Salesforce also made several sustainability-focused announcements, including its achievement of Net Zero capability across its entire value chain, their Sustainability Cloud 2.0, and the addition of DreamPass to their Health Cloud 2.0.

Today, CRM vendor Salesforce is kicking off their three-day hybrid Dreamforce event with a strong emphasis on enhancements around enterprise communications platform Slack, whose acquisition was finalized in July. Salesforce announced new capabilities that integrate Slack across Salesforce’s products and industry solutions. They also announced new Slack innovations that enhance the platform’s already existing asynchronous working capabilities.

“The theme of this years DreamForce is the trusted enterprise,” said Bret Taylor, Salesforce’s President and Chief Operating Officer. “The backdrop is that we are still in the midst of multiple crises – the global pandemic, inequality, and sustainability.”

Taylor stressed that Salesforce’s broad Customer 360 platform has been both further expanded and extended globally.

“With our Customer 360 platform that connects things, we have reimagined the whole portfolio to meet the needs of this new world,” he said. “We have also made expansions to Hyperforce, our customer infrastructure that lets this run globally. It will be up to 15 regions in the world by the end of 2022 to meet data residency requirements.

“We are also introducing a new Hyperforce capability with a new EU operations zone, which will allow all EU data to be stored and processed in the EU region,” Taylor added.

The full integration of Slack into the broader Salesforce portfolio was a key part of the product announcements at the show.

“With our Digital HQ, Slack and Customer 360 come together,” Taylor said. “We are also  announcing new integrations, and that we have integrated Slack across all of Customer 360.”

Salesforce initially announced Slack integrations across its Sales, Service, Marketing, and Analytics platforms in August. Now, Salesforce is launching integrations across the majority of its products, including Commerce, Experience, Platform, Trailhead, MuleSoft, and Quip, and its industry clouds and products including Sustainability, Corporate and Investment Banking, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Philanthropy, Nonprofit, and Education.

“We are announcing Slack integrations with 16 products,” said Stewart Butterfield, CEO and Co-Founder of Slack. “Most are about orchestrating the work that goes around the  work done in clouds, so more groups can be brought in that can support the work that’s being done.”

A major enhancement is Slack Clips, which is designed to allow users to work asynchronously more, and give users more control over their schedules so they don’t always have to meet in real time.

“We’ve always had the ability to shift between synchronous and asynchronous communication – to give more flexibility and tools to support asynchronous work,” Butterfield said. “Clips lets you record yourself on your screen so you don’t have to do some kinds of meetings in real time, like ones where you just provide updates, With Clips, I can record my own update earlier, and listen to yours later.” Clips’ playback experience also gives users the ability to speed up or slow down the content, read through the transcript, access archived recordings with searchable transcriptions, or watch on the go from a phone.

SlackConnect, which is designed to allow Slack users to collaborate with people and organizations external to the company, has also been enhanced, to make it easier to work with those who are not Slack customers.

“SlackConnect brings people together in a digital space, so you can collaborate not just with fellow employees but partners customers and vendors – everyone tied to your business,” Butterfield said. “Its use has exploded since we first launched the feature. Now we have simplified the experience for end users and made it easier to use with customers and partners who don’t use Slack.”

“Since we acquired Slack, our own email use at Salesforce is down 46%,” Taylor noted.

Salesforce also made multiple announcements around sustainability.

“We are in a climate crisis,” said Suzanne DiBianca, Chief Impact Officer and EVP, Corporate Relations, at Salesforce. “Our sustainability vision is to sequester the largest businesses to net zero.

“We have reached our own 100% renewable energy goal for projects this year, DiBianca stressed. Salesforce is now a Net Zero company across its full value chain and has achieved 100% renewable energy for its operations.

Salesforce also unveiled Sustainability Cloud 2.0 to accelerate customers’ path to Net Zero, to let organizations track and reduce their carbon emissions. New innovations include Slack-First Sustainability for better collaboration with suppliers, a carbon-offset ecosystem, and industry specific climate action plans.

“Sustainability Cloud now lets you see the past and current state of emissions – and see into the future as well with ‘what if’ scenario planning,” DiBianca said.

Salesforce also announced Dreampass, a new part of their Health Cloud 2.0 portfolio. Dreampass enables robust and scalable COVID-19 safety protocols for in-person attendees at events, including managing proof of vaccination, integrating with testing vendors, and delivering automated personalized communications throughout the process.

“DreamPass adds the capability to show that the testing has been done,” Taylor said.