How to Overcome the Pitfalls in Salesforce File Storage Management with OneDrive Integration
In today’s technology-driven world, Salesforce has become the go-to choice among businesses in respect to CRM platforms. By providing excellent support for the sales and marketing needs of businesses, it enables them to manage customer accounts, opportunities, activities, and much more in an even efficient manner. But a massive volume of diverse content is produced during these processes which is then stored in the Salesforce file storage. Now this content requires regular organizing and management but inherently Salesforce lacks those effective document management and storage efficiency capabilities. The fact that this sensible CRM system is not designed to perform document management functions also contributes to its limitations. Also in the list of drawbacks is the limited amount of native Salesforce file storage. To overcome these limitations, most companies choose to integrate Salesforce with external content management systems. OneDrive, a file hosting service powered by Microsoft, is one such popular solution that enterprises routinely choose for managing and securing their Salesforce files. This article aims to highlight some of the benefits of seamless collaboration between Salesforce and OneDrive & how it extends the CRM’s collaboration and document management capabilities. OneDrive: What Exactly Is It? OneDrive is Microsoft’s file hosting and synchronization service that allows users to securely store their important files in a single place and then access them from virtually anywhere. This easy-to-use cloud storage solution lets users store files and personal data in the cloud, share them with other users, & sync these files across various platforms. Owing to its cross-platform design, OneDrive also makes it easy to collaborate with others in real-time using the Microsoft 365 integration. When it comes to professional purpose, OneDrive for Business is available to offer cloud storage to businesses. Managed by the organization itself, it enables users to share and collaborate on documents with other co-workers. Powered by SharePoint, ODFB grants each individual user a personal storage space while facilitating the collaboration among team members. Why Should You Consider Using OneDrive The cloud storage application has several notable advantages for the user experience: Remote access from any device– OneDrive offers the convenience of flexibility and mobility which comes in handy when employees work remotely or data is stored across multiple locations. This means that all files saved in the OneDrive storage immediately become available across all the devices synchronized with the OneDrive platform. Automatic file back-up– When using OneDrive, the files are periodically and automatically uploaded to the cloud storage which ultimately creates a reliable back-up that can be restored any time. Document sharing & collaboration– Users can easily share files or folders with their team, depending on the permission granted. Files can be shared either through direct link-sharing or link-sharing with some sign-in verification. Collaborative document editing– All the shared documents can be instantly edited in real-time through the co-authoring feature which promotes streamlined collaboration among team members. Top-notch security features– The default security features in OneDrive include not only encrypting data in transit but also providing encryption-at-rest. It also allows users to encrypt specific files when needed, further enhancing security. Teams can also be designed to provide specific access permissions to different users, offering yet another layer of security. Storage space– Essentially OneDrive gives business users up to 1 TB of storage space per user, which is far more than what most users would ever use. OneDrive also provides options to control what files are synced to the personal folder while allowing administrators to easily determine how much storage space each employee is using. Also read: Salesforce & OneDrive Integration – How to transform your Salesforce file management needs The Salesforce-OneDrive integration ultimately paves the way for highly intuitive and centralized document management in the Salesforce ecosystem. Such kind of integration ensures scalability and future-proofing for the Salesforce file storage and the file repository costs. By collaborating with OneDrive inside the Salesforce system, users will also be able to extend the integration functionalities to other Salesforce products such as Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, & Experience Cloud. How Is Salesforce-OneDrive Integration Advantageous Listed are some of the ways businesses stand to enjoy from an integration between Salesforce and OneDrive systems: Cost Savings– When using Salesforce, the licensing cost per user is more expensive than purchasing OneDrive for all employees due to which even a full-fledged collaboration between SharePoint and OneDrive is cheaper than purchasing new licenses in Salesforce. Improved Flexibility for the Sales Teams– The Salesforce-OneDrive collaboration helps in saving time and effort by enabling quick and easy access to the required resources. The synchronization between the systems enables real-time interactions and instant notifications regarding any updates. Also read: A Leading Oil & Gas Solution Provider, Stored & Collaborated all their Salesforce Files Externally in OneDrive using XfilesPro Storage for Large Documents– Though OneDrive allows offline file access by syncing with SharePoint, the extensive file support in Salesforce gets restricted to 2GB. After carrying out the Salesforce-OneDrive integration, businesses can bypass the restrictions of space constraints and ensure seamless operations every time. Better Document Management– OneDrive provides automatic file versioning for documents stored in Salesforce and lets users decide what version has to be finalized and what all will be discarded, thereby allowing teams to have better control on their documentations. Along with version control, OneDrive integration also offers online & mobile editing, native sharing capabilities, and custom workflows across both systems, which further simplify the document management process. Strengthened Security– OneDrive enforces adequate permissions and authorization rights in order to access the documents stored in its storage, which can be directly governed by the administrator. Therefore, there is no need for greater admin security after integrating Salesforce with OneDrive system. Better Collaboration among Teams– Along with Salesforce-OneDrive integration comes improved file collaboration. This integration allows the users to easily share and maintain multiple documents among various departments as well as editing them in real-time, thus enabling direct and swift collaboration. Let XfilesPro be your guide for Salesforce-OneDrive Integration If struggling with Salesforce Files Connect is not your cup of
