What you need to know about Mobile Lite

I’ll admit it, this is my first look at the Salesforce Mobile functionality – welcome to 2009! I know… it’s just that I don’t really have a need for it myself and no one’s ever asked me about it before.   So after and afternoon of pawing through the documentation, I’m documenting a few things that I may want to remember the next time someone asks me about this.

Here’s the full scoop on SF Mobile.

And some important paragraphs from this documentation that I don’t want to search for next time I need to explain this to someone or, more likely, remember how it works:

“Accessing Salesforce from a mobile device is very different than accessing it from your computer. This is because mobile devices generally have less memory and screen size than computers, and they do not maintain a constant network connection. To work with these limitations, each mobile configuration only transfers data sets, which are subsets of the records users access in the Salesforce online user interface. Mobile devices store data sets in on-board databases, allowing users to access their most important records and work offline when no network connection is available. Salesforce automatically synchronizes the on-board databases when the mobile device reestablishes a network connection”

“The space limitations and usability restrictions of wireless devices make it necessary to send a subset of a user’s Salesforce data to the mobile device. The data selected is determined by the mobile configuration assigned to each user in the Mobile Administration Console. Mobile configurations are sets of filter parameters that determine the data Salesforce transmits to users’ mobile devices, and which users receive that data on their mobile devices. You can edit the configurations at any time to change the data your users receive”

“Once every 24 hours, Salesforce Mobile requests a full update of a user’s data set. The filters contained in the mobile configuration are executed to rebuild the data set, and the resulting data records are sent to the device. The mobile client application checks for data changes every 20 minutes. During this incremental update, the server retrieves any newly-created records from Salesforce owned by the user, and then sends that data to the device. Modifications to any records already stored on the device are also sent. This periodic update may retrieve some records which do not match the filter criteria of the user’s mobile configuration. In this case, these records only exist on the user’s device until the next full update.”

If you’re like me, you want to just download the app and get started already – but probably not buy a license yet.  So…. if you want to try out the free version (Mobile Lite), here’s what you need to know about how it works…

Mobile Lite is available for use by Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, or Developer Edition users without mobile licenses.

Mobile Lite doesn’t include all of the functionality offered in Salesforce Mobile.

Mobile Lite:

•  Supports fewer standard objects (see below for a full list)
•  Doesn’t provide support for custom objects*
•  Doesn’t allow administrators to customize or create mobile configurations**

* If you’re using NPSP, don’t forget that this includes Households andPayments.

** This means you can’t use anything other than the default configuration (which may be just fine for what you need). Salesforce documentation helpfully states, “You can’t view or edit the default mobile configuration”, but notes that it works as follows:

The default configuration can mobilize the following objects:

• Accounts
• Assets
• Cases
• Contacts
• Dashboards
• Events
• Leads
• Opportunities
• Reports
• Solutions
• Tasks

The default configuration automatically synchronizes records the user recently accessed in Salesforce. Users can search for records that are not automatically synchronized; once the user downloads a record, the record becomes a permanent part of the data set. In addition to recently accessed records, the default configuration synchronizes activities closed in the past five days and open activities due in the next 30 days.

iPhone specific note: Because only one application can run on the iPhone at a time, Salesforce Mobile cannot request a data update unless the application is open. When you launch the application on the iPhone, it performs an incremental update if a data synchronization has not occurred in the past 20 minutes

Non Profit Discounted Full Mobile licenses are $120/year (as of 1/24/11).  If you feel like Mobile Lite is not going to meet your needs, you may want to discuss with your account rep.

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