Highlights of Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2018 Conference

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Highlights of Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2018 Conference

Undoubtedly one of the best parts of Dreamforce is learning of the latest partnerships, acquisitions and new features coming out of Salesforce. 

As a Salesforce MVP for RelationEdge, which was acquired by Rackspace earlier this year, I'm one of many RelationEdge employees who attend and lead sessions each year, sharing insights on methodologies for making business changes, networking to support fellow Salesforce professionals and showcasing the latest in Salesforce apps.

For those not familiar with RelationEdge, we're a full-service Salesforce Platinum Consulting Partner and digital agency that helps clients engage with their customers from lead to loyalty by improving business process, leveraging technology and integrating creative digital marketing.

You can read about our experiences at Dreamforce on the RelationEdge blog. Below, I’ve compiled some of the most inspiring events and exciting announcements that came out of this year’s Dreamforce.

Fireside chats

Dreamforce hosts a number of fireside chats, during which members of the Salesforce leadership team sit down with other influential leaders to discuss big ideas and look forward at the future of our society. One of the most popular featured Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff speaking with London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco.

Benioff also sat down for a fireside chat with Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, to discuss disruption in the transportation industry. They emphasized the importance of creating strong cultures, and how to approach responsibility and regulation in the ever-evolving world of ride sharing and modern transportation.

Another inspiring fireside chat was the discussion between Dion Weisler, President & CEO of HP Inc. and Keith Block, Co-CEO of Salesforce. The two leaders discussed the promise and complexities of the 4th Industrial Revolution, including the role of digital manufacturing and the importance of sustainability in the business world.

If you’re interested in hearing more, check out the rest of the Dreamforce fireside chats

Parker Harris’ True to the Core

Parker Harris’ True to the Core: What’s Next for Our Core Products is a favorite for many attendees each year, with Salesforce product managers giving us a sneak peek into their roadmap for the upcoming months.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover they’d changed the format this year, from Salesforce product managers sharing their planned roadmap with the audience, to asking attendees to help build one, allowing us to help shape the next installment of Salesforce innovation.

Salesforce is reimagining its IdeaExchange, a collaborative platform that allows the Salesforce Community to submit ideas for updates to Salesforce products. During the session, we all collaborated on ways to make IdeaExchange more effective.

Salesforce and Apple partnership

One of the biggest moments was Salesforce announcing its new partnership with Apple. Together they plan to deliver a better mobile experience for users, including the introduction of native Salesforce apps on iOS and a redesign of Salesforce’s mobile app to offer Siri shortcuts, Business chat, Face ID and more. Salesforce will also be revealing new resources for developers to make it easier to create iOS solutions and apps.

With this union, the two tech giants are bringing together the most popular CRM in the world and the most advanced mobile operating system on the market.

Salesforce Customer 360

Salesforce also unveiled a new solution called Customer 360, which will allow companies to get a better picture of their customer journey and create unified cross-channel experiences. At RelationEdge, we are big proponents of putting the customer at the heart of your business and delivering a consistent brand experience across all channels.

Needless to say, RelationEdge is thrilled about the Customer 360 platform, which is designed to gather data from all areas of the business — including Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud and Service Cloud — to give your organization a 360-degree view of your customers. First, create a profile for each customer, saving standard data like phone number, email address, and job title; then you can supplement it with data like order history, shopping cart interactions, service cases and email engagement. The best part is, every team member who interacts with that customer can access this profile, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the customer’s relationship and history with your business.

This will enable smoother conversations with customers and provide them with exceptional service, whether they’re interacting with your company on social media, via email or by phone. We can’t wait to start implementing Customer 360 for our clients to give them an advanced platform for managing the customer journey and strengthening their customer relationships.

Einstein Voice

Dreamforce 2018 also saw the debut of the new Einstein Voice, a platform that brings Salesforce into the popular landscape of voice-enabled applications. Einstein Voice enables users to speak to their CRM and automatically transforms unstructured voice data into updates within your Salesforce records.

This gives you the ability to implement changes, access information from your Salesforce Dashboard, and get personalized updates on Salesforce priorities and metrics, all by speaking to Salesforce through Einstein Voice Assistant.


At RelationEdge, our "Process First. Technology Second" approach means we take the time to fully understand and streamline your business process, and then implement the right technology solutions to support it.

As a full-service Platinum Consulting Partner and digital agency, we not only offer services for all Salesforce technologies, we also partner with you to ensure your team knows how to make the most of the features and tools at your disposal. Contact our experienced technology team today to learn more about our full-service Salesforce solutions.