Computerworld

Salesforce showcases 5 new Apple Watch apps for businesses

Another 15 are waiting in the wings
The new BetterWorks Wear app for the Apple Watch helps connect employees around common goals.

The new BetterWorks Wear app for the Apple Watch helps connect employees around common goals.

Salesforce has long been a proponent of wearable computing's enterprise potential. Now it ahs shown off five new Apple Watch apps created specifically for business users.

All built by the company's partners on the Salesforce1 Platform using the Salesforce Wear toolkit, the new apps span a spectrum of purposes, including collaboration, scheduling and project management.

BetterWorks Wear, for instance, is designed to help companies connect employees around common goals. A retailer, for example, could equip Apple Watch-wearing sales associates with the app to ensure they're always updated on progress toward team and individual sales goals.

The ContactWorld for Wearables app from NewVoiceMedia, meanwhile, integrates caller ID with Salesforce data to give sales and service reps new visibility into who is calling and the value that customer represents to the organization. Armed with that information, they can decide how to prioritize the call.

ClickSoftware's FieldExpert app, on the other hand, provides mobile scheduling for workforces that are often away from the office. The app aims to help mobile employees review their daily schedule, update service requests and schedule additional services or upgrades right from the Apple Watch. A cable technician, for instance, could automatically notify a customer when he'll be arriving.

The TaskRay app by Bracket Labs is designed to help project managers keep tabs on a project's status via "at-a-glance" completion gauges. A Dictation features allows users to speak their updates into the watch, converting the voice memo into text and automatically syncing it into Salesforce.

Finally, Vlocity's Wear app for Communications and Media connects to Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud so as to provide representatives with customer profile data. With that information in hand, they can initiate tasks directly from the app, such as updating a case, sending a bill or creating a new order.

Salesforce said it has a total of 20 new Apple Watch apps to unveil, but it didn't provide details on the other 15 other than to mention the partners behind them: Alpine Metrics, Apttus, BrainHearts, Fairsail, FinancialForce.com, Footprints, HeyWire, InsideSales, Point of Reference, Proximity Insight, Remedyforce, Sage, ServiceMax, Skedulo and TeamSpirit.

There were also no details provided about the new apps' pricing or availability.