I helped many small and medium business owners either start with Salesforce or migrate to Salesforce from legacy. I learned from my experience that there are some situations when you’ve limited time to help your customer onboard quickly as soon as possible to get the most out of their investment. 

That’s where AppExchange apps can play a crucial role. I will share my top pick apps for each category in this blog. Let’s get started. 

Below are the categories we will cover in this article:

1. Document Generation
2. E-signature
3. Enriching Data Quality
4. SMS
5. Telephony
6. Backup
7. Email Integration
8. Accounting
9. Newsletter 
10. Document Management 

AppExchange is a marketplace offering solutions, such as apps, components, and consulting services. You must be a Salesforce ISV partner to make your solution publicly available to potential customers. AppExchange has both free and paid apps. 

Document Generation

The document is a vital part of any business. For example, if you are a financial service firm, you may share an account balance or onboarding documents as pdf files. To speed up the Salesforce setup, it is recommended to use an AppExchange app that can be used to generate documents in various formats.

S-Docs

S-Docs is my favorite app for generating natively on the Salesforce platform without sending data outside. Currently, S-Docs for Salesforce is the only Native document generator for salesforce. 

Advantages of S-Docs

1. 100% Force.com
2. Data never leaves the Salesforce cloud
3. No external/third-party web services
4. Supports both standard and custom objects
5. Supports auto-generate documents using Flow or Apex
6. HTML5 supports all mobile devices
7. Supports Dynamic images & Visual charts
8. Add Conditional logic
9. Include data from related objects

There are a few other document generation apps I have used before; some of them are Nintex Drawloop DocGen®, Conga Composer, and PandaDoc. I strongly recommend the homework (comparison) before selecting your go-to solution.

E-signature

Now you know how to generate the document using the AppExchange app; the next step is to send it to the customer for signature. When It comes to getting customer signature(s), you may want to go with the trend of using e-signature rather than mailing papers to customers for their signature. Electronic signatures (eSignatures) are a legal & secure way to get remote work done faster & easier. Electronically sign documents from anywhere!

A digital signature is a more secure electronic signature generated using a digital certificate and cryptographically bound to the document using public key infrastructure (PKI). The digital certificate is unique to the signer and obtained from a trusted 3rd party such as a trust service provider (TSP) or certificate authority (CA) after verification of the signer’s identity.

DocuSign

Using DocuSign, you can send electronically signing documents on practically any device. Sign forms, contracts, and agreements in minutes using a computer, tablet, or mobile phone.  The steps are very simple.

1. Upload a document to sign with an electronic signature.
2. Add your electronic signature and date.
3. Email a link to the person who requested your signature.
4. Store and find your signed documents in your DocuSign account.

HelloSign by Dropbox, Conga Sign, and Adobe Sign are alternatives. These apps help you create, send, track, eSign, and save contracts and agreements without leaving Salesforce.

Enriching Data Quality

Every business today wants to be data-driven and use up-to-date and accurate information to support its decisions. However, as we all know: incomplete, incorrect, and missing data lower trust in operational and analytical decision-making about key business relationships.

Data enrichment is the process of increasing the value of a customer’s data assets by integrating internal data assets with external data.

Clearbit

Clearbit is my go-to tool when it comes to enriching the data. Clearbit brings the data from 85 different data points. Clearbit lets you instantly turn email addresses and domain names into full prospect and company profiles.

Adnatges of using Clearbit:

• Provides the latest and most accurate customer data 
• Brings in enriched customer data with less time and resources.
• Facilitates a deep understanding of customers, identifies prospects, and personalizes marketing and sales interactions.

SMS

Text messaging is among the most popular ways to communicate worldwide. It’s quick, easy to do, and doesn’t require you to pause what you’re doing as phone calls do. Business owners these days want to make sure your customers see your order confirmations, booking reminders, promotions, and the like, SMS marketing tools are one of the best ways to do it. 

Mogli SMS

Mogli is a native Salesforce application for WhatsApp & SMS. It allows the user to send and receives messages to and from Salesforce leads and construct simple or branching and complex surveys transmitted over SMS.

Key features of Mogli SMS app: 

• Real-time 1-to-1 SMS & WhatsApp conversations
• Bulk SMS with campaigns, list views, and reports
• Immediate SMS notifications of incoming messages
• Auto-create Contacts/Leads, Cases, Opportunities, and event registrations
• Voice features for auto-calling and text to speech
• Run automation based on answers to specific survey questions
• Inbound keywords and auto-responses
• Merge fields on individual and bulk texts
• Use Salesforce Flow and Triggers to Automate text messages

Here are my picks for the alternative SMS apps for Salesforce:

1. SMS Magic
2. 360 SMS App for Salesforce

Telephony

A Salesforce CTI integration can sync up your CRM with your business phone system and let reps make phone calls from inside Salesforce. With Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) apps available on AppExchange, you can set up an entire call center in minutes, all from Salesforce.

8×8 Contact Center 

8×8 Virtual Contact Center provides the advanced communication tools you need to enhance the customer experience and deliver world-class customer support and sales. Their solution is completely cloud-based, significantly reducing both your capital and operating expenses.

Key features of 8×8 contact center

1. Track calls, emails, and chats interactions with your company
2. Skills-based routing and CTI
3. 8×8’s browser-based desktop requires no software plug-ins or downloads. Agents and supervisors use the same desktop but access different screens and functions based on their permissions.
4. Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
5. API Support
6. Dashboards and Reports
7. Call Recording 

Here are my picks for the alternative SMS apps for Salesforce:

1. Zoom Phone
2. RingCentral for Salesforce
3. Dailpad for Salesforce

Backup

Companies today both collect and produce large amounts of data. Whether we’re talking about customer data, employee data, or systems data – losing any of that data can potentially risk a business. A data backup and recovery solution provides peace of mind for you, your employees, and your customers.

