Implementing Salesforce Communities - Communities Part 4

Communities are platforms for your employees, customers, and partners to connect.The main goal behind creating the salesforce community in my developer org was to explore as many options I can.  You will be surprised to find lot of tabs visible in my community although I tried not using all the available tabs because I didn't wanted to make it too messy. In my previous article I discussed the various types of templates provided by the salesforce to create the community. In this article, I have created two salesforce communities one for partners and the other one for the customers. 

Let us take a tour of the salesforce community and the various tabs available for the members. Once you register for the community you will receive an email with the login credentials. I have used Kokua and Napili template to create two communities.  You can also go to Set up -> All Communities-> Click on the Community url

1)      1-2-3 SFDC Customers ( Kokua template)

2)      1-2-3 SFDC Community ( Napili Template)

The login page for my community -> 1-2-3 SFDC Community (Napili Template) looks like the below screenshot. I have already done settings of logo, company address, login credential settings etc. in the manage community section. Please refer my previous article to know more details. 

The login page for my community à 1-2-3 SFDC Customers ( Kokua template) looks like as the below  screenshot.

Now login to the Community. The tabs that you see on the screen are all customized under manage community section. As an administrator you have the ability to control which salesforce objects your partners, community members, users can view once they are logged in. Access to the related object data is determined based on their security settings in salesforce.

Home Page: 

Community Home page is pretty much similar to what we see in the main salesforce site. From the home tab community members can create chatter post, tasks, calendar, search the feed etc. Side bar displays components like create new, recent items, custom links etc.

Note: What you see in the community is what the administrator configures under manage settings. 

Chatter:

Chatter is a perfect collaborating tool for the community members. It provides features like feeds, profiles, groups, publisher actions etc that keeps the members updated with your company information. 

People:

This tab will provide access to the users of your organization and access to their profile, picture, and their chatter feed updates etc. It depends on the administrator whether to limit or provides access to this tab to the community members.

  

Groups:

This tab provides an option to the community members to collaborate with specific people. Members can create their own personal group and then initiate discussions. 

Files

Community members can upload files, post files to the feed and collaborate with each other. Members can also view files based on the category like – personal files, shared files, library files etc. 

Accounts

Depending on the profile access community members can view accounts. Usually members can access their own accounts and related lists. 

Contacts

Similar to accounts tab community members can access contact information based on the access that they have. Usually members can access contacts related to their accounts.

Cases

Members can log their issues, queries, feedback by logging cases. This tab displays all the open and closed cases owned by the members till date. 

Content

Members can organize, share, search and manage files, documents, presentations, audio , video files, web pages, google doc etc. from content tab

Knowledge:

Knowledge provides access to the articles. Members can access articles to solve their common queries, frequently asked questions. Members can provide rating to the articles depending on the depth of how helpful the content was. 

Libraries

Members can create their own libraries or shared libraries. It allows them to upload, categorize, publish files, google doc etc. in the CRM content. There are various sections like featured content, top content, recent activity etc. 

Recognition

Members can thank each other by assigning badges. 

Badges:

This tab will display all the badges received till date by the community member.

Conclusion: From this article we familiarized ourselves with few tabs and options available in Napili template of salesforce community. You can go through the communities implementation guide and start building your community in the developer org. There is a lot to explore and learn about communities. Enjoy and keep posting comments.  

More Links-

Salesforce Communities - Part 1

Managing Salesforce Communities - Communities Part 2

Branding Your Salesforce Community - Community Part 3