Active Endpoints Releases Cloud Extend Mobile

Active Endpoints has released Cloud Extend Mobile, enabling voice-to-text and touchscreen input with end-user customization. Available to iPhone and Android smartphone users, Cloud Extend Mobile empowers business users to visualize, create, and modify their own wizards. 

Debuting first on Cloud Extend for Salesforce, Cloud Extend Mobile targets business users who have made smartphones central to their work lives. Given their limited ability to work with mobile devices, smartphone users often wait to do "real work" until they have access to their desktop computers. Now, the customizable, voice- and touch-enabled Cloud Extend Mobile provides a  tool for updating information, scheduling next steps, and doing other daily tasks. 

"Cloud-based enterprise apps pump the information lifeblood for companies around the world, however, it's nearly impossible for business users to utilize those apps on the go, on a three- or four-inch screen," said Mark Taber, CEO of Active Endpoints, in a statement. "Cloud Extend Mobile is going to spark a paradigm shift for business smartphone users, letting them take full advantage of the incredible computing power that's available in iPhone and Android devices. Users can finally move beyond calls, email, and text messages and do enterprise app work that requires some heavy lifting. This is the future for smartphones in business."

Today, companies are using Cloud Extend for Salesforce to create their own wizards to streamline and simplify sales and customer support tasks in the industry's leading cloud CRM application. Now, those users can build their wizards on the desktop and take them on the road. Simply, sales and field support teams can build mobile-optimized interfaces for qualifying leads, identifying cross-selling opportunities, and performing routine tasks throughout the lead-to-close sales and customer service lifecycle .

The desktop interface lets users break tasks into individual steps, so they only see the items they deem relevant to the step being completed. 

Cloud Extend Mobile also brings together voice-to-text and touch capabilities. Cloud Extend Mobile lets users build wizards that are optimized for smartphone screens and use both voice and touch to enter information. The dual input method reflects the advantages voice brings to free-form text entry, as well as its limitations for data that could be entered more quickly by tapping on-screen options, such as icons, pick lists, and check boxes.

In just a few minutes and a couple of clicks in the WYSIWYG designer, users can create a mobile wizard to guide them through any application task. For instance, a sales person might create a wizard for walking through a meeting follow-up process to document notes from the call, new contacts met, new opportunities identified, and follow-up tasks. Here is an example of how a sales person can use the wizard on their smartphone:

• Step 1: A sales exec asks Siri to display a list of the day's appointments. An Android user would launch the calendar application.
• Step 2: Next, he or she simply taps on an embedded link that opens the meeting follow-up wizard.
• Step 3: The sales exec is guided through the steps to be completed as part of the follow-up routine, with input options optimized for his or her smartphone.
• Step 4: Meeting notes, names, addresses and other text items are entered using the smartphone's voice-to-text feature.
• Step 5: Other items, such as days, dates and times, are yes/no questions, and similar information is entered by touch.
• Step 6: Once the sales exec completes the steps in the wizard, all information is stored and displayed in the enterprise application.

"The next wave of technology needs to make cloud applications as frictionless as possible to use. Business users are not using laptops to access their applications while they are on the road, and most mobile technology is cumbersome to use," said Keith Traweek, managing partner of Rainmaker Associates, a quality driven, customer focused, professional consultancy providing customized business solutions that leverage cloud technologies, such as Salesforce. "Cloud Extend's ability to make the user experience with Salesforce more fluid with mobile technology will exponentially increase user adoption in the future."

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