Regardless of which backup destination you choose, it is essential that it is secure, accessible, and updated regularly. A backup that is incomplete or incompatible with your restore process (more on that later) will be of no use to your team.  

OwnBackup

Advantages of using OwnBackup

• Backup on a schedule or on demand to protect all of your data and metadata. Get peace of mind knowing the precise data you need is there for you when you need it most.
• Identify unwanted data changes, additions, and deletions, then restore with precision. Recover single, multiple, or every record in your backup history.
• Simplify compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other regs. Locate records – then modify or forget – for Subject Requests. Customize retention periods up to 99 years.
• No backup experience? No worries. Immediately start protecting your data within minutes of logging in. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is.

Here are my picks for the alternative Backup apps for Salesforce:

1. Spanning backup
2. Odaseva

Email Integration

Email integrations add strength to your email marketing campaigns. You have in-depth data about your subscribers to use in your campaigns. It improves businesses by establishing a strong relationship with the customers, helps you organize all the information about your contacts in a single platform, and streamlines your email process to ensure your lists are always up to date.

Match My Email

Match My Email automatically syncs email and calendar data to the right Salesforce records. It stores data permanently in Salesforce, which is always accessible by teams when they need it. Create new Contact, reply to emails and track unanswered emails in Salesforce.

Advantages of using Match My Email

• Automate Email and Calendar Sync for Salesforce
• Permanently Stores emails in Salesforce.
• Matches emails to multiple email addresses within a single record.
• Create new Contacts, reply to emails from inside Salesforce and track unanswered emails.
• Save hours of data entry and search for emails.
• Generate native Salesforce activity reports using email and calendar data

There are few other email integration apps; I would suggest having a look on

1. Cirrus Insight
2. Linkpoint Connect
3. Revenue Grid
4. Ebsta

Accounting

Financial data grows more complex as we expand our business. Handling financials is time-consuming and prone to errors if not used the right tool to handle it. There is a need for a robust accounting solution as the business grows. And the solution is an accounting app. The accounting app increased accuracy by reducing or eliminating human errors in calculation with speed and reduced overall cost.

Accounting Seed

Accountingseed is a complete accounting solution powered by the Salesforce platform. It is designed so users can manage General Ledger, Billing & Cash receipts, Accounts Payable & Cash Disbursements, PSA, and Project Accounting on one platform with the flexibility and automation needed to run a business smoothly. The application tracks financial data through the entire business lifecycle to produce financial statements designed by the user.

Advantages of using AccountingSeed

• Enables a 360-degree view of your business.
• Pre-built financial reports such as Profit & Loss, Trial Balance, Cash Flow Statment, and Balance Sheet.
• Order management and Inventory Control
• Multiple configurable invoice formats
• Auto service billing from time cards
• Accounts Payable and Cash Disbursements
• Fund Accounting (non-profit)
• Deferred revenue/expense in multiple configurations
• Scheduled transactions with any project or GL account
• Flexible Project Accounting and work breakdown structure
• Project Profitability against multiple budgets
• Labor costing at actual or standard rates
• Material costing to project and PSA management
• Planned resource allocations per project by hour
• Utilization load and planning with conflict identification

Here are my picks for the alternative accounting apps for Salesforce:

1. Breadwinner
2. FinancialForce

Newsletter

Newsletters can help your business to connect with customers and increase sales, promote a product or service, and create an individual touch point with your email subscribers. It’s quite simple to understand why email marketing is so effective when doing business. Some examples show people/businesses amazingly drove material sales via their email newsletter and landed million-dollar deals. Newsletters are highly effective for building your online community and can increase traffic to your website.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp empowers small businesses to do big things by giving them innovative marketing tools that help them grow. It is flexible and user-friendly; you can choose a template and set the layout and text using their simple drag-and-drop design feature. It’s packed with many features like scheduling, reporting, and integration.

Advantages of using Mailchimp

• Sync your Mailchimp subscribers and Salesforce leads and contacts across platforms.
• Can view all subscribers’ activity and campaign stats.
• It supports both Salesforce Lighting and the classic version.
• Create HTML email templates with drag and drop.
• Update leads and contacts in Salesforce with Mailchimp activity.
• Target your audience with more personalized content.

Here are my picks for the alternative Mailchimp apps for Salesforce:

1. Campaign Monitor
2. iContact
3. Constant Contact

Document Management

Managing poorly organized documents can cost your organizations time and money and, Of-course headaches. The study shows people spend 40% of their working time in searching and formatting documents. Good document management reduces administrative effort and cost. It captures, stores, and quickly provides information to employees, customers, and vendors they need, to meet the business goals.

Box

Box enables Salesforce users to quickly create, access, manage, and store their documents within Salesforce. Allow to link Box content with specific or multiple Salesforce records, including custom objects. Sharing files and collaborating with team members, customers, and partners is fast.

Advantages of using Box

• Provide a better way to find, store and share content and documents.
• Configure and send documents for e-signature from anywhere in Salesforce, including Slack.
• Prevent data leaks and keep content in Salesforce securely with data classifications and threat detection policies.
• Reduce case resolution time by making the right content available to customer service agents at the time of need without leaving Service Cloud.
• Assign Box tasks to team members, comment on files, and edit documents in real-time with one click.

Here are my picks for the alternative Mailchimp apps for Salesforce:

1. M-Files
2. sFiles (SharePoint)
3. XFilesPro
4. Google Drive