Custom sync Questions

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I have a complicated project where a custom integration is in place already. The integration in place now will take record data from NetSuite and create a record in Marketo and a record in Salesfore at the same time. The Salesforce record will be either be created as a Contact or a Lead depending upon business rules in NetSuite.

So... My question is what is the best approach to sync these two records together. Should I create a script bewteen SF & Mkto that will take nessasary values from either platform (i.e. the salesforce record ID) and write it in the correct field(s) in the other platform to sync the two.

I would like to have the native integration handle everything from there on. Is that possible will the native integration understand the two records are synced based on populating corresponding ID's. Can REST/SOAP acutally touch these feilds?

Trouble Point:   My Understanding of the Sync is that if we let the Native Sync run the show it will see the Marketo record and create a new SF record, and visa versa. So I would end up with 2 records in Mkto and 2 in SF.

Thanks! I know its a odd situation.

Eric

[Kenny_Elkington]

Hey Eric,

You'll need to figure out a way to perform a merge on the resulting records.  This can be done via the mergeLeads SOAP call(http://developers.marketo.com/documentation/soap/mergeleads/).  Some of our launchpoint partners such as Ringlead and Demandtools do smiliar things as wll.  I'd recommend steering away from creating the duplicate records though, and instead just sync to either Marketo or SFDC and then let the sync create a corresponding record in the other system, if that's feasible.

[Jep_Castelein2]

Synchronization between more than 2 systems can get quite hairy. I would consider hiring an experienced Marketo integration consultant to help with this, either from Marketo or from one of our partners. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you both for the feedback, the project leadership has chosen to go the full custom salesforce integration route. Too many business rule requirements that need to be managed between the two systems... 

Such as:

1. When syncing a lead from Mkto to SFDC, after the lead is created the custom integration will check values on custom SFDC objects and convert the lead into a contact right then and there. (i.e. if the account has a won oppty and custom object values are matching certain value ranges the lead will be converted to a contact on that account, other wise stay as lead.)

• For this to work the big fuzzylogic we are working through right now is how to automaticly select the right account to place this contact record at. Many times the company name on a lead imported and nurtured in Marketo is a little different than what is already in SFDC. Any sugestions on this?

2. Since Netsuite (which is higher on the data food chain) will be creating records in both SFDC and Mkto at the same time. The Native sync wanted to send the SFDC record over to Mkto and created a duplicate record and visa versa if the lead score on the Mkto lead hit threshold and the sync lead to SFDC was triggered it would then create a duplicate in SFDC. So custom integration code is needed here too.

• For this we are building into the custom SFDC/Mkto sync, logic that will use a NetSuite ID to be the unique identifier between the two records. Because that can be furnished at the time both records are created by NetSuite. Any concerns with this approach, considering we will be soon expanding the integration to include the account and oppty's that are attached to the lead in SFDC?

Clairification question: When a lead is converted to a contact the native integration would normally handle the change and start syncing to the contact. https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000PRn5AAG This leads me to belive for our custom sync to be happy we will need to pay attention to both the NetSuite ID which will remain static across all 3 (mkto lead, sf lead, and sf contact) and the two SFDC ID's which will be encountered. Am I off base?

Thanks in advance!
Eric

 

[Jep_Castelein2]

This is too complicated to give a comprehensive answer via a forum. I would recommend getting a good system integrator.