Understanding Trialforce: Frequently Asked Questions
In previous Tech Experts posts, we discussed how trials are a great way to make your app shine. Trialforce is the way to let your customers and prospects to take a test drive and get to know your app. But maybe you’re new to Trialforce, or need a refresher. We’ve compiled frequently asked questions to help you get started.
Be sure to check out more general resources at the end of the article, and tweet us @partnerforce if you have additional questions.
Configuration Questions
How do I set up the default number of user licenses for a trial?
See this link for the standard number of licenses provided. If you need more licenses and/or different types for each trial you provision, e.g. community licenses, request the license(s) via a Partner Community case. Log a case under “Common Requests” choose the “License Request” case type.
How do I set up the default expiration time?
The standard Trialforce template generates trials that expire after 30 days. You can alter this when you use the SignupRequest API otherwise log a case and specify the TSO Org Id and the desired number of default days.
How do I get feature “x” enabled in my trial setup?
Log a case in the Partner Community under “AppExchange (ISV) App Setup & Management”, choose the “Trialforce” case type and request the feature to be enabled. Bear in mind that the feature will be available to your customers in the trial, you need to ensure you can support that after the trial has converted into a production org.
How do I choose the language of my trial?
You can set the language when creating a SignupRequest record via the PreferredLanguage field. Specify the language using a language code listed under Fully Supported Languages in “Which Languages Does Salesforce Support?” in the Salesforce Help.
How do I choose the country for my trial?
You can set the language when creating a SignupRequest record via the Country field. This is a two-character, upper-case ISO-3166 country code. You can find a full list of these codes here.
Can I specify in which data center my trial is going to be created in?
You can’t control the instance but you can control the region based on the country code. Note that this process does not apply to public cloud instances in Australia, Canada, or other countries where we are launching public cloud instances.
How do I brand trials?
You can have branded system emails and a branded login out of the box using Trialforce branding. A branded login page enables you to specify your login domain and login site.
By branding these areas with your company’s look and feel, users of your application will be immersed in your brand from the moment they log in. You can also brand the signup experience by creating your own branded signup page.
Branded trials have to be created from a Trial Management Org (TMO).
How do I get better quality leads?
To collect more information from your customers, you can use create a custom signup form using the SignupRequest object. The SignupRequest object can be extended to contain custom fields to store more information about your potential customers. See the following blog articles for more information and examples: Make It Easy for Your Customers to Provision Trials — Part1 and Part2.
Post-Signup Questions
How do I extend my prospect’s trial org duration?
Log a case in the Partner Community, under the “General” section choose the “Trial Org Extension” case type.
How do I extend the number of users?
Log a case in the Partner Community, under the “Salesforce Technology” section choose the “License Request” case type.
How do I access my prospect’s orgs?
You can use the Subscriber Support Console. For more information, check out this link.
How can I customize my prospect’s trial after it’s been provisioned?
You’ll need the admin login or a token to access the Org.
How do I troubleshoot signup problems?
If you use the Signup Request object, an error code is provided.
https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api.meta/api/sforce_api_objects_signuprequest.htm
Administrative Questions
How do I create a TSO (Trialforce Source Organization)?
You have two options for creating a TSO: You can use a Trialforce Management Organization (TMO) or the Environment Hub. If you plan to brand your emails or login page, use a TMO. Otherwise, use the Environment Hub by creating a Trialforce organization.
How do I see/monitor the trials I have provisioned to my prospects?
When you create trials via environment hub the trial org information is automatically saved to the environment hub for you to manage them. You can now also link trials created via Signup Request to the environment hub via the ShouldConnectToEnvHub field.
Will my TSO/TMO orgs expire?
They could expire. You can monitor expiration dates with the Environment Hub and use the Environment Hub member object for notifications.
How do I reset my customer’s data in a trial?
In every trial, there is a setup link to delete all data. This could be useful if a customer wants to start from scratch when experimenting with the trial.
How do I find my customer’s org id or other info?
If you use environment hub and/or SignupRequest object this info is available there. Otherwise, since the trial includes a package, you can use the LMA to find the customer’s org id in the License object, or via a search in the Subscriber Support Console.
How do I go about supporting my customer/prospect during the trial?
Via the “login as” functionality in Subscriber Support Console you can log in into their Org. Alternatively, you can also maintain admin access to the org and share/leave it later with the customer.
How do I set up SSO to sign in into my customer’s trial orgs?
There are essentially 2 ways, you can use the AuthCode which is a one-time authorization code that can be exchanged for an OAuth access token and refresh token using standard Salesforce APIs. Or you can use Proxy Signup which enables you to create and operate the organization on the user’s behalf, without their knowledge that you’re using Salesforce behind the scenes
Conversion
How do I ensure a smooth onboarding process?
How do I convert a trial org into a production org?
Via a Channel Order App order.
How do I manage access to my package in a trial org?
Via the LMA. In some cases, OEM for example, it might make sense to give sitewide access and not manage access to the package via LMA to reduce the administrative burden on the customer.
Maintenance
How do I test my Trialforce process without generating garbage data?
You can set up different TSOs for testing that are not part of the trial process but are only used for testing.
How do I update my trial experience?
By pushing your new package version/patch to it and generating a new template.
What is a Trialforce blackout period and how does it affect trial generation?
During a Trialforce blackout period a partner cannot generate trial templates but they can still use existing templates. Blackout periods are communicated via Partner Community Alerts.
How do I maintain different trials for different markets/purposes?
You can generate different TSOs and from the TSOs you can create templates. Don’t forget that the template stores data about which licenses the trials will have and how many of each license the trials will have.
How do I update a customer’s org after they are in production?
You can push a new package version/patch to the customer org.
Want more information? Check out these general resources:
ISVGuide — Providing a free trial for your solution
Trailhead — Module AppExchange App Trial Management
Partner Community — Trialforce
Make It Easy for Your Customers to Provision Trials — Part1, Part2
Many thanks to Peter Martin for his help in co-writing this article!
Have additional questions? Tweet us @partnerforce.
