Our partners at Salesforce and Slack just announced innovations to help companies to create their digital HQ!

Quick take: Salesforce today announced new capabilities that help every department and industry build a digital HQ, plus new Slack innovations that improve collaboration across organizational boundaries and empower teams to embrace asynchronous working.

Why it matters: Companies in every industry are looking to create digital HQs that support remote and hybrid work across every department, and connect with customers operating in a hybrid world.

Digital HQ for every department

Slack-First Sales

What is being announced?

Slack-First Sales empowers sales teams to collaborate in real-time to close more deals — faster — from anywhere. With digital deal rooms, sales reps now have the ability to access, update, and share Salesforce records directly in Slack, and new alert capabilities help teams stay up-to-date and aligned on important account updates.

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

Digital deal rooms allow sales teams to securely collaborate around a customer or deal cycle in Slack. With files, conversations, and data in one place, teams can easily prepare for meetings, new reps can quickly onboard by accessing account details in Slack, and external partners and customers can join in directly to close deals fast.

Deal, Account, and Contact Management gives sales reps the ability to access Salesforce records and meeting information directly in Slack. Teams stay up-to-date with updates automatically posted from Salesforce, and intelligent alerts get served up automatically.

Alerts and Reminders allow reps to set up customizable reminders based on deal inactivity or approaching close date, and take action directly from reminders to keep deals up-to-date.

Pipeline View gives reps the ability to monitor and manage pipeline health within Slack to ensure deals stay on track and drive more predictable revenue.

When will these new capabilities be available?

These capabilities are expected to be available in the Summer ‘22 release.

Slack-First Service

What is being announced?

Slack-First Service allows service teams to automatically identify and bring the right experts into a case. New swarming and expert finder capabilities allow cross-functional teams to collaborate on priority incidents to resolve customer cases more efficiently and effectively. 

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

Case Swarming automatically creates a Slack channel or thread for service teams to collaborate on complex and high priority cases or incidents, bringing in the right cross-functional internal employees and external partners to solve problems faster. 

Incident Swarming allows agents to pull together the right cross-functional experts, like legal, devops, and engineering, to collaborate in real time and identify and solve high-impact service incidents quickly, to minimize disruption to customers.
Expert Finder automatically identifies the right experts to add to a swarm channel based on availability, capacity, and skills.

When will these new capabilities be available?

Expert Finder and Case Swarming are expected to be available in the Spring ‘22 release and Incident Swarming is expected to be available in the Summer ‘22 release. 

Slack-First Marketing

What is being announced?

Slack-First Marketing enables marketing teams and agency partners to collaborate in a shared digital workspace. Marketers can now accelerate journey planning with Einstein recommendations in Slack, and Pardot automation empowers all departments to collaborate on a single, shared view of the customer.

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

Marketing Cloud Journeys for Slack accelerate all aspects of journey planning and execution with in-the-moment collaboration, custom approval workflows, and Einstein recommendations within Slack. 

Pardot Automation for Slack allows marketing, sales, and service teams to collaborate around a single, shared view of the customer in Slack, and streamlines sales notifications to help teams stay aligned and up-to-date.

When will these new capabilities be available?

Marketing Cloud Journeys for Slack and Pardot Automation for Slack are both expected to be available in the Spring ‘22 release.

Slack-First Commerce

What is being announced?

Slack-First Commerce helps teams gain a deeper understanding of their business, adapt to changing trends, and connect with their customers and colleagues. New alert capabilities enable teams to stay ahead of business trends and resolve order issues fast.

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

B2C Commerce Alerts in Slack enable commerce teams to stay ahead of business trends with automatic alerts directly in Slack across promotions, certificates, pricebooks, campaigns, coupons, and more. For example, alerts can be set up for campaign launches, and notify teams when metrics are out of date and need attention.

Order Management Exception Alerts in Slack help commerce teams resolve problems quickly by automatically alerting teams to order issues and bringing the right experts together to solve a case — directly in Slack. For example, teams can flag high-priority order exceptions in a Slack channel so service agents can make sure orders are fulfilled as soon as possible and customers are updated.

