Let me provide you with some detail to what exactly we are needing and see if anyone can help me with what would be involved in such an effort.

 

So, anyone in the general public can, and is encouraged to, create a user account in our SalesForce application for the purpose of browsing volunteer opportunities in the Tulsa community and registering to volunteer or provide service.

 

As a non-profit it's ironic that the name of the application we use is SalesForce, as we are not attempting to provide products or solutions based for company profit, but rather we are providing opportunities for the public to serve our community in a volunteer (non-paid) capacity for the purpose of improving the surrounding community and making a difference in the lives of others.

 

So, as you can imagine, we have a decent sized user community and what we need is the ability to notify that community with updates concerning their volunteer service and reminders prior to events in which they have volunteered to participate in.  This also lends itself to the dynamic increase and/or decrease in user activity based upon public awareness of our organization.

What I am looking to do is to learn the SalesForce development language and develop a custom SMS solutions with such features as "Send SMS to Contact", "Send SMS to Group", "Sent SMS to Event Members", etc.

 

How much automation can be achieved with a SalesForce extension application?  For example, when someone signs up for a volunteer opportunity, can we automate the reminder process to ensure no human involvement is needed to send the reminders?

 

As I am a Volunteer with the organization myself, I would ask you to visit our existing SalesForce site at www.volunteertulsa.org and take a closer look.  This will help you decide if what I'm looking to do is even possible.

 

 

Thank you for your consideration.

 

-Timothy Cloud

IT Technology Committee Member

VolunteerTulsa.org