Google Apps integration brings spreadsheet joy to accountants!
Following the recent launch of the Salesforce and Google Apps offerings, we have prototyped our own CODA 2go-specific Google Apps integration! This has been built using a Google Gadget, Apex code and Visualforce and the result has got us and everyone we demonstrated it to at Dreamforce very excited about the possibilities this proof of concept opens up.
Our experience of producing finance software over decades is that accountants love manipulating transactions in spreadsheets! The success of our on-premise CODA-XL product (which extends Microsoft Excel) has been outstanding, with virtually all customer organisations adopting it enthusiastically. Now in the on-demand world we have produced an equivalent solution that uses Google Spreadsheets and Force.com.
The initial prototype can be used to perform a Cost Allocation over extracted transaction details from the CODA 2go product. The user can then apportion new values by editing the cells used by formulas in the spreadsheet; we then post back the results in the form of a journal back into CODA 2go from within the Google Spreadsheet user interface via a Visualforce-powered Google Gadget!
The feedback from prospects, analysts and the guys at Salesforce has proved that this is yet another feature we can offer with CODA 2go that will keep the accountants smiling…
Tags: CODA 2go, Google Apps, salesforce
June 4th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
When Anshu Sharma blogged about our Google Docs development (http://www.anshublog.com/2008/06/platform-as-service-magic-from-coda.html) he receieved scepticism from Dennis Howlett, another influential tech blogger, that we had done this work in just a few weeks.
In reality, the prototype described here took less than two weeks, actually… This was mostly learning curve and integration issues with the Google APIs. We also took the time to build the beginnings of a framework to make further Google App integrations via their GData API easier for us to develop and integrate within our Apex business logic.
Whilst delivering a full solution around this will take longer, we have put the foundations in place, making future delivery of a full Google docs solutions much more straight forward.
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