DocuSign REST API Winners!

Our buddies at DocuSign, the global standard for eSignature, are just days away from launching their new REST API, and we wanted to give you a chance a while back to play with it while it was still in beta.

We launched this challenge in hopes that we could get your feedback on how to make the API, and the process of developing with it better.

For this challenge required you to Sign up for a free developer account, try out the REST Explorer to get a feel for the API, look over some of the documentation and finally write a small app using the REST API.

As always, there were some awesome submissions for this challenge, with a few of the regulars finishing at the top. We even had a tie for 3rd place and paid out an extra winner, which seems like it is becoming a common occurrence around here! Check out the video submissions below for our winners, and be sure to keep an eye out for the release of the new API on Friday!

wcheung Place: 1 Money: $1000

romin Place: 2 Money: $500

swalehji Place: 3 Money: $100

ngoa Place: 3 Money: $100

Challenge Extension Rules

Searching the web for "extensions" returns a lot of FAQs on extensions... unfortunately most are for either hair extensions or Chrome extensions (shameless plug: we actually have our own Chrome extension for CloudSpokes - you should definitely check it out). Yet based on feedback from the community we're overdue in nailing down our own take on CloudSpokes extensions - as in - extensions for challenge timelines.

We have updated our FAQs (also posted below) with the official rules and policies around extending challenges. Feedback on the new policy is greatly appreciated so please add your comments to this blog post.

Here is new the FAQ. Please make sure to refer to our FAQs page where the most recent updates will be kept.

---

Can challenge deadlines be extended for more time?

We do not want to grant extensions unless there is a valid reason for an extension.  These include issues with the challenge, poorly estimated timelines and lack of interest from the community.  All extensions will be announced on the discussion board by the challenge sponsor.  If any registered member rejects the extension by posting to the discussion board within twelve hours of the sponsor message post, the challenge will not be extended.  Otherwise, the challenge sponsor may extend the challenge for a length of their choice.  If an extension is given and a member still submits by the original end date, additional feedback and/or compensation may be rewarded. If a member would like an extension request, please post the request to the discussion board.

Email Spy Winners!

You know that awkward moment when you need to process an email dump from an employees inbox, and going on the typical recon mission while they are on lunch break, seems like it isn't the best option anymore? Trust us, we know exactly what that is like. Even though most of our recon lunch missions here at CloudSpokes are to change each others desktop wallpapers to pictures of David Hasselhoff, we still understand that recon missions are sketchy... and should be reserved for military use only!

Well thanks to this challenge, you no longer need to go rogue to get the emails needed. This challenge called for a simple tool, that would mass duplicate the necessary emails from one users inbox to an admin users inbox. Once the email is copied over, the administrator can use normal search functionality to get to the emails needed, and get on with their day. All without accidentally seeing all those embarrassing pictures of you from the previous weekend your buddy just sent you!

Congrats to agent wcheung for coming in 1st place, who, with his groovy spy tool Gmail-Imp, proved that this challenge wasn't "Mission Impossible". Make sure to check out his video below before it self destructs!

wcheung Place: 1 Money: $1500

dubeynikhileshs Place: 2 Money: $500

	utkarshkukreti Place: 3 Money: $250
	adrienjarthon Place: 3 Money: $250

Easy, Breezy Account Lead Conversion Winners!

Wouldn't it be fantastic if you had an "easy" button that did all of your tedious work for you while you just sit back and enjoy listening to "Call Me Maybe" on repeat all day? Well unfortunately for us all, that fantasy isn't likely to become a reality, but converting multiple, similar leads in salesforce at once... has become a reality!

Before all you CloudSpokers out there stepped in, salesforce.com users could only convert leads one at a time, and it was a very primitive process. But now, thanks to this challenge, they can convert multiple, similar leads (associated to the same account) all at once! Pretty awesome right? We certainly think so! Now with all the time they'll save, SFDC users can get a few extra YouTube videos in each day!

But before you get any ideas about spending the rest of your day roaming YouTube, for the newest viral video, make sure to check out the video submissions for our winners, and give a shout out to Engelbert for winning this challenge and taking home a quick $1500 bucks!

Engelbert Place: 1 Money: $1500

snehaheda Place: 2 Money: $500

N-408596718 Place: 3 Money: $250

Glue 2012 is a wrap!

Gluecon finished up yesterday and Rob, Kyle and myself were in attendance. If you are a developer who is passionate about mobile, APIs, Big Data or the cloud in general then Gluecon is definitely the conference for you to attend.

Not only were there great start-ups showing off their wares and fantastically entertaining and thought-provoking talks, but the people you meet are incredible! Where else could you go and have dinner with Adrian Cockcroft (Netflix) and Pat Patterson (Salesforce.com)?

Last year I missed some of the talks and vowed not to make that mistake again. There were some great talks by Ray O’Brien (NASA CTO), Bart Lorang (FullContact),  Chris Hoff (Juniper Networks), James Governor (Redmonk), Max Schireson (10gen) and many othere. There was even a 4 hour workshop by Adrian Cockcroft on "Constructing Cloud Architecture the Netflix Way". However, if actual code was more of your style, Cloud Foundry had a hands-on workshop where they built a Rails app using MongoDB and redis. Very cool stuff all around.

