Getting started with Salesforce

Meet Resco for Salesforce

Resco is an enterprise mobile app that lets Salesforce users perform even the most complex operations in the field. Field users (inspectors, sales, field service reps & others) can freely work with Salesforce data even in unreliable conditions independent from the connection.

Resco works best when

• Mobility is the key no matter the industry & use case
• You have any Salesforce license & work on any device/platform
• You want to have freedom without having to worry about WiFi or mobile data

Resco allows you to

• Combine inspections/field service/sales objects (even custom) & connect it to any Salesforce organization
• Go beyond caching 15 recently viewed records, instead enjoy the faster & more reliable app in offline mode – throughout the entire daily job and all operations
• Create custom apps with countless configuration possibilities to fit your case – where zero coding skills are required
• Innovate with 21st-century features like AI image recognition, support for AR & HoloLens or smartwatches, Voice control & more

Curious to learn more?

• AppExchange listing
• Resco’s website

Being on the market for 20 years, Resco has become a trusted partner & a business solution provider to many companies worldwide (currently serving 2,500+ corporate customers & working with 500+ partners).

Before you start using Resco

Resco is a native mobile app that easily connects to Salesforce via its APIs. Any company that has at least one rep that operates in the field can explore and start enjoying the benefits of business mobility – no matter the industry.

Consider Resco if you:

• Are or are about to be a Salesforce user with any license

(Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Force.com, Developer, Performance, Essentials…)

• You or your users have iOS, Android or Windows devices
• Are looking for a solution with super-fast deployment
• Prefer better productivity in the field thanks to a fast offline-ready app that enables you to create/edit/delete data without limits
• Prefer all-in-one fully functional business tool with hundreds of capabilities to a stack of 3rd party AppExchange solutions

Choose Resco if you want:

• More than an add-on to Salesforce, but a combination of Salesforce data + 100+ mobile-native features + offline. The app comes with all mobile-native features (GPS, calls, business card/QR code/barcode scanning & more) and a possibility to manage all functionalities = run all business operations fully offline.

• Freedom of choice when enabling offline functionality – quickly sync the data when being online for later offline access. Admins can determine which functions and data will be available when the app is offline and how will the syncing happen.

• To create your own user experience – basic and advanced no-code customizations can turn each Resco app to a branded business solution for a specific scenario. The code-free customization browser-based tool named Woodford comes with Resco’s mobile app for free.

• To be better safe than sorry – Mobile audit & analytics and advanced security options are a part of the solution. Corporate data about customers, contacts, orders, invoices, etc., is one of the main assets of every business. They should be protected. Also, thanks to the GPS coordinates, Resco can simply examine where any activity took place – this is something a standard desktop solution can’t perform.

• Walk alongside innovations – With four major releases each year, Resco gets major upgrades mostly resulting from customer feedback. Resco innovates with full support for wearable technologies, offline processes from A to Z (reports, inspections…) and more.

• An app that speaks your language – Resco supports many languages by default, and you can create your own localizations.

Learn about the benefits if you work in a disconnected scenario:

No connectivity – There are occasions when a Salesforce user performs job on-the-go in areas with poor or no connectivity. Whether it is a developing country, a secured environment, an underground cellar or a user is just moving fast between mobile cells. For such cases, it is necessary to be able to work offline, sometimes even for days or weeks without connection.

Slow or unstable connectivity – Even in developed countries, where Internet connectivity is generally perceived as very good, there are areas with poor 3G and 4G support. A weak connection causes slow performance, which can be even worse than no connection. Having the ability to work in offline mode protects users against interruptions, data loss, and low-class job performance. Plus, it saves time and eliminates frustration.

Faster performance & better user experience – Many field workers prefer working offline to working online – even when there is reliable connectivity available. This way, they do not have to worry about the “slow Internet”, data limits and can work with many records and heavy data seamlessly.

Great examples of conditions at work where offline capability is non-negotiable are:

• traveling on the plane and needs to catch up with paperwork
• inspecting places like subway, garage, lift, where the connection is poor
• working in:

• landscape areas (mines, fields, vineyards…)
• remote areas with no connection (wind fields, oil platforms…)
• places under high security, where the online mode is not allowed (governmental institution, laboratories…)
• places where the constant access to information is a matter of life (mobile hospitals, ambulances, disaster areas…)

Take offline whatever you want – not just data, but entire business logic.

Offline means that ALL the features and functionalities of the mobile CRM app are available also when the app is disconnected – with no limitations. Thus, the logic of every feature must be developed and implemented to the mobile app independently from the server. Otherwise, a feature will simply not work when the app is disconnected. But a mobile CRM app is usually the main business tool of every mobile sales or service professional. So, if it doesn’t provide 100% of functionality anywhere and anytime, it can cause immediate damages to a company’s business.

