There’s a new application on the market which helps individuals and organizations integrate the popular Google email program Gmail with the customer relationship manager (CRM) Salesforce. The app is called Cirrus Insight, and while the functionality might not sound very advanced, salesforce and gmail users will tell you it is a welcome addition to both programs.
There are currently no less than a dozen applications on the market which claim to integrate salesforce and gmail. Most of them don’t work well, placing clunky buttons inside the salesforce interface, or requiring additional bcc’s inside gmail emails. The ones that do work well are astronomically expensive, as much as $100 per user per month or more. For the mom and pop shop, or a nonprofit, these applications are out of a reasonable price range for the included functionality.
That’s where Cirrus Insights comes in. Cirrus integrates all the functionality of the expensive programs, but it does so at a fraction of the price, and with a much cleaner interface. It integrates seamlessly with both applications and places pretty little buttons inside the gmail interface – all of which work flawlessly.
For example, using Cirrus Insights, you can create contacts in salesforce directly from an email in gmail. You can also create accounts, opportunities, tasks, events, activity histories, and more. If you receive an email from a person who is already registered inside your salesforce account, the cirrus insight application recognizes that, and in the gmail sidebar it shows you the relevant contact information for the person who is emailing you. It even works if there is an email exchange between several people at once, simply hovering over the name/email address will change the information displayed in the cirrus insights gmail sidebar.
Cirrus also allows you to record emails sent as history items inside salesforce, without having to bcc your salesforce address. This is a major improvement over other applications which claim to have email history logging functionality.
If you use Gmail and Salesforce you can try the application at the cirrus insights company website. If you want to view a video walkthrough of the application’s key features, you can view the Youtube video for more information and to get access to a code for 50% for your nonprofit: youtube>