Even though CloudSpokes is expanding rapidly, it still surprised me that we actually ran into a number of CloudSpoke members at the various sessions and the hackathon. I even got the chance to have dinner with one of our favorite CloudSpokers, peakpado, who lives in the area.

I presented on Amazon DynamoDB, so if NoSQL databases and Mexican wrestling are right up your alley, then take a peek at my slides below. It's a good intro to the basics of NoSQL.

Make sure you attend Gluecon or Eric Norlin's other equally exciting conference, Defrag, next year! You won't be disappointed. He, and his wife, do a #superfrickinawesome job!

Gluecon 2012 - DynamoDB

View more presentations from Jeff Douglas

Evernote to Salesforce Mobile Note Connector Winners!

More and more mobile professionals are using Evernote to easily take notes during customer meetings and need an easy way to get those notes into Salesforce. We wanted to build a simple, yet super awesome mobile app for iOS devices to connect these two cloud platforms, and what better way to do that than by using CloudSpokes?

This challenge called to use the Evernote API to create an iPhone or iPad app which uses OAuth to read your Evernote notes and then push them to SFDC org as an activity.

As usual, there were some really slick submissions for this challenge, especially dubeynikhileshs, who came away with first place. Make sure to check out his video below, as well as the video for talesforce, who snatched up second place this time.

dubeynikhileshs Place: 1 Money: $1750

talesforce Place: 2 Money: $500

The Mobile Tidal Wave Approaches

We have a long and continuous wave of mobile challenges in the pipeline, kicked off with our recently closed jQuery Mobile Sliding Container challenge. The goal of which was to to produce a reusable, flexible HTML 5 sidebar panel component using Visualforce, jQuery and jQuery Mobile.

The next one hot in the queue is the Mobile Opportunity Tracker challenge: to build HTML5 app that allows an Account Executive/VP of Sales to easily view open opportunities on their iPhone and iPad.

If you were looking for the opportunity to build your mobile chops, practice a new skill, or get in on some of the larger prizes - now is the time. We're planning on keeping a steady stream of mobile on the open challenges page for the next few months, with jQuery, iOS, Android, and HTML5 goodness to spare. Don't worry if you miss one, we've got plenty coming.

The summer of mobile is upon us - just stay tuned to mobile.cloudspokes.com for the latest mobile challenges.

Remember The Milk Winners

Millions of people use Remember The Milk (RTM) to manage to-dos like work projects, school assignments, or grocery lists. But how cool would it be if you could sign up to automatically get coupons or other offers based on the contents of your lists? Well...now you can!

This challenge called to use the Remember The Milk API to deliver customized coupons and offers based on the contents of users' lists.

Looks like all you CloudSpokers drank your milk and got your vitamin C before submitting to this challenge, because yet again we paid out more than just the top 3 winners, having 4 CloudSpokers finish in the milk money. Make sure to check out the links to the submission videos below!

	swalehji - Video Place: 1 Money: $1250
	romin - Video Place: 2 Money: $750
	dubeynikhileshs Place: 4 Money: $250
	talesforce - Video Place: 3 Money: $250

Easy salesforce.com Opportunity UI Winners

For managing complex sales processes, the standard opportunity page layout and functionality is sometimes... less than desirable. We wanted to change that, and make it easier than pushing a local repo to GitHub, so we came up with this challenge.

We needed to create an improved UI for salesforce.com users to create, manage and edit opportunities from creation to close, and knew that all you CloudSpokers would be the ones to get it done! And get it done you did!

As always, this challenge had some awesome submissions, and a pretty sweet prize pot as well! Shout out to swalehji for coming in first with his submission, and props to jazzyrocksr and avidev9 for taking the second and third spots respectively. Make sure to check out the videos for our top 3 finishers below, and don't forget to head over to our current challenges page and see what's goin on! The next blog could be about you!

swalehji Place: 1 Money: $2000

jazzyrocksr Place: 2 Money: $750

avidev9 Place: 3 Money: $250

Dynamic Shadow Copy Winners!

For organizations using a mix of both salesforce.com CRM and salesforce.com platform licenses, certain standard objects like opportunity are not viewable to platform license users. A common solution that complies with the license agreement is to create a custom object(s) to mirror the data.

The goal for this challenge was to build a highly reusable Apex Class and trigger(s) to dynamically “shadow copy” a standard object record & all related object’s child records (Master-Detail) to a set of “shadow” objects.

This challenge had a lot of great submissions, but we think logontokartik might have gone over to the dark side to get the advantage on this one, scoring an incredible 98 with his submission! Make sure to check out his videos below, and thanks to all who participated!

logontokartik Place: 1 Money: $2500

antenna Place: 2 Money: $1000

Next thing we knew, we had 40,000 friends at the CloudSpokes Party!

