Issues with SugarCRM Marketo Connector

[Anonymous]

We recently purchased SugarCRM and have installed the Marketo Connector module.  We are having issues with getting leads from Marketo into Sugar.  We definitely have leads that qualify.  I am wondering if anyone else has had issues with the more recent Marketo Connector provided by SugarCRM directly.

We have followed the instructions provided for installing for the module, setting up the connector in Sugar, setting up webhook and custom header in Marketo, and have tested that the connector is working in Sugar. However no leads are making it into Sugar. Do we need to have campaigns set up in Marketo to actually push that data or does that happen automatically? The documentation doesn't specify.  With other webhooks we've created, we actually have to create campaigns to call the webhook.

Second, we use our Marketo instance for both consumer and commercial business.  Sugar was purchased only for the commercial side of the business.  Is there a way to limit which leads make it into Sugar - we have a field that marks a lead as commercial or consumer, so ideally we'd use that field to limit what goes into Sugar.

[Zak_Pines5]

A little more info here Sonnia.

Posted this today highlighting common scenarios we are solving with the Bedrock Data connector for Marketo & SugarCRM. 

Five ways Bedrock Data provides a better Marketo-SugarCRM connector

Includes:

1. Sync every 5 minutes

2. Bi directional Sync (De-duplicate in both directions, control what syncs in both directions)

3. Sync multi-select fields from Sugar and build smart lists in Marketo

4. Create contacts in Sugar

5. Sync back opportunity for Marketo RCA for SugarCRM

Let me know if you'd like any more info.

Best Regards,

Zak

[Zak_Pines5]

Hi Sonnia - Bedrock Data is a third party integration product bi-directionally connecting Marketo to any SaaS CRM (NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM, Zoho, Pipedrive, PipelineDeals, etc.). 

We have customers who have gotten fed up with the free native connector between Sugar and Marketo.  So happy to help if you'd like to see how Bedrock Data can manage that for you.

One of the added advantages is Bedrock Data is a bi-directional sync means it will be de-duplicated in either direction --- aka as leads are added to Sugar or Marketo. Even the Marketo native Salesforce connector doesn't handle this well - as a new lead from Salesforce that already exists in Marketo (but not yet synced) would create a duplicate.

We also provide an interface for you to manage your rules on what syncs, when - so you have more control of the process.

If you'd like to discuss I'm Zak[at]BedrockData.com

Also check out our recent Marketo Power User Series here:

https://www.bedrockdata.com/marketo-power-users

[Anonymous]

Keith Nyberg​ Any chance you can assist here? The person I reached in Sugar Support couldn't assist and our implementation team partner has been of no help.  We have followed the Sugar-provided instructions to the letter, checked all of our settings in Marketo and Sugar several times.  We tested the connection and it also came back successful each time.

I created a smart campaign in Marketo to call the webhook and confirmed it runs as expected.  We definitely have leads that qualified and should have been pushed to Sugar, but aren't making it through. 

The documentation provided for the Connector leaves out the instructions that a smart campaign needs to be created (but we assumed it was needed based on other webhooks we use).  It makes me wonder if there any other things that might have been left out of the documentation for the setup.

[Keith_Nyberg2]

Hey Sonnia,

I'll definitely try to help out here. To put it simply, there are only 2 ways a lead can make its way from MKTO into Sugar, the first is via webhook and the second by the schedulers. Using the webhook is simple and fast and can be executed as Grégoire mentioned below. Smart List = Campaign is requested , flow step is the webhook. This should create records in Sugar regardless of scoring. The second method requires you to set the minimum threshold for a lead to be created in Sugar based on lead score. Internally we have this set to 100. You then need to ensure that the schedulers are active and running at a cadence that makes sense for you business (somewhere between 3-5min typically). Once the schedulers are active, the lead simply needs a score that exceeds that threshold and will be created in Sugar once the scheduler has run. Most instances that I have seen let the schedulers create leads in Sugar as opposed to using the webhook. If you have tried both methods and are still having issues, please provide any additional details you can and I'll do my best to troubleshoot this with you.

Let me know if you've tried all that i outlined above.

Sincerely,

Keith Nyberg

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for the help here.  We have tried both scheduler and triggered methods to get leads into Sugar, and neither has worked.  We confirmed that all the setup steps from the Sugar documentation have been followed to the letter.

When I spoke with Sugar support, they said that the SugarCRM Type field needed to have "Leads" populated in that field for anything to work, so we did that with no leads going over to Sugar after that step. The schedulers are running, but they do not complete and error out according to the debugging on the Sugar side. 

We have scoring threshold set to 60, and we have leads that qualify at that threshold.

[Anonymous]

Support came back saying that we needed to enable the Leads module for the integration to work.  Is that truly the case?  We only use Accounts and Contacts and deliberately have Leads turned off in Sugar because of our reporting requirements.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sonnia,

Yes this is the case. The way the connector works, it can only create leads in Sugar, not contacts. So you absolutely need the Lead module to be on in Sugar.

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Thanks - we enabled it for testing and see that leads are coming over, however, we aren't able to limit the leads to ones that meet a filtered criteria (aside from score).  Do you know of a way around that in Marketo? As in, do we disable Check for changes to leads in Sugar and use the webhook with smart campaign in Marketo instead?

[Nicholas_Manojl]

Just a quick idea..

Just so you know, webhooks only work on triggers. If you're running the webhook as a batch, it will run but the webhook won't function.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi All,

There is a work around, though, which is to add the webhook to a "Campaign is Requested" trigger campaign and have the batch call this trigger campaign. But this will be OK only on small volumes. If you want to process tens of thousands of leads that way, the performance is going to be a real issue.

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sonnia,

the doc here:  http://support.sugarcrm.com/Documentation/Installable_Connectors/Marketo/Marketo_User_Guide/#Syncing... says

"Marketo then uses the webhook to push the leads meeting this criteria to your Sugar instance. For more information on adding the webhook in Marketo, please refer to the Marketo Connector Installation Guide. The webhook utilizes the SugarCRM entryPoint (your Sugar instance URL and Marketo Lead ID) to download the Marketo lead and synchronize to Sugar."

Which is not very clear, indeed . It does not say that Marketo does NOTHING unless explicitely programmed for by a user.

-Greg

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Sonnia,

Yes, you have to create a smart campaign that call the webhook you set up as part of the installation. It is when the webook is called that Sugar know that it should pull the lead from Marketo and sync it (note that the webhook is passing the Marketo lead ID as a parameter).

And you will be able to use that field to determine which lead have the webhook called or not. Typically, this will be done just adding a filter to the triggered or batch smart campaign.

-Greg