Trialforce

Force.com is the world's first Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), enabling Developers and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to create any kind of business application, entirely in the cloud. As a result, thousands of developers and ISVs have created over 800 commercial enterprise application with Force.com. Today, many of these applications are listed and deployed through the AppExchange. The AppExchange has made it very easy to showcase what you have built and market to our 59,300+ existing Salesforce CRM customers. The value the AppExchange brings to ISVs is a growing economy of current Salesforce customers looking to enhance their existing Salesforce CRM organization (org). And because the customer already has a license of one of the Salesforce CRM Editions, they can easily test drive and install your app into their Salesforce org. In fact, we recommend you publish your Force.com app to the AppExchange to sell into our existing customer base. More details on AppExchange on-boarding can be found here.

But what if you want to market and distribute to customers who don’t have Salesforce CRM? What if you wanted to offer a free trial of your app to a user who doesn’t even know what Salesforce is? As Force.com has matured over the years, we are seeing more and more non-CRM apps. These are apps that do not extend Salesforce CRM and have no need to leverage Salesforce standard objects like Leads, Opportunities, Cases and the like. ISVs that have developed these non-CRM apps can market to any customers; ultimately increasing their market reach. An ISV that develops a Force.com app without any CRM, can run this app on our Force.com Edition. For apps like these, a new distribution model was needed.

Introducing Trialforce! Trialforce provides a simple and straight-forward process to provision free trials and deploy your Force.com app from your own website, or any site for that matter. With Trialforce, any Force.com ISV can expand their distribution channel and market reach outside the Salesforce CRM community.

Why use Trialforce?

Salesforce.com partners span a diverse set of industries and business disciplines ranging from consulting services, human resources, sales methodology, marketing optimization, finance, mortgage lending and others, which have all responded enthusiastically to Trialforce. It is not uncommon for a partner to more than double their leads when using Trialforce and AppExchange. Just some of the benefits you will receive as a Trialforce user:

  • Harness developer.force.com’s powerful and easy-to-use tools to reduce development time
  • Customize your application, including functionality, design, data and trial experience
  • Maximize the distribution of your applications
  • Run your own marketing campaigns to maximize customer reach and adoption
  • Establish the optimal financial relationship between you and your customer to maximize ROI



How does Trialforce work?

The idea is simple. A prospect will come to your site to learn about your Force.com app. After reviewing relevant product marketing materials, your prospect will click a link for a free trial (Figure 1). After completing the trial registration page, your prospect will click Submit to initiate the provision process. Now here’s where the magic happens…

Figure 1: Offer a Free Trial link from your webpage



Your trial registration page will be tied to a Default Organization Template (DOT). Your DOT is essentially a copy of your Force.com app pre-installed and customized in a Salesforce Enterprise Edition org. When your prospect clicks Submit, the form will do an HTTP POST back to salesforce.com provisioning servers, and we will automatically provision a copy of your DOT. And voila, your prospect now has a free trial of your Force.com app with everything customized and ready to go!

Important Note: When a user signs up for your app through Trialforce, they will receive a welcome email from salesforce.com with login instructions. Currently, there is no way to stop or rebrand this message. Please vote on this idea to help prioritize.

It is highly recommended that you package your Force.com app as a Managed Package. There are 2 valuable benefits when using a Managed Package. The first is that Managed Packages can be upgraded. This means if you plan to release new versions of your Force.com app, you can easily provide your existing customers with a link to the new version. Your customer can simply click the new install link (provided by you) and upgrade to the newer version while maintaining any customizations they have made.

The second benefit is that Managed Packages can be associated with the License Management App (LMA). This way the signups will be considered as licensed installs that can be tracked in your LMA. With the LMA installed in your production Salesforce CRM org, you can see more details about the prospect, manage the trial and activate the license once paid. LMA is free and available here on the AppExchange.

Why are Free Trials important?

Everyone likes to try before they buy, and free trials are one of the best ways to facilitate this. Free trials provide instant access to your app with all the functionality and data you deem appropriate. Your prospect can then start using your app and instantly see the value add.

With Trialforce, you can be very creative with your trials. Not only can you have your Force.com app all configured and ready to go, but you can have sample relevant data included allowing the real benefits to surface from the moment your prospects logins.

How to Get Started with Trialforce?

In order to use the Trialforce infrastructure, you will need to follow these 8 steps.

1. Build your Force.com app

It all begins with your Force.com app. You've probably already done this, but you will need to develop your Force.com app using a free Developer Edition (DE) org available here or on the Partner Portal.

2. Create your Managed Package

After you have developed your Force.com app, you will want to package it. Packages are like virtual suitcases that contain the various components and customizations that make up your application. You can upload a Managed Package in one of two states: Beta or Released. It’s very important to test your Managed Package in a Beta state first before uploading it in the Released state. Beta Managed Packages can be modified if changes are required. Once you set your Managed Package to Released status, certain components of your Managed Package become locked down. By locking these components down, you will be able to upgrade them in the future.

Once you have completed your testing, you will want to package your Force.com app as a Managed Package in a Release state. This will allow you to provide seamless upgrades for your customers, manage their trials and track their installs via the License Management Application (LMA).

Check out the How to Create and Register a Package step-by-step guide for more information.

3. Create your License Management Org (LMO)

Your License Management Org is where you will manage your customers' access to your application. You should install the License Management Application in to your existing Salesforce CRM org. If you don't already have a Salesforce CRM org, you should log in to the Partner Portal and create a Case in the "OEM > Request CRM for ISV Partners" category.

4. Associate your Managed Package to a License Management Org (LMO)

This step is important. It insures that every time someone creates a Trial of your application, your License Management Org receives the updated records. To associate your Managed Package to your License Management Org, you will need to log in to the AppExchange. For information, read the Associating a Package with Your LMO help topic.