Radomir Vozar, Head of Board at Resco

Learn more:

• Software & hardware requirements for Resco Blog
• How offline can offline get Blog

Licensing & payments

Resco can be used with any kind of Salesforce license and edition (force.com, essentials, group, community, standard, enterprise, ultimate). Since Resco is an independent company with its own robust technology and know-how, therefore, we have our own pricing strategy. Among our customers, Resco is known for its very good value for money ratio.

Pick your license:

• Resco Enterprise license: if your business mobile users work with standard sales/field service/inspection objects (or any other common CRM objects like Lead, Opportunity, Quote, etc.) or you need Enterprise class features such as Route Planning, Auditing or Device Security Management.

• Resco Professional license: if your users will benefit from a countless number of features of Resco configured only for platform objects (e.g. Account, Contact, Event) and your business specific Custom objects.

• Discounts for NGOs: Special licensing options for non-profit organizations are also available and can be found on our website.

• If you are planning to use advanced Resco features, check out the official pricing information on our website.

Our customers and partners pay for purchased licenses via bank transfer based on a Resco-generated invoice they receive. There is no need to use 3rd party payment tool (such as Stripe).

Setting up mobility with Salesforce

Terminology

In Resco apps and tools we occasionally use terms that are known under a different name in the Salesforce world or have a different meaning.

Salesforce Object = Entity in Resco

the definition of information you store (standard or custom)

Salesforce Profile = Role in Resco

represents a group of users, usually sharing the same permissions to perform different functions within Salesforce/Resco

Salesforce Role = Business Unit in Resco

assigned responsibility of a user, partner account, or contact for specific accounts and opportunities

Salesforce List View = View in Resco

definition of a way to display specific records to a user

Salesforce Layout = Form in Resco

contains fields that describe a specific record that users can see or edit.

Architecture

Easy to implement, easy to use. However, before you set up your first Resco project, understand the architecture of the solution and how it communicates with Salesforce. All corporate data are stored within the Salesforce environment and there is no replication of business data to Resco Cloud. Data outside Salesforce are well protected. Resco has had zero issues with customer data.

Resco Cloud stores

• Object metadata
• App projects
• Reports, favorites, audit
• Users, profiles, permissions
• Project-specific localizations

Any change in the Salesforce organization requires a manual metadata update via Woodford. There are exceptions, where metadata update is handled by the mobile app, such as object- and field-level permissions or layout and record type mapping.

Read more about Resco data model or other core concepts.

Get Resco to Salesforce

Anyone can work with Resco on an existing Salesforce organization. You don’t need to have any programming master skills prior to connecting the two environments. Also, there is zero deployment effort for the out-of-the-box version.

There are two options to start using Resco with Salesforce for the first time:

Out-of-the-box solution

Use this if you prefer to explore the solution straight away, without any prior configuration.

At the moment, three out-of-the-box customizations for different use cases are available. Ready-to-use application with a pre-defined schema & objects is ready-made for sales, field service, and inspection scenarios. You need no programming skills for testing. The out-of-the-box version does not require any deployment effort.

Read more about the customization templates available. Blog

Customize your app

This approach is recommended for users who like to get personalized experience directly.

For such purposes, we provide a code-free browser-based tool Woodford, to either modify existing app projects (be it Sales, Field Service, or Inspections) or to customize the app for a case-specific scenario, and brand it to a unique business. For example, an admin can create a vertical solution combining inspections and sales objects (with Salesforce data) for donor management in the non-profit sector.

Get started by logging to Resco for Salesforce website. All you need is your Salesforce login details.

When you connect to Resco for Salesforce for the first time, you will create a trial organization on Resco. The trial lasts for 30 days. You can access all of Resco´s functionalities during this period. If you would like to extend or purchase any licenses, please contact your Account Manager.

Note

If you have a field team of varying users from salesmen to inspectors or even volunteers, you don’t need to purchase three different app versions. Resco is just one app driven by customization. When the user logs in, the app downloads a customization designed for a specific User Profile. Use pre-defined templates, create your own projects or mix it all up. You can also add Inspections functionality including dynamic editable questionnaires, checklists, and surveys to your existing app project with Salesforce data – be it Sales, Field Service, or your custom solution.

Set up Salesforce trial

If you don't have a Salesforce organization, you can create one for free.

1. Go to www.salesforce.com and click Try for free.
   
2. Answer a few details about your organization.
   
   
   
3. Click Submit and wait until the organization is created.
   
4. You receive an email to the address specified in step 2. Click Verify Account.
   
5. Change your password and set a security question, then click Change Password.
   

Connect your Salesforce organization with Resco

To access Resco tools that extend the functionality of Salesforce, proceed as follows.

