What Are Some Salesforce Integration Best Practices?
Salesforce integration can be a complex process, but with the right approach, it can enhance your business operations. To help you navigate this process, we’ve gathered nine best practices from experienced CEOs, founders, and marketing professionals. From using an experienced consultant to automating data and workflows, these tips will guide you toward a successful Salesforce integration.
- Use an Experienced Consultant
- Hybrid Integration Approach
- Plan and Define Requirements
- Data Mapping and Synchronization
- Automate Data and Workflows
- Choose a User-Focused Data Model
- Define Data Model and Mapping
- Utilize External IDs
- Select the Appropriate Integration Method
Use an Experienced Consultant
One best practice for a Salesforce integration is to use an experienced Salesforce consultant. An experienced consultant can help you ensure that the data in your system is accurate, secure, and up-to-date.
They can also provide guidance on how to set up user roles to maximize efficiency, automate processes that have traditionally been manual, and identify opportunities for cost savings.
A Salesforce consultant can also help you optimize your performance by providing insights on how to make the most of your existing resources and uncovering additional features of Salesforce that could benefit your business.
Aviad Faruz
CEO, FARUZO
Hybrid Integration Approach
A key aspect of a successful Salesforce integration is ensuring efficient data transfer. A best practice that we’ve done at ParcelPanel to ensure seamless Salesforce integration is using a hybrid integration approach. This ensures that we can cater to our cloud applications and on-site tools to minimize data loss, ensure safety, and guarantee successful transfer.
Liam Liu
Co-founder and CMO, ParcelPanel
Plan and Define Requirements
One best practice for a Salesforce integration is to plan and define the integration requirements and objectives carefully before beginning the integration process. This includes identifying the specific business processes and data that need to be integrated, as well as defining the scope and timeline of the integration project.
It’s also important to establish a clear communication and collaboration process between the Salesforce implementation team and any third-party vendors or partners involved in the integration. This can help to ensure that everyone is aligned with the project goals and timelines, and can work together effectively to resolve any issues or challenges that may arise.
Precious Abacan
Writer, Softlist
Data Mapping and Synchronization
Salesforce integration involves connecting Salesforce with other applications or systems to streamline data flow, automate processes, and improve data accuracy. To ensure successful integration, it’s important to establish a clear data mapping and synchronization strategy that defines how data will be shared and updated across systems.
Here are some best practices for data mapping and synchronization in Salesforce integration:
Define data requirements: Identify the data that needs to be shared between Salesforce and other systems and define data requirements, such as data types, formatting, and validation rules.
Map data fields: Create a mapping between data fields in Salesforce and the other system to ensure that data is transferred accurately and consistently.
Establish synchronization rules: Determine how data will be synchronized between systems, including how often data will be synchronized and what triggers the synchronization.
Jason Moss
President and Co-founder, Moss Technologies
Automate Data and Workflows
Automate data entry: To save your team time and lower the possibility of errors, use software like Zapier or Tray.io to move data automatically from your current systems to Salesforce.
Workflow automation: Create automated workflows that send follow-up emails or assign tasks to team members when certain circumstances or events occur in Salesforce.
Automate reporting: Create unique reports in Salesforce that are automatically updated with the most recent information to give your team up-to-the-minute views of how your company is performing.
At my former company, for instance, we used Salesforce to automate the lead capture and qualification process. We could reduce the time it took leads to respond by half and raise conversion rates by 35% by employing web-to-lead forms and automated workflows.
Percy Grunwald
Co-founder, Compare Banks
Choose a User-Focused Data Model
The urge to go for the most complicated version, thinking it’ll offer you more options, is understandable when onboarding new technology. Chances are you’ll feel the same during your Salesforce integration process.
Make it a point to go against this instinct and choose a Salesforce data model that is primarily built to answer your user needs, not replicate a more complicated data structure that serves other purposes.
When the requirement to expand your process or add new features emerges, you can always upgrade the model. For now, use your fundamental process as the primary roadmap and choose the closest source system’s data structure during integration.
Ariav Cohen
VP of Marketing and Sales, Proprep
Define Data Model and Mapping
Salesforce integration centralizes the user’s experience. It connects data and functionality from the SaaS CRM platform to another system. A good practice in Salesforce integration is to define a logical data model and mapping strategy between systems. Identify the fields and data that need to be synced between systems, as well as define how they will be mapped and transformed to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Marco Genaro Palma
Co-founder, TechNews180
Utilize External IDs
With the use of external IDs, a key can update data from a unique system that can be stored on a Salesforce record. It is a custom field with distinct record IDs from a non-Salesforce system.
If your Oracle Account ID system is integrated with Salesforce, it might be more practical for you to refer to the Oracle ID of account records from within Salesforce rather than the Salesforce Account ID.
To capture and show the Oracle ID for each account in this situation, you can create a custom field in Salesforce, designate it as an “External ID,” and then use it. Also, including a student ID in a contact record is another illustration of an external ID.
Alex Constantinou
Managing Director, The Fitness Circle
Select the Appropriate Integration Method
Salesforce, in my perspective, allows a wide range of integration options, such as point-to-point connectors, middleware-based integrations, and API-based integrations. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, thus it is critical to select the best method for your specific integration requirements. API-based integrations, for example, are more versatile and scalable than point-to-point integrations, but they demand more development resources.
Nely Mihaylova
SEO Specialist, iFlooded Restoration
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