We wanted to take a moment to thank all the folks that have supported CloudSpokes over the past 15 months. All of you spreading the word, registering, competing, and winning challenges is what has made the site possible. Ever since we launched, the core mission of CloudSpokes has remained the same: combining cloud technologies and crowdsourcing so customers and developers can work together like never before. Developers decide what technologies and projects they want to work on, discover new technologies in practical ways, compete to demonstrate and be recognized for their skills (badges) and win ($) based on producing great results. This can be a great hobby or a way to create independence in your career.

But, like many rapid growth spurts, there have been some growing pains for the community along the way. The volume of contests and participation from both developers and sponsors has led to a spike in demand for judging and support for answering questions on the contests that are running in a timely manner. And of course we want to make sure our developers get paid as efficiently as possible - not always the simplest thing with participants from more than 65 countries! How will we make sure we make it through the growing pains of adolescence as quickly and smoothly as possible? With all of you of course!

Over the next few months we will continue to build out the capabilities of CloudSpokes through a number of contests that help add in transparency and understanding of what is occurring.

Before we get to some of that, we’d like to share some statistics on CloudSpokes to date:

• We have run 330 contests.  Of those:
• 243 have completed and paid successfully (73.6%), 
• 24 are open or being reviewed (7.3%), 
• 51 had zero submissions (15.5%), 
• 10 had no valid submissions (3.0%),
• *2 were cancelled (0.6%) (*for both, we offered to compensate participants who had started working on submissions)
• We have paid prize money on 100% of challenges that have received at least one valid submission
• We have paid 62 bonuses (totalling $16,190), either because we received more good submissions than we had prizes, or as compensation for doing some extra work to polish up a submission
• In total, we’ve given away $453,640 to CloudSpokers from at least 23 different countries
• Average time to judge a contest during the past three months is 6 days past the “Winner Announced” date posted on the challenge. Average time to judge a contest during the past 30 days has been 2 days past the “Winner Announced” date posted on the challenge
• The number of submissions per contest have increased by 19.7% in the last three months. In 2011, the average number of submissions per contest was 2.94, and that has risen to 3.52 in 2012 (so there’s clearly an appetite for even more contests!)

To manage this growth, here are a few of the things we will be doing over the next few months - with your help!

• New dashboards - Views that let you see the status of judging for challenges you have entered, and the status of your payment for the challenges you have won. In addition, we will provide summary views of challenges (number of registrants, submissions, valid submissions, winners) to show the progression, but also to give you a sense of what it may take to win challenges on average
• Enhancements to badging and more challenges - We will be expanding our usage of badges on the site to give folks credit for challenges they did not win. In some cases, challenges draw an unusually high number of valid submissions that greatly exceeds the number of prizes. While we would love to pay everyone, it is a contest, so we guarantee paying the winners (best entries), not necessarily all the submissions. We will address this by using badges to allow people to see your accomplishments and by ramping up the number of total challenges so this happens less often
• Enhanced guide to scoring on each challenge - For every challenge, we directly indicate the judging criteria that will be used to evaluate the submissions (scorecards). Sometimes our judging has been delayed because it has not been possible to easily deploy and test the submission, so we plan to add criteria on deployment readiness to the scorecards. In addition, as we grow, we want to give proven CloudSpokes participants the ability to also judge contests they are not competing in (and earn money for their efforts). To support this we will be creating guidelines for this program to ensure fairness and avoid conflicts of interest

Summary

CloudSpokes has the potential to revolutionize development by providing independence to a generation of developers by focusing on what they can accomplish instead of forcing them into an hourly rate.   And it can show customers that the old school model of hiring hundreds of consultants isn’t the only way in the cloud. So please send us your stories of how its helped you, your suggestions on what we can do in the future and even your complaints on the things we need to fix today. It’s how we become better. We look forward to announcing some very cool new ways of giving back to the community over the coming months - so stay tuned!

- mess

Chatter Auto Follow Account Team Winners

Using salesforce.com Chatter is awesome, but trying to keep up with all of the news being flushed into your org, can be super un-awesome!

What we wanted to do was create an application in salesforce.com so that a user automatically follows records in Chatter when they are added to the Account team or Sales teams. That way when you join your teams group on Chatter, you are automatically following everything that is going on, and you don't even need to drink the Kool - Aid!

This challenge was a huge success with 11 submitters and 9 finishing in the money, with dev401has coming in  first winning the grand prize of $500, avidev9 snagging the 2 seed, and finally the herd of CloudSpokers tied for third.

With so many winners, choosing the coolest demo video was a tough task, and needed to be decided fairly. Clearly, the only way to do that is with a best of 5 series of Rock - Paper - Scissors.

Make sure to check out the video submissions below, and as always...congrats to all who participated!

	dev401has Place: 1 Money: $500
	KnowledgeLover Place: 2 Money: $250
	avidev9 - Video Place: 4 Money: $100
	swalehji - Video Place: 3 Money: $100
	N-408596718 - Video Place: 4 Money: $100
	florianhoehn Place: 4 Money: $100
	jazzyrocksr - Video Place: 4 Money: $100
	chrinder - Video Place: 4 Money: $100
	swatKat Place: 4 Money: $100