1. Log in to Resco for Salesforce using your Salesforce credentials.
   • For production, go to https://salesforce.resco.net/
   • For the test, go to https://salesforce-test.resco.net/
     
2. Grant Resco access to your organization.
   
3. Create a Resco organization by filling in your contact details. Click Connect Resco to Salesforce to proceed.
   
4. Wait until your organization is prepared. In a few seconds or minutes, you are redirected to the welcome page.
   

The Resco for Salesforce dashboard includes these tools:

• Woodford: the primary tool for editing app projects (customizing your Resco mobile app experience)
• Sync Dashboard: a tool for monitoring synchronization of mobile devices with the server
• Mobile Report Editor: a tool for designing mobile reports
• Guides Editor: a tool for designing guides

The trial for this organization lasts 30 days. You have access to all of Resco´s functionalities during this period. If you would like to extend or purchase any licenses, please contact your respective Account Manager.

Warning

Be careful when refreshing your Salesforce sandbox for organizations created with Resco software older than release 17.0. Your Salesforce organization ID may change and this severs the connections between the Salesforce organization and its related Resco data. Before the refresh, make sure to export all app projects, localization, reports, and questionnaires. Resco support might be able to recover your lost app projects.

Download and install Resco Mobile CRM

1. Log in to your Resco for Salesforce page.
   • For production, go to https://salesforce.resco.net/
   • For sandbox, go to https://salesforce-test.resco.net/
2. Click Download Apps and from the listed platforms, choose the one you use on your device.
   
3. Install the app on your device.
4. Start the app and on the Welcome to Resco Mobile CRM screen, select Internal User.
   
5. If you have a QR code with login credentials, tap Scan QR in the Welcome guide. Otherwise, you can sign in with OAuth2 User Mode. Enter your organization´s URL or salesforce.com for production and test.salesforce.com for a sandbox organization. If your organization allows only login via custom domain, use your custom domain URL, e.g. mydomain.my.salesforce.com or mydomain.lightning.force.com
6. Create a new password to protect your data and initialize the sync process by tapping the sync button in the top right corner of the screen.
   
7. Enter your Salesforce credentials to log in.
   
8. Allow the app to access information from Salesforce by tapping Allow.
   

The application will now start synchronizing data with your Salesforce organization. Once completed, you will be able to see and work with your Salesforce data, whether you are offline or online.

See Connecting to CRM if you need more information about connecting the app to your Salesforce organization.

Install Resco managed package

Resco managed package is an app installed directly onto your Salesforce organization that grants you access to additional Resco features:

• Resco Inspections: design questionnaires, dynamic forms, or surveys; answer the questionnaires in Resco mobile apps; then analyze the collected results
• Salesforce object blacklist: set which metadata are downloaded to Woodford

To install the package:

1. Go to Resco's AppExchange listing.
2. Click Get It Now.
   
3. Access the new features from your Salesforce organization using App Launcher.
   

Experiment with chatter

Chatter, Salesforce's real-time collaboration application that lets your users work together, is available in Resco mobile apps. You can display chatter feeds directly on object forms, where app users can share information about a particular record. This feature is currently previewed for admin users only. See chatter for more information.

Resco Inspections

To add Resco Inspections into your Resco solutions, you need to proceed through two steps:

1. Install Resco managed package from AppExchange as described in the previous section. This adds all the necessary objects to your Salesforce. It also adds the Questionnaire Designer and the Results Viewer tools to your Resco organization.
2. Enable Resco Inspections in your app project. This adds Inspections objects to your app project in Woodford. Alternatively, you can set up a new project from the Inspections template; this project comes with inspections objects enabled.

Read also how to leverage Resco Inspections for your field service operations in Salesforce Blog

Create a new project with Inspections

For instructions on how to enable inspections in an existing project, see the next section.

1. Log in to Resco for Salesforce.
2. Start Woodford.
3. Click Update to download metadata from Salesforce. This step is necessary whenever you change metadata in Salesforce.
4. Click New to create a new project.
   
5. Enter the details of your new app project.
   • Type: Standard user
   • Template: Inspections
   • Name: Choose an appropriate name for your project
   • Priority: Any number higher than other existing projects
   • Roles: Role = Profile in Salesforce
6. Click Save to confirm the parameters of the new project and return to the list of app projects.
7. Double-click the new project to open it for editing.
8. Click Publish. App users can now synchronize with this project to start using it.

Enable Inspections in existing project

1. Log in to Resco for Salesforce.
2. Start Woodford.
3. Click Update to download metadata from Salesforce. This step is necessary whenever you change metadata in Salesforce.
4. Select the project for which you want to enable inspections and click Edit.
5. Select Settings > Inspections from the Project menu.
   
6. Check Enable Inspections, then click Save.
7. You can then integrate Inspections with your project in just a few clicks:
   • To add Inspections to your home screen, click Add to Home.
   • To add Inspections to a Form, click Add to Form and select an entity; Inspections are added to that entity's default view. You can repeat this step for multiple entities as needed.
   • To install a pre-configured automatic report, click Install Report.
8. Click Publish. App users can now synchronize with this project to start using it.

