Salesforce.com is very operable in the iPad Safari browser, particularly for content viewing and limited updating. IMHO, it is far preferable than using the iPhone app on it.
Using Salesforce.com on iPad has some very beneficial uses. It is a quick way to lookup information on accounts, contacts, opportunities, etc. It is a quick way to close tasks, update lead status or opportunity stages. Reports and dashboards are viewable as normal. All of this can be done without learning a new user interface. See the video on this page for a demo.
There are some disadvantages as well. It requires an internet connection while the Blackberry and iPhone smartphone apps will cache some data for offline use. Heavy duty data entry or updates might be impractical without attaching a Bluetooth keyboard.
In addition, there are some quirks and the ones I have discovered are covered in the rest of this article. They are not a big deal for iPad enthusiasts, but could be a usability issue in a user adoption effort or hinder integrating iPads into a business process.
Please note that my notes only apply to standard Salesforce functionality. Custom Visual Force pages or AppExchange apps should be evaluated separately.
Device Activation – Salesforce’s device activation process requires access to email in order to get the verification code. The email does not need to be opened on the iPad.
Navigation Bar – Too many tabs on the navigation bar can cause the content area to shrink. This might be a surprise to wide screen display users that have ample horizontal space. The iPad screen is boxier (meant to emulate the aspect ratio of standard letter paper for reading ebooks) and something in Salesforce’s HTML causes the content area to shrink. However, iPad’s double-tap, pinch and expand gestures easily allows focusing on a section.
Inline Editing – Since iPad does not have a gesture corresponding to double click, inline editing does not work. Regular edit and save works fine.
Lookup Fields – Clicking the magnifying glass icon on lookup fields causes the entire screen to be taken over by the popup screen. iPad does not support popup browser windows that just hover over a portion of the screen. Selecting an item from the popup does close the popup, but it does not bring the focus back to the original page. One tap gets back to it, though.
Scrolling Inside Text Boxes – Not really a quirk, but there is a special gesture to scroll inside a screen element. The usual one finger scroll causes the entire screen to scroll. Use two fingers to scroll inside an element like a text box.
Multi-Select Picklists – Multi-select picklists in edit mode show up weirdly. It looks like two single select picklists next to each other with the arrow buttons between them. It does work correctly by selecting one of the picklists, selecting values, and then clicking an arrow button. It just looks weird.
Rich Text Area Field – Rich Text fields are not editable. The text is viewable and is formatted in both view and edit modes, but it will not accept the cursor and the soft keyboard does not popup.
Quotes PDF Preview – The PDF preview of quotes does not work. An error about installing the Adobe Reader is displayed instead. The PDF can still be created and emailed, so it can be emailed to oneself to view it.
Drag and Drop – The iPad does not support drag and drop. It does not affect regular users, but administrators and report writers do need drag and drop for updating page layouts and customizing reports or dashboards.
File System – There is no file system so uploading documents is not possible. Files that are viewable in the iPad Safari browser can be viewed such as PDFs.
Online Help & Training Videos – The online training class video recordings referenced in Help & Training are not viewable.
These are the quirks I have noticed. The iPad is not a full desktop computer so limitations should be expected. Then again, the iPhone, Blackberry, and other smartphone versions are not desktop replacements either. I imagine if an iPad specific version is created, it still will not replace the desktop. In general terms, it is best suited to content viewing with limited updating and not very suited to content creation. In the long term, it might get there, but I don’t have short term expectations of that magnitude. Be sure to test specific use cases before making it an integral part of a process.
Please comment if you notice any other quirks.
iPad users are screaming for an app – not Chatter. SalesForce.com iPad app is needed immediately.
Well, from Spring 13 you´ve got Salesforce Touch downloadable from the App Store.
I set a Google Alert for Salesforce iPad keywords and will update this entry as relevant information comes along.
Someone in LinkedIn mentioned that the mobile lineup is being revamped. Maybe specific features for the various devices will be included. Coming up with a solution that works on many mobile devices is going to take longer, though.
Hello, so does that mean you can’t send a pdf that you are viewing in saleforce as a pdf on the iPad? I would like to be able to submit sales while I am on the road, but I need to be able to email my manager the document from salesforce. Any help is appreciated!
When the PDF is open in the browser, you can click on “open in iBooks” and email it from there.
Hi – for some reason there isn’t anywhere to open/save anything on the page in salesforce where the pdf opens. I don’t see any links anywhere and when I click on the document nothing happens. Is there a special way to get it to save in iBooks? Thanks for your help!
