The document presents best practices for Salesforce integration, emphasizing its importance in achieving greater adoption and business value. Key recommendations include avoiding custom coding, ensuring robust logging and error notifications, and incorporating data quality into integration designs. A case study from Staging Concepts highlights the application of these practices in overcoming integration challenges with a legacy ERP system.

1. www.InformaticaCloud.com
Salesforce Integration Best Practices:
How to Avoid SaaS Silos
Darren Cunningham, Informatica Cloud
Trey Roldan, Model Metrics
Kari Lessard , Staging Concepts
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2. Today’s Agenda
• The Importance of Salesforce Integration
• Integration Best Practices: Model Metrics
• Integration Case Study: Staging Concepts
• Interactive Demonstration
• Next Steps
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3. How Many Systems Are You Integrating
Today?
Nothing Yet… 1-3 Databases 1 ERP Multiple Systems/
MDM
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4. Integration Drives Salesforce Success
vs.
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5. Why Integrate?
Greater Adoption Stronger Connection
More Business Value
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6. Typical Salesforce Integration Scenarios
Customer
Master
Product
Master
Order
History
Opportunity to
Order
• Other data management requirements include:
• Data replication, analytics/BI, data cleansing, etc.
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7. Primary Cloud Integration Use Cases:
Migrate Sync Monitor Validate Replicate
Your Company
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8. Informatica Cloud: True SaaS Integration
Multitenant Cloud-based Service…
Your Company
2 1
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9. Informatica Cloud: True SaaS Integration
Multitenant Cloud-based Service…
Your Company
2
1
Secure
Agent
3
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10. Informatica Cloud
SMB and Enterprise Adoption
Financial
Services
and Insurance
Business
Services
Healthcare and
Life Sciences
Manufacturing
Media &
Entertainment
Tele-
communications
High
Technology
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11. Today’s Agenda
• The Importance of Salesforce Integration
• Integration Best Practices: Model Metrics
• Integration Case Study: Staging Concepts
• Interactive Demonstration
• Next Steps
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12. About Model Metrics
• Trey Roldan
• Director of Technical Services at Model Metrics
• Leads Data & Integration Practice
• Model Metrics
• 100% Cloud Based Consulting Provider
• Premier Salesforce.com Consulting Partner
• Full Cloud Data & Integration Services
• Strong Emphasis on Mobile Enterprise Cloud Integration
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13. Salesforce.com Integration Best Practices
• Avoid custom coded
integrations
• Maintainability can be a
challenge
• Monitoring & visibility are
often an afterthought
• Lack of non-technical
user empowerment
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14. Salesforce.com Integration Best Practices
• Incorporate Data Quality
into your integration
design
• Leverage unique external IDs duplicated
where possible to reduce
duplicates.
• Model your objects to accurately
reflect the systems that reside
outside of Force.com. incorrect
• Leverage required fields and
validation rules to enforce external
system constraints. Apply to
existing data if needed.
not integrated
• Use integrations as an opportunity
to enrich existing data i.e. address incomplete
validation, D&B lookups
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15. Salesforce.com Integration Best Practices
• Test, Test, Test
• Leverage Full Sandbox
Environments where possible
• Test using production sized Production UAT
(Full Sandbox)
data volumes
• Test using both source and
target data that reflect
production
• Ideally establish a separate
integration environment
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16. Salesforce.com Integration Best Practices
• Demand robust logging
and error notifications
• If a job fails in a forest and nobody
hears it fail, did it really fail?
• Integrations should provide a
consolidate source of summarized
history, email alerts, along with
actionable logs
• Identify a plan for who is notified
and who resolves issues if jobs fail
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17. Salesforce.com Integration Best Practices
• Conduct a storage sizing analysis early
• Target 3 years of available Data Storage to grow into
• Consider incorporating an archival strategy into your jobs
• Optimize Security, Profiles, page layouts.
• Make integration critical fields read only for users
• Leverage integration specific user accounts for traceability
• Choose an integration platform that can scale
with your business
• Support of SaaS platforms
• Real Time Capabilities
• Ability to support high volume transactions
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18. Today’s Agenda
• The Importance of Salesforce Integration
• Integration Best Practices: Model Metrics
• Integration Case Study: Staging Concepts
• Next Steps
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19. Staging Concepts
• Kari Hayden Lessard
• Marketing Director
• About us:
• Leading portable performance staging company
• Located in Minneapolis, Minn.
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20. Like Most, Salesforce Started with a Trial
• No real CRM before Salesforce
• Business associate recommended
it and we signed up for a trial
• Model Metrics recommended by Salesforce
• Informatica free Data Loader used initially to help
integrate with custom ERP data
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21. Our Challenge
• For CRM to be useful, B2B sales reps had to be
able to log calls, track who they talked to as well
as quotes and proposals
• Needed to have our ERP talk to
Salesforce otherwise way too
much redundancy
• Generates orders, quotes, proposals
• Archaic ERP system
• Not ideal, but it’s what we have for now…
• Dual entry for sales team not an option…
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22. Our Solution www.InformaticaCloud.com
• Upgraded to Informatica Cloud Basic
• Due to data volumes and complexity
• Integration has been critical to
Salesforce adoption
• Managed by sales operations
• Currently doing nightly updates
• Next steps: considering ERP upgrade
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23. Recommendations
• Take time to plan
• Initial integration and migration can be a bit of process as
you make the minor tweaks and changes to get everything
“just right”
• Patience is key
• There will be more tweaks along the way
• Leverage the experts
• Model Metrics has been instrumental in our overall CRM
success
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24. Demonstration: Trey Roldan, Model Metrics
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25. Today’s Agenda
• The Importance of Salesforce Integration
• Integration Best Practices: Model Metrics
• Integration Case Study: Staging Concepts
• Next Steps
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26. Resources
www.informaticacloud.com
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27. Resources www.modelmetrics.com
www.twitter.com/modelmetricsinc
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28. Visit Us @ Dreamforce 2011
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29. *Survey conducted by Dimensional Research
model
metrics
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30. Twitter: @infacloud
Contacts www.InformaticaCloud.com
• Darren Cunningham, Informatica Cloud
• Trey Roldan, Model Metrics
• Kari Lessard , Staging Concepts
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