The Salesforce Winter ’07 release goes live starting January 5.

I just got an email aimed at Salesforce Administrators, outlining all the new features. In addition to links to feature pages, it includes links to PDF files with detailed release notes. It will take a while to go through and digest what I need. I’d say 70-80% of the changes won’t affect us at all. Custom Channel Processes and Branding isn’t exactly a gotta-have-it feature for a small nonprofit organization.

I’m a bit disappointed that the new Client Management feature won’t be rolled out in January with everything else.

Client Management is available for Enterprise and Unlimited Edition customers on a limited basis with the release of Winter ’07. To request access to client management functionality, please contact your technical support representative or customer success manager. Client management will be generally available in a future Salesforce release (after Winter ’07).

Right now, we have all our individual contacts in a single “Individual” account, which is about 30% of our total database. This is working fine in most situations. The limitation is that we have to use a custom application to link clients to each other…for example to show constituents who work together, or are related to each other. It also creates issues with donations, since we have to link the donation to the Individual account and then set up the donor as a contact role.

Other than that, the interface changes will be welcome, along with the redesigned calendar.

Still on my wish list:

• I’d love the chance to try out the Winter ’07 release before I have to answer everyone’s questions about it on Monday, January 8th when they all log in and it looks different.
• I’d love to be able to interact with Salesforce from Office 2004 and Mail, not just Office 2003.

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