Scheduled Data Export is a rarely talked about feature that may make you a data savior one day.

Data Export lets you prepare a copy of all your Salesforce data. You can generate backup files manually once every six days or schedule them to generate automatically at weekly or monthly intervals. When an export is ready for download you will receive an email containing a link that allows you to download the file(s).

Below are the directions to schedule a backup.

1) Click Setup | Data Management | Data Export and Export Now or Schedule Export. The Export Now option prepares your files for export immediately. This option is only available if a week has passed since your last export. The Schedule Export option allows you to schedule the export process for weekly or monthly intervals.

2) Select the desired encoding for your export file.

3) Select Include attachments… if you want your export data to include attachments.

4) Select Replace carriage returns with spaces if you want your export files to have spaces instead of carriage returns or line breaks. This may be useful if you plan to use your export files for importing or other integrations.

5) If you are scheduling your export, select the frequency, start and end dates, and time of day for your scheduled export.

6) Select the types of data to include in your export. If desired, you can include all data in your export file. We recommend that you include all data if you are not familiar with the terminology used for some of the types of data.

I’ve personally seen this feature save many companies time, money and embarrassment, so setup this free feature today.

I find myself discussing user adoption with clients, prospects and the CRM user community more and more often. The standard advice on this topic is often centred on broad concepts such as ensuring management buy-in, engaging users and implementing change management. These are worthy (if slightly bland) recommendations, but how about some more specific suggestions?

Here are 4 tangible tips that are certain to drive CRM user adoption in your business. (With thanks to Ingrid Elgar of Articulate for her recent contribution on this topic at the Sydney Salesforce User Group):

1. Get your KPI metrics out of Excel and into your CRM: The message from your management team must be that staff performance will be measured on metrics that are in the CRM, not hidden away in a management-eyes-only spreadsheet. If the sales team has a target of 50 deals for the month, then show that number in a big, colourful dashboard component as soon as a sales user logs in. If marketing must hit a 25% lead conversion rate this quarter, then let’s see a funnel graph displaying that number front and centre in the CRM.
2. Close the visibility gap between sales targets and actual: I see this time and time again. Sales guys can view their deal targets, but the actuals to measure against them are held somewhere else. Too often the opportunity pipeline is in the CRM, but the financials on won deals are in the billing system, and the sales team can’t compare the two until the end of the month. There is no greater motivator for a salesperson than to be able to look at their 6-month pipeline and know that it’s worth $173,465.89; or to see clearly that they’ve achieved $35,650 of their $50,000 sales target for the month. Better still, with a little effort you can calculate sales commissions in your CRM in real time, such that a salesperson knows that closing that killer deal before Christmas is worth $1,275 to their pay packet in January. This may take a little development or integration to pull off, but the impact is massive.
3. Run your team through a performance dashboard: This one’s easy, but too often its value is undermined by indecisiveness and management tinkering. Keep it very simple and just do this:
   • Agree a performance dashboard that contains your key metrics.
   • Announce it at your 10am Tuesday morning sales/marketing/customer service team meeting (I hate Monday mornings, so Tuesday morning it is).
   • Have a scheduled process that emails the dashboard to everyone for 9am every Tuesday morning, for discussion at the meeting.
   • Don’t change the dashboard. For a while, at least. No-one will trust the score if the goalposts keep moving. When the dashboard does need refinement, don’t just tinker with it. Follow the first three steps again methodically.
4. Streamline the user experience: In most offices, management look to ensure each staff member is comfortable. An ergonomic chair, an eye-height low-glare monitor, plenty of natural light … we look to create a pleasant work environment. But then we provide a CRM (where users spend hours each day) where creating a sales opportunity for a new prospect is an 11 step process involving 7 screens, 43 clicks and the customer’s name typed 3 times. It’s an incongruous situation. Instead, take the budget allocated for the new eggplant & cerise paint scheme and spend it on customising the day-to-day user experience of your CRM. Consider three key improvements:
   • Reduce clicks: create shortcuts and rationalise screen layouts. For example, allow a salesperson to create an account, contact, opportunity and task record all on one screen, with one Save at the end.
   • Automate repetitive tasks: if it’s repetitive and manual, then you can be sure it’s annoying and error-prone. Automating repetitive tasks shows that you value your staff to do the work that machines can’t. Email confirmations, status updates and data exports are prime candidates for automation.
   • Make it fun: For the social networking generation, leading-edge technology is actually fun to use. Steal design tips from the web and from devices like the iPhone, that is, the technology people use by choice every day. If you can make your CRM approach a Facebook level of interactivity, your staff will actually want to use it. Be creative.