When I tap on a PDF in the browser, a grey bar shows up at the top of the screen with Open in iBooks as one option. This is regardless of what app (Salesforce, Gmail, etc.) launched the PDF. I could not find an iPad option that would affect this. You might try asking on iPad forum, maybe on LinkedIn.
Are you referring to Quotes? The PDF preview feature does not work there. The PDF can still be created, but it just ends up in the Quote PDFs related list. From there you can click the Email link. I will have to add that to the blog entry.
You might try opening up a PDF from a different source. That way you can see if it is a Salesforce issue or Safari issue.
A few months back we released a framework for allowing object be better viewed on an iPad, you can see a demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8UlScwnpp4&hd=1 and you can get the code here: http://developer.financialforce.com/mobile.
Not a full solution, but something people can take now and extend.
I have heard that device activation via SMS text messaging is a future feature. This might mean that access to email may no longer be required to activate an iPad. It probably does mean that you have to remember to put your mobile number in your user record. Once it comes out, I will update the post.
Our team is complaining they have to re-authenticate every time they log in on Salesforce with their iPads. Is this because they are using the app? I don’t have an access to an iPad yet here in the office. Would the browser login alleviate this?
The Salesforce Mobile app from the Apple Appstore should not require re-authenticating all the time. It does present a passcode screen every time, but that is just a five digit code to enter.
An issue does occur if one user is trying to use two devices, perhaps an iPad and an iPhone. The Mobile app is licensed for one device per user, even the free version. That will cause re-authenticating every time devices are switched.
If you can’t nail it down, try contacting Salesforce Support via the Help and Training link.
Regarding logins using the web browser, Salesforce will work very similar to how it works on a desktop browser. The users will have to login just like on a desktop. “Remember User Name” checkbox should work. Safari can also remember the password, although on a mobile device that might not be advisable. If a user moves from one location to another while having the app open, the IP address will likely change, causing the user to have to log in again.
Hope this helps.
See article: Salesforce places bets on HTML5. Does this mean any major refresh of the mobile apps have to wait for HTML5 to become mainstream?
There is a Dreamforce 11 session called “Mobile Roadmap: Revealed! Mobile Strategy for Salesforce.com”.
Touch.Salesforce.com is the new mobile revamp. Looks awesome. http://www.salesforce.com/touch/ . Announced at Dreamforce today. Built on HTML5 so that screens are formatted appropriately for all the different mobile devices. Works with standard and custom objects.
touch.salesforce.com supposedly has “offline capabilities”.
Any idea how this will work on an iPhone/iPad? Will it be accessed via a regular app so as to be able to store data?
James, see my new post http://www.crmverse.com/salesforce-tabletsmartphone-strategy-tidbits-from-dreamforce-11/.
At Dreamforce 11, the speaker for the Mobile Strategy session said a Google Android phone native app is on the way soon. He did not provide a specific date.
Hi all, The problem which I am facing is very basic. I have a visualforce page on which there is an account lookup field. When clicking on look up icon user selects on any account, selected account shows up in the lookup field.
But when I am accessing this visualforce thru Mobile, lookup field is behaving wierd. On clicking the icon, look up window gets open but on selecting an account, control doesnot go back to the visualforce and i have to reboot the mobile.
Do anyone know some workaround for this issue?
Please help. It really urgent.
Thanks
I don’t know the answer to that question. Try the Salesforce Visualforce developer discussion board at http://boards.developerforce.com/t5/Visualforce-Development/bd-p/Visualforce
Yeah, c’mon salesforce, how about a native app… If your going to ride “cloud” marketing and “broad access” but slack on serving up a gazillion users on iPads….after its been there 2+ years….hope to see it soon or we’ll continue migrating out…
We have a visualforce page where we insert info for an audit, it is quite a long Vf and I find the scrolling is not working. I cannot scroll to the bottom of the page at all
We have found that some vertical scroll bars are missing (ie in My Contacts list) and the ability to edit a single field when viewing a record that you could do on a PC by double-clicking a field with the pencil icon.
Can we send record for approval from ipad ?
Should be able to if you are using the regular app in the browser. I don’t know much about Touch’s capabilities, yet.
After reading the Spring 13 release notes, section regardin Browsers, I realized Apple Saphari is no longer supported!! What do you think about this strategy? I do not understant how salesforce.com do not support Safari and otherhand, it´s a requisit to use Salesforce Touch App.
I don’t believe Safari on iOS was ever supported. It works for the most part, but there are things that don’t. It does seem to be the only usable way to use Salesforce on iPad, though. Touch has a long way to go before it’s really usable.
Also, I think Touch is considered a different product from the regular browser interface, so that’s why in “Touch-mode” Safari is required, but in “regular browser-mode” it is not supported.