A great way to maximize your usage of the Salesforce CRM database is to integrate it with other outreach and marketing applications. This is a wonderful feature in which certain third party applications can possibly retrieve or share data with your Salesforce instance. For a list of over 200 applications and add-ons that provide an easy method to sync with Salesforce, visit https://appexchange.salesforce.com.
As an individual who is currently training to be a Certified Salesforce Administrator, I come across many opportunities to integrate Salesforce with other third party applications. There are a few tips I would give to anyone who is considering integrating their Salesforce database with other database systems. First, you should consider, analyze, and review any apps that may fit your needs; research-research-research, and don’t be too quick to overlook when shopping for an app. Second, someone with knowledge of the Salesforce database should be doing the configuration once an application has been chosen. One application may be more desirable over another if it can be easily configured by a Salesforce Administrator. Third, test all settings, configuration, and customization in a Sandbox instance before deploying it in your Production org. You never know what kind of unexpected issues will occur when sharing data between different computer programs. Lastly, have a Salesforce Administrator be prepared to deal with these challenges. Sometimes integration doesn’t go as planned or expected.
Specifically, I recently integrated Eventbrite with Salesforce through the Eventbrite Sync app. Many companies use Eventbrite to gather information on their clients, and provide customers with a place to be in the know about upcoming events. I installed Eventbrite Sync into a Sandbox instance for a client. Once I authenticated their Eventbrite account with the CRM database, I began to walk through the configuration. One feature I enjoyed was the fact that this integration offers the option to either store incoming data in custom objects from the Eventbrite package, or have the data be processed to standard Salesforce objects. When the package begins to process data from Eventbrite it imports records into Salesforce. Something to note: when someone registers for an event (via Eventbrite) associated with a ticket, even if it’s free, they will be processed to become a Contact in Salesforce. The Contact record(s) will be associated to a Campaign (event), and to an Opportunity record reflecting the ticket sale. A pretty big issue here is the ticket buyer’s Work Information was still sitting in Eventbrite, and there was no business Account associated to the Contact. This may be fine in certain business models, if you want to have the person’s interaction be tracked by their Household Account.
However, this particular client deals with Small Businesses and an individual’s Work Information in Eventbrite is very important to their business process. Now I’m going to share the steps I went through to debug this issue for those whom may be in a similar situation. First, there has to be a place to map the imported data. So, I created custom fields on the Contact object to map work information: Company Name, Street Address, City, State, Postal Code, and Country. Then, I went into Sandbox (Eventbrite App) and changed the configure mapping settings to map the Work Information section in Eventbrite to my custom fields on the Contact object. Once I got to this step I tested the import process to ensure that my custom fields would populate correctly with information from the Eventbrite form. Lastly, I made a Process Builder to create an Organization Account when a Contact is uploaded from Eventbrite. The filter criteria was set to only consider Contacts with an Eventbrite Id, and data from my custom fields; no need to trigger this process if the data isn’t there. I made it so the Process Builder would use my custom fields to create an Account of the correct custom record type (Small Business), fill in the Billing Address information, and associate it to the original contact by identifying them as the Primary Contact. Also, as you guessed, I tested again to ensure that the upload process would trigger my Process Builder to create and associate Accounts and Contacts when appropriate.
Lastly, at World-Class Industrial Network we encourage ideas from other I/T and Salesforce leaders in the region. If you discoveredcame about an alternative solution to integrating Eventbrite with Salesforce, please reach out to me via email ty@winnets.com. Also, I’m open to converse about how you addressed other challenges that you faced with this specific integration process.