Salesforce.com Update Focuses On Collaboration, Content ManagementSalesforce.com Update Focuses On Collaboration, Content Management

Salesforce.com continues its push outside the customer-relationship management market with the release of Spring 08, the latest in the thrice-yearly updates Salesforce makes to its on-demand software service.

CRM falls back to a supporting role among updates to Spring 08, which focuses on additional features to the company's collaboration and content management on-demand applications.

New features in Salesforce Content include the ability for authorized users to prominently display popular content on users' screens; the ability for administrators to recommend specific content tags for a workspace; and improvements to how search results are displayed.

Customers using Salesforce Content include Intaact, Applied Microsystems, and Ciena, according to Salesforce.com. Typically that app is used for collaboration between marketing and sales departments, or between engineering groups and sales and/or marketing, said Al Falcione, senior director of product marketing, in an interview.

For Salesforce Ideas, new features include an inbox for users to store and access their ideas and the feedback they get from their communities; a "recently discussed" tab that provides access to the latest topics discussed in an online community; and a feature that provides rankings for the most popular ideas within an online community.

There are some enhancements to CRM, too, including a feature that lets authorized users schedule when dashboards are automatically refreshed and e-mailed to users; drag-and-drop calendaring; and the ability for call-center agents to update a "case" using e-mail-triggered workflow.