Tag: Sitecore Connect For Salesforce CRM

Posted on

Tenant Service In Action – Form data to Salesforce

DEF Tenant Process

If you have not reviewed my other blogs on re-inventing the Salesforce CRM connector, I encourage you to give them a read before you jump deep in to this one. It will give an idea as to why we landed at this very solution to achieve our goals and satisfy the requirements. Below are the links to the blog posts for reference –

Sitecore Connect to Salesforce CRM – A New Take!
Ship Sitecore Contacts as Custom Salesforce Objects

Now, let us continue where we left off. I really wanted Tenant Service to work since it is a win-win for us. Firstly, we do not have to store all form submission information on Sitecore Contact card. We should strive to keep only useful and personalizable information on xConnect Contact card to keep xDB clean. Secondly, it would be a scalable solution. Let’s say if a new form is added to the website and the information entered need to make it to Salesforce on submission, it does not dev involvement. All it would need is a new Tenant pipeline and bunch of new value accessors for form and Salesforce. Isn’t this much more elegant than extending a custom update contact action every single time a new form is added? An absolute Yes!

Let us see how we made it happen. Do note that the set up is tedious, but, also note that this is one time thing. Once the set up is complete, all you would need is do maintenance by dropping/deploying latest binaries if you have some custom code in action. Alright here we go –

Installation and Setup

There is some good starter documentation out there that will get you started with Tenant Service, DEF and form submit action to fire the tenant service pipeline. Give that a read here.

Our case is more complicated than that, we need to fire a pipeline that would take that form context and submit that information to Salesforce instead, so, it would need bunch of other steps. Below is what was needed on our Sitecore Managed Cloud environment to give you an idea.

  • A new web app created on Azure environment – Configuration depends on your needs and traffic. On our end, we decided it was a smart idea to match configuration of new web app to other web app’s on the environment such as CM/CD for instance. Once web app is ready, manually deploy the files. You can follow Manual deployment instructions noted on ‘Installation guide for Data Exchange Tenant Web Service’ document here. Another important thing to note here is to add ‘WEBSITE_LOAD_USER_PROFILE’ in Application Settings on web app created and set the value to ‘1’. If you do not do this you will get errors on Tenant Service that suggest data protection was unsuccessful.
  • Also drop Tenant Service plugin for CRM Connector on Tenant service root location. Install package for ‘Salesforce CRM Plugin for Tenant Service’ from here and extract files and drop them in your tenant service root folder. Note, it is also required to drop Salesforce.Common and Salesforce.Force dll’s on to your Tenant Service root folder. With out this, you will see some errors when Tenant pipeline runs.
  • Configure your connection string properly on Tenant Service web application to ensure it can talk to CM server properly.
  • Ensure DEF and Salesforce CRM Connector both are installed and configured on CM server and CD server of the environment. The instructions should already be documented in corresponding downloads section for Data Exchange Framework and CRM Connector. Also, enable CM to talk to Tenant Service web application created in above steps. It is done via changing Sitecore.Services.Client.config setting ‘Sitecore.Services.SecurityPolicy’ to ‘Sitecore.Services.Infrastructure.Web.Http.Security.ServicesOnPolicy,Sitecore.Services.Infrastructure’.
  • Finally for tenant service communication and SF activation ensure you have connection strings added to both CM and CD servers. Note down the connection string name for tenant service. Publish all core Sitecore nodes and restart all web app’s that have been touched on steps above.
  • Ensure Tenant Service and CM can communicate well by going to {TenantservicewebappURL}/api/Tenant – If all is well, you should see all tenant service end points under main DEF tenant and if they are enabled
  • Lastly ensure your form submit actions fires appropriate Tenant Service pipeline which internally has a step to submit the same to Salesforce. Use your connection string name copied on setting in the action. Your pipeline would look something similar to the screenshot below. Most of the pipeline steps are re-used/borrowed from out of the box CRM connector pipeline. All I had to do was to ensure queue settings and objects loaded are correct. Plus create all value accessors and mapping sets needed to ensure I map form data to correct object definition on Salesforce. All of this steps are already noted in my previous blog here
Pipeline that is triggered on form submission
Form submit action to trigger Tenant Service end point

Note: As of this writing and the version of Tenant Service used, there was a bug that was preventing me to select certain field types on Form Value Accessors. I had to edit this item on Sitecore to include the field types that were missing – /sitecore/system/Settings/Validation Rules/Field Rules/Data Exchange Framework/Forms/Required Valid Form Field

If all goes well, you should now see form submission data on Salesforce as intended object. You might not get everything right on first go, so, to debug what is cooking you can go to Tenant Service root folder and check logs up there. You may have to check CD logs as well sometimes if Tenant Service logs are not showing anything useful.

