The X-Author Weekly – Maintaining Your Data and Your Sanity

Companies gather all kinds of information, from customer interactions and activity tracking to Opportunity management and pipeline generation. Without a CRM system properly in place, it can be difficult to figure out which information is latest, how to make reports based on interactions with Leads and Contacts in the system. The lack of visibility is difficult to overcome. Implementing a CRM platform, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Salesforce, helps bring visibility to the execs at an organization. The only issue that remains is getting the users to adopt the new way of tracking useful data and information. 

The Stuff Dreams are Made Of

Ideally, your CRM system is the one source of truth for your organization. That means not just Sales is using the CRM, but Marketing, Finance, Services, etc. are using the CRM. Getting all the different departments on the same page is not an easy task.

Many organizations have grown over the years by patching legacy systems together with home-grown interfaces or by utilizing spreadsheets on desktop computers to do the critical work. In a perfect world, you could connect all that together seamlessly, keep data current with a single user interface and very few clicks.

Not Just a Dream

With X-Author by Apttus, you can get data to your CRM by allowing your users to work in Excel, an interface they have likely been using for years. With the single click of a button, data is saved in your CRM rather than a standalone Excel file. The Excel templates (or apps) live in your CRM. That means any user with access to those apps (based on Salesforce-defined user permissions) can make changes to Salesforce data using the Excel interface.

Jeremy Blodgett, a Salesforce Certified Administrator with SunEdison Semiconductor put it best, “The first time users see X-Author for Excel, they are wowed by it immediately. We are seeing tremendous value by gathering the data from our core ERP system and Salesforce together because it increases our visibility and efficiency into forecasting in a big way.”

Whether you are migrating data from legacy systems, or combining ERP data from multiple reports, you can manage your company’s big data quickly and easily with X-Author for Excel. If you use Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics CRM, X-Author for Excel provides the same great benefits.