution because it did not have the limitations of the Experience Cloud calendar. CalendarAnything created a proof of concept that the manufacturer successfully demoed with a few select dealerships. The manufacturer launched CalendarAnything across its dealer division in February 2023.  

They chose CalendarAnything because it had the right blend of simplicity, flexibility, and sophistication. It gave them the ability to launch to a network of over 50 locations with hundreds of users, knowing that each has its own processes, preferences, and way of doing things. They are getting more and more positive feedback from users.

The unique CalendarAnything features that the manufacturer uses include:

  • The standard Salesforce event object, which saves them the time and effort of having to reinvent pre-built automations
  • The ability to see several different views, such as the Gantt view, as well as the traditional calendar views
  • A user-friendly interface that is simple to toggle calendars on and off
  • Different display options when hovering over an event
  • The ability to change from auto to fixed cell height
  • The search feature to see live results within just a couple of keystrokes
  • Syncing with Google and Microsoft Outlook for dealers that still rely on those systems

CalendarAnything has allowed each user to establish how they want to use the calendar, unlike Experience Cloud, which limited user adjustments. The manufacturer likes the CalendarAnything individual user settings, such as the ability to show weekends or modify the time the day starts and create custom calendars instead of using default calendars.  

The reason they landed on CalendarAnything and why it has been successful in enhancing adoption is it checked off all the things that they couldn’t do with the previous calendar. Having their network able to transition to using CalendarAnything helps them be more successful in the future because it streamlines and simplifies all aspects of their business because they’re not bouncing from tool to tool to tool. 

Silverline helps clients deploy, manage, and enable continuous value with Salesforce’s portfolio of products with tailored digital transformation solutions to meet your current and future needs. Learn how CalendarAnything can help your Salesforce journey by watching the Salesforce Complexity Made Easy with CalendarAnything webinar.

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