All in all, Tenant Service is a great way to push information to third parties and scalability with zero code needed to do everything I just talked about is just super amazing. It will leave your Marketing team happy for sure. Only issue I found in this is performance impact due to all the processing happening on Form Submission, so, if you or your team is concerned about adding additional overhead/time to process form submissions, then, I recommend looking in to storing the information else where or on Contact. Form Submit Action responsible for triggering Tenant Service currently waits for the processing to complete before continuing with next form submit action step and redirecting the user to thank you page.

There are ways to convert some of this pipeline steps to be asynchronous by making custom processors using Tasks per Sitecore support, but, I have not tried it just yet. May be a post for later when I can get to that.

Posted on

Sitecore Connect to Salesforce CRM – A New Take!

Proof of Concept

Almost an year ago, I embarked on a journey to explore Sitecore Connect to Salesforce CRM connector. Almost instantaneously, in my first week, one of the initial questions I had was , can I map Sitecore Contacts to some other objects in Salesforce, such as Leads, for example? Upon researching, I figured there is no OOTB way to map to something else other than Salesforce Contact. Back then, the client was okay for us to push Sitecore Contacts as Salesforce Contacts and have a special view in Salesforce to ensure Sitecore pushed Contacts are in their own special bubble inside of Salesforce Contacts, so, their end users on Salesforce view does not get cluttered with Sitecore Contacts. So, that door of if we can push Sitecore Contacts as different Salesforce objects was left unopened.

End of last year, same question came our way during discovery with another client and this time around the client’s data architecture was much more complicated and can not abide to simple workarounds, they wanted us to be able to ship form submission data as custom object/s to Salesforce. This though doable in theory was never tried or never really documented as a use case in Sitecore world. So, the only way to prove the theory is to actually, well, to do it.

We convinced the client to allow us to roll with POC and my gut was I could pull this off based on all the learning I did so far on the connector. Check out my experience with Sitecore connect with Salesforce CRM blog series and my VDD session on the same.

I was happy and nervous to take up this challenge couple weeks ago. I know there is actually nothing out there that can help me once I go in that path, so, though it was exciting that I will be the potential first one doing this on record, but, at the same time, I could not stop thinking of all the walls that would come by way. 🙂

In coming blogs, I will share the experience with you all what my strategy was, what problems I solved, milestones, happy moments and couple bugs I excavated while I was at it. Let’s get started, to begin with, on such type of projects, I like to jot down my thoughts and an outline that will help me stay focused, but, also helps to look back on steps if need be. It is always proven to be my best friend, staying organized.

Here are the goals for POC I had on my mind –

  • Prove that Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM can ship Sitecore Contact Information as a Custom object/s on Salesforce.
  • Configure Connector to map Custom Facets on Sitecore Contact and send those Custom Facets as Custom objects to Salesforce. Meaning, no longer Contact to Contact mapping on two systems, it would be completely custom.
  • Explore ‘Salesforce CRM Plugin for Tenant Service’ option noted on Download section here and see what it has to offer. There was not much documentation on this one, so, it is a bit of suspense, but, again my sixth sense was hinting me that it might prove to be useful.

I got these goals jotted in my document and in my heart and kept moving through milestones. As I passed through every single milestone, I got more and more excited to reach to the end of POC. I will take you through how I achieved each of these goals and hopefully it will help you achieve something similar in future.

Posted on

Handling different types to map to Salesforce

different things

I recently had a requirement that I was building upon which requires me to store couple additional fields on my xConnect Facet. I had to also show them on Experience profile, push this data when available from Sitecore to Salesforce and back. This additional information should also be available on SFMC when it is available. I knew the drill and did what I had to make this happen. String fields mapping was pretty straight forward and had done it couple times before this drill, so, will not focus on that, you can have a look at my other blog posts which should cover this information.

