Various software tools are used by businesses to handle customer relationships, financial operations, inventory, marketing, sales, and customer support. These systems are all used for a specific purpose, but operating them separately may cause problems. Customer data can be stored in a CRM, product inventory in ERP, and financial data in accounting software.
If such applications work in isolation, workers are frequently required to jump between apps, rekey the same information, and reconcile discrepancies between various systems. These fragmented processes waste time and impede businesses from having a real-time view of their customers and business performance.
Salesforce enables businesses to handle customer interactions, sales processes, marketing efforts, and customer service. But often it’s the integration with the rest of an organization’s technology environment that gives it true business value.
Salesforce integration allows businesses to share data and sync processes between Salesforce CRM, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, accounting software, marketing automation software, and other business applications. Although it offers advantages, there can be issues with data quality, system compatibility, security, synchronization, and performance when connecting these systems.
This blog will discuss the most common Salesforce integration problems and how companies can integrate CRM and ERP systems and other enterprise systems better.
Salesforce integration involves linking Salesforce CRM with other applications, databases, cloud platforms, and enterprise systems in order to enable information and business processes to interact with one another.
The integration can move data between two systems, activate workflows, or enable users to access data that’s stored in an external application, depending on the business needs.
This might be as simple as passing an order placed by a sales representative in Salesforce to an ERP system for order processing. The ERP system can then provide data on inventory availability, order fulfillment, and payment status. This minimizes manual information input and empowers sales reps with greater visibility into the actions that follow a sale.
Some typical Salesforce integration examples:
The aim is to develop a coherent business environment where information flows reliably between applications, enabling uniform decision-making.
CRM and ERP systems are separate yet interrelated components of a business.
The main functions of Salesforce CRM are to help manage customer interactions, such as communication, services, and sales opportunities, as well as lead management. Internal business processes like procurement, inventory, financial accounting, production, and order fulfillment are taken care of by an ERP system.
These systems can work independently, and workers might not have access to the information they need to do their tasks effectively.
A sales representative could, for instance, agree to a delivery date with a customer, but not realize that the inventory is not available in the ERP system. A sales opportunity may also be difficult for the finance department to match up with the invoice.
By connecting Salesforce to ERP systems, these gaps in the operational process can be filled.
A connected environment can assist businesses to:
But the benefits rely on choosing the right architecture for integration and effectively managing the data flow between systems.
One of the most frequent Salesforce integration difficulties is ensuring data is consistent across various applications.
Information can be stored in multiple systems with the same name but have different field names, formats, or identifiers. A customer may be listed as a company name in Salesforce, but listed under a customer code in the ERP system.
When the integration doesn’t recognize these records as a part of the same customer, it can duplicate records or update the incorrect record.
For instance, changes to a customer’s billing address in Salesforce may not be reflected in the ERP system until you run a background process that updates the ERP system. This can result in billing errors, late orders, and needless consumer complaints.
How to solve it:
Determine data ownership and identify the system(s) to maintain each type of information. Apply the same ID, field mapping rules, validation, and duplicate detection processes. It is also important for businesses to establish how they will manage different updates. A well-documented data governance strategy can reduce data inaccuracies from flowing through integration workflows.
Companies often use a mix of cloud-based applications, legacy software, databases built to order, and on-premises hardware.
The data formats, authentication, APIs, and communication protocols used by these systems may vary. Some applications might be based on newer REST APIs, and some may rely on legacy interfaces and custom connectors.
This Salesforce integration with an ERP system like SAP or Microsoft Dynamics 365 may need more than just a simple integration.
The integration needs to pass data between systems and needs to handle differences in business logic, data structures, and supported operations.
How to solve it:
Start by conducting a technical evaluation of all applications used. Record available APIs, connectors supported, needs for authentication, data structures, and limitations on integration.
Businesses have the option to leverage Salesforce APIs, pre-built connectors, integration platforms, or custom development, depending on their environment.
Middleware solutions like MuleSoft Anypoint Platform may be able to help tie applications together, transform data, and orchestrate workflows between disparate systems. This choice is dependent on the infrastructure, integration, and maintenance needs for the long term.
Data that is updated several hours later isn’t necessarily suitable for every business process.
Sales teams might need to have up-to-date inventory details before they can verify an order. It may be necessary for customer service to have the most recent payment status when answering a billing inquiry.
