Getting up and running quickly

[ChrisJJ]

Hi,

I'm with a small non-profit that has recently licensed salesforce.

The great irony is that we are currently all too busy at the moment to begin implementing or learning it.

I've got systems administration experience myself (10 years), so in theory could do a lot of the setup, but again, am struggling to find the time to learn salesforce in order to administer it.

At least to start with it'd be great if we could start integrating it with our google apps mail, and use it to convert leads into either volunteers or clients and then track progress of events we organise involving those clients and volunteers.

Is there any where I can find info on how to quickly get these sorts of things set up?

(and then hopefully the time saved can be used to better integrate salesforce into the organisation.)

I know I'm breaking the sysadmin code by asking for someone to hold my hand before I've RTFM, but a push in the right direction would be very helpful right now.

Cheers,

Chris

[Garry_Polmateer]

Chris,

Our firm does a lot of work with small nonprofits and the Salesforce NPSP.   Based on what you've outlined below it sounds like you just need a little extra push to get things going.  Would you consider using a partner to help out with this?  Our experienced nonprofit consultants could help you get up on the system in as little as one or two days of time, and fill in a lot of the gaps in your knowledge with less headaches.

We have a community forum at http://www.getsatisfaction.com/nimbleuser where you can ask questions and get quick answers from several of our Salesforce Administrators.  

As for the other questions, Salesforce has a wealth of knowledge available.  Personally, I log into the application and search the Help and Training area as it has a broad search that generally gets me what I want.

Hope this helps, if you want more information check out the getsatisfaction site or our company site http://www.nimbleuser.com

Take care,

Garry