So, with this requirement we had different types of data that we had to map. For example, we had Boolean, DateTime, Currency and Number to new a few. For every single type of this, we need different handling to ensure the data maps to Salesforce and back successfully. Let’s see how its done:

Step 1: Extend your Facet with all the additional information

        public bool HasDonated { get; set; }
        public DateTime? MostRecentGiveLivelDonationDate { get; set; }
        public DateTime? MostRecentVoicifyDonationDate { get; set; }
        public int EngagementScore { get; set; }
        public decimal GiveLivelyDonationAmount { get; set; }
        public decimal VoicifyDonationAmount { get; set; }

As you can see we have bool, datetime (ensure this is defined nullable, if not, you will be in deep shit and mappings wont work to CRM and SFMC). Now, next up, lets see how mappings should be handled differently and special use of transformers might be needed. Let’s see on each case, how to properly handle. Do note this also depends on data direction, that is, if mapping is from Sitecore to Salesforce or from Salesforce to Sitecore. I will not cover steps needed to ensure this new additional fields are available to be utilized by updating custom collection model json and items. There is a whole different blog post for that.

Boolean Mapping:

This is the easiest one. 🙂 No special handling needed, it should simply work with same process we followed before here

DateTime Mapping:

I would like to stress again how important it is to define this property as nullable. See code snippet above and follow that. Do not waste hours of debugging like I did. 🙂

From Salesforce to Sitecore – See highlighted, it is available OOTB, just ensure you add this to ensure mapping works
From Sitecore to Salesforce – See highlighted, it is available OOTB, just ensure you add this to ensure mapping works

Int mapping:

From Salesforce to Sitecore – See highlighted, this is a new value reader that I had to add to ensure the mapping works and data flows properly.
Definition of value reader that is used as transformer in the step above. It is very important that Target type entered matches .Net type exactly as format shown. If you give just Int or Int32, it will not work.

Note: No special handling is needed to push this type from Sitecore to Salesforce, it just works just fine.

Decimal Mapping:

Very similar to int mapping noted above. I will add few screenshots for reference.

Note: No special handling is needed to push this type from Sitecore to Salesforce, it just works just fine.

Now this might seem pretty straight forward, but, this took me hours to figure out why something is not working as expected. Because there multiple point of failures and I was not able to put a finger on to why. When mappings fail, the logs were not very helpful, so, this required lot of trial and error to actually come up with solution for each of this use case. Hope this helps some one doing some gymnastics with Salesforce and SFMC.

Posted on

Data Destination Not Impossible with Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM

Sitecore and Salesforce

I took my first steps back in February this year with a mission to connect two amazing systems together – Sitecore and Salesforce. Little did I know back then that I will learn so much, get to break so many walls and reach the final(for now) data destination we had on our mind. It was a fun ride! Not only did I learn about the Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM and the scope of what we can do with it, but, also learned a ton of other things with Sitecore xConnect, Analytics, xDB SOLR indexes, custom contact facets, Sitecore Forms, Custom collections and models, Salesforce leads, objects and fields in Salesforce, Data Exchange Framework, custom readers and converters, pipeline batches and scheduled tasks. I mean I can go on and on and on. It was awesome and yet quite painful when things would not work. But, hey, I am here writing this last post on this series that covered how and why I did what I did. I made every effort to reference the blogs/links that inspired and helped me solve a problem on hand. But, I also managed to figure some kinks myself and I documented those to potentially help some one else who is amidst of implementing their data journey between the two systems.

Below are links to all of my blog posts that are part of this series. Hoping this would help any one facing similar challenges or potentially kicked off their journey stitching the two most powerful platforms out there – Sitecore and Salesforce.

Good Luck!

First Steps – Salesforce and Sitecore Integration
Installation caveats for Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM
Implement data flow with Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM
Shipping custom information to Salesforce
Showcase Shiny new Info on Experience Profile
Solve hiccups with Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM

I was also able to connect with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and do some extensions up there as well. I will talk about that side of things in my next blog post. Until then, take it easy. 🙂

Posted on

Shipping custom information to Salesforce

What would you do when basic foundation of what you would like to achieve is done and is done right? I happen to never get an opportunity to say thats it! There is always a next page, next step and moving on to next challenge. To be honest, I do not want it any other way, love to keep building next awesome things. 🙂

That is exactly what happened when I wrapped up the data flow that I noted on my post here. To continue on path to enhance and extend the data we had to look at variety of other information that we collect from end users on our forms. We want to ship this rich data back to Salesforce, I mean why not right? So, let’s see how we could do that.

