You're reading from Salesforce Sales Cloud – An Implementation Handbook

Product typeBook

Published inApr 2024

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781804619643

Edition1st Edition

Concepts

Marketing

Author (1)

Kerry Townsend

Common System Integrations

Sales Cloud is a very powerful tool that enables the commercial function of a business. Salesforce offers further tools that are functionally rich tools for other business functions, such as support and marketing. However, these are not the only functions that need tools to enable their processes – for example, finance. Further, organizations already have tools that they want to continue using. Because of this, it is a common request to connect these systems so that data flows from one to the other without manual intervention. This allows information to be visible to Users where and when they need it, and enables an action in one team to trigger processes that are managed by another team. This increases organizational efficiency and can result in a better overall customer experience.

In this chapter, we are going to discuss some of the common integrations with external systems that you may want to implement to enhance your Sales Cloud solution,...

Supporting tools and information

For this chapter, you will require access to a Sandbox or Dev Org to be able to explore the integration options we’ll describe in this chapter. You will also want to visit the AppExchange at appexchange.salesforce.com, something we’ll review in detail in Chapter 14 – Extending with the AppExchange.

You will also want to review the requirements that were collected as part of the requirements that were gathered for your core sales process to determine if any of those relate to having access to information so that you can trigger processes for other functional teams. You may also need access to the tools that were used to capture requirements and document processes in case you identify that an integration is required and need to document more detail.

Why do we integrate systems with Sales Cloud?

One of the common challenges for organizations is to move from siloed ways of working, where a team only has awareness of what happens in their team, to a connected, collaborative way of working where they focus on the customer and what they need. Sales Cloud offers this shared visibility and central source of information for the commercial team but without connected processes and systems, it is still possible that the commercial team can operate in their silo.

Connecting processes and systems across functional boundaries breaks down these siloed ways of working, improving both the employee and customer experience. No salesperson wants to call or meet with a customer to talk about repeat business only to find out there is an outstanding support or finance issue that they could have known about or even resolved in advance. If this information was available to the salesperson on-demand in the single system they work in, they would be able...

Common integrations

In this section, we will look at some common types of integration with Sales Cloud and some notes and considerations for each, including how these are typically integrated. In the System integrations overview section, we’ll explore the ways systems can be integrated with Sales Cloud.

Sales solutions

There’s a broad range of sales solutions that can be integrated/added to Sales Cloud to increase its capability. Many of the capabilities covered here can be provided by add-on tools that Salesforce offers; they can either be added for an add-on cost or become available in the Unlimited edition of Sales Cloud. Some third-party providers offer all these capabilities. If you need to connect third-party tools, there will be a piece of work to connect them. If you purchase the tools from Salesforce, you need to configure the tools but there is no integration effort. Some examples of the types of tools that are typically connected are as follows:

...

Systems integrations overview

Most organizations today utilize several different systems for managing their data and processes. Historically, in the world of on-premise software, integrations were primarily managed through the use of either a shared filesystem with files at a specific location in a pre-agreed format or via a highly structured integration platform operating across the internal network. In many instances, organizations would typically buy all their systems from a single vendor to make data integration easier, or manual copying was undertaken in some instances.

As more systems moved to be based on the cloud as SaaS solutions, there has become an increasing need for these systems to interoperate and communicate with each other in a way that is both performant and more standardized. This book will not go into detail about the various technologies underpinning integrations, such as REST, SOAP, and others, but you need to be aware that most SaaS applications you will look...

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to extend and enhance your Sales Cloud implementation through various integrations with different solutions, both on and off the platform.

We began by covering the benefits of integrating Sales Cloud with other systems before looking at some common integrations with Sales Cloud that can enhance and extend its functionality to deliver greater value and return on investment to the business. Implementing Sales Cloud as a CRM for your organization is a key and important first step, but connecting different business processes and functions into a single solution is where the greatest benefits can be obtained. With the examples we have seen, you can easily have leads captured and generated from external systems, at which point they’re managed and worked through the sales cycles in Sales Cloud, with documentation generated from Sales Cloud data and a contract sent to be signed when the deal is won. This can seamlessly create invoices and...

Kerry Townsend is a Salesforce specialist, working with the platform since 2005 –first as a user, then as a solo Admin. She moved over to consulting in 2010, initially at boutiques, as a global systems integrator, and more recently, returning to working for herself. She has refined her skills while delivering a broad range of Salesforce solutions using multiple clouds, predominantly Sales and Marketing Cloud, for small to enterprise-size businesses. She has 16 Salesforce certifications and has been recognized as a Salesforce MVP since 2018. She is passionate about enabling others and is a Salesforce community conference and Trailblazer community's group leader. She is also a regular speaker at Salesforce conferences across the globe, including Dreamforce.
Read more about Kerry Townsend

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