When will these new capabilities be available?

B2C Commerce Alerts in Slack is generally available now and Order Management Exception Alerts in Slack is expected to be available later this year. 

Slack-First Digital Experiences

What is being announced?

Slack-First Digital Experiences helps companies deliver personalized digital experiences fast. New CMS integrations alert internal and external teams when new content is published to streamline communication and quickly engage more customers.

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

Salesforce CMS Integration For Slack automatically alerts relevant internal and external teams in a shared space when new content is published. Teams can preview and more easily distribute content to maximize return — whether it’s through an AE sending a new blog to a prospect or an executive sharing fresh news on Linkedin. 

When will these new capabilities be available?

Salesforce CMS Integration For Slack is expected to be available in the Spring ‘22 release.

Slack-First Platform

What is being announced?

Slack-First Platform empowers admins and developers to easily build apps with low-code tools that integrate data from any business system. New capabilities allow teams to create end-to-end workflows that surface actions and approvals across ​​employees, partners, and customers directly in Slack.

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

Flow for Slack allows teams to create end-to-end workflows to easily route complex approvals through multiple internal and external stakeholders.

App Builder for Slack allows teams to build apps that pull in and surface Salesforce data directly in Slack.

When will these new capabilities be available?

These are expected to be generally available in the Summer ‘22 release.

Slack-First Trailhead

What is being announced?

Slack-First Trailhead powers personalized learning directly in Slack. With the new Trailhead for Slack app, employees can work and learn in a single environment in Slack, and AI-powered recommendations help employees reach their development goals and organizations build workforce expertise for the future.

What capabilities does this give to customers?

Trailhead Search Slash Command allows employees to discover, share, and favorite new Trailhead and myTrailhead learning content directly in the flow of work, without ever leaving Slack.

Recommended Learning delivers personalized, Einstein AI-powered learning and content recommendations to make learning more relevant, engaging, and productive.

Home Tab enables employees to view in-progress, favorited, recommended, and assigned learning content to make learning more seamless and efficient.

When will these new capabilities be available?

These capabilities are available now.

Slack-First Analytics

What is being announced?

Slack-First Analytics gives teams the insights they need right where they work to make smarter, faster decisions. New Einstein capabilities enable teams to make AI-powered predictions, and notifications help teams stay up-to-date on relevant data and trends. 

What capabilities does this give to Salesforce customers?

Einstein Discovery in Slack allows teams to build AI-powered predictions and recommendations into all of their data directly in Slack. 

Ask Data and Explain Data in Slack allows users to ask business questions directly in Slack using natural language and presents results as data visualizations with explanations behind the data.

Notifications in Slack deliver automated alerts directly in Slack to help users stay up-to-date on relevant data and trends.

When will these new capabilities be available?

Einstein Discovery in Slack is expected to be available in the Spring ‘22 release. Notifications in Slack are already GA for Tableau and is expected to be available in Tableau CRM in the Spring ‘22 release. Ask Data and Explain Data in Slack is expected to be available in 2022.

Slack-First Integration with MuleSoft

What is being announced?

Slack-First Integration with MuleSoft integrates multiple business apps directly into Slack, eliminating the need for context-switching between different software and systems. New capabilities allow users to connect apps and data to Slack with clicks, not code, and to include automated alerts in their workflows. 

What capabilities does this give to customers?

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform Slack Connector helps users integrate software and custom apps right into Slack, to enable faster collaboration and avoid context-switching between multiple business apps across the organization.

MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce Slack Connector empowers users to connect apps and data to Salesforce with clicks, not code, and to include automated Slack notifications in their workflows. 

When will these new capabilities be available?

Both of these capabilities are available now.

Slack-First Quip

What is being announced?

Slack-First Quip allows sales teams to work together in one digital workspace around a single view of the customer. Now sales teams can embed Quip documents directly into Slack, enabling easier collaboration and faster deal execution.

What capabilities does this give to customers?

Quip App for Slack allows sales teams to embed Quip documents directly into their Slack channels.

When will these new capabilities be available?

Quip App for Slack is available now.