Firstly, Sitecore has some awesome documentation around how you can get started to extend both Sitecore contact and Salesforce to accommodate your data needs. As always I will not repeat the information, but, will try to highlight the challenges that I had to resolve to make this happen. Also, fill in any gaps that are not covered in documentation here.

Abstract steps we need to do to get this rolling:
1. Add fields needed on Contact in Salesforce
2. Extend XConnect contact with new fields needed based on longer forms
3. Extend models on collection, follow steps noted here to extend facets on both XConnect and extend models of Salesforce on DEF:
https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/salesforce-connect/21/sitecore-connect-for-salesforce-crm/en/walkthrough–creating-a-custom-contact-facet.html
4. Add additional mapping on forms, so, the back-end can retrieve values entered on form fields that are noted.
5. Ensure XConnect contact has the new info
6. Run pipelines needed.
7. Ensure salesforce has the new data
8. Backward flow of data from Salesforce to Sitecore on new facet fields

Few Gaps:

  • In Documentation, it does not call out that it is needed to click on the option available called ‘Convert Model in to Items’ after a custom model item is created and corresponding path to namespace and dll is set on field ‘Collection Model Type’. This is really important, if you do not do this stuff will simply not work. See screenshot for guidance.
Click on highlighted option to create items from model.
  • Ensure new custom facet is selected on Contact Facets under pipeline step: /sitecore/system/Data Exchange/yourtenant/Pipelines/xConnect Contacts and Interactions to Salesforce Sync/Custom Read Contacts from xConnect Pipeline/Read Contacts from xConnect
Pick facets to read, otherwise new mappings will not work
  • Also, note if you try to package your custom model located under /sitecore/system/Settings/Data Exchange/Providers/xConnect/Collection Models/Custom Models/ to upper environments, the mappings do not work. It has to be created from each environments and all references to these items should be changed/swapped as well. If you do not do this, the mappings might not work. It took me lot of back tracking to figure this out. It is painful to change references, but, most references to custom model specific items should be in here ->
    /sitecore/system/Data Exchange/your tenant/Data Access/Value Accessor Sets/Providers/xConnect/xConnect Contact Additional Information Facet OR which ever name you used to create item based on ‘xConnect Entity Facet Value Accessor Set’ while following instructions here

That is all! if you are lucky enough, new value mappings added to location -> /sitecore/system/Data Exchange/your tenant/Value Mapping Sets/xConnect Contact to Salesforce Contact Mappings/Contact Model to Salesforce Contact should work. Good luck!

Now, lets ensure we know what to do while ensuring the additional data can flow backwards as well which is from Salesforce to Sitecore. Most of the steps should be covered as part of link from Sitecore above. But, again few things below which need to be done to ensure this works.

  • Ensure on pipeline step ‘Read Contacts From Salesforce’ below, its pointing to your tenant Salesforce Contact Fields. In my case, it was pointing to branch specific fields when I toggle the view to show raw fields.
Ensure it points to correct set of extended fields from your tenant
  •  Ensure on below highlighted new custom facet is picked otherwise error on logs “Already Exists” while updating custom facet.

That is all! If all goes well, you should now the custom xConnect contact data back in Salesforce and vice versa. Now, what? Well, we can check to see if the data is updating properly on xConnect shard databases, but, why not show this additional values on Experience Profile for ease of use? Also, we had a hiccup on previous functionality that was shipped live, will see how we debugged and resolved the same. We will see how to do these in next set of blogs.

Posted on

Implement data flow with Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM

I literally jumped with enthusiasm when I got the connector working. I could now see my xConnect contacts back in Salesforce. What a joy to see the data flowing. I enjoyed the victory for almost a day and I know we had long way to go before we could ship this out live. So, I moved on to next set of challenges and tasks on hand. I am a hugely inclined towards algorithmic solving to any problem on hand. I truly believe in – If I know how to solve it, half of the problem is solved. 🙂

Below is what we were hoping to do with data flow:

