Custom Sync Rule Issue

[Kevin_Vaughn]

Hello,

We have a custom sync rule set up to keep various leads and contacts from entering Marketo from Salesforce. This has been working well for us but have run into an issue.

This was primarily set up to keep people without an email address (of which we have many thousands) out of Marketo, but we have a few other rules as well. For instance, if Contact Status is changed to "Past Contact" or "Deceased", Sync with Marketo is set to false.

The issue we are having is that as soon as soon as the Sync with Marketo field is set to false, syncing stops immediately (which is the expected behavior), but the changed field data never makes it back into Marketo; there is no "final" sync. We need these field values back in Marketo so we can remove them from our email sends, delete them, etc.

Short of importing this data back into Marketo or making manual changes, I really nave no way to remedy this. If anyone has any suggestions or has found some sort of workaround, I would greatly appreciate you sharing this.

Thanks!

[Jo_Pitts1]

@Kevin_Vaughn ,

This feels more like a SF support question than a Marketo support question. 

That being said, I see two solutions:

1. The blindingly simple 'non solution'

That being said, the obvious solution that I can see, however, is don't use those fields to stop syncing with Marketo. 

If you are going to stop sending communications to people based on deceased, past contact etc. (presumably via a global exclusion list) then just let those records keep flowing into Marketo.  It does mean you can't delete them as there is a risk that SFDC will re-sync them anyway but unless you are right on your contact limit, I'd have thought that wasn't such an issue.

2. The more complex and slightly hacky solution

Another alternative would be to have another field that is driven by Marketo.  Call it 'finalSyncDone'.  Create a smart campaign that looks for any of those fields such as Deceased, or Past Contact being set to true (or a date or whatever values they hold).  Set the 'finalSyncDone' field to true or a date (this gives you a record of when the change was made).  

Next time the data is synced the field (now with a value) goes back to SFDC. 

Use that field to control your sync filter.

Conclusion

Those who know me will know that I can be a bit hacky, and hence gravitate to the second solution 🙂

Cheers

Jo

[Kevin_Vaughn]

@Jo_Pitts1 ,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post! Much appreciated.

Your option number 1 certainly has merit and in the end, this may be what we have to do. But I would prefer something like your option 2.

Regarding number 2 there is something I'm not understanding. You suggested creating a smart campaign that looks for any of those fields changing, and then set 'finalSyncDone' with a date. But the problem is that Marketo cannot see these fields changing; the field changes are happening in SFDC and once changed the sync with Marketo stops for that person.

Thanks, Kevin

[Jo_Pitts1 · Accepted solution]

@Kevin_Vaughn ,

Sorry, the initial explanation wasn't super detailed.  Try this.

Fields

• Create two fields in Marketo (one or both may already exist):
  1. Contact Status (match this to the data type in SFDC)
  2. finalSyncDone (set this as a date/time field)

• Create one field in SFDC
  1. finalSyncDone (set this as a date/time field)

• Ensure both fields are synced between SFDC and Marketo

Marketo Smart Campaign

• Set up a triggered campaign based on Contact Status changing to a value (or values) that means you'd no longer want to sync the record.
• When the campaign is triggered, set finalSyncDone to the system date/time in Marketo.

SFDC

• Remove Contact Status from your filter (or at least remove those statuses that need a final sync into Marketo).
• Set up your filter that blocks syncing to be driven off finalSyncDone and NOT contact status (or at least that statuses that need a final sync into Marketo).

Why this works

• SFDC passes through the contact status for all records because it isn't used to block records from getting to Marketo any more.
• Marketo sets the finalSyncDone field to a value because it has seen that contact status is one that should stop syncing in the future.
• The finalSyncDone value gets sent back to SFDC.
• The SFDC sync filter sees that finalSyncDone now has a value, and blocks syncing of that record into Marketo.

Hopefully that all makes sense?  It does to me, but that proves very little 🙂

Cheers

Jo

[Kevin_Vaughn]

@Jo_Pitts1 ,

Thank you so much for providing the details. This makes perfect sense. We actually have a few other fields we use as filters too, we can handle them all this way. We will be using this method.

Thanks again! Kevin 

[Jo_Pitts1]

@Kevin_Vaughn ,

rock on!  

And yes - the beauty of this approach is that you can extend it to an range of fields/values/combinations.

Cheers