Partner FAQ Pocket Guide: A New Partner Community Experience (EXTERNAL)

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Feature Enhancements: November 2020

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Welcome!

This guide is intended to help partners understand the changes to the new Partner Community. Get Ready For an Enhanced and Personalized Experience!

Your destination for a connected partner experience is the Partner Community where you can continuously learn, grow, innovate, and lead throughout your partner journey with the world’s #1 CRM company. Our goal is to go back to basics; to create a common platform, equally accessible for all partners, regardless of where they are in their partner lifecycle.

We have streamlined our approach in order to rethink and reimagine an ideal partner experience for you. Salesforce aims to empower partners with the technology, educational and management tools necessary to build the most powerful businesses and trusted customer relationships.

Please keep this Pocket Guide handy - we will continue to add new content each time we launch new features and enhancements to the Partner Community.

The Vision

Deliver a Partner Community experience that is meaningful and personalized at all stages of the Partner lifecycle, for all partnership types.

It’s time to power the world's most trusted Partner ecosystem to accelerate productivity, capacity, and capability at scale. We are delivering technological innovation that fuels the success of all Salesforce Partners. We will provide a self-serve help experience; transparent program management; tailored learning; a single-source of truth for data about a partner and their Salesforce relationship; and analytics to drive decision-making.

This new experience is a long-term effort, transformational in scale, and like all good things, will take time. We will build a new community, leveraging new features as they arrive. This is not just one big bang, but a continual update of our Partner Community over the course of the next two years.

Phase One: Enhance existing Partners’ ability to grow and manage their partnership and business;
Phase Two: Orient newer Partners as they join our Ohana, to effectively run their business with Salesforce;
Phase Three: Empower all Partners to maximize business with Salesforce through powerful Analytics

Feature Enhancements: November 2020

Right out of the gate, we improved upon features in the Partner Community that enable you to build trusted customer relationships, gain better insights, and supercharge growth and expertise. We are launching two critical enhancements to the Partner Community:

(1) Make strategic decisions with the New Trailblazer Scorecard:

We have created a new Scorecard experience! This dynamic tool provides partners with unified and transparent visibility into how program metrics are being calculated so that you can take key actions to manage your business.

(2) Discover content instantly with Enhanced Content Search:

We have developed more accessible self-service search functionality to empower partners to generate personalized results via an enhanced user interface We have also revamped our content strategy, top to bottom, to provide more accessibility and personalized results via an enhanced user interface.

The New Trailblazer Scorecard

This new Scorecard structure is the first of many iterative releases to build a transparent Trailblazer Scorecard for Partners to view their program standing and the benefits associated with their achievements.

Your existing Consulting scorecard - available from within the Business tab of the Partner Community - is the official source of truth on your performance through the end of this current Program Year - ending March 1, 2021. For AppExchange (ISV) partners, your Trailblazer Score will be emailed to you during the first week of the Program quarter. (December 2020). Partners should continue to use their current scorecard as a numerical source of truth for the remainder of this partner program year.

What partner types will have access to the New Trailblazer Scorecard?

All global AppExchange and Consulting partners have access to the New Trailblazer Scorecard and Search feature.

How do I access the New Trailblazer Scorecard?

Partner individuals must be assigned ’Partnership’ access permissions to view the new score card feature. To determine if you have this permission, log into the Partner Community and navigate to the Managed tab under the Partner Community header. If you do not see the Managed tab, you will need to reach out to your program admin to request the permissions access be turned on.

How to find your Partner Community Admin https://salesforce.quip.com/08aZAKKzbqbU

Once I have access, how do I navigate to the New Trailblazer Scorecard?

When you log into the Partner Community, a welcome announcement will display to direct you to the New Scorecard view. A static snapshot of your PY21 data will be displayed and updated quarterly until the PY22 begins in March 2021.

What performance data will I see on the New Trailblazer Scorecard?

Partners will be able to view and manage their current program tier, standing, progression, and points to the next tier in the program.

Are Trailblazer Scorecard metrics updated in real time?

Currently, the Trailblazer Scorecard includes a snapshot of data, based the partner’s highest performing tier, that is refreshed once per quarter. In the coming months, we have plans to increase this cadence, in preparation for the new program year (PY22) beginning March 2021.

Is the new Consulting Partner Trailblazer Scorecard regionalized?

The PY21 Consultant Partner Trailblazer Scorecard displays 17 regional versions and is the official source of truth on a partner’s performance through the end of this current Program Year. Beginning in PY22, this data will be flattened into a global score. Consulting Partners will continue to earn their tier based on their highest performing region across all metrics. This tier will determine what is displayed in the PY22 Scorecard.

If I am a member in both the Consulting and AppExchange partner programs, can I see both of my Trailblazer Scorecards?

Partners in both programs can easily navigate between views of their Trailblazer Scorecards by toggling between their program types on the summary console page.

How does the AppExchange Trailblazer Score compare to the AppExchange Trailblazer email I receive quarterly?

The Trailblazer Score data provided in the email is the same data you can see on the Trailblazer Scorecard in Partner Community. The email and the Partner Community are two separate formats we use to share the data.

Enhanced Content Search

Enhanced Content Search streamlines the search experience and provides partners with easier access to content. Our goal is to fully empower partners to locate the answers they need in a self-service motion, reducing the need to create a case or support ticket.

Where on the Partner Community can I find Enhanced Content Search?

Partners have the ability to search for desired content from within any page in the Partner Community.

What types of content can I search for in the Partner Community?

A partner can search for the following content types:

Questions (Answers)
Known Issues
Ideas
Apps
Knowledge Articles
Documentation
Chatter Feeds*
Chatter Groups*
Education
Files*
Chatter People profile*

(*)Denotes content types that can only be viewed by users that are logged in or authenticated on the Partner Community.

How do I filter search results in the Partner Community?

Once the initial search results are returned, partners can use the filters to refine content by search mode: “Support” , “Community” and “Learning”. Partners can also filter the results based on “Content type” (Documentation, Knowledge Articles and Education) and by “Experience” (Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience).

What if I cannot find what I need through Enhanced Content Search?

If a partner is unable to find the result they need, they can create a case in the Partner Community by clicking the “Create a Case” button above the page footer.

What should I do if my search returns the message “Don’t see your issue" ?

Partners will see "Don’t see your issue" display if there are no matching or relevant results. The "Create a Case "button will display for authenticated partners to submit a case directly. Unauthenticated partners will be directed to log into the Partner Community before they can submit a case.

More Information

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