Does anyone know what triggers the sync of a Salesforce record?

[Anonymous]

We have our Marketo instance connected to our Salesforce org, but noticing some oddities with how data is synced in the records between the two systems. 

We have a nightly integration service which updates most every Account/Contact within our SF org with various pieces of data.  My understanding is that this *should* trigger Marketo to resync the record and pull over any new data.  However, that doesn't seem to be the case.  We have multiple fields/records, which have been updated the night before, but are not syncing across.  The odd thing is that when I log and manually update the record within Salesforce (as myself not as our Integration user), the Marketo sync fires and brings over all the new data. 

Given that, it seems that it's not a security/permissions issue, but something with how the integration is triggered. 

Any thoughts/information would be greatly appreciated. 

Adam

[Anonymous]

Hi Adam,

Per this KB article, Marketo looks at the SystemModStamp on the Salesforce record to know if it has been modified since the last sync with Marketo.  If it has, then it will sync the data updates back to Marketo.

Everytime the Marketo Sync connects to Salesforce it will scan records and look at the "SytemModStamp" (salesforce system field) for each one of them. It will compare this value with the stored value, which was pulled at the last scheduled sync. If the values match, Marketo will move on to the next record. If the values are different (new value later date than previous value), then Marketo will do a compare and contrast of all fields on that record in both systems and update the information as needed.

Can you verify that the Integration which updates your data every night is modifying the SystemModStamp?  You will know if it isn't if the record's Last Modified Date and Last Modified By is not the Integration user from last night...

-Kyle

[Anonymous]

Link to KB article doesn't work

[Anonymous]

Hi Kyle
Thanks for the reply!  Yes, I double checked again and the SystemModStamp is getting updated each night by the Integration User.    Still very puzzling...  I think it's a long shot, but does the Marketo sync treat records differently if they've been updated through the API vs through the front end?  Given that it didn't sync the data when our Integration User updated the record through the API, but did sync the data when I edited the record manually, that's the only other thing I can think of. 

It may be worth noting that we also utilize Person Accounts within Salesforce and have the Account level sync enabled within Marketo.  The particular field I've been troubleshooting today lives at the Account level, however we've seen this issue with fields that live at the Contact level as well.  I've verified that the SystemModStamp is getting updated on both the associated Contact *and* Account records related to the Person Account.  Given that both have been updated, the sync should activate and pull over any field differences from both levels to the Marketo contact record. 

Thanks!
Adam

[Conor_Fitzpatri]

Adam,

If I understand you correctly, you have a nightly service that changes data on almost every Contact and Account. I believe this is the cause of issue because Marketo has a limited amount of "sync bandwidth". At one of my last companies we had several fields that changed frequently and therefore were hogging up the API calls and caused a massive delay in the sync. For example, we would send out an email blast and it would take a day or more for all the activities to be logged into SFDC. Also, I do think that Marketo treats API updates differently than manual updates - I believe I read somewhere the manual ones are given a higher priority in the sync queue.

What I'd suggest is, if possible, you try turning off the nightly service for a couple days and see if it has an impact.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Connor.  I ended up submitting a case to Marketo Support to see if they could help clarify as well.  Your suggestions are good leads to investigate with them. Thank you!  I'd love to know if the API changes are handled differently.  Hopefully they can clarify. 

Adam

[Conor_Fitzpatri]

Glad to help, I know it can be very frustrating when records don't match up between SFDC and Marketo. If you hear a definitive answer from support about the API changes, please post because I would love to know as well.