How Salesforce to Salesforce Integration Helps Sell a Company for an Extra $1 Million

Although Salesforce is one of the costliest solutions on the market and has a challenging implementation process; unquestionably, it sets the gold standard for CRM solutions, dominating the market for a decade. Moreover, having Salesforce implemented can help close the company sale at a higher cost which can be the decisive factor in your choice of CRM deployment.
In our blog post, we’ll explain:

• All advantages of the Salesforce integration, even the most unexpected ones,
• How to prepare for the solution integration and what challenges you should be aware of,
• How to set up Salesforce to Salesforce integration without writing any single line of code,
• Why Salesforce to Salesforce connection may not be enough to integrate several orgs and how REST API can solve this challenge.

Salesforce: An Unparalleled Platform for Integrated Business Operations

Salesforce’s leading market position is attributed to its numerous advantages and unmatched functionality, as detailed in our blog posts “Salesforce CRM Benefits and Perks ”  and “Salesforce Pros and Cons “.

First, larger organizations would most likely use Salesforce for their own environment thanks to its best-in-class capabilities like extensibility and customizability. And purchasing a company that has already set up its own Salesforce organization can eliminate any potential barriers during the due diligence process and make the migration process much easier.

This case is perfectly explained in a LinkedIn post by Darren Mass, a Founder of Business Therapy Group. However, this post also raised over one hundred comments featuring all the pros and cons of making a CRM tool like Salesforce a key technology to fuel the business and having it a decisive point in making a purchasing decision.

 

How Salesforce CRM Helps to Close a Sale

The risk of integrating a subpar platform, or multiple fragmented platforms, is a scenario most companies dread. Imagine the chaos of disjointed communication, disintegrated data silos, disorganized processes, an ill-structured sales framework, and suboptimal customer service. But with Salesforce, these concerns evaporate.

Salesforce presents a multitude of superior features for organizations, including:

• A consolidated repository for customer data.
• An efficient system for monitoring customer engagements.
• A streamlined environment to analyze active data.
• A platform enabling effortless collaboration across various departments.

Data sharing between internal Salesforce orgs, such as transferring information from development to production, is a crucial application. However, there may also be instances where sharing data between an internal Salesforce org and an external one – perhaps owned by a vendor or a partner – becomes essential.

Salesforce not only operates as a robust standalone solution but also seamlessly synchronizes with over 4,000 third-party solutions, including its proprietary products. In addition, it provides cost-effective options to integrate multiple Salesforce environments seamlessly.

For organizations looking to connect multiple Salesforce organizations and facilitate data exchange, multiple solutions exist, such as in-built Salesforce tools like Salesforce to Salesforce connection, Salesforce Connect add-on, Mulesoft and Heroku platforms, as well as ETL tools.

What is Salesforce to Salesforce Integration?

Salesforce to Salesforce connection serves as a vital conduit when organizations employing two and more Salesforce orgs for various purposes need to collaborate or share customer data.

 

Who May Need Salesforce to Salesforce Integration Setup?

• Businesses may need to integrate multiple Salesforce instances for different purposes within a single business
• Salesforce-using entities that may need to share data with their partners, distributors, suppliers, or investors and collaborate on this data across multiple orgs.
• Newly acquired entities that prefer to operate their Salesforce orgs independently while sharing essential records with the main office
• Companies that are undergoing a merger or acquisition and need to integrate sales and marketing data from two Salesforce orgs.

Why is Salesforce to Salesforce Connection Crucial?

The Salesforce to Salesforce connection is pivotal for organizations operating critical business processes, where any downtime can negatively affect customer service. This powerful functionality enables Salesforce users to effortlessly connect Salesforce with other organizations and share records. Notably, these sales data exchanges can be configured for either one-way or two-way communication.

So, if a new company is also utilizing Salesforce.com, connections can be established to mutually publish and subscribe to each other’s objects and fields for nearly any record type, including leads, accounts, opportunities, and custom objects.

Moreover, a Salesforce to Salesforce sync helps save additional license costs and permission configuration for businesses that have to outsource their sales operations to other companies but still need to track them in their Salesforce CRM.