  • Sitecore Forms: On our Sitecore website, we had bunch of forms, all behind the scenes using Sitecore Forms. We were using custom submit action step to send an email to the end user who submitted the form. Now, we wanted to actually save contact in Sitecore when a form is submitted, To achieve this, I followed instructions noted here: https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/91/sitecore-experience-manager/en/walkthrough–creating-a-custom-submit-action-that-updates-contact-details.html
    Special Note: While you follow the steps on document above, especially while using Sitecore Rocks, ensure to remember that renderings you pick, they should all be speak 2, if you pick something of speak 1 version, it might not work
    Once you successfully complete this setup and apply mappings to form fields back in Form editor, if you are lucky, you will see your form submission data on Experience Profile.
Mappings on UpdateContact Submit action
  • Implement fallback: Remember their could be fields that are not required from Sitecore or forms perspective, but, could be required from Salesforce perspective. One such field is Last Name in our case. To ensure we push these contacts out to Salesforce, we implemented a fall back reader and hooked this up on Value Mapping configuration.
Fall Back reader which will try reading the raw value and then will read constant value such as ‘unknown’ if raw value is empty
Then use the reader in source value transformer on value mapping corresponding to last name

At this point, it is important to ensure data can flow in either direction. From Sitecore to Salesforce via pipeline batch run ‘XConnect Contacts to Salesforce’ and from Salesforce to Sitecore via pipeline batch run ‘Salesforce Contacts to xConnect Sync’

  • If all is well we should be ready to wire up scheduled job that will try to keep the two systems in sync as often as needed. More information here: https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/def/20/data-exchange-framework/en/scheduling-a-pipeline-batch.html
Create a new command based on ‘/sitecore/templates/Data Exchange/Framework/Tasks/Run Selected Pipeline Batches Command’
Create a new schedule and make this run in interval as needed

Time to take this to level up. Lets send more information both to contact on Sitecore and back in Salesforce. To do this we must extend the Contact Facet and also figure out how we can map this additional information back to Salesforce. That would be my next blog.

Posted on

Installation caveats for Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM

This post is continuation to my last one in regards to first steps, you can check it out here. Now, that you made all the decisions, hopefully all the right ones, then, you would go to the immediate next step which is -“Get it installed and start pushing the data”. Sitecore as always tried their best to provide clear instructions. You will find basic instructions there, but, like always there are few gaps which you can only learn by actually doing it. 🙂

In this post, I will cover few gaps and how I worked around, figured it out and finally got the connector to work.

First and most important thing is you do not have to google to install the packages that are needed for the connector to work. Downloads section on official link of Sitecore Connect actually has all packages. When I was reviewing the installation guide, it lists all of the packages that need to installed and my quick instinct was to do a Google Search lol. I wish Sitecore just added a helpful hint of where to find them to make my life easy. 🙂 But, if you are doing this step, look no further than here

As we follow along the instructions on the guide, one important thing to call out for section 5.2 which is in regards to adding connection string for salesforce in sitecore instance. There is a note right at the bottom of this section and if you are like me may be you will skip right over it and that is why wanted to advise caution to not skip it. 🙂 In my case, I did create a sandbox and I would personally always recommend to create a sandbox for lower environments just to ensure data is kept clean on production instance of Salesforce.

Note from Documentation for section 5.2 on Installation guide

Now, lets say you finished all the steps noted on Installation guide to the tea. But, you quickly find you are stuck at step 5.5. This step is about configuring your endpoints on newly created tenant and ensure the trouble shooter successfully runs. Always remember after model is generated (json file) and it is dropped on locations the guide calls out for, this step below should not be forgotten, if it was, the newly generated model will not be available in ‘Show Deployed Models’ under xConnect Client end point. So, here is the magic step:

“Restart all windows services and do a app pool recycle on IIS xConnect site and your main website instance as well(why not)”

Now, when you click on ‘Deployed Models’ on XConnect endpoint you should see the shiny new model and the trouble shooter will also run just fine. A screenshot for reference:

Showing view of ‘Show Deployed Models’ ribbon click on xConnect Client Endpoint
view showing click on ‘Run Troubleshooter’ on xConnect Client End point

We all assume to some extent, right? We should not blame Sitecore for assuming we all know that we do that many installation steps and line up several different package installations the assumption is we do a decent size publish to ensure all the good stuff we just loaded gets to web database as well. It is important to do this just in case if there are any dependencies they all make it to destination live database as well.

Now, this bits below took a lot of toll on me because in my case Sitecore instance was not set up correctly on upper environments with regards to xConnect. Had to do some SOLR related corrections. I will not go in to super detail around what happened, but, just on abstract level those indexes and configurations of indexes for xConnect were not done right. But, bottom line for this installation to work as expected below should be ensured and assured.

