Marketo/Salesforce Assignment Clarification

[Karen_Black]

I have read through several discussions on the limitations Marketo has with syncing to SFDC through the use of "Auto Assignment Rules".  Currently we assign leads in SFDC to specific queues by region.  We would like the ability to auto assign but need to understand how we can remedy the current issue of Marketo only allowing the use of auto assignment once per lead.  Also, we have it where a lot of people are known contacts in our system, and the may come in as a lead again.  Will the "Auto-Assignment" fail on those folks (we currently have a generic owner for all contacts).  Thank you for your wisdom community - we are new to all this, so your help is greatly appreciated!!!

[Darshil_Shah1]

Auto Assignment Rules assigns the person to the Marketo's sync user in SFDC by default, for the people already synced with the SFDC, on encountering the Sync With SFDC flow step, they would be synced instantaneously with the SFDC. Re-running people who're already synced with the SFDC with the Sync with SFDC flow step isn't necessary as Marketo and SFDC records are kept in sync automatically by the native integration. Additionally, Marketo refers to all the records in the database (Marketo only, Lead, Contact records) as the people records, and it de-duplicates using the system-defined de-duplication key (Email Address by default) for several input sources like - Form Fills and list uploads. For the people created manually from the database, via API, or from the CRM, Marketo doesn't de-duplicate the records. For the unsynced duplicate records, Marketo will create a duplicate record in the SFDC too when it's synced unless, of course, the CRM has custom de-duplication rules in place in which case, the sync process of the duplicate record from Marketo would fail. I hope you find this helpful. Let us know if you have questions. 🙂

[Katja_Keesom]

Well, for the API it is not entirely true it doesn't deduplicate. You can configure in your API call how to deduplicate by specifyiing the lookupfield. If you don't specify any the default used is email, similar to form fills etc.

[Karen_Black]

Thank you Darshil for your response.  From what I read with previous posts, lead Assignment rules only run on the initial lead creation. Based on this, it seems we can’t run them again for existing Leads/Contacts. If an SFDC Lead or Contact flows through the Sync Lead to SFDC flow step and the Assign To is set to --Use Auto-Assignment Rules--, only field updates will be sync'd but not the running of the record through the auto assignment rules again.

I am wondering if anyone has experienced this and what they had to do to fix it.  Is it remedied through a specific custom trigger and flow in SFDC?  And if so, how was it done.  Thanks in advancement for any insights you may have.

[Darshil_Shah1]

Upon syncing a lead record to a different owner via the Sync to SFDC flow step, the person's owner should change along with the pending updates getting synced. However, for contacts, you'd run into {INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_ON_CROSS_REFERENCE_ENTITY: insufficient access rights on cross-reference id} error while syncing to a different owner via the Sync to SFDC flow step. You should see this article Salesforce Sync Deep Dive: Part 1 - Sync to SFDC Flow Step.

[Karen_Black]

This is very helpful!  Thank you for the link.  While researching this on community I came across this post: https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-discussions/can-sync-to-sfdc-use-auto-assignment-rules-be-call...

Amit suggests one of two approaches.  I am interested in the first one.  Is this possible to do?  Anyone else use this option, and what was the outcome?

If you are using "Sync lead to SFDC" with "Use Auto Assignment Rules" flow action, Marketo do not change the lead owner and the lead owner will be assigned only the time lead was created in SFDC. I have had same issue and there are two potential fix to this:

• Have a apex trigger in SFDC to re-run the lead through the lead assignement rule as soon as it become MQL,"OR"
• Replicate the SFDC lead assignment rule in Marketo and use "Change Owner in SFDC" flow instead with "Add Choices" to re-assigne lead to appropriate BU when it beomesMQL.

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

I'm with you on this. I too like point #1 slightly better than #2. Initial assignment can be done by Marketo upon syncing a new person to SFDC, but I'd rather prefer the subsequent ownership changes to be handled by the SFDC as it's more flexible and technically it is a part of the core sales process, so personally, it makes a bit more sense to house that process in the SFDC itself than in Marketo.

[Katja_Keesom]

I agree with @Darshil_Shah1 there. This would typically be something I would let SFDC handle.

[Karen_Black]

Thank you Darshil - your help and insights are very much appreciated!!!!