For example, instead of purchasing extra Experience Cloud licenses and setting up and customizing a Partner Community, all you need is to configure Salesforce integration settings and establish a collaborative sales environment across these orgs.

Two Codeless Approaches for Salesforce to Salesforce Integration

 

Use Salesforce – to – Salesforce Connection

Salesforce’s native connector simplifies linking and sharing records across organizations and multiple sales teams. Salesforce to Salesforce (S2S) was specifically crafted to streamline integration, supplementing an industry’s need for a more efficient, native solution.

The advantages of Salesforce to Salesforce are manifold. It offers more immediate integration than other systems, permits configuration and setup without necessitating coding. Importantly, integrating two orgs doesn’t exhaust certain limits, such as the daily asynchronous limit or email limits.

With built-in automatic retry and error-handling mechanisms, this connection saves significant development time compared to alternative solutions.
However, it is maintained via the retired Salesforce Classic UI. As of December 2020, Salesforce no longer provides support and enhancement for this version, so it may not be the most effective option for all integration scenarios. Also, this option comes with certain limitations.

 

Considerations for the Standard Salesforce to Salesforce Connection:

Standard Connection has the following limitations and considerations:

• The feature is available only in Salesforce Classic
• Salesforce to Salesforce connection is native and free
• Record sharing is dependent on user permissions and administrative rights
• Hierarchical sharing may affect record sync and privacy
• Record updates are processed asynchronously, which could lead to delays
• Once enabled, this feature cannot be disabled. The only way to stop the process is by deactivating the connection.
• Standard connection requires attention to detail and understanding its potential impact on data privacy and synchronization.
• Salesforce to Salesforce functionality may not be sufficient for complex data integration processes, for example, in the financial services sector, when data exchange must be upon request or follow a certain scenario.

Salesforce to Salesforce Setup

To enable Salesforce to Salesforce connection, you need to switch from Salesforce Lighting to “Salesforce Classic”. Configuration in the Salesforce Classic involves four main stages:

• Activating the Connector
• Setting up the Connection
• Publishing Objects and Fields
• Subscribing to Objects and Fields

Let’s enable this Salesforce feature following the instructions below.

1. Navigate to Setup

2. Switch to Salesforce Classic

3. In Salesforce Classic go to Setup

4. In the Quick Find box type” Salesforce to Salesforce”

5. Go to “Salesforce to Salesforce Settings” > Click “Edit”> Enable the feature and hit “Save.” Repeat this step in both organizations to enable data sharing.

6. Expand “All Tab” on the navigation panel and open the connection tab “Connections”

7. In the “Connections” tab, move to the “Templates” subtab and click “New”. Give this template a Name and select “Active” before saving it.

 

The subsequent phase involves identifying the objects and fields you wish to share or synchronize with the partner organization. This procedure is referred to as the Publish/Unpublish process for objects.

 

8. Once you’ve chosen to publish your template, you need to select which Objects you want to add or remove from it. The list includes:

• Account,
• Activity History,
• Attachment,
• Case,
• Case Comment,
• Contact,
• Lead, etc. Let’s choose “Account” and click “Save”

 

9. Under Published Objects, click Edit under Action for your Account object and select template fields you would like to add to your template such as “Account Description”, “Account Number”, “Account Phone”, “Account Rating”, “Account Site”, “Billing Street”, “Industry”, and then hit “Save”.

10. Create a Contact with your name and enter your valid email address. This email address will be used to receive the invitation to connect your Salesforce orgs.

 

11. Again, in the “Connections” tab, go to the “Connections” subtab and click “New”

12. Select the Template and fill in the Contact you created in the previous step and hit “Save & Send Invite”

13. Open your mailbox and accept the invitation. Make sure you enable Salesforce to Salesforce under “Salesforce to Salesforce Settings” before accepting the invite in the second Salesforce org otherwise, you will get an “Insufficient Privileges” error.

14. Go to the connection request and accept it. After accepting the request, the connection status should be “Active”

 

The connection works on the Publish/ Subscribe model where One Org publishes its salesforce object and the other Org subscribes to that object’s changes. For two-way synchronization, the objects need to be both published and subscribed to in both organizations. All modifications and updates are duly recorded in the Connection History log.

