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How to Get the Most Out of Salesforce Community Cloud

Lacey Jackson
August 6, 2019
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Min Read

You may remember that in March 2018, we released our Community Forms feature for Formstack for Salesforce. The release of Community Forms made it easier for our Salesforce customers to easily capture data entered by users in Salesforce communities through branded, dynamic forms that can be published directly to Salesforce Community Cloud

Salesforce Community Cloud allows organizations to build branded community spaces—or information-sharing portals—where users can connect, collaborate, and get work done. Salesforce communities are productive ecosystems within a Salesforce organization that are easy to build with Salesforce’s intuitive tools and templates.

With Community Forms, users can connect data to standard or custom Salesforce objects—including leads, accounts, and cases—and tie submissions to logged-in users without having to upsert. Setup is easy and intuitive with no field mapping or links required.

Check out how Formstack is getting read for the Lightning Experience and our favorite new features from Summer Release ‘19.

Who uses Salesforce Community Cloud and Formstack Community Forms? 

Publishing your Community Forms to Salesforce Community Cloud is a great way to provide customer support or collect feedback around a product or service. Community Cloud is especially beneficial for organizations in the following fields: 

Government: Connect with your community. 

Make it easier for the citizens in your community to access any form they may need. With a few clicks, you can add your public works forms where citizens can report potholes, request recycling pick up, or file a small claim.

With Community Forms, you can create required fields so your staff receives complete information from citizens the first time a form is submitted. Your staff can follow up faster and resolve issues quicker when they don’t have to track information down. 

Higher Ed: Streamline the admissions process.

With so many forms to be completed throughout the school year, a central hub for students to access them all is an invaluable resource. With Community Forms, you can share anything from your new student admission applications to athletic recruitment forms. Parents will also appreciate a single source of information as they track their student’s progress, make payments, and complete their own forms.

Healthcare: Improve the patient experience. 

Take your patient registration process online by adding Community Forms to your workflow. Once you’ve created your patient community, gathering registration data and uploading it to Salesforce takes no time at all. 

Marketing: Simplify event lead generation.  

Holding events and attending conferences is a great way to generate new leads and show customers you value their business. But events tend to require a lot of planning and paperwork. With Community cloud, you can ensure that your most valued customers are invited to your event and can quickly and easily register online. 

Sales: Engage with customers. 

You can create an engaging online customer hub by uploading FAQs, tutorials, and forums where customers can connect and ask questions. By adding Community Forms to your customer hub, you can create client feedback surveys to collect valuable information about your product or service. Use Community Forms to add feedback forms, warranty claims, customer complaints, and more to your customer hub. 

Learn More: Get started with Salesforce Community Cloud and Formstack Community Forms.


Launch your Salesforce Community Forms in 3 easy steps. 

Let’s wrap things up with a few best practices so you and your team get started on the right foot. 

1. Identify your audience. 

If you plan to create a community for your customers, employees, students, or patients, you’ll want to lay out a strategy for success. Start by identifying your target audience. If your community is for students, make sure all of the forms are applicable for students. For example, if your community is for students, don’t add forms that are meant for alumni, parents, or professors. 

2. Test your user experience. 

Make sure to follow the Salesforce Application Lifecycle Management plan before you deploy your forms. With Formstack’s Release Management feature, you can deploy and test your forms in a sandbox before making them available to users. 

3. Plan for the future. 

Make sure your strategy includes a plan for the future. Your forms will need to evolve with your organization’s ever-changing business needs. Salesforce will also change over time as well. Identify a Salesforce expert on your team that can keep your forms organized, up-to-date, and ready for future Salesforce product updates.

If you’re ready to collect data through online communities and are looking for an out-of-the-box solution, look no further than Forms for Salesforce. Community Forms gives you a hassle-free way to develop forms and surveys for your community.

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Lacey Jackson
Lacey is a Product Marketing Manager at Formstack who is dedicated to creating content that showcases the power of the Formstack Platform. When she’s not creating Formstack Builders tutorials, she can be found reading, playing board games, or strolling with her dog. Lacey is a graduate of Franklin College.
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