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Writer's pictureRobbie Burnell

GUIDE TO SALESFORCE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AUTOMATION 2023

Updated: Nov 16, 2023

Precursive is a solution developed with Salesforce for Professional Services Automation (PSA). Before we get into this, here's a quick definition of Professional Services Automation.


WHAT IS SALESFORCE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AUTOMATION?

Professional Services Automation, also known as PSA, refers to software that aids project and services delivery processes. It is designed for businesses that rely on such services as a primary driver of revenue, providing a real-time overview to manage workload and monitor the health of the business.


Typical elements of Professional Services Automation (PSA) include but are not limited to:


Want to get started with Professional Services Automation? Check out our solution PSA software, or book a demo today to see it in action.


Professional services so hot right now meme

WHY YOU SHOULD USE SALESFORCE FOR YOUR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AUTOMATION (PSA) TOOL


By using Salesforce as the basis for your Professional Services Automation you can streamline your workflows and organize your data into a single manageable system, helping your business to increase its efficiency and optimize its organizational structure.


Do Professional Services (PS) form a large part of your product and/or service? When your business scales, the teams managing those services will inevitably require a tool that connects to their data so they can collaborate effectively with each other and their customers. Read more about customer collaboration and why it is important to your business. Typically in early-stage businesses, this will be managed in spreadsheets.


By moving out of spreadsheets and into a Salesforce native PSA tool, you can automate key components of your PS delivery and manage workload, capacity and KPIs in real-time and in a systematic fashion.


So, you understand how a single source of truth can help you refine your PS delivery, but what makes Salesforce the most strategic and intelligent choice of platform for your PSA?



1. SALESFORCE IS ALREADY YOUR CRM SYSTEM


No surprises here. You're most likely to be interested in adopting Salesforce Professional Services Automation tools if you're already using the Salesforce platform. Given that Salesforce have upwards of a 19% market share, over double that of its nearest competitor, it's very likely that you are already using Salesforce as your CRM system.


If you are already using Salesforce then we recommend adopting the Salesforce-native PSA tool as it can more easily integrate with your existing system, meaning it can support your needs better and more quickly. The beauty of a PSA tool like Precursive is that it aligns symbiotically with Salesforce tools so there’s no doubling up on features and information passes seamlessly from one to the other.


By adopting a tool that plugs into your existing CRM you can easily connect your data so the silos between teams are reduced or eliminated, and customer demands are captured effectively in one place.



2. GANTT / CALENDAR / RESOURCE MANAGEMENT


When scaling up a business you need the right tools and resource management plays a crucial role. The calendar apps of this world simply don’t reach the required standard when it comes to the wider features that our Salesforce professional services automation tool can offer:

  • Go beyond scheduling and task management with features that map your forecast work versus your actuals for effective workload planning.

  • Monitor and fix capacity and skill gaps ahead of time so you can plug them effectively.

  • Give managers access to a real-time view of work so they can recognize burnout before it happens.

  • Let managers identify free space within their team's time and quickly find the right expertise in the business. By automatically assigning the right team members to each task, Salesforce PSA can ensure that any issues are dealt with quickly and that all work is done to the highest standard.

  • An easy-to-use and interactive Gantt view and the calendar now works for you and your project.



3. PROJECT MANAGEMENT


Not just project management but managing multiple projects. As you scale, that spreadsheet you relied on so much in the early years will have to evolve. The automation tools in Salesforce PSA will provide that high-level overview of all your projects, meaning you can handle an increased workload and manage in-project dependencies and KPIs with customer data being fed from Salesforce (so you only have to enter it once). With customer, resourcing and project data all managed in one system, those dependencies will be tracked and monitored by every stakeholder so that no one is left out of the loop.

4. COST TRACKING


It’s easy for projects to go off the rails through inadequate management and this can lead to delays, the undoing or redoing of work and providing free services. Therefore costs can spiral upwards and the profitability of your project starts to spiral downwards. Salesforce professional services automation tools can not only identify these risks (even as early as the scoping phase) but also track performance to monetary goals.


