Hello everyone,

Over the summer, we have been busy doing miscellaneous bug fixes and taking the calmer months to start experimenting with the Forge Migration. Recently, we have released an improvement to the Google <> Sales CRM.

Let’s go over what we recently improved.

Google Integration changes

We have changed the permissions requirements for the Google Integration. Now, the integration limits itself to Gmail and Google Calendar. We reduced the scopes in order to focus on the elements that our users were leveraging, and make it simpler for us to improve the integration on our side.

Main changes:

• Removed access needs for Google Drive

• Reduced scope for Gmail and Calendar

• Remove dedicated Space in Sales CRM for your inbox

• Added Mail Merge Functionality

• Improved Calendar Integration

• Added Team space in Sales CRM

Gmail

• Emails can be sent from Sales CRM

  • They can be tracked if sent from Sales CRM

  • Sent email can be recorded in Sales CRM as an integration

  • Emails can be created as an activity, and can be sent

  • Emails sent will show in the “email” section of Sales CRM

    • This will most likely be improved in the future

Google Calendar

There is now a dedicated section for Google Calendar in Sales CRM where you can see all of your teams activity and your Google Calendar events, in a calendar view.

Connecting Google Calendar

First connect your Gmail account to Sales CRM through the App integration section

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Then, when you click on the calendar icon on the left hand side, you will open up the Team activity calendar.

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How it works

There are two main types of events that you will see in this calendar view:

1. Sales CRM activities (yours and your colleagues)

2. Your imported Google Calendar Activities (automatic)

Clicking on each event will open up more details on the events

What is imported from Google Calendar

As of now, only meetings are imported from Google Calendar. This means single events, recurring events, or all-day events.

Do note that Google Calendar Tasks are not imported as of now.

Creating events

Either From the Calendar section or through the other activity creation process, you can create meetings. These meetings can either show on the team calendar as Sales CRM activities and can also be sent to your personal Google Calendar.

From there:

1. Add an item to link this activity to (deal, contact, account)

   1. If you already have a primary email, it will already populate the “attendees” section

      1. You can make changes to that section afterward

      2. If you don’t want external people to receive a calendar invite, remove them and add your email address there

2. To have the calendar event be sent to your Google Calendar, just make sure that your email address is in the “organizer”

3. Add any other information that you would for this calendar event (description, notes, location, etc.)

4. Once you’re happy with the results, save the activity and it will appear on your calendar

   1. If you added yourself as an organizer, an event should also be created to your Google Calendar.

5. From there, you will be able to navigate to the item that you linked the meeting to (deal, contact, account) and see a new activity there.

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Privacy concerns

While you can see the team Sales CRM activities and tasks, your personal Google calendar events are private to you. In other words, your colleagues will not be able to see your calendar events and vice versa.

Making sure you’re connected to Google Calendar

If you want to double-check that you’re connected to Google Calendar, you can do so by clicking on the “cogs” icon in the calendar on the upper right section of the screen. There you will see a message letting you know whether your calendar is connected or not.

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Activity UI Improvements

In the same vein, we clarified the way information is being shown for your activities.

As a reminder, this is the section that you can access on practically every windows of Sales CRM from the upper right section of the screen, next to “new activity”.

This will now show a calendar for the day, and display your team tasks and your own. If you have connected Google Calendar, tasks will also be displayed there.

• You can move days by clicking on the arrows.

• You can navigate to the Team activity calendar section of Sales CRM by clicking on the “View All” button.

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Import bug fix part 1

We have fixed a bug regarding the import functionality where starting the import functionality would not trigger the field mapping sequence.

Do note that we are aware of an import mapping if you have custom fields present. We are actively fixing this bug.

Forge Migration Updates

We have been using the summer to experiment with Forge. Notably, we have looked at the pros and cons of creating a standalone CRM that runs exclusively on Forge (instead of a hybrid framework).

We were able to test some basic functionalities through Forge and see what something built there could like like

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Dashboard view where your summarize your information

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Deal view where you see your pipeline

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Company view

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Accounts

Conclusion:

We are still debating whether to go full Forge or to do a hybrid model. So we’ll explore this further through the remainder of the year. In conclusion, we have created something that we could move forward with on Forge or at the very least, use those learnings to help migrate Sales CRM to Forge through the Hybrid model.