Initial Microsoft Dynamics Sync with Marketo

[cizhuang]

Hi,

Does anyone know when we do the first sync between Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Marketo, will Marketo copy the entire database to Microsoft Dynamics CRM? I see the help doc only clarifies the Marketo will copy the entire  database from Dynamics but not sure the vice versa?

Thanks a lot!

Ciara

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

With the native sync, a Marketo-only record won’t sync with the CRM unless you sync it with the CRM explicitly (using Sync Person to Microsoft flow step) or it gets synced through the implied sync actions (e.g., Add to Microsoft Campaign flow step). Once records are synced with CRM, the native sync maintains the sync between records in both the platforms (unless the sync is turned off at the record level via custom sync filter). Hope this answers your question. 🙂

[Michael_Florin]

Let me add that if you have records in Dynamics and Marketo with the same email address before starting the sync, the sync will create duplicate records in Marketo. It won't merge them! So ideally, your Marketo is empty before you initially sync.

[Katja_Keesom]

That was exactly what my initial response was. Taking  a Marketo instance with data already in it is a sure recipe for duplicate nightmares. The big gotcha there is that the native sync doesn't use email address as the unique record key, but the Dynamics record id. As your existing Marketo database doesn't have those, the native sync will create new records in Marketo for every record it syncs. It is then up to you to merge these with the records already preexisting in Marketo. Depending on the size of the database that is not really what you want to do.

[Darshil_Shah1]

Thank you so much, @Katja_Keesom and @Michael_Florin for this additional scoop! I'm sure, @cizhuang and other readers would appreciate all of this. Love the way we collaborate and share our different perspectives, gotchas, and learnings with everyone here. I also learn a lot from everyone's answers/comments here! 🙌