Is More MS Dynamics Integration Documentation Needed? If So... What?

[Anonymous]

I'm in the process of building out documentatoin regarding Marketo's integration with Microsoft Dynamics. So I would like to get an indea of how strongly this is desired, and what some of the topics you'd like better documentation on. 

Ideas may be... but are not limited to: 

* Installing the Marketo Lead Management Application
* Installing the Marketo Sales Insight Application 
* Supported Architectures
* Standard Troubleshooting
* Dynamics Integration FAQs
* Claims-based Authentication 
* Online vs. On-Premise

[Jamie-Carey]

Thanks for opening up this discussion, Chris. I've already passed along this link to people I know would be interested!

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi Chris, 

That's great. MS documentation is defnitelly missing; there are so many docs for SF but not much on MS.

We're using MS Dynamics 2011 on-premise and lack of documentation was a big issue for us. Some issues/challanges that we had difficulties with are explained below (maybe it will be useful to include these in documentation): 

1. General: how Marketo is defining and dealing with Leads, Opportunities, Contacts, Accounts (we saw that Marketo is treating every record as Lead and in our logic, after qualifiying Lead we have Account + Conctact + Opportunity. But no matter of qualification, again Marketo is treating everything as Leads, so we now have in database for one qualified Lead: new lead (that was qualified), lead with opportunity, lead as contact. We still haven't understood much how Opportunities work between MS and Marketo, so details on this topic would be appriciated.
 

2. Field mangement: Marketo has pull all data from MS but on a specific way; Marketo distinguish all the fields related with Lead and Contacts from those on Account. So now we have same CRM fields separately created for these two, causing us to have one field duplicated: First Name (l) on Leads and Contacts, and First Name (a) for Accounts. That's why we need to be very carefull when syncing data from Marketo to MS to be sure how to map data. Additonally, important note should be put and that's Marketo cannot read Lookup fields; only Lookup field that it can read is Owner (and only when syncing leads, not in smart lists); eg. Country in CRM is lookup field and Marketo will see and use only GUID value, so what we needed to do is create custom workflow in MS that takes value from Marketo Country field and re-write it in appropriate CRM field. 
 

3. Filter Leads which enter in Marketo: there is no way to filter which Leads are entitled to enter in Marketo, so if one has big database, that can be issue.

Thanks to Marketo team who was really helpful and assisted us in setting the sync and adjusting our CRM records for Marketo, we sucessfully solved all above. But if there were more documentation, the whole process of connecting Marketo and MS would be much more easier and faster. 

Thanks in advance for documentation! I'm sure there are more MS users that would appreciate it.  

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris,

I definitely think more documentation would be good for many of the training session are based on Salesforce and it really is quite different in MS Dynamics and not quite as streamlined as with Salesforce. It would help set expectations internally.

Another area I think needs expansion is sycning the data between Marketo and MS Dynamics (much like Sara's point 1 above) it is about understanding how Marketo is working this data and then how they talk back to each other.

Agree with the Sara's comments above and also your ideas suggested.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sara, 

Please allow me to address each of your points: 

1) When a Lead is converted (qualified) in CRM, Marketo will pick that up and update the synced record in the Marketo Lead Database to reflect the new entity type. For example: if you were to qualify a Lead in CRM to a Contact, It will update the record in the Marketo Lead Database from Lead to Contact. Marketo will then stop looking at the Lead record, and now only sync with the Contact record in CRM. 

The Marketo native integration supports the following entities: 

Lead (bi-directional sync)

Contact (bi-directional sync)

Account (one way sync - CRM to MLM)

User (one way sync - CRM to MLM)

Opportunities (one way sync - CRM to MLM)

Team (one way sync - CRM to MLM) 

Customer Opportunity Contact role (one way sync - CRM to MLM)

2) Updating fields under entties beyond the Lead or Contact entity should not create a dupliate. If this is happening, I recommend you create a case with Marketo Support and allow them to step through things with you. 

3) Filtering which records in CRM are synced with Marketo is a feature we are just now beginning to role out. I'm glad someone was able to assist you with this process. We will be releasing information on this Filtered Sync option, and on a Custom Entity Sync option, very soon. Please stand by! 

Best regards,
Chris

[Anonymous]

Hi Melisa, 

Thanks for adding your comment! 

Please look over the answered provided to Sara. I believe they may address some of your own questions. 

Best regards,
Chris

[Anonymous]

In all of the documentation that is already available, it would be GREAT if you would note if the Marketo functionality was not available to MS Dynamics customers.  I can't even count the number of times we've looked at something in the community, got excited about it, and then found out it only worked for SalesForce integrations. 

Here are a few things we ran into during the sync that I suggested you document (you've probably already seen this though) ...
https://community.marketo.com/MarketoIdeaDetail?id=08750000000Jq6zAAC

- Kristie

[Anonymous]

Hi Kristie, 

I can certainly understand how that would be frustrating. These types of expectations should be addressed early in the onboarding process. 

As you move forward with your Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration with Marketo, please feel free to submit any specific questions you may have to Marketo Support. You can also continue to post questions/comments/concerns here in the Marketo Community. I will be watching for postings such as those, and will respond to them directly as often as I am able. 

Best regards,
Chris

[Anonymous]

Chris,

Something my IT/Security team is asking for is an example or more info on how they should 'correctly configure' the proxy for Microsoft Dynamics on-premise IFD, which is probably out of Marketo's scope, but API soultions with IFD might be a new concept for some or perhaps the idea of bi-directional sync if somewhat of an unknown for my team. Rather than trial and error and lots of troubleshooting, we would love any insight you can provide or perhaps a connection with another customer who has successfully implemented. Thanks,
Jillian Johnson

[Anonymous]

Hi Jillian, 

Thanks for posting this question. You bring up a very good point. 

For your IFD to function properly, your corporate firewall must have port 443 open. I do know that proxy servers have their own application firewall rules, so your team will want to ensure these rules are also configured to allow port 443 to be open. 

As a side notes; within AD FS, your team should ensure that the default HTTP endpoint (/adfs/services/trust/13/username) has been disabled, and instead the HTTPS endpoint (/adfs/services/trust/13/usernamemixed) has been enabled. If there is a setting on your proxy server requesting you to decide between HTTP and HTTPS, please ensure HTTPS is made available. 

Another area they should check into is to make sure that SSL chaining is not broken. You can provide them this link for testing the SSL chaining. https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html. This will help to ensure the authentication handshake taking place doesn't break along the way, including through the proxy itself. 

Please let me know if they run into any other problems. I'm always happy to help. 

Best regards,
Chris