Marketo to Dynamics - hows that working out?

[Mark_Wallace1]

Hello All,

We have Marketo and we have Dynamics but it seems to get them to talk with the standard Marketo connectors is not a fun process.

Is it correct that to push a lead from Marketo into Dynamics means that all data in dynamics is overwritten (including in the contact area).  This I'm told cannot be switched off.

I just want to push from Marketo into leads and then let the merge take place on conversion.

Can anyone clarify that, its tricky to find specific info regarding the overwrite of the contact.  Clearly the web forms can bring in bad data in terms of quickly filled out forms and I want to add to and not replace the contact record.

My IT dept want to force dupes into Marketo to trigger a new lead push into leads in Dynamics?????

Any suggestions, pointers or experiences is greatly appreciated.

Thanks all

Mark

[Dan_Stevens_]

The fields that setup with bi-directional sync will update each other in Marketo and CRM.  This is the desired behavior and how it works in SFDC as well.  Of course, this only happens if the record already exists in CRM (as either a LEAD or CONTACT record).  If there are specific fields that you don't want overwritten when a value already exists, you can configure "Block Updates" in ADMIN > FIELD MANAGEMENT for those fields:

As for your second question, whenever a lead is qualified (which then converts the lead to a CONTACT in CRM; or merges the lead into an EXISTING CONTACT), this will be reflected in Marketo.  Same goes for when you merge duplicate leads or contacts in CRM (in fact, that's the only way you can merge leads/contacts that exist in CRM, since you cannot do this on the Marketo side).  But again, when you merge those records, they will automatically be merged in Marketo as well.

You might also be interested in my lengthy/detailed response in this thread to learn more about our integrated environment - including our purposeful duplication process for when contacts already exist in CRM - and what we're working on to optimize the integration:

Re: Lead Process Updating

[Mark_Wallace1]

Hello Dan,

Thanks for your answer, I did read your very details report as it seems you are also going down the forcing dupes route.

I guess what I really want to understand is why do we need to force dupes? and why cant I just push a lead from market to Dynamics (into leads).  Can I not disable the overwrite of Dynamics based data in the contact area?

I'm looking at scribe to possibly solve the issue.  The dupes route I find an odd solution to be honest.

Thanks very much for your help.

Mark

[Dan_Stevens_]

Unfortunately, that's the way the Marketo/MSD sync is architected - in that if you are working with a record in Marketo that has a "MS Type=CONTACT", when you try to sync that record to CRM as a CRM LEAD record, it will fail (since it considers this a duplicate of the existing CONTACT record). 

We, too, are having discussions with other vendors - including Scribe - who can support our advanced integration/sync requirements.  It's also worth mentioning that Microsoft - who is one of Marketo's largest enterprise customers - has created their own custom connector between Marketo and CRM (and not the native Marketo connector).

[Mark_Wallace1]

Hello

I think that speaks volumes if Microsoft cant get it to work how they want.  I wouldn't call adding a lead to Dynamics without overwriting the Dynamics contact info an advanced task to try and attempt.  I want to push the lead and the sales people can convert and choose which data to keep or merge.

So to be clear, with the standard Marketo connector if a leads goes from marketo to dynamics its impossible to not overwrite the Dynamics contact info with the Marketo info.  You cant just add it to the leads area only for manual conversion?

Thanks again for clarifying.   I already have a quote from Scribe who have confirmed their connector will do what I want.  There are other cheaper options available too I believe.

thanks

Mark

[Dan_Stevens_]

The issue for us isn't necessarily overwriting field data - we can control that to some extent with the "Block field updates" feature.  The issue for us is the need to create purposeful duplicates in order to progress an existing customer (CRM contact record) to a new qualified lead (MQL). 

So to be clear, with the standard Marketo connector if a leads goes from marketo to dynamics its impossible to not overwrite the Dynamics contact info with the Marketo info.  You cant just add it to the leads area only for manual conversion?

If the lead that you want to sync from marketo to CRM is a CRM Contact record, the sync will fail (since it's already in CRM) - so nothing will come over, and a lead will not be created in CRM.  But if any updates were made to that record in Marketo, yes, those updates (if the fields are mapped as such) will update in CRM as well.

[Mark_Wallace1]

Hello All,

We were progressing well but now more issues with the sync.

Anyone have any info on GUID IDs.  Seems without this value your sync will fall.  But you could end up hard coding thousands of values to get the sync to work.

Anyone else had and solved this issue?

thanks

Mark

[Dan_Stevens_]

Are you saying leads/contacts that sync over from CRM don't include their respective GUIDs?  That's the unique identifier for each record.  Without it, I can't imagine how the bi-directional sync would work.

[Mark_Wallace1]

Hi Dan,

I have the following issues that the devs here are struggling with.

There are few lookup fields in Dynamics such as the Country and the Region, when i try to Sync a lead from Marketo, the Sync is failing saying a GUID id is required for field values. When i provide the GUID ID the fields, the sync works fine. But the problem is Country has around 60 values and region has around 1600 values for which i cannot hard code the GUID.

I'm not sure I fully understand the GUID yet but have you had this issue?

thanks

Mark

[Dan_Stevens_]

Sounds like you're dealing with custom entities here - and not simple "select" values.  When those values sync to Marketo, are they represented by the GUID and not the "friendly" name?