If you look at the side column content of this site, you'll notice a section titled My IdeaExchange Ideas. It's there to simply call attention to the ideas that I have submitted on the Salesforce.com IdeaExchange. For those of you that are new to the Salesforce.com (SFDC) universe, the IdeaExchange is basically a social network style website that allows the users of SFDC and other interested parties to influence the design and direction of the solution. For a more detailed description, let's see what SFDC has to say (taken from the IdeaExchange FAQs).
What is the IdeaExchange?
IdeaExchange is a forum where salesforce.com customers can suggest new product concepts, promote favorite enhancements, interact with product managers and other customers, and preview what we are planning to deliver. In salesforce.com’s ongoing efforts to continually create a dialog with the community, IdeaExchange provides an open and direct channel of communication for customers.
Now that we've covered the basic concept, let's dive into a specific idea that I submitted on the IdeaExchange and track it's progress thus-far as a case study on the IdeaExchange.
Roll-up Summary Fields for Standard Objects
An excerpt...
The recently announced Summer 07 feature for Roll-up Summary fields is a great step forward. However, it only allows roll-up summaries to be created when a custom, master-detail relationship exists. It would be tremendously useful to extend that same functionality to standard objects and the existing relationships. For example...
Example 1
Create a Roll-up Summary field on the Account object that calculates the SUM of all related Opportunities where Stage = "Closed/Won." This is an obvious win for organizations that wish to easily identify the value of a particular customer in terms of sold business.
I submitted this idea on July 18th, 2007 shortly after SFDC distributed the official release notes for the Salesforce.com Summer 07 release. Summer 07 included a new feature called Roll-up Summary Fields which allows system administrators to create a formula field on one object that calculates a SUM or COUNT of child records from a related object. On the surface this appeared to be an awesome feature and one that the user base had been eagerly awaiting. However, close inspection of the release notes yielded the following restriction: roll-up summary fields are only supported when a custom, master-detail relationship exists. Without going into the specifics of master-detail vs. lookup relationships in SFDC, it should suffice to say that the roll-up summary fields can only be created under very specific circumstances. While that feature is valuable in those specific circumstances, it would be even more valuable if the restriction were removed and the roll-up summary fields could be created on any object and relationship. That's why I posted my idea.
The response from the IdeaExchange community was immediate. In less than two months (at the time of this post), the idea has been promoted 170 times and the tone of the posted comments varies from utter disappointment to cautious optimism. Bottom line, people want this feature - sooner rather than later.
This morning, I reviewed my idea and found that it had been updated by SFDC. The title of the idea now reads as follows.
Roll-up Summary Fields for Standard Objects (Opp-Opp Line in Winter 08)
In addition to the revised title, a new comment from an SFDC employee indicates that they plan to make the roll-up summary field feature available for use with the following "standard" relationships: Accounts with Opportunities and Opportunities with Line Items. I have mixed emotions about this update. On one hand, I'm elated to report that - for all intents and purposes - the IdeaExchange works as designed. A good idea was promoted, caught the attention of SFDC and will now be included in the next release. On the other hand, the comment indicates that this is merely another half-step toward the true goal of this idea. It will only allow the roll-up summary feature on two available standard object relationships leaving dozens of other standard relationships unsupported.
I suppose that the true indicator of how well the IdeaExchange works will be the Winter 08 release of Salesforce.com and the production functionality of roll-up summary fields. Rest assured, as soon as the official release notes are available, I'll be reading the fine print.
For the record, I have added a new comment requesting clarification from SFDC on their plans for supporting the other standard relationships and, at the time of this post, they have not responded. However, I have found that the SFDC employees who are responsible for managing the ideas generally respond within 24 hours so I'm not concerned.
UPDATE - 9/14/07: SFDC responded to my comment and clarified that only the Opportunity to Line Items relationships will be added in the Winter 08 release. Further relationship support will follow in future releases. While I'm disappointed, I can appreciate the level of effort that must be involved with developing the required functionality. Perhaps I'll make sure it doesn't fall off their radar. More to follow...
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