15. In your second org, navigate to “All Tabs” > “Connections” and then move to “Connections” Tab >

16. Open the recently created connection > Click “Subscribe/ Unsubscribe” under Subscribed objects related list.

17. Map “Account” with “Account” in your org. Also, select the “Auto Accept” option to automatically accept all the changes without requiring manual human intervention and hit “Save”.

18. Now, under the Subscribed Objects you should be able to see Accounts. Hit “Edit” and click the “Auto Map Fields” checkbox to automatically map the fields in your account records to target org and hit ‘Save”.

The Salesforce to Salesforce integration feature facilitates the sharing of data from all standard objects like accounts, contacts, and custom objects. It allows the transmission of a single record or multiple records to one or multiple connections. The “External Sharing” related list displays the status of the dispatched record.

19. Now, navigate to Accounts > Open any account > Edit Layout > Drag & Drop “External Sharing” Related list in the page layout.

20. Create a Test Account and then under the “External Sharing” related list, click “Forward This Account” to forward the account to your connection(s).

 

21. Open the account forwarded recently in the other org. You should be able to see a note at the top mentioning that it is an externally shared account.

22. You can also forward multiple records at a time by selecting multiple records in List View and then clicking the “Forward to Connections” button.

 

How to Setup Salesforce Connect: Cross Org

Salesforce Connect offers dynamic integration across system boundaries, enabling real-time access to external data without the need for copying it into your Salesforce org.

This innovative tool maps external objects to external system data tables, retrieving required data on demand, and ensuring it’s never outdated. It’s particularly beneficial when managing a large volume of data, needing small data portions at a time, or desiring real-time data access.

Despite the external data storage, Salesforce Connect seamlessly integrates with the Lightning Platform, offering access to various Salesforce tools. It also can help integrate two and more Salesforce orgs.

 

Considerations and Limitations for the Salesforce Connect:

• Salesforce Connector is available both for Classic and Lightning Experience
• Available for an extra cost in Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions
• It is more flexible in terms of integration and helps to sync with third-party solutions and other Salesforce environments
• No need to fetch data in Salesforce to read, write, view, or report on data contained in external objects
• Salesforce Connect offers real-time search capabilities for external data directly from Salesforce, in addition to features like free text search, record viewing, and list views, among other functionalities.
• One integration per month via Salesforce Connect costs $4,800 per month 
• Per organization, only up to 100 external objects (upon request can be extended to 200) can be established.
• Across external objects and other object types, a maximum of 4 joins are allowed per query.
• An external system-issued OAuth token can have up to 4,000 characters in length.
• For server-driven paging, the upper limit of the page size is 2,000 rows.

Here’s how you can perform Salesforce integration using Salesforce Connector:

1. Launch your Org and navigate to Setup > Integrations > External Data Source > New External Data Source

2. In the New External Data Source Screen, enter as infrastructure below:

• Give an External Data Source a name. For example, “Salesforce Org 2”

 

• Select its type: Salesforce Connect: Cross Org
• Choose “Connect To: Production URL “(for Developer edition & Production orgs)
• Enter URL: https://login.salesforce.com
• Enable Search and Writable External Objects
• Select Identify Type> Per User
• Choose Authentication Protocol>Password Authentication
• Enter Administration Username: Fill in the username of the target Org Integration Use
• Enter Administration: <Password>/ <Security Token>

 

• Hit “Save”
• Open the External Data Source you’ve just created
• Click “Validate and Sync”
• Select necessary objects, for example, “Account” & click “Sync”

• Create a Tab for the External Object to access the external object

If Salesforce to Salesforce connection can’t meet your needs for integration flexibility and Salesforce Connect is too expensive to support all your connections, you can leverage Salesforce’s REST API to establish a connection and transfer data between orgs and other sources.

Common REST API Development Use Cases for Salesforce to Salesforce Integration?

