So it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything but I promise that’s only because I couldn’t figure out how to add a 25th hour to the day.  But here we are again with the Salesforce #Summer12 Release just around the corner.  Like always this one was a page turner!  I read through the release notes, cover-to-cover, for the first time on a flight from Orlando to Dallas, and I’ll admit I may have told other passengers I couldn’t put it down because I was reading The Hunger Games.

Right now it’s Saturday night and after spending the day creating a project plan in Version One, I am writing a blog post…  “Hello Geek, Party of 1..  Your table is ready”.  But seriously, I am hoping for a beautiful #Summer12 Florida day tomorrow so I can sit by the pool with the frozen Pina Colada, which I put in the freezer tonight, and read through the release notes 1 more time.

There are a ton of new features I’m excited about, and much as I expected after 2 releases of MAJOR Admin features, this release has a ton of features to offer developers as well. So I’m going to go ahead and throw in my 2 cents, which admittedly is worth about .09 cents in todays economy, and talk about some of my favorites.

Forecasts – Generally Available  – Got you!  That was available in Winter ’12, however 2 releases later we continue to see some pretty substantial improvements to Forecasts in the Summer ’12 Release.   For customers already using Customizable Forecasts, they can now begin to migrate to Forecasts by disabling Customizable Forecasts.  Forecast managers can now easily find Forecasts by user name just by using the Jump to feature.

There is also new functionality to allow Quotas.  Administrators in DE/EE/and UE Orgs can enable quotas for users in their Forecasts.  There is also a new permission in Summer ’12 to allow administrators to delegate users to create, edit and delete quotas.

Chatter Messenger – Generally Available – So last release we saw the addition of private Chatter Messages.  Well now we are stepping to the next level with Chatter Messenger.  I still think it was a brilliant idea for Salesforce to not immediately make private chatter or chat available to users that were not accustomed to social collaboration.  But now as Enterprises around the globe have adopted this new social technology, the ability to have more private communication is being released.

The entire idea of having a Social Enterprise is not that there is not a place for more private communication, but that our first line of communication should be public.  Instead of CC’ing 10 people I post to Chatter, instead of sending a file to one person when everyone could benefit I post to Chatter, when I have a private message to a specific colleague that no one else needs to see, I have Chatter Messages, and when I have a quick private conversation I now have Chatter Messenger.

In the words of Marc Benioff, “We were born Cloud, but we were Re-Born Social”.

Cloud CIT API – So I’m going to go Geek for a minute and talk about what I think is the coolest feature.  The Cloud CTI API definitely qualifies for that.  First because it’s close to my heart because I have a client that requires CTI integration for their call center and I’m not thrilled with the available adapters.  Now however, they can maintain all of their current functionality but incorporate it into the new Force.com platform that we are building for them, Call Center – Meet Cloud!

After such a long break, this blog post is getting a bit to wordy.  So I will say Adios (I’m trying to learn Spanish) for now and I will be posting more about my other favorite features shortly.  (Yes, I know that spans almost all of the release notes).

May the Force.com be with you!