But it’s difficult to maintain consistency of information across multiple applications, especially if systems have different processing speeds, API limits, or availability.
A batch integration can update records hourly, but an operational process could need updates in seconds.
How to solve it:
Identify a synchronization strategy that aligns with business needs and not necessarily by default assuming the need to have all data integrated in real time.
For large data volumes, where updates are not required, batch processing can be used. Event-driven integration can convey significant change as it happens.
Synchronous API calls work well in cases where a process requires a response from another system ASAP.
Salesforce integration architecture guidance distinguishes between the patterns of request and reply, asynchronous processing, batch synchronization, and data virtualization. Each has its own specific needs. <Cite refs={[“turn378802search0”, “turn378802search2”]}/>
Specify acceptable data delay, failure handling, and recovery procedures for each integration.
API usage, processing, and system resource limits are enforced by Salesforce and other enterprise apps. Integrations with too many requests or those that try to process large amounts of data inefficiently may suffer performance issues.
For instance, if you have a very large customer database and you’re sending one API call per customer record, that will waste resources and slow down the process.
As the number of transactions increases, it can be difficult to maintain and scale poorly designed integrations.
How to solve it:
In the pre-implementation stage, estimate the volume and frequency of expected data, frequency of peak data usage, and growth projections.
Make use of the bulk-processing capabilities provided by the system when dealing with large amounts of data, and use asynchronous processing when processing workloads that don’t need immediate responses. Track usage, processing times, error rates, and limits.
Another consideration for integration architecture is retry behavior, pagination, rate limiting, and Salesforce platform limits. These factors make it easier to avoid creating a solution that is effective in testing, but becomes unreliable as the business grows.
When Salesforce is integrated with other applications, like ERP, more sensitive information can pass through the connections.
Confidential information, such as customer data, financial information, employee records, and commercially sensitive information, can flow between systems. Poorly configured authentication, permissions, or data handling can lead to information being exposed to unauthorized users.
There may also be a difference between systems in terms of their security requirements. If a user has access to the contact information of a customer, he may not be able to access financial information or sensitive account information.
How to solve it:
Apply secure authentication procedures, encryption, and permissions in a limited scope and, where appropriate, use distinct integration identities.
Use the principle of least privilege and ensure that each integration has only the access required to carry out the functions that it is assigned to perform. Securely store credentials and change them as per organizational policy.
Businesses also need to check the logging, auditability, data retention, and incident response requirements. Security should be engineered in, not into a system.
When the application task is to transfer a simple record, it’s relatively easy to connect two applications. When one business process needs to have multiple systems’ actions coordinated, the complexity increases.
Think of an order-to-cash process. Order creation, inventory validation, credit checks, invoicing, payment processing, and shipment updates can be triggered as part of the process of closing a deal.
Business rules and processing requirements can vary per application. If one step fails, then the organization has to decide if they want to try the operation again, undo an action that was performed earlier, or send the transaction to manual review.
How to solve it:
Before choosing integration tools, map the complete process of the business. Outline the order of operations, business rule ownership, failure scenarios, and recovery.
Use synchronous processing when it’s important to have a response now; asynchronous otherwise. Explicit transaction states, error queues, and compensating actions as needed for longer transactions.
Salesforce Integration Patterns offer a set of patterns to help coordinate processes between applications, but will ultimately vary based on the specific business workflow and reliability requirements. <Cite refs={[“turn378802search0″,”turn378802search5”]}/>
An integration can be successful for weeks and then fail due to a changed API, expired credentials, unexpected data values, or a temporary outage in one of the systems.
These issues can go unnoticed until employees notice missing customer records or orders aren’t completed.
Failure to do so can also result in duplicate transactions when the integration fails but tries the same operation again without verifying whether it was successful.
How to solve it:
Use centralized logging, monitoring, alerting, and error handling. Track down any failed transactions and capture valuable information – but without revealing sensitive information.
Implement retry policies (with delays and limits). For operations supported, make sure it is an idempotent operation, so that running the same operation again does not result in unintended duplicate results.
Identify the recipients of alerts, the points at which failures escalate, and what steps will be taken to reconcile data following outages. Monitoring should be performed throughout the entire integration process, not just “from system to system” monitoring.
No single integration will fit all organizations. The choice of approach is dependent upon the volume of data, the timing required, technical complexity, security concerns, and available infrastructure.
