Salesforce and Microsoft - Introducing Salesforce Lightning for Outlook | Force0six
The two companies are building on their already fruitful partnership by integrating Lightning Components into Microsoft’s Outlook software on web and desktop.
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StartFragmentMicrosoft's Outlook.com is used by some 400 million users around the world, so it's only natural that Salesforce wants its own software to play nicely with it. The CRM giant announced a big step in that direction.EndFragment
Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, announced Lightning for Outlook, unifying the world's #1 CRM and business email services. With the new Lightning for Outlook add-in, users have an integrated, customizable experience across Salesforce and Microsoft Outlook, empowering them to create a tailored inbox experience so they can work the way they want. Lightning for Outlook is the latest solution resulting from Salesforce and Microsoft's strategic partnership, which empowers our customers to collaborate more effectively.
Today, sales and service reps rely on two apps above all others—CRM and email. CRM helps them structure their day, get a 360-degree view of their customers and know when to engage, while email is how reps communicate. In fact, the average sales rep spends more than 70 percent of their time sending and responding to email every week. Traditionally, CRM and email have been disconnected, and reps have had to spend their day toggling between the apps and updating data manually. EndFragment
Introducing Lightning for Outlook: Connecting the World's #1 CRM and Business Email Services
Lightning Components, the reusable building blocks of code that snap into apps with drag-and-drop ease, are at the core of Lightning for Outlook. Developers use the Lightning Component Framework to build custom components which can either be used to create new apps or be embedded into third-party apps. To create entirely new apps, business users and developers can use Salesforce Lightning App Builder, and leverage the broad array of components built by Salesforce, third-party developers, partners or even other Salesforce customers—all available on the AppExchange. And for the first time, users will soon be able to embed components into a non-Salesforce application—Outlook.
The new Lightning for Outlook add-in seamlessly combines Salesforce and Outlook into one powerful solution. Now, mutual customers have an integrated way to work across both Salesforce and Outlook so they can be more productive than ever before.
New Lightning Components in Outlook: With Lightning's component-based architecture, customers will soon be able to quickly and easily snap new functionality into their Outlook inbox. For example, sales reps will be able to update a price quote with Salesforce SteelBrick CPQ right from within Outlook or even leverage a partner component like Altify that allows them to accelerate sales performance, increasing their productivity and helping them sell the way they want.
New Lightning Sync: Now generally available, Lightning Sync enables users to automatically sync contacts and calendar events across Outlook and Salesforce, saving time and effort spent manually adding entries.
New Lightning Experience in Outlook: Lightning for Outlook has been completely redesigned to reflect the Lightning User Experience. As a user scrolls through their inbox, the modern and intuitive UX makes it easy to view and engage with relevant insights and apps. Additionally, the new search functionality makes it easy t search for Salesforce records within Outlook. For example, a service rep can now search Salesforce for an existing customer record without leaving the Outlook inbox, saving them time.
The Salesforce Lightning for Outlook add-in is available to Outlook users across Windows, Mac and Web and is coming soon to Outlook Mobile. For detailed requirements, please refer to the Microsoft blog.
Building on a Foundation of Success
These new integrations will build on existing joint solutions delivered by Salesforce and Microsoft that enable our mutual customers to be more productive than ever before, including:
Salesforce1 Office Edition
Salesforce Files Connect integration with SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
Skype for Business Integration
SalesforceIQ Inbox
Salesforce Wave Connector for Excel
Salesforce integration with Power Query for Excel
Salesforce Mobile SDK for Windows
Salesforce and Windows integration
Power BI for Office 365 integration with Salesforce
Single sign on integration between Salesforce, Office 365 and Azure AD
Additional Information
To learn more about joint solutions from Salesforce and Microsoft, please visit: http://www.salesforce.com/campaigns/microsoft/
To see Microsoft's blog post on this news, please visit: https://aka.ms/sfofficeblog
Pricing and Availability
The Lightning for Outlook add-in is generally available today via the Office Store at no additional cost to all Sales Cloud users.
Lightning Sync is generally available today at no additional cost to users with a Sales Cloud Lightning Enterprise Edition and above.
Lightning Components Framework in Outlook will be generally available in Fall 2016. Pricing will be announced at that time.
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