Developing Custom Community Portals with Salesforce OmniStudio
Masterful Salesforce Scribe with an eye for detail
Custom community portals are websites tailored to serve the specific needs of a particular community or group of people with a shared interest. These portals typically provide members with features and functionalities, like discussion forums, blogs, event calendars, and file sharing. They can help create a sense of belonging, engagement, and loyalty among the members.
The primary purpose of custom community portals is to provide a centralized website for members to interact with each other, support one another, share information, and collaborate on projects or initiatives. To enhance the interactivity and functionality of these portals, tools such as OmniStudio runtime for communities can be integrated. These portals can be created for various communities, including businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and social groups. Examples of community portals are Moodle, Reddit, GitHub, and Nextdoor.
Custom community portals can be designed and developed using various tools and technologies, including content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM) software, and social networking platforms. A custom community portal’s specific features and functionalities will depend on the community’s needs.
Salesforce Community Portals
OmniStudio is a comprehensive platform for developers that can help organizations develop and manage personalized community portals. These can be customized for specific community needs and seamlessly integrated with Salesforce data.
Personalized member experiences
With OmniStudio in Salesforce, communities can create personalized digital experiences for community members, providing them with tailored content and resources that suit their interests and needs.
Discussion forums
Community portals created with OmniStudio can include discussion forums, allowing members to engage in threaded discussions on various topics. These discussion forums assist members in connecting with others who share similar interests or goals where they can share knowledge, ideas, and resources.
Collaboration tools
With OmniStudio, community portals can be designed to include collaboration tools, such as wikis, chat, file sharing, and surveys and polls, which can facilitate communication and collaboration among members.
Events and webinars
Community portals can be used to promote and manage events and webinars, providing members with a way to connect and engage with each other and further the common goals of the community.
Member profiles and directories
With OmniStudio, community portals can include member profiles and directories, allowing members to connect, find, and collaborate with others with similar interests, goals, or backgrounds.
Content management
Community portals can include content management tools, allowing communities to create and share a wide variety of content, such as articles, videos, and podcasts.
Mobile accessibility
Community portals created with OmniStudio can be accessed via different mobile devices, allowing members to stay connected and engaged with the community wherever they find themselves.
However, there are a few drawbacks for OmniStudio worth mentioning:
Community Portal Development in Salesforce for Your Industry
Various industries use Salesforce community portals for building engaged and collaborative communities.
Technology
Technology companies often use community portals to engage with their developer community and provide them with resources like APIs, SDKs, documentation, tutorials, and forums. Through the portal, they can also collaborate with their resellers, distributors, developers, and integrators.
Education
Many educational institutions use community portals to connect students, staff, faculty, alums, and parents and to provide resources and support for learning and professional development.
Healthcare
Healthcare providers use community portals to connect with patients and their families, provide health resources and support, and gather feedback on their services. They can also collaborate with other healthcare providers and comply with regulatory requirements through the portal.
Non-profits
Non-profits use community portals to engage with donors, volunteers, and other supporters, provide resources, and rally support for their causes.
Media
Media companies use community portals to connect with their audiences, provide content and resources, and gather feedback on their programs.
Other Software Providers for Salesforce Community Development and Management
Here are a few examples of software providers that offer software solutions to create custom community portals:
Salesforce Community Management Cloud
This community portal Salesforce allows communities to connect with their customers, partners, vendors, agents, and employees. It provides a range of features, such as discussion forums, knowledge bases, and case management tools.
Vanilla
Vanilla is a community management platform that provides tools and features to communities and organizations to create and manage custom community portals with features such as discussion forums (where community members engage in threaded conversations), gamification (that reward and recognize members for their contributions to the community), and user profiles, moderation tools, and analytics (that help manage the community and track engagement metrics).
Higher Logic
Higher Logic is a community engagement platform that assists communities and organizations in creating custom community portals with features such as discussion forums (that can be customized to match the branding and design of the organization’s website), file sharing, private messaging, and analytics, as wells as event management (for online events and in-person events).
Influitive
Influitive is a customer advocacy and engagement platform to create custom community portals to engage with community members and create loyal brand advocates through gamification and rewards. It uses gamification tools to develop challenges, missions, and other activities that encourage engagement. Members can earn points, badges, and other prizes.
Discourse
Discourse is an open-source platform for creating custom community portals with features such as discussion forums (that are easy to follow and navigate), real-time notifications (so that members can stay up to date on new content and replies to their posts), and a user trust system (with which members can earn trust levels based on their engagement and participation in the community).
Titan Web: Best OmniStudio Alternative
Titan Web’s cloud-based web builder and data management platform provides software solutions for creating custom employee portals. Titan Web seamlessly integrates with Salesforce and other third-party suppliers.
Titan Web is primarily designed for creating and managing online forms, but it also provides a range of features and tools that can be used to build and manage community portals. With Titan you speed up time to value and go to market while being able to work with any standard or custom object. Read on below.
Form building
Titan Web provides an intuitive no-code, drag-and-drop editor that allows users to create custom forms and pages for their community portal. Users can add various form elements, such as text boxes, dropdown menus, checkboxes, and design elements, like images and videos, to create a fully customized portal.
Data management and automation
With Titan Web, various data management and automation tools can empower you to manage community member data, automate processes, and streamline your flow visually.
Integrations
Titan Web tools include integrations with popular third-party services like Salesforce, Dropbox, and Google Sheets and features like custom workflows, advanced form logic, and data analytics.
Customization
With Titan Web, communities can use custom branding, layout customization, and more.
If you liked learning about Omnistudio’s declarative tool, why not read about Titan Web Apps?
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Disclaimer: The comparisons listed in this article are based on information provided by the companies online and online reviews from users. If you found a mistake, please contact us.
