[Video Tutorial] Increase Employee Engagement with Salesforce Branding

Increasing employee engagement often seems like a never ending task. It requires your attention and care at a variety of fields in both your employees’ physical and virtual workplace. It also requires your brand to have a significant presence in their daily routine. To do so, you must zoom in on every small detail your employees encounter during their day at work, and use it to make them feel connected, unified and to keep them updated on the company’s matters. One of the best places to start with is your employees’ Salesforce login page. As you’ll see in the video below, it is fully customizable and can not only display your brand’s logo, but also let you choose what to communicate to your employees- internal messages, photos of your choice and even your twitter feed- keeping them ‘on the beat’ with what the company’s current endeavors and raising brand awareness. So let’s break down the video, shall we?  

Creating a custom login page

Go to “Domain Management”à“My Domain” (of course you can also search “my domain” and get there). Choose a name for your subdomain (NOTE: you won’t be able to change it once you set it up, so pick a fitting one) and save. You will be notified when your new domain is ready to be tested and activated. You’ll need to be logged in through your new domain to deploy it. After deploying, go to “Authentication Configuration”- this is where you customize the login page. Click “Choose File” to add a logo/photo of your choice, and pick a background color. Save. So basically, you’re done! But you can go even further… the right side of your new login page will show Salesforce’s advertising content- messages, news, tips etc. Why not show YOUR content? Let’s go.  

Adding extra content to your login page

Step 0: create a Twitter widget I named it “step 0″ because a Twitter feed is just one of many things you can put in your custom login page- RSS feed can also fit well for example, but this video uses the Twitter feed as an easy-to-use example. Most of the actions this guide details also work for other content. Go to Twitterà”Profile and Settings” (just right next to the “Tweet” button) and choose “Settings”, Then, click on “Widgets”à”Create New”. Here you’ll be able to customize your Twitter feed widget. Adjust it as you deem fit, and click “Create Widget”. After creating the widget, copy the HTML code that will appear just beneath the widget preview. You’ll need it in a moment.    Step 1: create a Visualforce page This is very easy. Just go to “Develop” à “Pages” and click “New” to create a Visualforce page. Name your page, then go to “Page Edit” and paste the HTML code for the widget right between the first and last line. Save. Next, go to “Security” and move “Authenticated Profiles” from “Available” to “Enabled”, save and let’s move on.   Step 2: create a force.com subdomain  Go to “Develop” à“Sites” and choose a force.com subdomain page. It can be the same as the name you’ve chosen for the my.salesforce.com domain, but it’s not necessary- you can choose whatever you want. Go to “Edit” (under “Action”) and paste the name of the Visualforce page you have created into “Active Site Home Page”.   **The next step is very important**– as this is a login page, you’ll want to make it accessible for people who are not currently logged into Salesforce as well. To do so, go to “Clickjack Protection Level” and switch to “Allow framing by any page (no protection). Now all you have to do is go back to “My Domain”à “Authentication Configuration”à”Edit”. In “Right Frame URL” enter the URL for the Visualforce content page  you have created and……  

VOILA!