Chatter is Salesforce’s social networking medium that connects members of an org together and lets them share data, collaborate on projects, contribute files, and help others with their expertise and knowledge. Salesforce Chatter is the leading enterprise social media network in the world today.
Chatter originally works best on mobile devices. However, it also offers a desktop interface that needs to be installed on the computer. Unfortunately, Chatter Desktop isn’t automatically enabled in the Salesforce interface. So here’s a post that’ll show how to turn on settings for installing the program.
Installing the Standard Chatter Desktop
- Go to Setup.
- Navigate to the personal settings page.
- Locate the Quick Find Box and type Chatter Desktop.
- Select the Chatter Desktop option.
- A Download Now badge will appear. Click on it to start the installation process.
- Simply follow the instructions that will appear.
- Once done, Chatter Desktop will launch. Read through the end-user license agreement that appears when the program first launches. Accept the agreement to continue using Chatter Desktop.
Considerations Before Installing
Salesforce has set some restrictions on the installation and use of Chatter Desktop. Here are things that users must be aware of before starting to install Chatter Desktop.
- Ensure that the computer is granted administrator privileges. This is required prior to downloading the program.
- Any org user can access the Chatter Desktop download page. Administrator privileges on Salesforce itself are not a requirement.
- There’s a link in Chatter that provides users a way to download the Desktop version. However, Salesforce recently decided not to allow users to use that download link.
- Chatter Desktop runs only on Adobe Air. Ensure that this runtime environment is installed prior to downloading Chatter Desktop.
- Adobe Acrobat Reader should also be installed, because files from Chatter Desktop are only viewable here.
- Check the Settings to see if Enable Chatter Desktop is selected. Check that API Enabled is also chosen. If these user permissions aren’t seen, Insufficient Privileges will be displayed.
Administrators can control which users can access Chatter Desktop. They can also disable the download page to prevent unauthorized org users from downloading Chatter Desktop on their computers.