5. Customize your Trialforce Master Org

Next, you will need to install your package in to a special Trialforce Master Org. To get a Trialforce Master Org, log a Case in the Partner Portal, and specify the topic as "Trialforce" and the sub-topic as "Initiate Trialforce Process".

Once you've received your login credentials and installed your Managed Package, you can begin customizing the org exactly the way you want your prospective customers to experience it. As a best practice, you should load some data in to your Trialforce Master org so that your prospects have something that they can play with when they first log in to your Trial.

6. Configure your Default License Values on the AppExchange

Even if you're not going to be distributing your Managed Package via the AppExchange, you will need to register your package on the AppExchange because the AppExchange is where you specify the default license values for your Managed Package.

You should get in the habit of registering your package every time you upload a new version of your managed package, and especially when you install a new version of your managed package in to you Trialforce Master org. Just log in to the AppExchange and click on the associated "List It" link. You will be prompted to "Register" new Managed Packages - be sure to do this, it's an important step.

7. Create Your DOT

With your Trialforce Master org configured, you are now ready to build your DOT. To DOT your org, follow these steps:

  • Navigate to Setup | Administration Setup | Data Management | Export to DOT file



  • Depending on the size of your DOT, you will either be presented a dialog to Save the DOT or it will be automatically stored as a document in your Documents tab



  • Log a Parter Portal Case with the Topic set to "Trialforce" and the sub-topic set to "DOT Update". Be sure to attach your zipped-up DOT file after you've saved the Case.





8. Host your Trial page

After we have received your DOT, you will need to copy the HTML source code from our sample Trialforce page. Access to this source code is in the Partner Portal. Follow these steps:

  • Log into Partner Portal
  • Click on Content.
  • Search for "Trialforce Sample Source Code"
  • Click on the result.



  • Finally - click on the Download button.

Once modified, this page will allow your prospective customers to create Trials of your application. This page is just a template though, and you must modify it. First - you will need to update variables and hidden elements throughout the sample code. Search the source for commented items marked TODO and replace them with the appropriate values.

Once the form is working properly, you should modify the HTML and CSS to match the look and layout of your website. Though you should be sure not remove any of the form elements. Once you're done, every time a prospective user enters their information and submits your form, salesforce.com will provision a Trial based off of your DOT.

Closed Loop Process from Trial to Lead

In addition to provisioning the trial instance of your application, Salesforce will also deposit a lead into your Salesforce Partner Portal. This lead will contain the information from your trial registration page. You should consider this a fall back position to managing your trial prospects though, as you cannot add additional fields to the trial registration page.

It is recommended that you siphon the prospect data off of the HTML trial form before it posts to the Salesforce provisioning server. This way, you can manage your prospect information, create a lead associated to that prospect and begin your own email drip campaign to guide the prospect through the trial process and towards a buying decision. This follow up process is critical to realizing results from the Trialforce approach. It is strongly recommended that you completely define the post-sales and marketing process to support your prospects during the trial phase, before you begin to offer free trials from your Web site.

Also, be aware that if you have installed a Managed Package in to your DOT, a Lead will be created in your LMO as well.

Maintaining Trialforce

With every new release of Salesforce, your DOT will expire. Therefore, after your Trialforce Master org has upgraded to the new release, you will need to complete Step 7 above, log a case in Partner Portal and send us your new DOT. Future release schedules can be found here.

Resources



Trialforce FAQ

Q. Once a prospect has decided to buy my trial, how do I activate their trial?
A. Two things need to occur here:

  1. Using the LMA, you can log into your Production org and modify their license from Trial to Active. This will take of your Force.com app.
  2. If you are an OEM partner, under the terms of your OEM agreement, you can work with your Partner Operations Manager to purchase the Salesforce licenses on behalf of your prospect. If not, the prospect can either contact their Salesforce.com Account Executive or use Force.com Checkout to purchase more licenses online (see image).




If the prospect has any questions, they can contact 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE (1-800-667-6389) and a Sales Rep will assist finding the appropriate Salesforce licenses that are required to run your application.

Q. How do I upgrade my customers to a new version of my app?
A. In your DE org, you will want to create a new version of your Managed Package and upload this version in the Released state (Note: be sure to Beta test this package first). Once you upload, you can share the Install URL with your existing customers.

Q. How do I update my DOT with the new version?
A. You will need to install this new version into your Master Org. Once upgraded, create a new DOT and log a case in the Partner Portal to update the DOT on our end.

Q. Can I push my upgrades to my customers?
A. Currently push upgrading is not supported. Customers will need to manually initiate the upgrade process. Please visit the IdeaExchange and promote the idea.

Q. Do I need to create a new DOT when salesforce.com releases a new version?
A. Yes! Please review the section on Maintaining Trialforce.

Q. What if my Force.com app relies on Salesforce CRM functionality?
A. Please work with your Business Development Manager to understand our co-sell model where a Salesforce Account Executive will sell Salesforce CRM and the partner will sell their Force.com app.

Q. Can I offer my app through both Trialforce and AppExchange?
A. Of course! Trialforce and AppExchange are very complimentary and an effective distribution engine when used together. You may even want to advertise your Trialforce page on your AppExchange listing and vice versa. Generally, AppExchange is effective for existing Salesforce CRM customers, where Trialforce works great with net-new customers.

Q. How do I get a login to Partner Portal?
A. Please visit the partner portal and register as a partner to get access. It's fast and free.

Q. Why do my customers get a "Welcome to Salesforce" email when they signup through Trialforce?
A. When a user signs up for your app through Trialforce, they will receive a welcome email from salesforce.com with login instructions. Currently, there is no way to stop or rebrand this message. Please vote on this idea to help prioritize.

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