You have two options now: you can either go to your Resco Mobile CRM application where you will see the Inspections functionality after synchronization. Or you can download the Resco Inspections application and synchronize it the same way you would synchronize the Resco Mobile CRM application.

The Inspection trial for this organization lasts 30 days. You have access to all of Resco´s functionalities during this period. If you would like to extend or purchase any licenses, please contact your Account Manager.

Grant permissions to non-admins

To grant access to Resco Inspections to users without admin rights, add one or more of the following permission sets to your users. In Salesforce Administration section, go to Users > Permission Sets.

• Resco Inspections User: this user can answer questionnaires in Resco mobile apps.
• Resco Inspections Designer: this user can design questionnaires in the Questionnaire Designer.
• Resco Inspections Admin: this permission set aggregates all Inspections related permissions and on top adds permissions to configure administrative settings such as white/blacklisting of objects available in Inspections and Woodford.

Next steps

What are the next steps when using Resco Inspections?

• Start the Questionnaire Designer and either import one of the predefined templates from our template library or design your own questionnaire from scratch.
• Start Woodford and add inspections to your app project. Questionnaires can be made accessible from many locations of the app, but for starters we recommend using one of the single-click integrations that questionnaires to the home screen or an entity form. See Adding questionnaires to app projects for more information.
• Get one of Resco mobile apps and synchronize with your organization. You can use the classic Resco Mobile CRM or the dedicated Resco Inspections (app). Run the questionnaire on your device, collecting valuable data.
• Back on your Salesforce server, you can review the collected data using the Results Viewer. You can also access completed questionnaires from your Salesforce Lightning Record pages.

Decompressing on Salesforce

Some advanced Inspections features use gzip compression to save storage space:

• Using compressed JSON to store questionnaire answers
• Compressing large questionnaire template fields

Salesforce does not support decompressing natively. One of the options for bypassing this limitation is using Zippex, a native Apex Zip utility for the salesforce.com platform, in combination with the following function:

public class QuestionnairePacker {
    private static String RESCO_PREFIX = 'GZIP';
    private static Integer START_OFFSET = 20;
    private static Integer END_OFFSET = 16;
    
	public static String decompressString(String compressedString) {
        if (compressedString.startsWith(RESCO_PREFIX)) {
            compressedString = compressedString.substring(RESCO_PREFIX.length());
        }
        Blob b = EncodingUtil.base64Decode(compressedString);
        String hex = EncodingUtil.convertToHex(b);
        String substr = hex.substring(START_OFFSET, hex.length() - END_OFFSET);
        Puff p = new Puff(substr, null, null);
        String result = p.inflate();
        return EncodingUtil.convertFromHex(result).toString();
    }
}

Resco Guides

Resco Guides allows organizations to capture, standardize, and apply tribal knowledge as part of Resco mobile apps. Technicians can access work instructions anytime and execute tasks faster and error-free. They can also rate the instructions and provide feedback to make them better and more complete.

Setting up guides

1. Make sure your environment is updated to release 17.1 or later.
2. Start Woodford, edit an app project, and Update Metadata. This is necessary for guide-related entities to appear and have proper permissions assigned.
3. Select Settings > Guides from the Project menu and enable Guides. Don’t forget to add Guides to the Home menu.

Specifics and limitations

• Guides data on Salesforce are stored in the related Resco Cloud organization, the same as App Projects, Mobile Reports, or Mobile Audit records. This means that lifecycle management, security, and retention of guide-related records (including images and videos) must be managed within the Resco Cloud, not Salesforce.

• Guides Editor is accessible to any user with access to Resco for Salesforce from the new tab on the landing page.

Like for all other tools on the landing page, it is not possible to limit access to Guides Editor. Every user with access to the landing page can also access Guides Editor. If you need to set up role-based permissions for guide entities, it can only be done via Admin Console. Customers must contact Resco support to be instructed on how to access the console. However, every Update Metadata action resets the manually assigned permissions.

• Since the Resco Cloud Admin Console is not easily accessible, adding Guide Categories must be done using the Resco Mobile CRM app. Admin needs to add an editable list (or list + form) of Guide Category entity (rh_guidecategory) to the app project.

• Creating guides within the Resco Mobile CRM app (aka harvesting) is not supported. The only way is to use the Guides Editor.

• Creating association entities between Guides and Salesforce objects is not supported.

As a workaround, it is possible to create weak links (conventions). To realize the connection, add an unrelated guide list with a custom filter on the related entity form. For example, you can define a Guide Category record (on Resco Cloud) matching a Product record (on Salesforce) via Product Family picklist value and use an unrelated list on a product form with a filter like this:

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