Salesforce Foundations is an innovative solution that enables companies using Salesforce CRM to access a wide range of features that can improve operational efficiency, increase customer engagement, and optimize sales and customer service processes. Most importantly, Salesforce Foundations is available for free, providing businesses with a set of tools that would normally require additional fees.
However, it is worth noting that this is a trial version, which is intended to assist in the purchasing decision, and therefore comes with certain limitations.
What is Salesforce Foundations?
Salesforce Foundations is a platform designed for companies that use Salesforce but want to gain more functionality and better integration across various areas of operation. It allows for the integration of various Salesforce applications, such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and Data Cloud. This provides users with a complete, 360-degree view of customers, enabling personalized service and better business decision-making. With Salesforce Foundations, companies can leverage tools that enable full automation of processes, better data utilization, and the implementation of artificial intelligence in daily operations.
Key Features of Salesforce Foundations
Salesforce Foundations offers a range of features across various business areas that help organizations better manage data, increase team productivity, and improve customer experiences. Below we present the most important of them:
1. Marketing Cloud – Increasing Customer Engagement
Marketing Cloud is one of the core applications in Salesforce Foundations that enables the creation of personalized marketing campaigns targeted at the right customer segments. It offers tools that assist in planning, executing, and analyzing the effectiveness of campaigns.
- Campaigns – With Marketing Cloud, you can easily plan a marketing campaign, set its goals, and track the effectiveness of your actions.
- Landing Pages and Forms – The ability to create product promotion pages and contact forms that facilitate lead collection and user engagement.
- Segmentation – Marketing Cloud allows for precise segmentation of the customer base, making your marketing campaigns more targeted and effective.
- Einstein Send Time Optimization (STO) – With Einstein technology, the tool optimizes the timing of sending messages to customers to increase the chances of them being opened and interacted with.
2. Commerce Cloud – Online Sales Growth
Commerce Cloud is a tool designed for companies operating in the Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) model. With this application, you can easily create an online store that offers rich shopping experiences on both desktop and mobile devices.
- Creating an online store – Commerce Cloud offers an intuitive interface that allows for quick creation of an online store and product management.
- Online payments – Pay Now (USA only). – With integration with payment systems, Commerce Cloud enables fast and secure processing of online transactions.
- SEO and product search – The platform provides advanced SEO features that help position your store in Google search results and allow customers to easily search for products.
3. Data Cloud – One customer database
Data Cloud is a feature that allows for the integration of various data sources and the creation of a unified customer profile. This gives you a complete picture of your customers’ needs and preferences, enabling better personalization of offers and communication.
- 360 Profiles – With Data Cloud, data from various sources (such as email, transactional data, or customer interactions) is combined in one place, creating a comprehensive customer profile.
- Segmentation – Segmentation tools allow for precise definition of target groups and customization of communication to their individual needs.
- Marketing Consent Management – Data Cloud also supports compliance with data protection regulations, enabling effective management of consents for sending marketing materials.
4. AI Agentforce – Process automation using artificial intelligence
One of the most innovative elements of Salesforce Foundations is Agentforce, a set of autonomous AI agents that assist in automating customer service and sales activities. With Agentforce, you can leverage artificial intelligence to perform daily tasks such as:
- Sales Coach – An intelligent assistant that helps sales representatives improve their selling skills by providing personalized tips.
- Service Agent – An automated agent that resolves simple inquiries and supports customer service by escalating more complex issues to live agents.
- Lead Engagement Agent – An agent that engages potential customers, answers their questions, and schedules meetings.
5. Sales Cloud and Service Cloud – Managing Sales and Customer Service
Salesforce Foundations also offers key features in sales and customer service. Tools such as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are available within Salesforce Foundations and allow for full automation of processes related to sales management and customer service.
- Sales Opportunity Management – With Sales Cloud, you can effectively monitor sales progress, track interactions with potential customers, and forecast results.
- Omni-Channel Routing and Case Management – In Service Cloud, you will find tools for automatically assigning cases to the appropriate agents based on their availability and skills, which speeds up response times and improves the quality of customer service.
Who can benefit from Salesforce Foundations?
Salesforce Foundations is available for companies using the Salesforce platform in specific editions. Depending on the product and edition, organizations can access different features. If a company uses Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 in the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, or Marketing Cloud editions, they can fully leverage the capabilities of Salesforce Foundations. In contrast, for companies using the Starter or Pro Suite editions, only selected features are available, such as user interface enhancements.
Use the information in the table to determine the Salesforce Foundations features you can enable:
| If your Salesforce product is… | Your edition is… | Your organization status is… | YOU CAN ENABLE… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | Upgrade from Starter edition | Service Cloud |
| Sales Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | Upgrade from Pro Suite edition | No need to enable anything. You have access to the full set of Salesforce Foundations features. |
| Sales Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | This is not an upgrade from Starter or Pro Suite edition | – User interface enhancements – Service Cloud – Marketing Cloud – Commerce Cloud – Data Cloud tools |
| Service Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | Upgrade from Starter edition | No need to enable anything. You have access to the full set of Salesforce Foundations features. |
| Service Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | Upgrade from Pro Suite edition | No need to enable anything. You have access to the full set of Salesforce Foundations features. |
| Service Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | This is not an upgrade from Starter or Pro Suite edition | – User interface enhancements – Sales Cloud – Marketing Cloud – Commerce Cloud – Data Cloud tools |
| Sales and Service Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | Upgrade from Starter edition | Service Cloud |
| Sales and Service Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | Upgrade from Pro Suite edition | No need to enable anything. You have access to the full set of Salesforce Foundations features. |
| Sales and Service Cloud | Enterprise, Unlimited, or Einstein 1 | This is not an upgrade from Starter or Pro Suite | – User interface enhancements – Marketing Cloud – Commerce Cloud – Data Cloud tools |
How to activate Salesforce Foundations?
Activating Salesforce Foundations is done through a simple process that requires just a few clicks in the Salesforce settings. Just log in to your Salesforce account and go to the “Set Up” section. Then select the “Salesforce Foundations” option and add the appropriate products to your cart. It is also worth taking advantage of the resources available on Trailhead, Salesforce’s training platform, to better understand the capabilities of this tool.
Salesforce Foundations Limits.
Salesforce Foundations is a free tool that allows testing many features of the Salesforce platform; however, there are limits on credits and available resources. For example, Data Cloud and Agentforce require the use of credits that are allocated within the trial version and cover only a specific number of operations, such as:
- 10,000 Data Cloud credits for segmentation and activation
- 200,000 Einstein queries (approximately enough for 1,000 conversations with service agents).
- Marketing emails are limited to 2,000 per organization per month.
Exceeding these limits incurs additional charges. More information about additional credits and fees can be found in the “Digital Wallet” section in account settings.
Summary
Salesforce Foundations is available for free for companies using Salesforce in the appropriate versions, making this platform an ideal choice for businesses looking to grow based on advanced technology.
If you have any questions about Salesforce Foundations or need assistance activating features, please contact us. We are here to help you!
