The Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Guide

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE SALESFORCE ISV TECHNICAL ENABLEMENT TEAM Understand the technical resources available to Salesforce ISV partners — and how to use them.

01_ INTRODUCTION Table of Contents Introducing the ISV Technical Enablement Team 02_ UNDERSTANDING RESOURCES Technical Enablement services and support for partners 03_ GETTING STARTED How to start taking advantage of available resources now 04_ MEET THE TEAM See who you'll be working with 05_ CONCLUSION APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Introducing the ISV Technical Enablement Team Did you know that Salesforce has a ISV Technical Enablement Team? " The ISV Enablement team Among the many resources available to partners in the Salesforce saved us thousands of ecosystem (and one of the most important resources for ISV partners dollars after participating to understand) is the ISV Technical Enablement team — a team of Technical Evangelists (TEs), or Salesforce technologists and experts, in a design session to that help ISVs build, develop, and distribute enterprise-grade recreate required legacy applications in the Salesforce ecosystem. functionality in the new The best news of all? TE resources are included as a part of the app." AppExchange Partner Program. So if you've already joined the Program, it's time to start taking advantage of these resources — and this handbook can help. MELISSA LAAKE Director, Product Strategy Optum Analytics In this handbook, you’ll learn: Answers to common questions regarding the ISV Technical Enablement team What technical enablement resources are available to partners How to start working with technical evangelists now. Let's dive in. APPEXCHANGE: Place the title of the e-book in this space

What does the ISV Technical Enablement team do? The ISV Technical Enablement (TE) team’s mission is to inspire and create a thriving, dynamic and growing ecosystem, filled with exciting new apps and technology showcasing the capabilities of the Salesforce platform. To accomplish this goal, TEs help ISVs launch new applications and build successful businesses on the AppExchange through 1:1 relationships and 1:many evangelism. Members of the TE team also serve as the voice of the ecosystem internally, working with the Salesforce platform product organization to drive the roadmap, as well as help launch new products and technologies into the ecosystem. " Leveraging the Salesforce platform has been huge for our development of our app, and our TE gave us key advice on various " items such as Lightning. GEOJI GEORGE SVP, Strategy & Product Leankor APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

Is this a new team at Salesforce? When the AppExchange first launched in 2006, a few Platform and helping to onboard new ISVs into the lucky partners established relationships directly with ecosystem. The team has grown exponentially in the engineering and product organizations. In order recent years and is now a team of 40+ people to scale these mutually beneficial relationships, the globally, with each member responsible for ISV Technical Enablement team was founded in 2008 onboarding new ISVs into the AppExchange program, to be the direct line of communication between creating 1:many evangelism assets such as blogs and AppExchange partners and Salesforce. The initial webinars, and participating in at least one TE expert charter of the team was true evangelism — getting the area. Learn more about each of these resources and word out about the AppExchange and Salesforce services in chapter two. " TEs are your gateway to all the knowledge of the technical resources Salesforce has. They won't have an answer to every question, but they will help you find the right place or person." NEIL CRAWFORD Co-Founder NC Squared APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

CHAPTER 2: UNDERSTANDING RESOURCES Technical Enablement Services & Support for ISVs Whether you’re new to the ISV program or a long-standing partner, it’s important to understand the resources available to " Prior to submitting a your business. Check out a full list of the resources and responsibilities of the TE team on the following pages. package, the TE provided reviews of our 1:1 Partner Enablement Resources documentation, addressed questions, In certain cases, TEs will work with partners on an individual basis to deep-dive into the partner's specific goals and product needs. and validated everything TEs can offer 1:1 assistance in a number of ways, including: was completed properly ARCHITECTURE REVIEWS to minimize rejection Talk to an ISV TE to review your application architecture and/or incompletion of to ensure it is designed following best practices and leveraging the Salesforce Platform technologies. documentation.” ROYA AZIMI PRODUCT ROADMAP REVIEWS VP Product Management The Salesforce Platform is constantly expanding. Talk to CallidusCloud an ISV TE to understand the Salesforce roadmap and what’s coming next. APPEXCHANGE: Place the title of the e-book in this space

1:Many Partner Enablement Resources " Take advantage of the Regardless of whether or not your business works with a particular TE individually, all AppExchange partners should be leveraging the TEs; they are here to 1:many resources produced by the TE team. These resources are make you successful. designed specifically to facilitate ISV success, and include: TEs can help you put in WEBINARS contact with the right Join the Monthly ISV Technical Enablement webinar and the ISV Release Readiness webinar for every release, and don't miss resources at Salesforce Security Review Operations office hours. to help you grow your PARTNER COMMUNITY business and allow you Join for access to designated TEs monitoring and moderating to find other areas and Chatter groups to ensure all questions get answered. use cases that you can EVENTS take advantage of.” Attend technical sessions at Dreamforce, TDX, World Tours, Partner Forums for information on the latest releases and best NICK OBOIKOVITZ practices. Alliances Manager SpringCM TRAILHEAD Take a trail and complete over 10 ISV Trailhead modules. Salesforce TEs also run ISV Lightning Workshops, ISV Virtual Circles of Success, and often publish articles and blog posts related to new products and technologies. Check out the next chapter for some key links to bookmark.

