Lead enters any program? Create an completed SF.com task

[Anonymous]

Marketo logs a lot of activities in Salesforce.com like "Was sent email" and such. But we would also like to log an activity (completed task) when a lead enters and exits a program. Currently I'm doing this in the programs themselves (the ones I create). But it would be much easier to have a generic setting for this. E.g. added to program is any = create the task with {{programname}}. However both variables are not available! Any suggestion?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Are you trying to just show that various leads/contacts have participated in programs? If so, rather than setting activities, have you considered using campaigns? We have various programs in Marketo that, when someone is added to them, they are added to the corresponding campaign in SFDC. Then we can change the status accordingly (i.e. if they clicked, opened, etc., that triggers a progression change). We can also see if deals that were closed/won were influenced by these leads.

As to tasks, while I would manage these from within each of the programs (maybe with a universal template for other users to clone off of to ensure consistency), another choice could possible a trigger campaign:

Trigger: Progression Status is changed
> program is: any
> new status is: Sent (or whatever their status changes to when they enter the program)

Then in the flow:
Create a task.
Subject: Added to program {{programname}}
Status: Complete

This may really affect your data consumption in SFDC, though.

Not sure if this is the right way, but just some suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ann, Thank you for the response. We do use campaigns in SF.com of course (also for this purpose). This makes it show up in the campaign history. So SF users can see some log on this happening. However we have a lot of SF guidelines (e.g. leads without a task are considered neglegted). This is why our SF admin proposed to also have task for (automated) programs. I currently also have this on the program level (for some programs). I tried using the progression change too. Don't know why I didn't continue this path?