Why you should consider using SharePoint as your Salesforce Secondary File Storage
In today’s world of digitalization, businesses often find different strategic methods to improve their customer relationships & data management process. In the pursuit to achieve these goals, companies adopt multiple technology platforms. Salesforce is one such innovative platform that enterprises use to manage their sales, service, and marketing processes in order to optimize marketing campaigns, maximize lead acquisitions, minimize sales cycles, deliver top-grade customer service, and maintain long-term customer relationships. With a growing business, every enterprise encounters faster data growth, and managing a large volume of data efficiently is becoming a key differentiator. When you have a big team operating from multiple locations, managing critical business information with easy access and seamless collaboration often becomes cumbersome. Salesforce as a platform can significantly accelerate sales & boost customer service workflows. However, when it comes to document management, there are certain limitations as this is not a part of Salesforce’s core capabilities. In order to optimize their document management process & get the best results, enterprises usually look for alternative platforms that can help them accomplish this. And what can be better than SharePoint? Understanding SharePoint SharePoint is one of the leading document management & storage platforms. Powered by Microsoft, SharePoint offers organizations an advanced, highly configurable, and relatively cost-effective document storage & collaboration platform. Through its cloud-based application SharePoint Online, & the in-house application SharePoint On-premise, SharePoint has a user base of over 100 million worldwide. Top 5 Benefits of SharePoint for Document Management Managing documents using SharePoint is a smart choice considering the powerful capabilities of the tool. SharePoint can easily make your entire document management process automated, organized, and efficient. Let’s have a look at the top 5 benefits of using SharePoint for document management. Collaboration A large number of users can collaborate on single or multiple documents at the same time with ease. This is one of the most popular SharePoint features. Collaboration helps faster turnarounds & increased productivity. Flexibility SharePoint offers one of the most flexible & configurable platforms. The tool can be easily integrated with any external system & businesses can also customize it as per their business requirements. Security Microsoft has properly taken care of the security aspect of this tool. Documents can be stored safely with access controls, view restrictions, and robust servers. Version Control SharePoint’s file versioning capability allows the admin or owner to maintain a proper version history in an easily accessible location. This is very much required when a large number of users collaborate on files as every change is captured & saved separately with an audit trail. This makes SharePoint secure also. Better Accessibility & Easy Retrievals SharePoint offers seamless accessibility to the files through an easy-to-use UI along with a modern search feature. Users can find files easily with a faster retrieval process. Also Read: Document Management in Salesforce: A Brief Introduction to its Best Practices SharePoint for Salesforce Document Management As we already mentioned in this blog, Salesforce is not built for document management as it is not coming under its core purpose, just like SharePoint can not manage customer relationships. Both platforms are built for different business objectives & integrating both will do wonders for a business. Joint customers of Salesforce & SharePoint can leverage both these platforms to transform two of their most critical business processes i.e. running business processes such as sales, marketing, and service on Salesforce by managing all the business information on SharePoint. This integration makes more sense as Salesforce offers minimum storage to keep files, while SharePoint can manage massive volumes of files with ease & also in a highly cost-effective way. Benefits of using SharePoint to Store Salesforce Files Integrating Salesforce & SharePoint offers a plethora of benefits for the joint customers. Customers can have a powerful integrated CRM & Document Management System, which allows them to manage their sales, and service processes better while keeping all the files in a centralized location. Let’s have a look at some of the key benefits of connecting Salesforce with SharePoint. Cost Savings As you might know, Salesforce allows a limited volume of files (10 GB) to be stored in its system & every time customers go for storage upgrades, this results in high additional costs. Storing Salesforce files in SharePoint will definitely reduce massive storage costs & sales/service agents can work more efficiently without facing storage or performance issues. SharePoint offers 1TB of storage space excluding 10GB storage per license purchased. Managing Large Size Files SharePoint can manage large-size files with ease (50 MB) which is a big challenge in Salesforce. So, Salesforce users can upload files of larger sizes & experience hassle-free document management. Better File Collaboration SharePoint is favorably popular for its robust document collaboration capabilities. Moving Salesforce files to SharePoint will allow users to collaborate on files without any crises. Organized File System As Salesforce doesn’t offer any kind of folder structure to keep files, moving documents to SharePoint allows customers to organize files under specific folders as folders can be created in SharePoint. This will improve user experience as well as file accessibility. Better Document Management As Salesforce is not a document management system, when integrated with SharePoint, all the SharePoint document management features can be applicable to Salesforce files as well. This includes versioning, access control, unified search, document approvals, sharing, etc. This definitely allows Salesforce users to leverage a world-class document management system. How to Integrate Salesforce with SharePoint for Document Management? There are multiple ways to integrate both Salesforce & SharePoint for document management. However, most of the organizations adopt one method among the below three. Files Connect Custom Application AppExchange Application Salesforce Files Connect can be used to set up an integration between both platforms. However, this has certain limitations in terms of features & functionalities. Building a custom app in-house can do the job, however, this can be expensive and time-consuming. Custom applications will never give you capabilities beyond basic requirements. The third option is finding a ready-to-use application from AppExchange. Salesforce offers thousands
