A combined partner program for Salesforce and its subsidiaries Tableau and MuleSoft will give partners one contract and one partner portal to work with as opposed to multiple while also simplifying how partners with one subsidiary can expand practices in other areas of Salesforce, MuleSoft channel chief Dan McAllister told CRN in an interview.

McAllister – whose formal title is senior vice president of global alliances and channels – said that the combined partner program has been widely requested by partners. Although San Francisco-based Salesforce has been taking steps to bring in the partner programs of data analytics subsidiary Tableau and integration subsidiary MuleSoft throughout the year, the combined partner program will roll out to partners starting Feb. 1.

“The real benefit is the ability to understand how all of the (Salesforce Customer) 360 products work together,” McAllister said. “In almost every meeting I’m in with our integration partners, in particular, they’re thinking about it in terms of business solutions to the customer.”

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What is a MuleSoft partner?

The combined partner program will still be led by Salesforce channel chief Tyler Prince. And although the MuleSoft partner employees will still have McAllister at the helm and Slack still has channel chief Richard Hasslacher, Tableau channel chief Julie Bennani departed the company in October.

While partners and customers should benefit from a combined program, Salesfroce itself will have more data available on partner success and specialties, McAllister said.

“We also capture information on them (partners) and how they’re performing, where their skill sets are, what unique IP (intellectual property) they have, what credentials they’ve built over the years,” he said. “And for them promoting into us and for our own internal people understanding the relationship – that’s now all in one place. So it’s efficient for them. It’s efficient for us.”

Here’s what else McAllister had to say.