How Alameda County, CA Upgraded Its Salesforce Experience with Grids

Alameda County, CA is the knowledge and resource hub for residents and tourists of Alameda, CA, encompassing local/County Governance responsibilities, from marriage licenses to roadway construction requests and everything in between. Alameda County takes pride in providing its residents and businesses with the best services, support and information.

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However, Alameda County staff had trouble adding long-form text to their Salesforce fields to support reports and other records, and needed a solution that would open up Salesforce to better support their work processes.

Alameda County recently replaced their previous system (Microsoft Access), which provided a high level of interface and experience flexibility when it came to editing fields and viewing full sets of data. Salesforce is their new system, which has limited Alameda County's productivity and increased staff friction with the CRM.
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• New System Frictions — Alameda County implemented a new system, Salesforce, which has proved to be more limited and restricted in field accessibility, clashing with staff's past user experiences with a more dynamic UI.
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• Missing System Flexibility — Salesforce's limited editing fields and restricted views (limited column and row numbers per record/page) were hindering staff productivity and efficiency, forcing many to click into pages to make long and short form edits.
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• Restricted Reporting — Alameda County needed to include commentary and notes on their reports, but as these were often long-form text, it was not possible to do so with standard Salesforce functionality.

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Raven Apps Grids delivered the functionality Alameda County urgently needed and missed, providing a flexible and customisable spreadsheet-like environment for their staff, all inside Salesforce.
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1. Single Data View — Grids transformed the visibility of Alameda County's vast and confidential data from siloed, but related locations in Salesforce into a single interface, providing all the flexibility and editability of a spreadsheet.
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2. Enriched Data — Alameda County now has the power to enrich data with long-form inline editing to contextualise and comment on reports, enquiries, etc. Grids' other features, i.e. short-form inline editing and exploring related-object data from one Grid, have also empowered staff to speed through their work with fully contextualised data.
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3. A More Dynamic UI — Grids offer users multiple columns and rows of data, enhancing data flexibility and allowing for a more dynamic interaction.
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This renewed flexibility supported staff productivity as it opened up Salesforce to new levels, transforming the user experience of the platform for the better.

Since implementing Grids, Alameda County has transformed its Salesforce experience and environment into a flexible and fully editable workspace.
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• Unlimited Editability — Raven Apps opened up Salesforce's previously restricted fields, making it easier to include relevant, longer text edits and commentary, considerably improving reporting processes across teams.
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• More Flexibility — With the power of a spreadsheet-style interface, Alameda County staff now gain a single view over their data, including related data, increasing productivity, efficiency and satisfaction. This ultimately allows Alameda County staff to dedicate more time to serving the public.
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• Improved User Experience — Staff now engage with an interface that is similar to their previous database. Grids has provided that intuitive, customisable environment with dynamic fields that work for the team, all inside Salesforce.

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For Alameda County, Raven Apps has been great to work with and very supportive, unlike many larger companies. They've stated that Raven Apps tailored their service and solution to the specific needs of Alameda's workflows. In addition to being very easy to work with, Raven Apps are also affordable, which has been a bonus for Alameda County.
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"Great product and support. RavenApps provides features that mimic our previous system, Microsoft Access, such as in-line editing, long text-area fields, and the ability to see large amounts of data in one view (including scroll bars to move pages from side to side). The support from the team has been great; highly supportive and very responsive to our inquiries. They've even provided us with detailed demos."