Map lead owner to another field

[Jeff_Smith3]

We'd like to map the owner upon assignment to a custom field. For example, when a new lead is created, the routing rules are requested, and Sally Jones is assigned the owner of the new record, we'd like Sally Jones to be the value populated on another field called "Marketo Owner" so that it lives in two places. Is this possible?

I have a ticket opened with support, but I'm being asked for the field names of current mapping. Is the change owner activity an actual lead/contact field if it's not a change data value activity?

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

I don't think you should use the word "mapping": that will just confuse Support.

If you want to copy the true owner field to a secondary flat field on the person, use Change Data Value in a trigger SC. While the owner is itself not a flat field (it's more of a join) you shouldn't have any trouble copying it.

[Ankit_Dua]

Sanford Whiteman‌ sir, how about creating a formula field in Salesforce and copying the values?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Sure, but this might not be intended to show in SFDC at all.

[Jeff_Smith3]

So the trigger would be Owner Changes (Owner name is not empty), and the flow would be Change Data Value (Attribute: Marketo Owner, New Value: {{lead.Lead Owner First Name}} {{lead.Lead Owner Last Name}}). Is that how you'd do that? Hmm...maybe I was overthinking the need to have owner map to the custom field.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Exactly.

[Jeff_Smith3]

One follow up question if you don't mind. I'm finding that I get a sync error with my tests because the Marketo Owner field was set up in SFDC as a lookup field to the user. When I asked our admin why it was set up that way instead of as a text field, she said, "I have to have it as a lookup so I can update the actual Owner field on the Contact with that person if the two don’t match. Are you able to push the user id to that field?"

Our problem we're trying to solve is when LeanData merges records and takes the owner from the older record, which is often irrelevant or inactive. Since User ID doesn't seem to be reference-able in Marketo, is it possible to do what she's asking?

[SanfordWhiteman]

"I have to have it as a lookup so I can update the actual Owner field on the Contact with that person if the two don’t match. Are you able to push the user id to that field?"

Our problem we're trying to solve is when LeanData merges records and takes the owner from the older record, which is often irrelevant or inactive. Since User ID doesn't seem to be reference-able in Marketo, is it possible to do what she's asking?

It wasn't right to set it up that way in SFDC. You'd just end up with a race condition as the values keep trying to change each other.  If the Marketo Owner is supposed to have Marketo as the source of truth, then it should be a String in SFDC.

[Jeff_Smith3]

Last response to this, I promise. I really appreciate your help!

The thought was when the Marketo assignment rules assign the owner and push that over, it would also assign that person in the custom “Marketo Owner” field. When Marketo performs the Change Owner update, is it not actually pushing a name over, but a user ID, which gets displayed as a name outwardly? How does that work? And if so, can this be mimicked in another custom field?

[SanfordWhiteman]

Technically yes, it's the SFDC ID that is bound to the person under the hood, not their full name... but AFAIK you can't extract the ID in the Marketo UI.

You could set up a map of owner names to owner IDs and then use a webhook to... ah, it gets complicated.