Category Archives: Tech

Building A Better Einstein (Robot)

One of the coolest projects we’ve had the opportunity to work on this year was without a doubt the Einstein Voice robot that we built in partnership with our friends at Salesforce. If you attended or followed along with Dreamforce this year you know that Einstein Voice was a very big part of the show for Salesforce and in the lead up to the event, they knew that they needed something special to really highlight what could be done with Einstein Voice and that’s how the project began. How could everyone get wowed at Dreamforce? Our team at Oktana took up to the challenge of making that happen in collaboration with Salesforce.

Einstein and Einstein Together At Last

Salesforce had already played around with the idea of taking a toy Einstein and turning it into a robot but found it to be too difficult to repurpose an already built toy into something that fit their needs. Luckily, our project leads had actually been involved in puppeteering as a hobby and had a hunch that a puppet would be the perfect fit for a project like this. It could be custom made and be designed with movement in mind. After deciding to use a puppet it was time to find someone to build it and that’s when we found FurriFingers from the UK who were able to build Einstein and install the motors he needed for his eyebrows, mustache, and neck to come to life. The team at FurriFingers built the Einstein puppet in the UK and then he was flown to Uruguay to meet our team

Einstein is Starting to Come Together!

Once puppet Einstein was all put together it was finally time to bring him to life! First, we needed to find a way to control the motors which drive the different expressions Einstein can make and for that we opted to use an Arduino. Next, we needed to find something that would both control Einstein’s movement, sending commands to the Arduino, but also listen to voice commands and respond to them as a smart speaker does. For that, the decision was made to use a Raspberry Pi. The pairing of an Arduino and Raspberry Pi allowed us to do everything that was needed while also keeping things small enough to fit inside the puppet. At this point, we paired the tools that our partners at Salesforce had developed for Einstein Voice with new tools built specifically for this project to allow puppet Einstein to understand your requests and get that data for you from your Salesforce instance while looking like he’s thinking and speaking to you.

Finally, he was was alive and ready to take the stage! But the long road from the UK to Uruguay and finally to Dreamforce wasn’t over yet because before heading to San Francisco he had a little layover in Hawaii. While there he got to show off his talents in front of a group at a smaller VP level Salesforce conference as a prelude to his bigger performance. Thankfully, everyone liked him so much that they offered him his own stage at Dreamforce! Now he had the chance to strut his stuff every 15 minutes in the Einstein park. Additionally, at Dreamforce, our project lead did a full presentation on this project so if you want to hear even more about how we brought Einstein to life be sure to check that out here.

You might be wondering, what’s he up to now? Right now he’s living with the Voice team at Salesforce in San Francisco but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of him. So, be on the lookout because he just might show up at the next Salesforce conference you attend.

See You Soon!

Interested in reading more success projects? We highly recommend visit our portfolio, monthly we share some of our best success customer stories.

Connecting Salesforce IoT

internet of things

Salesforce is very excited and passionate about the potential that IoT connectivity could have for both Salesforce users and their clients/customers.

 

During one of the keynote speeches, we learned about how the data collected through the use of internet-connected devices can be paired with Salesforce data to create a powerful tool for customer interaction that is not only reactive to customer needs but also pro-active based on the data that is being sent to Salesforce constantly from IoT devices and the use of Salesforce IoT orchestrations.

 

Now you might be wondering what it actually takes to get your data from your IoT device management platform and into Salesforce and that’s a fair question. As you may know, most IoT devices currently on the market aren’t capable of connecting to Salesforce out of the box. That’s why we at Oktana partnered with Salesforce to develop the Salesforce IoT Connector app. With the Salesforce IoT Connector app, we can establish a link between your IoT device management platform, including AWS and GCP, and your Salesforce dashboard to bring in all your IoT data and use it to make smart decisions for your business, your clients, and your customers.

 

 

We recognized that to help accelerate IoT adoption within Salesforce, admins need to be able to connect all the devices they already have out in the field.

 

We’ve built an application that makes linking your management service to Salesforce simple and intuitive. The app acts as a data replicator that connects to your management platform, collects the data that has been gathered, and then sends it to Salesforce for you to use within your Salesforce IoT orchestrations.

 

 

As a Salesforce Administrator, you’re probably concerned with how we handle the data that comes into Salesforce from your IoT management service. The IoT Connector gives you all the power you need to easily manage what data is coming in and where it goes once it gets there. First, you will provide an example of the data that is coming from your management service in JSON format. Then, you can map all the data to the Salesforce event fields of your choosing.

 

 

Salesforce’s goal with Salesforce IoT is to help empower every business in that space to be able to harness the data from their network-connected products and use it to reimagine the ways they do everything. With the Salesforce IoT Connector, we have further lowered the barrier of entry for Salesforce customers to truly take advantage of all the data being collected by their connected devices. We’re always imagining new ways to use IoT technology to change customer experiences truly and we believe this tool is one of the essential first steps on that road. 

 

Read more about Oktana services and request a quote.

So Long Chatter Messenger, Hello Tok

tok oktana

Earlier this year, Salesforce officially retired its enterprise collaboration platform, Chatter Messenger, which since its incarnation has helped to enhance collaboration and productivity amongst Salesforce users. The most attractive feature of Chatter Messenger was the ability to communicate within Salesforce which made it simpler to interact with colleagues without leaving the Salesforce platform. If you’re an active Salesforce user, you know that Salesforce’s Chatter Messenger definitely streamlined initiatives throughout the daily workflow. This enabled users to follow groups, objects, tasks, and other criteria as well as directly message colleagues to keep current with business initiatives.

 

Chatter Messenger

Consequentially, the retirement of Chatter Messenger has broadened the landscape for enterprise collaboration and productivity. After Salesforce announced that they’d be retiring the chat applications, we imagined many users might be wondering; are there any products on the market that could continue the legacy? The answer is yes! Our product, Tok, has elevated Chatter Messenger capabilities to provide rapid real-time communication between users so they can stay productive and keep current with all of their tasks on Salesforce.

 

Tok

Tok is the ultimate collaboration tool to bridge the communication gap between colleagues and on the Salesforce platform. It provides users with an easy-to-use messenger interface for desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. In addition, users don’t even need to log into their Org to communicate with their colleagues. Users can simply download the Tok desktop version, sign in directly from their desktop to chat with their coworkers, and share pertinent documents and information with each other. Team members can also send cool and customized messages by adding attachments or files like images, GIFs, videos, and much more.

Tok is also super intuitive where users can drag and drop items from their desktop directly into the platform for simple sharing amongst colleagues and perhaps the best feature about Tok is its ability to store conversations onto Salesforce as well as create leads, opportunities, tasks etc. The TokBot also automates commands to create polls and surveys and share them in Groups on the Tok interface.

 

If you’re on the search for a collaboration product to continue where Chatter Messenger left off, look no further! Tok is blazing a new trail for team members who want to stay connected and integrated with all of their tasks on the Salesforce platform.

 

Tok 30 day trial