Hi Dawn Richcreek
If you've already created any of the fields, then your instance is already going through the backfill process and resulting resync now. Best to avoid that in general so we can stick to the schedule, but it's not any kind of critical problem. Just be aware that it's already running for those three fields. Probably ought to wait for the scheduled time to recreate the other fields though. You can do them now if you need to--the trade off here is that any leads who have already done the backfill and then the resulting resync from SFDC back to Marketo will have to go through that same process again. Not the end of the world, but since it's outside of the schedule, it could put a small drain on the others in the current schedule. We planned ahead with a buffer for these type of scenarios though.
You're not the first person we've heard from that had that same confusion about how the field creation is what actually starts the backfill process. I don't think that point was clear enough in our documentation, so I just went back through and added some notes about that in multiple locations. Sorry for the confusion on that part.
In terms of the backfill process, this data passes through a separate "pipeline" outside of the normal SFDC sync, so it won't conflict with your regular sync and it also won't use up your SFDC API calls.
With the field names, one trick I heard another customer try was changing the friendly name / friendly label for the older existing fields to something a little different so that it's easily identifiable as the one you don't want to choose. Try that and let me know if that helps.
Thanks,
Mike
I've run through the process with one instance so far. Overall, the process worked great. I wanted to provide some feedback/suggestions for others from my experience.
- Disable the sync to SFDC in Marketo before you start to create the new fields in SFDC. Once all the new fields are created, then re-enable the sync in Marketo.
- Take the opportunity to really think about whether you need all those fields syncing. If they aren't being used in SFDC then you probably should not recreate them. You can always sync additional fields at a later time.
- Once the new fields exist in SFDC, create an SFDC Lead report and a separate SFDC Contact report that you can use to compare the old and new fields. This will allow you to make sure that the backfill completed properly. As an example, I used the following filter in the Lead report so only those that don't match are shown. Make sure to change for the fields you created.
The SFDC reports allowed me to see that I had an issue where most but not all of the fields were properly backfilled in Leads. I am fairly certain that it had to do with timing on creation of the new fields across multiple standard sync cycles. Hence, my recommendation to disable the sync while you are creating the fields. The good news is that a simple sync of the leads where the backfill wasn't fully completed and everything was fine. - Don't forget to update any places in SFDC that refer to the old fields with the news ones. Obvious is page layouts and reports. But don't forget formula fields and workflows too!
Hope others find this useful.
Sheila
Hi again Mike Reynolds,
Unfortunately, field permission is not guilty here. Marketo sync user is system admin in SFDC... And there is not "block field update" set on the lead score field either 
-Greg
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