A new search-driven analytics experience with Ask Data for Salesforce

What if there was a system that could use all the accumulated knowledge of your company’s data and language, and in turn use that to learn how you ask questions, to give you the right answers? 

With Ask Data for Salesforce in Tableau CRM, we democratize analytics by empowering CRM users to easily discover data insights via natural language search and automated recommendations. We are enabling a new, more natural way of engaging with analytical insights throughout the CRM experience.

Often business users have similar questions, but it’s really hard to search for that – especially if your CRM uses different language to refer to business terms commonly used in the company. For example, at some companies, they call revenue “sales”; at some, they call it “gross bookings”; at others, it would be called “subscriptions” – the language is very specific to the business. So if you want to search for something, you’d have to get the language exactly right, or you’d have to teach your CRM about your language to find the answer.

Product Features

Let’s take Sam, a Service Manager, who is interested in tracking and analyzing case volume. He views dashboards on the Service Analytics app built by his BI Team on a daily basis. However, during the current Covid-19 pandemic time, there are a lot more online support cases coming in than usual and the data is changing rapidly. He has to be able to effectively coach his service reps so that cases are being handled swiftly. With the new Ask Data for Salesforce experience coming with the Summer’21 release, he can better analyze incoming cases and manage his team. 

Personalized Tableau CRM dashboard recommendations

Sam has recommended dashboards such as Monetization to help him discover new and relevant dashboards that he uses to prioritize cases with open opportunities and to quickly pick up where he left off with his existing “Support Analytics” dashboard. Recommendations are based on what users like him are viewing via a collaborative filtering algorithm, which is an industry-standard way of making predictions about what a user should like given a list of user’s current behavior. 

Note: This feature is generally available in the Summer’21 release

Natural language search across Tableau CRM data

Sam has many dashboards related to cases in his org and sometimes forgets where these dashboards are. Other times he has questions on the existing cases dashboards in order to effectively manage his team. In such scenarios, he can ask questions such as “total closed cases this year by agent” to quickly get an answer without having to remember the dashboard or app name. This is also a good starting point to understand the related dashboards this natural language search. Natural language search for analytical questions helps Sam augment the existing dashboards and apps in his org.

This looks like magic, let’s take a closer look at how Salesforce can do that. 

Using all data stored in Salesforce, Ask Data for Salesforce quickly learns the structure and context of language in YOUR ORGANIZATION. We are building an org-specific natural language model that is trained on your salesforce data. This results in less setup time needed as compared to other natural language solutions so that users can immediately gain value. Additionally, Ask Data for Salesforce are embedded dashboards that have access to Salesforce actions, so that users can take action on search insights such as Explore or Share. 

We are guiding users like Sam to get to the right insights with data relabeling feedback, and they can also train the natural language search system so that all users can benefit next time. With dataset hints, users can specify the dataset to use to generate the insight. This is helpful in situations when external datasets are involved in the query.

Note: This feature is available as an open pilot, so please reach out to your AE in case you wish to participate in it

Semantic Search

Sam works with his awesome BI Team to provide requirements and feedback when they are building new dashboards and apps. For a new version of the Service Analytics app, Sam has suggested adding a new case number field related to each top account case, to analyze incoming cases at an aggregate level and help him effectively coach his team. 

With Semantic search, Jacquelyn from BI Team can find existing datasets or dashboards based on dataset fields or salesforce object fields. She can find out which datasets and dashboards are currently using the existing case number field and edit that field based on the new requirement from Sam. 

In the current version of Semantic search, users like Jacquelyn can find where a field is being used in a dataset or dashboard. This ability to search for data via lineage is powered by our Semantic Graph, with the goal that users can search for any analytics asset by what they already know in CRM. 

Note: Semantic Search is now generally available in the Summer’21 release

Looking ahead…

Ask Data for Salesforce are getting more accurate, simple to understand, and fast!

This translates to:

• Natural Language Search enhancements such as showing next best insights based on top insight.
• Semantic Search enhancements such as searching for operational reports and report types and a better UI experience that includes autocomplete
• Actionable and Contextual Recommendations such as discovering similar dashboards and related people

We are so excited to bring you these new features with the Summer’21 release but we are just getting started on making analytics more accessible to everyone. Stay tuned as we are working on making the natural language search for analytical queries generally available to all!

*Forward-looking statement

This content contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proved incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this document or other presentations, press releases, or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

Written by