Application programming interfaces (APIs) enable information to be shared between applications via specified interfaces. Salesforce offers
APIs that can be used for reading, adding, updating, and querying records. These interfaces can be used in external applications to move data to and from Salesforce. API-based integration is beneficial when a business requires certain data flow controls, custom processes, or inter-app communication.
For instance, if you are using an order management application, you can use an API to push order data to Salesforce and to receive notifications whenever order details change.
This is a flexible method, but it needs to be managed for authentication, error-handling, API limits, and version compatibility.
Middleware is an inter-layering between Salesforce and other applications. It can handle connectivity, data transformation, routing, and workflow orchestration.
To connect Salesforce and ERP with databases, cloud applications, legacy software, and other applications, one solution is MuleSoft Anypoint Platform.
Instead of developing and managing each integration on a unique basis, a company can create reusable integration services and focus on critical components of data exchange.
This comes in handy if an organization has numerous applications or anticipates a growing integration environment.
But there are also middleware licensing, infrastructure, and maintenance issues. The business needs to consider the benefits of investing in its capabilities.
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Prebuilt connectors and integration apps deliver prebuilt components for connecting supported platforms.
They can help minimize development effort when the necessary systems, data structures, and business processes are similar to what the integration can provide.
Check for the features supported, licensing conditions, customization capabilities, security capabilities, and compatibility with the respective version of the application before choosing a connector.
For simpler integrations, a prebuilt solution might be adequate, but for more intricate workflows, extra configuration or custom development may be needed.
Event-driven integration lets one application inform other applications that something has changed that is relevant to them.
An example of this is when an opportunity hits a specific phase in Salesforce, it could publish an event. Use an external integration service to receive the event and trigger the creation of an order in an ERP system.
For supported integration scenarios, Salesforce provides event-based functionality, such as Platform Events and Change Data Capture.
In this way, the interval between polls can be minimized and flexible workflows allowed. But it also needs to be supported by reliable event processing, monitoring, and recovery systems.
In some cases, a business may want to access information stored outside of the system, but not have an entire copy within Salesforce.
For some external data sources, users can work with external information via external objects, which Salesforce Connect can support via external interfaces.
For instance, in a service-based business, a service representative might want to check the status of an order within an ERP system without having to copy all order records into Salesforce.
While data virtualization can minimize unnecessary data duplication, it is not always the best option if there are external systems with capabilities, response time, connectivity, and user experience requirements.
A good integration strategy starts with the business requirements, and then progresses through testing, deployment, and maintenance.
Define integration objectives: Determine the business problem, systems to be involved, outcomes to be achieved, and the level of freshness of the data needed.
Document data mappings: Define the relationships and formats between Salesforce and external apps.
Assign data ownership: Determine which system will enforce the data element and what to do if there are conflicting updates.
Select an appropriate integration pattern: Choose between the following models for the use case: synchronous, asynchronous, batch, event-driven, virtual access.
Test realistic scenarios: Test normal operations, large volumes of data, invalid or incorrect records, network failures, duplicate requests, and recovery operations.
Protect sensitive information: Institute proper authentication, permission, encryption, logging, and compliance measures.
Monitor performance continuously: Monitor transaction success percentages, latency, API calls, data freshness, and unhandled errors.
Plan ahead for future growth: Where possible, design and construct components that can be used in multiple projects, and record the architecture to ensure that future integrations are not unnecessarily complicated.
These practices enable business integrations that are sustainable, secure, and adaptable to evolving business requirements.
For companies that want to integrate their customer-facing operations with their ERP, accounting, marketing, and enterprise applications, Salesforce integration is necessary. If used properly, it can help with data consistency, workflow automation, less manual work, and inter-departmental visibility.
But it is not enough to simply link two systems together for successful integration. Data quality, system compatibility, synchronization, API limitations, security, handling errors, and handling complex workflows are all issues that need to be addressed by businesses.
The best place to begin is with clear business requirements, a fit integration architecture, good data ownership, and extensive testing. Each has its pros and cons in terms of use case, with API-based connections, middleware platforms, prebuilt connectors, event-driven workflows, and data virtualization.
Finally, integrating Salesforce CRM with ERP and other business systems isn’t just a technical task. It is a means of establishing a more integrated business world that allows for better business decisions and improved business processes.
Organizations can lay a solid groundwork for future digital transformation and meet current requirements with a scalable solution by carefully planning and following best practices for integration.
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