#KREWECHATS Episode 5: Workspaces and Lead Partitions

Jenn_DiMaria2 · ‎09-12-2016

So it seems like all the cool kids are using (or at least know about) workspaces and partitions, but there’s not a whole lot of information to help out those of us who are in dire need of seeing them in practice. And as we all know with Marketo, there are about a billion different ways to go about doing something and still get it done correctly. Today, we’re hoping to get into at least a little bit more use-case detail about both workspaces and partitions, when it’s best to use on or the other (or both), and hopefully get into more detailed Q&A.

Some questions we asked included:

What are workspaces and how do they differ from lead partitions?
What’s a use case (ie: why would you want a lead partition)?
Can anything be shared across partitions?
So let’s say a lead exists in two partitions and proceeds to fill out a form. Does their information get updated in both partitions?
Can partitions sync to multiple SFDC instances?
How do you deal with shared data?
How do companies standardize on naming, program statuses, etc considering the other division might be around the world operating as different businesses?

Important Reading:

Workspaces vs Lead Partitions: http://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Understanding+Workspaces+and+Lead+Partitions
How to Create a Lead Partition: http://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Create+a+Lead+Partition
Assign Lead Partitions to Workspaces: http://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Assign+Lead+Partitions+to+Workspaces
Assigning Lead Partitions with Assignment Rules: http://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Assigning+Lead+Partitions+with+Assignment+Rules

Joe_Reitz · ‎09-13-2016

Is that the one that's like "I hate it when you leave, but..." #dadjoke

Anonymous · ‎09-13-2016

Wish I had been in on this discussion. I did some extremely innovative work with Partitions in my "List Importer" Architecture that no one touched on. Needless to say, I learned a lot about them and all their quarks. Maybe there will be a part 2.

Joe_Reitz · ‎09-13-2016

Hey Kevin - Always interested in learning more! That's a big reason why we continue the conversation here... We know stuff like this happens all the time, and we want to expose the learning opportunities!

Can you tell us more about the challenges and solutions you faced?

Anonymous · ‎01-25-2017

Hey Everyone - great discussion. I have a question around what happens if a lead no longer qualifies for a partition.

The example is that in SFDC, the previously purposeful duplicates will be merged together to create one lead, with a new record type. The first lead assignment rule in Marketo today says "if record type is x, or y, assign to this lead partition". If this changes with the merges, where does the lead go? does it stay in Marketo as-is? Typically I'd know the answer if it was a simple merge, but with the partitions in play I want to make sure there aren't any 'gotchas'.

Dan_Stevens_ · ‎01-25-2017

Leads will stay in whatever partition they're currently in UNTIL something happens that triggers a campaign to move them elsewhere. Our partitions are country-based. So if a record exists in the US partition and another in the Canada partition (highly unlikely, I know) and if we merged the Canadian record into the US record in CRM, the lead would remain in the US partition (and there would be no lead in the Canadian partition.