Salesforce offers a native REST API, enabling external applications to interact with Salesforce data seamlessly. This web interface facilitates direct data access and manipulation outside the Salesforce user interface, fostering greater integration potential with your unique applications.

The REST API accommodates a variety of HTTP requests, directed to specific Salesforce endpoints, to interact with different data resources. It is especially suitable for browser or mobile applications which require interaction with a limited quantity of records rather than vast data sets.

 

What is Salesforce REST API Integration?

Salesforce REST API Integration is primarily designed to enable data transmission between your application and Salesforce or among multiple Salesforce orgs, facilitating both data dispatch from your application and data retrieval from Salesforce org. Currently, this service incurs no additional fees.

The core benefit of this integration lies in its threefold functionality: it allows Salesforce users to access and transfer their Salesforce data, push data from their application or Salesforce instances to a Salesforce instance, and retrieve Salesforce data within their application.

 

Why Salesforce to Salesforce Integration via REST API?

• You need to integrate multiple Salesforce instances seamlessly.
• You require a flexible solution yet cheap solution that will execute a custom integration scenario like one-, two- way or hybrid data sync. Currently, Salesforce offers 5 free Integration User Licenses and every additional one for $10.
• You want to add an extra layer of security to Salesforce integration via authentication and limit what a specific integration can do with a set of credentials, allowing you further security beyond simple permissions.
• This approach allows expanding integration capabilities over time without breaking the bank.
• A powerful, convenient, and simple REST-based web services interface for interacting with Salesforce.

However, as with any option, it comes with certain limitations and concerns:

• The integration process is complicated and needs time and resources for the development and further maintenance
• Available in Enterprise, Unlimited, Developer, and Performance Editions
• Total calls per 24-hour period 100,000 + (number of licenses x calls per license type) + purchased API Call add-ons
• API calls per license type per 24-hour period Enterprise Edition – Salesforce: 1,000, Salesforce Platform: 1,000, Lightning Platform – One App: 200
• Unlimited and Performance Editions – Salesforce: 5,000, Salesforce Platform: 5,000, Lightning Platform – One App: 200
• REST API requests are limited to 120 requests per minute

If you don’t have enough developer resources in your organization but still want to have greater control and flexibility in the integration process and ensure successful integration, hire developers at Ascendix. We’ll help you with setting up the REST API endpoints and building custom-connected apps to ensure unintermittent near real-time data transfer.

Our Salesforce app developers can help you:

• Design and implement API endpoints within Salesforce, which allows external applications and other Salesforce instances to communicate with Salesforce.
• Map the Salesforce data structure, ensuring seamless and accurate data exchange.
• Configure authentication protocols to ensure secure access to Salesforce records.
• Write code to handle exceptions and errors that may occur during the data exchange process, ensuring data integrity and preventing disruptions in the data flow.
• Optimize the API requests to ensure the integration is efficient and doesn’t exceed Salesforce’s API usage limits.
• Test the Salesforce integration, identifying bugs or issues, and ensuring the connection works as expected
• Document the integration process and create a guide for future reference or for other developers to understand the integration better.

Besides that, our agency can help with creating custom applications within the Salesforce platform to enhance its functionality and better cater to your organization’s specific needs. Also, we can assist with building and deploying custom applications on Salesforce’s AppExchange platform.

Challenges Businesses May Face During Salesforce to Salesforce Integration

Even though, you can seamlessly integrate multiple Salesforce instances, as with any integration process it comes with several challenges:

 

Poor Data Quality

Maintaining customer data quality stands as a predominant challenge during system integration. As Salesforce environments interact with each other, it is crucial to safeguard the accuracy, consistency, and timeliness of transferred data.

To tackle this challenge, it’s vital to institute data standards and enact data validation rules, ensuring its accuracy and consistency. It’s also crucial to implement systems capable of detecting and managing duplicate entries promptly, as such redundancies can detrimentally affect client relations and impede your business growth.

 

Data Mapping Precision

The process of data mapping, an essential aspect of Salesforce to Salesforce integration, can pose significant challenges for businesses. When synchronizing the data transfer process between two organizations, it’s crucial to accurately align records and fields to ensure the smooth operation of the integrated environments.