  • Experience Profile should load xConnect contacts with out any errors
  • Ensure your xconnect logs are clean – even basic global key access denied errors should be cleaned upAdd IIS Apppool\xconnectapppool name to performance related groups.
showing user groups that need permissions set up

Now, last but not least a pesky little issue that ate more than half of my day. I ensured all steps were a wrap everything was configured per plan, but, when I ran the pipeline batch ‘xConnect Contacts to Salesforce Sync’, nothing happened. Logs generated were super not helpful and almost felt like it failed before even it started. Which brought my attention to end points, but, wait, I just verified that my end points troubleshooters ran fine for all three highlighted below:

After hours of scrambling, I found that my individual pipeline steps were using branch specific end point references which obviously will fail because we did not configure them, we configured tenant specific end points. The only way I could find this out was using ‘View Raw’ option in ribbon and searching that GUID otherwise from the regular view everything would look alright as the names are same between tenant and branch. I had similar issues for references to other pipelines within pipelines. For instance, the below pipeline step highlighted below was actually from default branch and not from tenant, so, any changes I made to my pipeline step or end point configuration was not being read and instead batch was reading branch content.

I am just glad I could find this issue. Now, it could be because I am the unlucky one, but, this is what made me look more deeply at the DEF tenant and pipeline steps on a more intimate level, so, yeah, it was annoying, but, yep it was worth it. 🙂

After initial connectivity is proven and core data was being pushed to Salesforce from Sitecore, we are on to the next step which is attacking custom implementation that would be needed to meet our end goals and requirements. It was sigh of relief that the connector is working and yet deep suspense by the end of this as I was aware of the next adventures. I will continue this blog series to depict the journey that happened next.

Posted on

First Steps – Salesforce and Sitecore Integration

First Steps

By nature, I am extra cautious when I take my first steps on any project. This comes from experience, when a task is in front of you, many of us get tempted to jump and start working things out. I have a different take on this and even if I do burn couple of hours in the beginning, I would not change this style for no one or nothing! When you take your first steps right, when walls or falls happen, you are confident that you can get through them because you know that you are on right path.

So, on one of our projects, we decided that a tight integration with Salesforce would be a huge add on for this growing team. Now, the decision is clear that integration is needed, now, few key first decisions that should be made to ensure we will follow the right track to achieve our key goals.

Key Goal: We have a bunch of forms on the website that collect variety of information from end user based on purpose of the form. The stakeholders wanted to ship this collected information to Salesforce.

That’s a very abstract gist, I know. Not always would you have a dedicated Business Analyst that would document every single detail. Sometimes, you have to work with just a skeleton. Now, lets jot down the first set of questions:

  1. What Connector should we use to ensure we have the tight integration between Sitecore and Salesforce?
  2. What version of Connector should we be using?
  3. What does this Connector do on a very abstract level and would it help us reach the key goal noted above?

Now, lets answer each one of those first before we jump deep and go crazy. Which we will trust me. I did run across quite a few walls and was able to successfully break or crack enough to get by, I will share that side of journey with you all as well.

But, first things first, answer to above key questions. So, for the first one, my boss, Liz Spranzani has a great collection of blogs which highlights Connectors that are available and which ones to use in which scenarios. Salesforce offers a whole stack of products and so does Sitecore, so, it is important to get your thoughts straightened out, so, you make wise and correct decisions.

Here are the blogs for your reference. I made my choice to be to use Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM because that fits all my boxes based on subscriptions the client has in regards to Salesforce. Now, your answer could be different, I am hoping its the same, so, my journey will help you. 🙂

Now, for the second one, folks who know Sitecore know that this question is very important to be answered because of just the way Sitecore product life cycle has been. To confirm this, I checked the compatibility KB article, but, unfortunately, it is not always up-to-date. So, I actually loaded a support ticket to understand what version of connector should I be using given my Sitecore version, got confirmation that I should be using: Sitecore Connect for Salesforce CRM 2.1.0 . Bottom line is latest and not always the right approach especially when you are dealing with multiple systems.

So, on a very abstract level the connector gives you ability to push various objects from Sitecore to Salesforce and vice versa. Most important one of course that most of us will be interested in would be Contacts. But, along side of Contacts, it can also ship Tasks, Events and Campaigns.

You nailed your first steps, Now, what to do next? Installation! Sitecore does have good documentation on Connector Installation and setup, but, like always there is few gaps and some helpful tips to get you over few humps. I will cover those in my next blog.

Do not underestimate the power of making right choices, take your own time and do not let anyone make them for you if you are the one who is going to own the implementation.