Areas of Expertise Emerging Products & Technologies In order to ensure the team has technical expertise As the Salesforce platform is constantly evolving and across the full breadth of the platform, each TE expanding, the TE team is working closer than ever participates in one to two ‘Expert Areas’ of the before with the Salesforce Product organization to Salesforce platform. As such, different TEs may have ensure all of our new and emerging technologies are partner-facing conversations based on their area of ISV Ready. ISV Ready is an internal term we use to expertise. TEs are also responsible for creating make sure all of our technologies are ready for ISV partner-facing content regarding their area for each consumption which includes things such as ISV Release Readiness webinar, and often present to packaging, licensing, branding capabilities, and so on. the global TE team to inform, train, and share their specific expertise with the whole team. All of this The TE team is dedicated to ensuring these new knowledge and content is published to the partner technologies and products are technically ready for community through blogs, content pages, webinars, ISVs, that they are program- and market-ready from and specific Chatter groups. an operations, pricing, and contracting standpoint. " TEs bring a lot to the table with their deep expertise of the platform, the AppExchange ecosystem and strategic integration " techniques. STEPHEN CUNHA Litmos Product Manager CallidusCloud APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

Voice of the ISVs The TE team also plays the critical role of evangelizing ISVs and the AppExchange internally, aggregating feedback from the ISVs out in the field to provide top issues and enhancements to the Salesforce product organization. As the voice of Salesforce ISVs, the TE team has a critical mission to help raise awareness of any issues and drive the Salesforce roadmap to better support ISVs. "Share all your concerns and ambitions openly with your TE. He or she has a unique, independent and transparent position to think in your best interest." JAAKKO PELLOSNIEMI Founder, Fingertip APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

CHAPTER 3: GETTING STARTED How to Start Leveraging TE Resources — Now Just getting started? Not to worry! Here’s a breakdown of how you can start taking advantage of " Use the excellent technical resources to optimize your experience (and documentation, videos and return) as a Salesforce ISV partner. advice provided by Salesforce Step 1: Learn and other partners on the community. It can save you a Take the Platform Trailhead modules, starting with lot of development and Salesforce Platform Basics. configuration, while also GET STARTED ensuring that you’re doing Complete all ISV Trailhead modules. things the correct way SEE THE LIST initially.” Check out the ISVforce Guide for information on packaging, licensing, upgrading, trialling, and GEOJI GEORGE SVP, Strategy & Product distributing your application. Leankor GET THE GUIDE APPEXCHANGE: Place the title of the e-book in this space

Step 2: Collaborate Step 3: Stay Current Join the AppExchange & ISV Technical Set up Alerts to stay current on all urgent and Enablement Chatter Group to collaborate with prioritized communications as it relates to the ISV TE team and the greater technical ISV possible changes or impacts to your community application. JOIN SET UP Check out AppExchange & ISV Virtual Circles Join the ISV Technical Enablement Monthly of Success to learn specific topic areas, ask Webinar to hear directly from our TE experts questions, and learn best practices straight where we focus on new Salesforce from the experts — and surrounded by other technologies, ISV Release Readiness content, partners just like you. and architectural best practices. SIGN UP REGISTER APPEXCHANGE: Place the title of the e-book in this space APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team "

CHAPTER 4: Meet the Team See Who You'll Be Working With... " The TE team empowers us to think forward, driving us to adopt new Salesforce technology. This has allowed us to be ahead of the curve and accelerate our focus on new Salesforce products, like Wave, Communities, Einstein, etc.” NICK OBOIKOVITZ Alliances Manager SpringCM APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

CHAPTER 4: Meet the Team See Who You'll Be Working With... " TEs understand what sells and what customers truly love, but also dare to bet against the mainstream. We saved several months with the TE guidance in our internal product positioning " decisions. JAAKKO PELLOSNIEMI Founder, Fingertip APPEXCHANGE: A Complete Guide to the Salesforce ISV Technical Enablement Team

" The ISV Technical Enablement team is CONCLUSION everything you want in a partner – technical It’s no secret that ISVs are a major factor expertise, creative thinking, initiative, and in fueling the Salesforce economy and providing Salesforce customers with the follow through. Their partnership has not only variety of exceptional solutions they’ve saved us valuable resources, but truly helped come to expect. Your success is our success, which is why we focus on us build a better product for our clients." providing an open, efficient, and trustworthy partner program, supported ANU JAYARAMAN by best-in-class tools, and guided by Director, Product Strategy highly skilled trusted advisors. Optum Analytics We encourage you to take advantage of the technical enablement resources available and become an active participant in the program. Be a part of the mission to provide world-class technical enablement to all partners in a scalable manner — and drive the next 10 years, 10,000 apps, and 10 million installs on the AppExchange. S U C C E S S

THANK YOU We love our Salesforce ISV partners! Your success is our success, so we hope that you'll take advantage of all the resources our AppExchange Partner Program has to offer. Looking for even more best practices around technical enablement? Have complex questions you need answered? Engage in the conversation in the AppExchange & ISV Technical Enablement Chatter group in the Partner Community to interact directly with members of our TE team. LEARN MORE