This requires careful consideration due to differing data fields across applications. In light of these challenges, thorough verification during field type matching is strongly recommended.

 

Preventing the Entering of Poor Quality Data

The term ‘bad data’ denotes information that is outdated, irrelevant, inaccurately recorded, or inadequately compiled. When enabling system integration, it’s crucial to avoid incorporating such poor-quality data. Regardless of your Salesforce database’s organization, importing bad data can significantly disrupt your project and business operations.

Ensure the removal of obsolete Salesforce data and thorough cleanup in the external system prior to syncing. Conducting an extensive audit of Salesforce records in both systems can help identify and address significant data issues before establishing a unified platform for your team.

 

Data Synchronization

Data synchronization, at the heart of Salesforce integration, often poses significant challenges due to the disparities in data replication and storage across different Salesforce editions. Careful management is essential to prevent the transfer of duplicate records between different Salesforce instances and organizations.

Employing Salesforce internal tools, such as the Duplicate Management tool or other free Salesforce data cleansing solutions, can help mitigate these issues. Additionally, establishing appropriate access controls, such as field-specific permissions, can further enhance the efficiency of data migration.

 

Clarifying Salesforce Integration Misconceptions

A common misunderstanding is equating real-time integration to the import or export of CRM data, leading to avoidable challenges. It’s vital to comprehend the distinction between the two processes or ask a Salesforce implementation partner like Ascendix for professional guidance.

Typically, Salesforce data import/export involves running numerous batches, delaying synchronization until completion. Consequently, it’s important not to anticipate real-time changes and immediate data sharing.

 

Understanding Built-in Salesforce Tools

Prior to launching a Salesforce integration project, Salesforce customers should familiarize themselves with Salesforce’s pre-built features. Ensure these align with your project requirements and can be utilized effectively. This approach not only streamlines operations but also minimizes the need for complex coding, thereby simplifying the Salesforce to Salesforce integration process.

 

Mastering Salesforce-to-Salesforce Data Integration: Essential Best Practices

Salesforce to Salesforce integration projects can take a lot of effort and time, especially if you need to deal with large datasets.

 

1. Define Integration Scope

Start by outlining the precise scope of integration. Determine the extent of data synchronization and the teams impacted, planning and communicating accordingly. Keep in mind, large-scale integrations necessitate meticulous data cleansing and deduplication, often proving time-consuming. Establish a defined budget from the outset to manage the integration project efficiently.

 

2. Prepare Data

Focus on the destination of your data rather than its origin. Clean and align your data models prior to synchronization, ensuring data integrity across both Salesforce organizations. This step ensures users can extract maximum value from your data.

 

3. Create an Integration Strategy

Avoid ineffective integrations by crafting a comprehensive integration plan. This should encompass data organization and structuring in both organizations. Define aspects like data allocation, validation processes, and assignment of responsibilities. Your integration plan should provide for data validation and error resolution, ensuring ongoing value for business users.

 

4. Develop a Contingency Plan

Prepare for potential roadblocks by creating a contingency plan. Common challenges might include disorganized data, formatting errors, or validation rule conflicts. Adopt the best practice of recording errors for future reference, allowing you to progress with your integration plan and rectify any residual data issues subsequently.

 

Final Words

Salesforce to Salesforce integration allows Salesforce organizations to seamlessly share pertinent real-time data, proving invaluable when companies collaborate on projects or when various company branches use separate Salesforce orgs.

It bolsters efficiency and precision by directly sharing data between Salesforce orgs, minimizing errors typically associated with manual data handling or import/export procedures. Additionally, it facilitates real-time collaboration by ensuring everyone has access to current information.

Salesforce integration supports business continuity strategies by permitting uninterrupted data sharing between Salesforce orgs, thus mitigating the effects of potential system disruptions. Overall, Salesforce to Salesforce integration is a powerful tool for enhancing record share, collaboration, and operational efficiency, leading to improved sales productivity.

If you need help with complex Salesforce integrations involving time-consuming Salesforce configuration, book a free Salesforce consulting call and we’ll find the most optimal integration solution together.