Salesforce.com Inc. has just added a new service called Lightning Bolt that’s designed to make it easier for companies to create customized online communities with industry-specific design and functionality.

“The new Lightning Bolt framework enables the experts in our partner ecosystem to create tailored Salesforce Bolt solutions to meet the specific needs of virtually every industry,” Mike Micucci, senior vice president and general manager of the Salesforce Community Cloud, said in a statement. “Now, companies will be able to leverage Salesforce Bolt solutions to deploy robust, next-generation communities, portals and more with just a few clicks, making it easier than ever to connect with customers in new ways.”

Lightning Bolt follows last year’s release of Lightning Templates for Community Cloud, a service that aimed to help companies create customized communities for their customers, partners and employees. To date, Salesforce reckons over 900 of these have been created, but one request from its customers that it saw time and time again was to create specialized templates for specific industries. Lightning Bolt delivers just that, allowing any developer or partner in its ecosystem to create online communities, portals or customer-facing websites for a wide range of industries, including B2B ecommerce, patient care, partner relationship management and more.

Salesforce has announced 11 partners to kickstart the effort, including Accenture Plc, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., each of whom is developing industry-specific applications using the Lightning Bolt framework.

Accenture yesterday announced two applications built on the Lightning Bolt framework, including a mobile-friendly self-service portal for insurance agents called “Community for Insurance Agents by Accenture.” The application comes with sales productivity tools, data dashboard features and more. The second app is “Store Operations by Accenture,” which is aimed at helping retail store personnel to better collaborate with team members in their own store and also other stores around the world.

Some other examples of already-built apps include “Patient Scheduling by Silverline,” which is designed for hospitals, practices and clinics. Then there’s “Lightning B2B Commerce by CloudCraze,” an app designed to augment that company’s enterprise commerce tools. The app allows sales reps, service employees and customers to order, reorder, and collaborate on a complex range of B2B services using their smartphones in three clicks or less.

Salesforce said the Lightning Bolt framework will be made generally available this October, under its Community Cloud. Customers can start building their Salesforce Lightning Bolt apps now, before distributing them next month. However, regular developers will have to wait until early next year before they can begin distributing their apps on Salesforce’s AppExchange.

Image credit: Unsplash via pixabay.com