Having a cost wrapper across people, time and materials (T&M) and further factors important to your stakeholders means you’ll be on top of metrics like time-to-money. Plus, with pre-built rate-cards like those in our PSA software, no time is lost on spinning up a project budget dashboard. There are also hidden costs you’ll want to track like billable versus non-billable. With PSA plus Salesforce you can map these costs in from the opportunity stage.



5. GET OUT OF SPREADSHEETS


Spreadsheets aren’t just clunky and slow, they are behind the project curve. They rely on constant and manual inputs to be operative and often provide a static, singular view of the project that has to be fed by other systems. With spreadsheets, you’ll never get a truly comprehensive view of your workload, your people, your costs or your effectiveness - and they also take considerable time and effort to maintain. As your organization uses Salesforce, you’ve already exited spreadsheets in favor of a CRM system - why not do the same for your Professional Services?



6. TIME TRACKING WITH SALESFORCE PSA


Put simply, if you’re not using an automation software here, the process of time tracking is incredibly time-consuming, with accuracy likely also being an issue. PSA in Salesforce can automatically map hours worked into pre-populated timesheets and further templates can adapt to the way you measure time in the business. This system works across forecasting, planning and execution to the eventual submission; the time data can run through the whole project from pre-sales to delivery. By making these processes automatic you no longer have to rely on your employees manually filling out their own time sheets or registers. Instead, the data is ready to view at any time so you can have an accurate view of your entire workforce’s time tracking in an instant. For more help with time tracking, you can read our blog on the top ten time management apps.


 

If you’d like to understand more about Precursive Professional Services Automation Tools, book a demo with one of our experts here. Our Precursive Playbook, Traditional Services Delivery is Dead, profiles how high-velocity services teams are driving value for the customers.


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BY SOLUTION.

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PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AUTOMATION

Manage people, projects and revenues in one place

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RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Staff projects faster with resource planning

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Improve your implementation experience

IT & Professional Services 

Professional Services / Services Delivery

Organize work and collaborate with customers

Project Manager

Easily manage timelines and dependencies

Implementation Teams

Organize work & collaborate with customers

Resource Manager

Forecast demand and avoid capacity crunches

Find out more about the people and company. You can learn more about what makes us tick. 

 

We are passionate about changing the game for the world’s best services teams. 

 

Our mission is to help you improve time-to-value and make every customer a success story.

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WHY PRECURSIVE.

About Us

Find out more about us including our mission, values and get to know the team

Salesforce Native

Give sales, services, support and customer success teams a single, shared view of the customer

Find the right consultants, integrations and solutions for your business.

Customers

Hear from customers on why they prefer Precursive to help them scale and grow their business

Professional Services Delivery

Our services team provides expertise in how the best companies improve services delivery

Support & Success Hub

Find the answer you need at our success-hub where you will find a mix of documentation, video assets and training materials

The Precursive Platform is 100% native to the Salesforce platform. Our solutions can be tailored to your needs and support a range of use cases.

 

Learn how we take the pain out of complex service delivery activities. 

 

Do the work, not the admin! 

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Professional Services Automation

Increase operational efficiency with predictable services delivery and insights on performance

Project Management

Powerful project management capability designed to support high-velocity services delivery

Resource Management

Quickly mobilize your project teams, manage demand and avoid capacity crunches

Customer Workspace

An interactive community portal to collaborate, share dependencies and updates in real-time

Services Billing

Easily manage accurate professional services billing, raise invoices and track payments

Revenue Management

Recognize and forecast revenue with ease and accuracy

Precursive AI ✨

Leverage AI capabilities for better project management and boosting customer success. 

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Get actionable tips and insight on customer onboarding, resource management and professional services automation via podcasts, blogs, whitepapers, product guide videos and our on-demand webinars.

Blog

A vault of knowledge from in-house & guest writers

Podcast

Listen to all episodes of ‘Precursive Perspective’ with host Jonathan Corrie

Playbooks

Repeatable & scalable insight on a platter

Product Guides

Video guides for the Precursive Platform

Toolkits, templates, tips and more 

Research

Industry trends and benchmarking

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